Furtseva Article Hails Women's Day (FBIS, 8 Mar 1960)

=== [PDF page 1] === FURTSEVA ARTICLE HAINS WOMEN'S DAY Moscow, Soviet Home Service, Mar. 8, 1960, 0600 GMT--L (Yekaterina Furtseva article in PRAVDA: "Women and the Building of Communism’) (Text) The workers of our country and all progressive mankind are today marking a glorious, historic date, the 50th anniversary of International Women's Day. The Soviet people and workers of all fraternal socialist countries welcome this day, the first spring festival, in an atmosphere of new glorious victories in‘the building of communism and socialism. Thousands and thousands of production collectives, mikkions of families, warmly greet their women and cordially thank them for the good which they contribute to our common cause, our tireless and constructive life. In an appeal published today, the CPSU Central Committee warmly congratulates Soviet women on the 50th anniversary of International Women's Day, and calls upon them to always be true to the bright ideals of communism, freedom, and independence and peace and friendship between peoples. The appeal says: "Honor and glory to Soviet women, tireless workers and active builders of a communist society, ardent fighters for peace." A lofty evaluation of the role of women in communist building has fonnd its expression in the decrees of the USSR Supreme Soviet Presidium in awarding the title Hero of Socialist Labor to a large group of Soviet women, and awarding over 10,C00 women orders and mddals. Educated in the spirit of proletarian internationalism, Soviet women, just as the women of all socialist countries, express fraternal solidarity to millions of their friends in the capitalist countries who today celebrate International Women's Day in an atmosphere of struggle against a new war, for the living rights of workers, and against social, national, and macial oppression. The inviolable contacts of International Women's Day with the life and the interests of the peoples is explained by the fact that the women's socialist movement has always been and is now a component part of the general revolutionary struggle of the working class, although it simultaneously expresses the specific tasks ensuing from the peculiarity of women's position in capitalist society, in their struggle for equal rights with men in all spheres of life. === [PDF page 2] === Women's role has a long and complicated history. For hundreds of years the best minds of mankind sought ways and means of solving this problem, exposing to angry criticism the shameful inequality of women, and scourging the scientist-obscurantists who sought to prove the biological inferiority of women. Speaking in defense of women's equality, the great Russian Revolutionary Democrat Chernyshevskiy wrote: "What & true, strong, and penetrating mind women have been endowed with by nagure, and yet this mind remains of no benefit for society, which repudiates it, suppresses it and stifles it. The history of mankind would flow 10 times faster if this mind were not repudiated and kiiled, but was active." “For many decades all wishes for equality of women remained an unrealizable utopia. Only with the birth of the organized revolutionary movement . Of the proletariat was the question of women put on practical rails, Only the working class, and its vanguard, the Marxist-Leninist party, indicated the correct way to solve this question. The founders of Marxism-Leninism, studying the laws of social development, gave scientific illumination to the question of women. Marx, Engels, and Lenin showed that in the conditions of bourgeois society the question of women was not an isolated one; it was one of the most pressing general problems of the economic, political, legal, and moral-ethical reformation of society on just socialist beginnings. The emancipation of women, Marxism-Leninism teaches, is possible only as a result of social revolution, replacement of the capitalist regime by the socialist social structure, liquidation of private property in production, the establishment of truly popular power, which can only be socialist democracy.. Guided by Marxist-Leninist teaching, the CBSU and popular Soviet authority for the first time in history brought about a real equality of women and raised the many millions of women of our country to conscious and historic creativity, to active participation in the administration of the state and to socialist production. Soviet power, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin emphasized, brought about democracy so that no hint of women's inequality should remain in its laws. In this we Soviet people, and not only us, but all progressive mankind, see one of the greatest conquests of the October Socialist Revolution. In the past half century, the women's socialist movement has written many bright pages in the history of the struggle. of the workers against capitalist oppression, and for democracy and socialism. === [PDF page 3] === Recalling the second international conference of women socialists which took place in 1910, and established International Woren Workers Day, one of the outstanding workers of the communist worker movement, Clara Zetkin, wrote: "This decision was carried out under the influence of the great, fruitful, revolutionary movement of 1905 in Russia, in particular, through the elemental might