Scintilla: The women of the October Revolution

Scintilla #149 was posted November 13th at:  piattaformacomunista.com/index.php/leggete-scintilla-n-149-novembre-2024/ ; the article below was slightly edited.  Some of their works are available at redstarpublishers.org or elsewhere online, such as at marxists.org 

[October 23-24, 1923 in Hamburg, Germany:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburg_Uprising ; there was an earlier uprising March 17-April 1, 1921 in the former Province of Saxony, Prussia:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_Action ]

[November 10-27, 1924 in Estonia:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_the_149  Jaan Tomp was executed November 14, 1924 in Tallinn:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaan_Tomp ]

Scintilla n. 149, November 2024

edited by Piattaforma Comunista – for the Communist Party of the Proletariat of Italy

 

The Women of the October Revolution

In 1917, on the eve of the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks had about 2,500 women members, 36.8% of whom were workers or peasants. This is a remarkable fact, the reason for which is mainly to be found in the fact that for the Bolsheviks the equality of women and men was not merely formal. For Bolshevism, proletarian revolution and women's liberation were integrally connected.

The history of the Revolution is full of examples of dedication, enthusiasm and courage shown by Russian workers and peasants in those 10 days that shook the world, who gave their lives to defend socialism and the social and civil achievements won from the counter-revolution, but which today's narrative often forgets.

To pay tribute to them and express our gratitude, we will briefly talk about some of them. Nadya Krupskaya was not only Lenin's wife and an ardent revolutionary, she was above all a great pedagogue. During her years of exile around Europe she coordinated the various Bolshevik organizations and was editor of the newspaper Iskra. Close to Makarenko's ideas, she expressed her theories in numerous writings. She theorized that the "school of work" was to develop solidarity and collaboration through "working together", whose aim was to create the Soviet "new man".

Elena Stassova had mainly roles on technical aspects such as finding the place to hold clandestine meetings and in the distribution of the press that arrived in Russia clandestinely, an activity that continued even when she was imprisoned. After the Revolution she became secretary of the party's Central Committee and in 1921 president of the international Red Aid, a solidarity organization for revolutionary fighters that spread throughout the world thanks to her tireless work.

In the years before the Revolution, Inessa Armand became secretary of the Coordinating Committee of the Bolsheviks in Western Europe. In 1912 she was arrested in Russia while organizing the campaign for the election to the Duma. She was one of the founders of the newspaper Rabotnitsa, the Woman Worker. She took sides against the war and in 1915 organized the International Peace Conference of Socialist Women. She died in 1920 and was buried under the walls of the Kremlin, next to John Reed.

An Italian woman also participated in the socialist revolution: Beatrice Vitoldi. She had moved to Riga with her parents as a child. She was secretary of Proletkult, the proletarian cultural-educational organization. We remember her for the role of the mother who plays in the famous scene of the Odessa steps in the film "The Battleship Potemkin" by Eisenstein. In 1931 she worked at the Soviet embassy in Italy.

Many other names could be mentioned, but we remember them all with the words dedicated to them by Aleksandra Kollontai: "It is impossible to list them all, how many remain nameless? The heroines of the October Revolution were a whole army and although their names may be forgotten, their altruism lives on in the victory of that revolution itself and in all the achievements and results that working women in the Soviet Union now enjoy. It is a clear and indisputable fact that, without the participation of women, the October Revolution could not have brought the Red Flag to victory. Glory to the working women who marched under the Red Flag during the October Revolution. Glory to the October Revolution that liberated women!"