On September 5

On this day in ...

... 1915 (95 years ago today), as trench warfare dragged on across Europe, about 40 delegates from 11 countries opened a 6-day meeting, known as the Zimmerwald Conference in recognition of the Swiss municipality where it was held. Among those attending this 1st First International Socialist Conference were the exiled Russians Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky. The meeting would end on September 11 with a manifesto that demanded an immediate end to World War I:

[W]orkers within each country should try by any means necessary to convert the current capitalist struggle into a more enlightened one: an international workers’ revolution or civil war 'between the classes' that would spread throughout Europe, and eventually the world.

It further praised certain comrades, among them Rosa Luxemburg (above, near left), Clara Zetkin (far left), and Louise Saumoneau. (credit for 1911 photo)


(Prior September 5 posts are here, here, and here.)

On March 8

On this day in ...
... 1914, French feminist, socialist, and pacifist Louise Saumoneau led the 1st International Women’s Day commemoration in Paris, used to organize for socialism. Some 2,000 women and men marched and listened to speeches by Socialist Party leaders. Born in 1875 and employed from a young age as a seamstress, Saumoneau had founded a women's movement at age 24. Like her German counterpart Clara Zetkin, Saumoneau had little use for what she called "feminist confusionism"; that is, focus on issues like dowry. Instead, Saumoneau concentrated her efforts in building a working women's movement that also paid heed to the situation of working men. By a decades-old resolution of the United Nations, as we've posted here and here, today marks the global International Women's Day.

(Prior March 8 posts are here, here, and here)

On June 20

On this day in ...
… 1981, an Islamic socialist organization known as the People's Mujahedin of Iran (flag at right) demonstrated against the regime then in power. Following the Iranian revolution and a falling out with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, hundreds of the organization's supporters and were killed, and some 3,000 were arrested.
… 1933, at age 75, feminist and German communist Clara Zetkin (below left) died in exile in the Soviet Union at Archangelskoye, near Moscow. Zetkin had fought for the economic and political independence of women workers and women in general. International Women’s Day, first celebrated in 1911, was staged thanks to her suggestion. In 1920, Zetkin was elected to the Reichstag as a member of the German Communist Party. Entitled to open the parliament's 1st session in 1932, Zetkin warned of the dangers of national socialism and demanded the coalition of all democratic forces. When Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party took over power, Zetkin's party was banned from the Reichstag, and she went into exile to the Soviet Union. She remained politically active until her death. (photo credit for the image of Zetkin on former East German currency)

(Prior June 20 posts are here and here.)