Methods in Marxist Feminism
STUDY BLOCK: PHILOSOPHY
Image: Clara Zetkin and her comrades at the 2nd International Congress of Communist Women, Moscow, 1921
STUDY MATERIALS
“Only in Conjunction With the Proletarian Woman Will Socialism Be Victorious,” by Clara Zetkin
In this speech given on October 16 1896 at the Party Congress of the Social Democratic Party, Clara Zetkin makes clear the difference between the struggle of bourgeois and working class women. She describes the different economic, social, and ideological realities faced by those in the bourgeois and working classes, and pushes for greater effort for the organization of working women from her comrades. When reading this speech, consider the time and place in which it was given, and see if you can draw connections to the conditions of struggle we face today.
The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism, by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
In this article published on the 30th anniversary of Marx’s death, Lenin expresses the emergence of Marxism as a synthesis of profound thinking already developed by humanity, as well as the basic aspects of Marxist theory and their importance.
Marxism and National Liberation, by Walter Rodney
In this first of a two-part series, Guyanese historian and activist Walter Rodney links Marxism’s relevance in Africa to its methodology, which is particular to time and place. In the second part, Rodney argues that the theory of scientific socialism can and should be used in the African context.