of strikes and barricade battles in MoscoWes It is endowed with the same Marxist spirit with which the Leninist precept about the liberation of women through socialism is endowed," In prerevokutionary Russia the women's liberation movement was exposed to fierce persecution. In the face of evolutionary women, embittered by need and injustice, the tsarist government of landowners and capitalists saw &@ strong and dangerous opponent. By bans, arrests,. and dispersals of demonstrations, the autocracy attempted to halt the women workers movement. But these were vain attempts, for the women's movement became an organic part of the class struggle of the proletariat, and the class struggle of the proletariat is an insuperable law of social development. The progressive women of Russia took an active part in three revolutions. We would not have triumphed without them," Lenin noted. "That is my opinion. What valor they showed, how brave they are now." This and future generations will never forget the glorious representatives of the old Leninist guard, the active workers in the Bolshevik party who, in the heavy circumstances of the revolutionary underground, took an active part in building our great party, and selflessly fulfilled the responsible charges of its Leninist Central Committee. Women workers were in the front ranks of the revolutionary fighters in February 1917. They went hand in hand with their husbands and brothers in the days of Great October. By their valor, selflessness, and revolutionary endurance they, as Vladimir Ilyich Lenin justly indicated, truly earned the admiration and love of the working class and of all workers of our country. This admiration and love has been multiplied by the various labor exploits of Soviet women during the struggles of the civil war, in the unforgettable epoch of the first five-year plans, in the days of severe trials of the Great Fatherland War, in the years of the establishment of the national economy, and in our glorious days, the period of expanded building of communism. A‘. biography of women who earned fame in the revolutionary struggle and in socialist building would fill many volumes. But even these volumes would not be able to reveal all the grandeur of soul, all the beauty of the living exploits of Soviet women. === [PDF page 4] === When tneir native land called them they went into the forces as soldiers. They worked and work selflessly in plants and factoriés, in the fields, and in scientific laboretories. They teach and rear children. They bear the sometimes unnoticed but very important concern for the family. In defining the paths of construction of the new socialist society, V.I. Lenin pointed out: We need to see that women workers get equality with men not only in law, but also in life. It is necessary that women take more and more part in the administration of public enterprises and in the administration of the state. The Communist Party and all the Soviet people can say with pride that this precept of our great teacher has been fulfilled. Here are some data from the last elections to the higher and local organs of state power in the Soviet Union: A total of 366 women deputies were elected to the USSR Supreme Soviet. This is a considerably larger number than there are in the parliaments of all capitalist states combined. In the U.S. Congress, for example, there are only 17 women. Furthermore, 2,530 women deputies were elected to the supreme soviets of the union and autonomous republics. More than -690,C0O0- women were elected to local soviets. The Communist Party and the soviet state display constant concern about further raising the role of women in all fields of public, political, economic, and cultural life in our country; they reselutely end boldly place them in leading state, party, economic, and trade union positions. It is difficult to overestimate the role of women in the national matter of building communism. There is no branch of the national economy, 1... culture, or science where women cannot take an active part, Vivid and convincing testimony to this is the fact that many women have been awarded the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union and Hero of Socialist Labor. Hundreds of thousands have been awarded orders and medals, At present, there are 26 million women working in trades; this is 47 percent of all workers and employees occupied in the national economy. In industry, women constitute 45 percent of all workers, and in building, 30 percent. In the apparatus of state and economic administration, in cooperative and public organs almost a half of all workers are women. In education 69 percent; in health. service work, 85 percent. It is opportune to recall that in prerevolutionary Russia 80 percent of the women who worked for hire were domestic servants and agricultural workers, and only 13 percent worked in industry or in building. Four percent worked in education or in the health services. === [PDF page 5] === In tsarist Russia there were practically no women engineers and technicians, while now in the USSR there are 732,000 of them. Women work as brigade leaders (few words indistinct), as heads of shops, shifts, and sections; they direct scientific research institutes. About 13,600 women are chief engifteers and deputies in industrial enterprises, The life of peasant women has radically