Proletarians of all countries, unite!

Proletarian Feminism for Communism!

The ruling Imperialists claim that the oppression of women in Western Europe is an issue that is mostly resolved. The openly racist forces of the so-called “right-populists” claim, that the problem  is something belonging to the Muslim community. Petty bourgeois “theoreticians” reduce the oppression of women to a question of “identity politics”. Revisionists and opportunists follow suit and speak about “sexism” and equalize the oppression of women with the prejudices against  LGBTQ people. All of that serves as a smokescreen to the hide the real situation, the fact that the  oppression and exploitation of women is an expression of patriarchy which arose with the emergence of private property and can only be abolished with the disappearance of it.   

The oppression and exploitation of women has in no way disappeared in Western Europe, just as it has not disappeared anywhere in the world. On the contrary, women are less paid as men doing the same work and still have to carry the load of the socially indispensable reproduction work. Women are subjected to patriarchal violence everywhere and are being killed by the thousands by males in what is cynically called "domestic violence". Womens murder, rape and molestation are everywhere and currently the imperialists are unleashing an offensive against the rights conquered by women and the working-class, even trying to take away the right of abortion, using the most reactionary propaganda.

The attacks on immigrant women, and in particularly against the women of Muslim faith, are a sinister part of the attempts to divide the working-class and to justify imperialist aggression against the oppressed countries. It is part of the campaign to portrait imperialist reaction as “civilization” and a revival of the old and rotten colonial concept of the “white mans burden”. The “right-populists” do not give a damn about women being liberated from semi-feudal and reactionary ideologies, what they want is to impose their national chauvinism.

The whole concept of “identity politics” is idealism and part of the general counter-revolutionary offensive against Marxism. We are being told that material reality, class struggle and fundamental contradictions in today’s world are secondary, we are supposed to believe that there are no truths and everything is a question about subjective and personal feelings. They proclaim that there is no scientific ideology, that everything is a “construct”. It is the absolute negation of dialectical materialism. According to this criteria the talk about “sexism”, as if the oppression and exploitation of women was merely a question of ideas and not inseparable from private property, is false and it downgrades the patriarchal oppression of women to the same level as that of those men who suffer due to their sexual preferences.

The oppression of LGBTQ people is secondary to the oppression and exploitation of women, but its root is the same patriarchy. There is a chauvinist trend among certain opportunists, fighting “identity politics” with workerism, economism and blatant chauvinism. Maoists and proletarian feminists join ranks with and seek to organize all those oppressed by patriarchy, and fight chauvinism against all such groups.

Women constitute, at least, half of the working-class and they are double oppressed and exploited in relation to their class brothers. It is indispensable to develop a clear class-conscious line in the women's movement, a proletarian feminist line that ideologically, politically and organizationally smashes the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie lines and explicitly considers the struggle for the emancipation of women as a decisive and indispensable part of the struggle for the emancipation of working-class. Without the struggle for the emancipation of women there can be no real struggle for Communism. Without the struggle for Communism there can be no real struggle for the emancipation of women. Therefore the slogan “Proletarian feminism for communism!” gives a correct basic orientation for the Marxist-Leninist-Maoists in the women's movement.

Wave after Wave, Blow after Blow – Against imperialism and Patriarchy

Today there is no strong international proletarian feminist movement and the main reason is the lack of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Communist Parties in the majority of the countries in the world and very much so in Europe, that generate such a movement in the different countries.  So the main task, in the current situation, for anyone who wants to struggle for the real emancipation of women, is to contribute in every way possible for the reconstitution of the Communist Parties.

Since the struggle for the reconstitution of the Communist Parties can not be waged anywhere but in the midst of class struggle and two-line struggle on the basis of a just and correct Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideological and political line, from the very beginning the mobilization, politicization and organization of women, and in particular the women of the deepest and broadest masses, is a decisive part of the same. The Communist Party is the vanguard detachment of the proletariat and it must be made up of leaders who represent the true interest of the class and the deepest and broadest masses, the ones most oppressed and exploited. Any talk about reconstituting the Communist Party without to promote and develop the proletarian feminist movement in a planned and systematic way is a scam. Any position that does not, from the very beginning, further the incorporation of women in the vanguard detachment in formation, is a revisionist position. Any structure that calls itself communist, but does not strive to promote the ones who have the foremost direct interest in the struggle for communism in its own ranks, can not be considered communist. The vanguard of the proletariat needs as many female leaders, cadres and militants as possible, and as more of these it has, the better it is.

The proletarian feminist movement must represent the interest of the working-class women, the women of the deepest and broadest masses, it must be developed in their midst and can not have its main focus on the universities or debate clubs. It must be developed in the work-places, in the proletarian neighborhoods and on the streets, by grasping the real problems of the masses and giving them a correct orientation on how to solve them, generating the forms of organization and of struggle to do so, and developing their daily struggle in service of the struggle for the conquest of power for the proletariat, what today means to pave the way at every level for the initiation of People’s War.  The proletarian feminist movement must stand shoulder to shoulder with the female workers who fight for their rights for equal pay, with single mothers who struggle desperately every day to feed their children, with Muslim women who are attacked by chauvinists because of the way they dress and for defending their right to carry the pieces of clothing they prefer, with elderly women who can not survive on her pension, with women being subjected to patriarchal violence and everybody else who suffers form oppression and exploitation of imperialism and patriarchy, teach them how to fight and how to defend their interest. The proletarian feminist movement must uphold, defend and apply Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, to solve the pending tasks it faces in every country, learning from the experiences of the workers, popular and women struggle all over the world and particularly learning from the female communists who stand in the first line in the ongoing People’s Wars. It must advance, serving the struggle for the reconstitution of the Communist Parties and the building of the United Front for the proletarian revolution, for the dictatorship of the proletariat, in waves and dealing hard and precise blows to the enemy.

This year we, Marxist-Leninist-Maoists in Europe, jointly unfold our activities around the 8th of March under these slogans, Proletarian Feminism for Communism! and Wave after Wave, Blow after Blow – Against imperialism and Patriarchy!. We do so with the intention to further the development of the European proletarian feminist movement and to further unleash the fury of women as a mighty force of the proletarian world revolution.

For a class-line in the women's movement!
To the streets on the 8th of March!
Forwards Red Women!
 

Signatures:
Red Womens Committees (Austria)
Red Womens Committees (FRG)
Serve the People - Communist League(Norway)
Peru People’s Movement (Reorganisation Committee)
Red Flag Collective (Finland)