This year’s International Women’s Day, March 8, is marked by an awakening international women’s consciousness. Women are standing up against wars and crises. Despite the most difficult living conditions and repression, mothers, sisters and partners of soldiers in the Ukraine are protesting against the sacrificing of men at the front. In Russia, the ban on assembly can no longer prevent women from publicly demanding the return of soldiers from the front. These are important signals in a situation of growing imperialist rivalry and the resulting threat of world war and the accompanying heightened danger of war in many hot spots around the world.

 

The call of women in Iran “Woman - Life – Freedom” (Jin Jiyan Azadi) has gone around the world and can no longer be ignored. In Iran, the women’s and working-class movements are strengthening each other mutually in their resistance against the fundamentalist-fascist mullah regime. In Latin America, women are bravely defying the countless femicides and encouraging women worldwide to do the same. 

 

Seventy percent of the victims of Israel’s barbaric war in Gaza are women and children. This outrages us deeply. Their struggle for survival and their resistance has our deepest sympathy and support. A worldwide movement of solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle has emerged, in which hundreds of thousands of women are active. We vigorously support the fearless struggle of women in the DR Congo, Sudan and the Sahel countries (Burkina-Faso, Mali and Niger). They do not stop fighting against the unjust wars imposed by the imperialist powers to plunder natural resources and destroy the environment. In Congo-Kinshasa, the increasing armed conflicts, controlled from Rwanda and supported by multinational mining companies, continue to claim thousands of lives. Women and children are the main victims. Today, women are in the front line demonstrating in front of the embassies of Western imperialist countries to denounce their duplicity in this tragedy, which has already claimed millions of lives.

 

In the ongoing global economic and financial crisis, capitalism is trying to shift the burdens onto families in particular, and therefore especially onto women. But the bourgeois family system has long since become too restrictive for many women. Women are standing up against the intensification of double exploitation and oppression. Women in Britain, Canada and Germany have developed self-confidence and fighting power in strikes by educators and in the health service.

 

The global environmental catastrophe that has begun is accompanied by women becoming activists for the protection of people and nature. In India, women farmers are fighting fearlessly against the destructive consequences of the steel and cement industries for their livelihoods. In Yemen, despite personal threats, women are revealing the devastating consequences of the war there for the environment and people's health. Their aim is to mobilize women all over the world. 

 

In order to achieve its goals, the imperialist world system is increasingly resorting to ultra-right and fascist methods of government and reactionary demagogy, especially with regard to the role of women. Indian women – especially from minorities, the working class and the peasantry – are greatly suffering under the fascist Hindutva and corporate Modi government. All this has strengthened an international anti-fascist movement.  Women from Russia report that before the elections in March they are already preparing to fight against the ban on abortions that threatens after the elections. Courageous women in Afghanistan are organizing secret girls’ schools and, despite deadly threats, are repeatedly taking to the streets to protest. In Rojava, Northern Syria, women and the masses are defending themselves against renewed violent attacks by the fascist Erdogan regime and Islamist gangs.  

 

The International Women’s Day on March 8 was adopted on the initiative of the socialist Clara Zetkin at the Second International Socialist Women’s Conference in 1910. Since then, this day has united the militant women’s movement around the world. In many countries, women have fought and continue to fight courageously for their rights and quite a few have paid for this fight with their lives. They embody the socialist perspective of women’s liberation on this day. The ICOR is committed to this perspective and is actively engaged in the debate on how such a perspective can become reality today. The orientation towards the struggle and the needs of the masses of women and the close connection between the women’s movement and the working-class movement are integral parts of the struggle for liberation for both. This also includes discussing the necessary lessons to be learned from the betrayal of socialism with its negative consequences for women. After the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 under Lenin, the fight for women’s liberation became a guiding principle for society as a whole for the first time. On their path to liberation, women in the socialist Soviet Union had achieved the most far-reaching political and economic rights to date, as well as a guiding principle of equality and liberation for society as a whole. To learn from these and other experiences women definitely should attend the ICOR seminar “Lenin’s teachings are alive”. It will take place in Germany from September 13 to 15. 

 

Let us strengthen the worldwide militant women’s movement!

Let us make March 8 a day of struggle around the world for the liberation of women and all of humankind!

 

Signatories (as of 6 March 2024, further signatories possible):

1. PCPCI   Parti Communiste Proletarien de Côte d'Ivoire (Proletarian Communist Party of Ivory Coast)

2. ORC   Organisation Révolutionnaire du Congo (Revolutionary Organization of Congo), Democratic Republic of the Congo

3. MMLPL   Moroccan Marxist-Leninist Proletarian Line

4. CPSA (ML)   Communist Party of South Africa (Marxist-Leninist)

5. PCT   Parti Comuniste du Togo (Communist Party of Togo)

6. PPDS   Parti Patriotique Démocratique Socialiste (Patriotic Democratic Socialist Party), Tunisia

7. SPB   Socialist Party of Bangladesh

8. CPI (ML) RS   Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Red Star

9. NCP (Mashal)   Nepal Communist Party (Mashal)

10. RUFN Revolutionary United Front of Nepal

11. CPA/ML   Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)

12. БКП   Българска Комунистическа Партия (Bulgarian Communist Party)

13. БРП(к)   Българска Работническа Партия (комунисти) (Bulgarian Workers Party (Communist))

14. PR-ByH   Partija Rada - ByH (Party of Labor - Bosnia and Herzegovina)

15. MLPD   Marxistisch-Leninistische Partei Deutschlands (Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany)

16. UPML   Union Prolétarienne Marxiste-Léniniste (Marxist-Leninist Proletarian Union), France

17. KOL   Kommunistische Organisation Luxemburg (Communist Organization of Luxemburg)

18. RM   Rode Morgen (Red Dawn), Netherlands

19. UMLP   União Marxista-Leninista Portuguesa (Portuguese Marxist-Leninist Union)

20. MLP   Marksistsko-Leninskaja Platforma (Marxist-Leninist Platform), Russia

21. RMP   Российская маоистская партия (Rossijskaya maoistskaya partiya) (Russian Maoist Party)

22. MLGS   Marxistisch-Leninistische Gruppe Schweiz (Marxist-Leninist Group of Switzerland)

23. MLKP   Marksist Leninist Komünist Parti Türkiye / Kürdistan (Marxist Leninist Communist Party Turkey / Kurdistan)

24. KSRD   Koordinazionnyj Sowjet Rabotschewo Dvizhenija (Coordination Council of the Workers Class Movement), Ukraine

25. UMU   Union of Maoists of the Urals (Union of Maoists of the Urals), Russia

26. OAPCM   Organización Apoyante del Partido Comunista de México (Supporting Organization of the Communist Party of Mexico)

27. PCP (independiente)   Partido Comunista Paraguayo (independiente) (Paraguayan  Communist Party (independent))

28. PC (ML)   Partido Comunista (Marxista Leninista) (Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)), Dominican Republic

29. PCR-U   Partido Comunista Revolucionario del Uruguay (Revolutionary Communist Party of Uruguay)

30. CPPD   Chinese People's Party for the Defense of Mao Zedong

 

Additional signatories (Non-ICOR):

SUCI India