altered. There is nothing in common between the downtrodden peasant woman of old Russia and the medern kolkhoznik. We have long become accustomed to the fact that country girls get matriculation certificates and student diplomas upon completing study‘in institutes, This has become an everyday mass phenomenon. Among agronomists, zootechnicians, veterinarians, and forestry experts 40 percent are women. More than 50,000 women work as kolkhoz chairmen, brigade leaders, and heads of farms. N.S. Khrushchev spoke profoundly on this topic at a reception in the Kremlin to a delegsticn of kolkhoz and sovkhoz women workers of Ryazan Oblast. “One looks at you and one becomes even more filled with pride in our Soviet women," he said. Under the conditions of the Soviet system, women have obtained the opportunity to widely and in every way use their capabilities and gifts. More than a half of Soviet specialists with higher education, 52 percent, are women. At present we have 2,763,000 women who have either completed or are completing higher education, or 241 per 10,000. Among scientific workers, more than 119,000 women, or (36?) percent, are “workers in science." More than 28,000 women have the degree of doctor or candidate of sciences; 700 have the title academician, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, or professor. In the academies of sciences of the union republics 4,600 workers, i.e., more than one third, are women. There are also quite a few women among those who launched the first earth satellites and moon rockets, who designed the atomic power stations, and who built the first atomic icebreaker, the Lenin. An honored place is occupied by women among our creative intelligentsia. One of the most remarkable achievements of Soviet rule is the fact that it has put an end to the humiliating situation in which women in the eastern regions of tsarist Russia were kept. Before the Great October Socialist Revolution almost the whole female population of these regions was illiterate and in a state of "slavish" dependence on men. === [PDF page 6] === Implementing Leninist national pclicy, the Communist Party opened before women of the USSR a broad path to active participation in public production. work and publie life. Working women of the Soviet east, liberated by the Soviet rule, are now active builders of the communist society with equal vights. Communism is a living, creative matter for the millions. Like all the workers of our country, Soviet women are enthusiastically implementing the program for extensive building of communism worked out by the 2lst party congress. They are directing every effort for prefulfillment of the seven-year plan. In the struggle for communism the best features of the Soviet person are being revealed, a genuinely communist attitude toward labor and public duty is being created.. Among the leading workers of the seven-year plan who show a magnificent communist attitude toward work are many Soviet women. Many of them have become initiators of remarkable patriotic movements. They have shown themselves to be talented organizers, skillful leaders of the masses, and outstanding fighters for that which is new and advanced. All are familiar with the noble deeds of the Vyshniy Volochek textile worker, Valentina Gaganova, who voluntarily left a leading brigade to work in a backward one to help bring it up to standard and successfully accomplished it. Khrushchev said about Gaganova and her initiative: The value and the nobility of the deeds of this person are that it was not material interest which moved her to take such a step, but an idea, ideological devotion to the communist system. Now Gaganova has thousands of emulators, both in this country and in other countries of the socialics: camp. (An account of deeds of Yuliya Vecherova and other outstanding female workers, frequently mentioned in Moscow broadcasts, omitted--Ed. ) Special honor is accorded in the Soviet Union to the mother and children. Mothers with many children are awarded the honorary title of Mother Heroine. They are awarded the Order of the Glory of Motherhood and medals. They get state awards for rearing their children. In our country for the first time in the world a harmonious system of institutions has been created to preserve the health of mothers and children. The party and government do not begrudge the funds for building women's clinics, maternity homes, creches, and kindergartens. At the present time about 4 million children are being brovght up in creches and kindergarten. By 1965 the number will be more than 6 million. Aoart from this, seasonal creches in rural areas serve 3 million children. In recent years a broad network of boarding schools has been created find’ successfully developed. In these schools children live and study, fully cared for by the state. Now, about 400,000 children are in such schools. By 1965 not less than 2.5 million will live in then. === [PDF page 7] === In recent years, the Communist Party and the Soviet Government have adopted a number of important decisions to raise the material welfare and cultural level of our people. The fulfillment of these. decisions has great Significance for Soviet women. The reduction of the length of the workday, the freeing of women from hegvy and underground work, an unprecedented scale of home building, the