Let’s talk about these things…

Let’s talk about these things…

‘No Woman, No Revolution’

Sibusiso Mchunu, Off the Cuff, 15 April 2010

The JHB Communist University has just finished its first series on Basic Communism as the introductory to our University study. In the Communist University we use short text (for each week) and we have been meeting without fail since the University opened on the 20, 2010 January.

Now we are in the second series called ‘No Woman, No Revolution’. This series on women is very challenging as it challenges holistic view and understanding of women struggle as the women’s world is divided, just as is the world of men, into two camps; the interests and aspirations of one group of women bring it close to the bourgeois class, while the other group has close connections with the proletariat, and its claims for liberation encompass a full solution to the woman question…^[i] while the world and the our journalist in both print and electronic have of late focused their energy about Cde Julius Malema (BBC reporter) and  Eugene Terre Blanche but a female was humiliated on E. TV studio by Andre Visagie . Yet the angle of reporting about such, is a though it was a joke.

It is therefore paramount to have active women and we should  protect them with all what we have as we want woman workers to achieve equality with men not only in law, but in life as well…therefore, elect more women workers, both Communist and non-Party, to the Soviet.  If she is only an honest woman worker who is capable of managing work sensibly and conscientiously, it makes no difference if she is not a member of the Party, elect her to…Soviets.^[ii] We hope that as we grapple with a women question both women and men will realise that proletarian women have a different attitude. They do not see men as the enemy and the oppressor; on the contrary, they think of men as their comrades, who shares with them the drudgery of the daily round and fight with them for a better future. The women and her male comrade are enslaved by the same social conditions; the same hated chains of capitalism oppress their will and deprive them of the joys and charms of life. ^[iii]

It is therefore important that we must not loose sight of the bigger struggle before us (of No woman, No Revolution) and be diverted to discuss politics of individuals of which at the Communist University we are lucky that we use these short texts to get concrete analysis for concrete situations, as in words, bourgeois democracy promises equality and liberty. In fact, not a single bourgeois republic, not even the most advanced once, has given the feminine half of the human race either full legal equality with men or freedom from the guardianship and oppression of men.^[iv] Therefore the Women and Child Ministry which we have at this epoch, will never deliver socialism or set free women; it is us, with organs of popular power (Soviets) that we must show commitment.

The Communist University (Political School) has four different topics in a series as mentioned, The ‘Basic’ was the first as a series, then now we are doing a series on ‘No woman, No Revolution’ which will end on 10, 2010 June and then we will be begin with series on ‘Philosophy and Religion’, which will be followed by our last series on ‘Anti-Imperialism, War and Peace’ of which it will be the last. 

The Communist University meet every Thursdays at 17H00 till 18H30 at the University of JHB Library, Doornfontein Campus (former Wits Technikon).

The proletariat cannot achieve complete freedom, unless it achieves complete freedom for women [To the working women, VI Lenin, 1920]

Socialism is the best

_________________________

 Cde Sibusiso Mchunu

Arise ye prisoner of starvation

Arise ye toilers of the earth

For reason thunders new creation

Tis a better world in birth

Never more tradition chain shall bind us

Arise ye toilers no more in thrall

The earth shall rise on new foundations

We are but naught we shall be all

Then comrades, come rally

Tis the last fight we face

The internationale

Unite the human race

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[i] The Social basis of the Woman Question [Alexandra Kollontai, 1909 (The struggle for economic independence)]

[ii] To the Working Women [VI Lenin, 1920]

[iii] The Social basis of the Woman Question [Alexandra Kollontai, 1909 (The struggle for economic independence)]

[iv] Soviet Power and the Status of Women [VI Lenin, 1919]