extension of the network of public catering and trading enterprises, imprdvement of the provision of everyday services. agd health servises, the incr@ased production of foodstuffs and consumer goods, the production of machines and mechanisms which lighten the labor of women's everyday work—-all this creates favorable conditions for still wider participation of women in production and public life. The vivid and fruitful creative activity of Soviet women graphically proves the undisputed truth that genuine equality and freedom can only be provided for women by a society created on socialist principles. This can be seen in the example of People's China, Poland, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Albania, the DRV, the DFRK, and Mongolia, where women, as in the Soviet Union, have become equal and full creators and heroes of the new life. OO 7 Numerous foreign guests who come to our country note with admiration the growth in the spiritual aspect of the Soviet people, In this connection, interest attaches to the testimony of the well-known Brazilian writer Jorge Amado, who in his book ("Peace of the World"?), wrote; When I returned from the Soviet Union, many people asked me, "Haven't Soviet women, having gained equal rights with men and occupying themselves with many different and often very difficult types of activity, lost their femininity and elegance. Haven't they become coarser?" No, the Soviet woman has not become coarser nor has she lost her femininity. Having ceased to be the weaker sex, women is still the fair sex. The Soviet woman has a wider outlook. She has a better understanding of literature and art than any society lady in capitalist society. Maybe women who get their dresses from famous Parisian houses are more elegant than Soviet women, but can they really boast of the same knowledge and the same culture? Knowing both, 1 can boldly affirm--no! _ | | The advocates and propagandists of the capitalist system call bourgeois countries "the free world." It is difficult to think of anything which could be more hypocritical than this high-flown title. Leaving aside the brutal exploitation of the workers, mass unemployment, the omnipotence of a handful of banking and industrial bosses, colonial | plunder, racial discrimination, and other charms of bourgeois "freedom," I only wish to pose one question—-What sort of a free world is this in which there is no equal rights for women? It is a fact that in all capitalist countries women are paid considerably less than men. === [PDF page 8] === In. the United States in all branches of industry 1 female labor is paid less than male merely because it is (female labor?).° In Britain, women's average pay amounts to approximately 60. percent of men's pay for the same work. In Japan the percentage. is: 50. in a.number of countries women are deprived of the right to vote..-It: is characteristic that the convention of the political rights of. women was ratified by only 33 out *° of the 82 members of the United Nations. The United States, Britain, and other capitalist countries have no. national law dealing with the pe rotection of motherhood and children. - Family relations are also marked with the imprint of discrimination. In this area, the Napoleonic civil code introduced in a number of countries 150 years ago, which put women in a subordinate position, remains in force. A heavy burden ‘on workers, especially on the women of capitalist countries, is payment for medical services. It literally destroys working (word indistinct). In the United States, for example, a six-day stay in the hospital during childbirth costs 500 to 600 dollars, i.e., more than the average wage of a ‘female worker for several moirths o | Like all Soviet people, women in the USSR warmly and wholeheartedly — Support the Leninist policy of the CFSU and the Soviet Government and actively implement it. The peace-loving foreign policy of the socialist state is understandably close to the heart of each Soviet Woman. Any expansionist striving is alien to the Soviet people. They - wish to live in peace and firm friendship with all peoples. — a A new war would be a terrible calamity for all of mankind, but the greatest sorrow would be that it would threaten mothers. Conscious of their high duty, women of all countries are more and more actively entering the noble struggle of the peoples for peace, for the lessening of international tension, and against the threat of a new war. The struggle for peace is being waged by women of all races and nationalities, believers and nonbelievers, young and old, mothers and those without children. Working women of the capitalist countries of Europe and America, millions of women in India, Indonesia, Burma, and the countries of the Arab East and Africa are acting in a united front with: women of the socialist countries in the struggle for peace and international security. === [PDF page 9] === The efforts of millions of working women are united and inspired by the Womens International Democratic Federation which consistently fights for the political and economic equality of women and for peace and happiness of children. At the first international women's congress, which was held in Peris in December 1945, répresentdtives of 4O countries took an oath to ceaselessly fight for peace and to save the coming generation from the calamity of a new war. They called upon the women of all countries to struggle for equality of rights and against discrimination and the restriction of democratic rights. es National federations of women arose in many countries of the world. At present, they embrace 200 million women. This is a mighty and active force. The international democratic women's movement has produced selfless fighters for peace and democracy, the names of which are spoken with great respect in all countries. (List of names omitted--Ed.) As a result of the consistent implementation of the Soviet Union's Leninist foreign policy, the great efforts of the Communist Party and the Soviet Government, the visits of Comrade Khrushchev to the United States and the countries of Asia, Indonesia, India, Burma, and Afghanistan, 4 noticeable lessening in international tension has been observed. Women of the whole world are still more actively advocating general peace and friendship between the peoples. They insist upon the full and unconditional prohibition of atomic and hydrogen weapons and on the immediate cessation of testing. Like all honest people on Earth they welcome and support the peaceful initiative of the Soviet Union, which introduced in the United Nations a program for general and complete disarmament and which has proposed the disbanding of ermed forces and the liquidation of all types of weapons, placing states in a situation where none of them would have an opportunity to unleash militery activities against another. Soviet women are proud of the fact that our country has taken the initiative in the cause of disarmament. As is known, during the last four years the Soviet armed forces have been reduced by 2,140,000 men. At the recent session of the USSR Supreme Soviet, a decision was adopted to reduce the Soviet armed forces by another 1.2 million men. Our party, the Leniaist Central Committee, and Comrade Khrushchev are continuing and developing the wise Leninist strategy of the struggle for peace. How vitally the activities of our party in the ceaseless struggle for peace throughont the world correspond with the historic directives of V.I. Lenin. === [PDF page 10] === For example, let us consider Lenin's directives in the period of the international Genoa conference in 1922. Two aims faced the Soviet delegation, Lenin pointéd out at that time, the achievement of a ~ trading agreement with the capitalist countries and, the chief thing, the struggle for the establishment of a firm general peace and the economic cooperation of the peoples..Cne of the most important points of this program was the proposal for a general reduction in armaments, the reduction in the armaments of all states, and the complete prohibition of such barbarous forms of war as the use of gas. The Soviet delegation, wrote Lenin, must not insist in the form of. an ultimatum on this broad program. If a broad program is “not wanted, then let us have a narrower one. (Further quotation from Lenin's writings omitted--H.) | A happy note now warms the hearts of women who see that the wise and bold policy of the country of the Soviets is bringing about a— transferrence of vast funds which are now being spent on lethal . weapons to the welfare of the peoples and the creation of an abundance of bread and (roses?). This is what women in all countries of the world desire. The 50th anniversary of International Women's Day is being heid under the slogan which unites all women on Earth, the slogan of the struggle for peace. The glorious women workers of our country are in the front ranks of fighters in this battle. They are struggling to develop ever more widely friendly relations with their foreign friends (few words indistinct) in a united front struggling for the complete elimination of the threat of war, for friendship, for the strengthening of economic and cultural cooperation between all countries, and for the happiness of their children. Soviet women, true to the bright ideals of communism, are greeting Mar. 8 in an atmosphere of new and great successes in the great work of building communism. Like all Soviet peoole, under the leadership of the Leninist party they are applying every effort and are giving all their abilities to strengthen even more the glory and might of their socialist native land, and to bring closer the bright future of mage tod. hype Fubra. Fa comm am. === [PDF page 11] === (Editor's Note--L: Moscow Soviet Home service at 1400 GMP on war. & reports a meeting in the Kremlin in honor of International Women's Day which was attended by representatives of the European Satellites. Moscow TASS Russian at 1545 GMT on Mar. S says the follawing Soviet leaders were present at the meeting: Aristov, Brezhnev, Ignatov,*Kozlo, Mikoyan, Mukhitdinov, Suslov, Furtseva, Khrushchev, Pospelov, Korotchenko, Aleskey, and Polyanskiy. Moscow Home service at Q600 GMT on Mer. 9 reports: "Khrushchev, warmly welcomed by the audience, stressed in a short speech that the happiness of Soviet women and of the women of socialist countries lies in the fact that they are free, unlike the women of the capitalist states. Khrushchev sincerely congratulated Soviet women on the glorious anniversary of International Women's Day. He noted the exceptional role of our women during the civil War, the Great Fatherland War, and the years of peaceful construction.")