Hello all,
In light of the incredibly inspiring uprising currently unfolding in all provinces of Iran, where women, students, workers and even schoolgirls are openly defying the dictates of an Islamist regime that treats women as second-class citizens and forces to them to wear hijab in public in the name of ‘decency’, I thought I should do my bit to shed some small light on the history of Marxism, Islam, women’s liberation and the hijab.
In the past few days, I have dusted off and re-read a book that I have planned on translating for some time: ‘In the Liberated Caucusus’, written by the then Secretary of the Communist Women’s Movement – and regular feature of this page – Clara Zetkin. It was first recommended to me by the historian Ian Birchall while I was working on my Zetkin book with Mike Jones almost a decade ago. Among other things, Zetkin’s 300-page account describes the pioneering revolutionary work of the Zhenotdel – the Women’s Department of the Central Committee of the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) – among Muslim women in the Soviet Republics of Georgia and Azerbeijan in the 1920s. Women who lived in these largely peasant societies were often illiterate, had traditionally been excluded from public life and – before the Russian Revolution of 1917 – were unable to initiate divorce proceedings against their husbands.
Future posts will provide translations of Zetkin’s account of the struggles communist women faced in speaking to and educating these women about their newly-established freedoms, not least by setting up ‘Women’s Clubs’ as sources of information, medical assistance and even refuge for women fleeing violent domestic environments. After all, as Zetkin reports, many religious men were not pleased about the new legal equality for women and referred to the Zhenotdel not as the ‘Women’s Department’, but the ‘Department of the Devil’. As Zetkin puts it elsewhere in the volume: ‘Of course, the Soviet order and Soviet laws infringe upon what the followers of Muhammed consider to be holy and sacrosanct’. The approach of the Marxist women (and their male comrades) thus had to be a sensitive and compassionate one; they wanted to create the legal and institutional basis for the liberation of women in these areas, but were adamant that liberation had to be an act of the women themselves, and not imposed on a benighted population from above in some kind of ‘secularism of the sword’. (One of the many remarkable features of the current revolt in Iran, for instance, is that veiled women are demonstrating alongside those who are demonstrating for their rights).
We will return to the various questions raised in Zetkin’s – not always unproblematic – account in the next few days: I estimate that the relevant passages of the book amount to around 5,000 words.
What follows for today’s post is her report of a historic rally in the city of Batumi, modern Georgia’s second-largest city, in 1924. Depending on how quickly I can translate the relevant passages from the book, it may even be worthwhile publishing the content into Farsi, Kurdish or even Arabic. If you would be interested in helping out with this, then please reach out.
Best wishes,
BL
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Slightly later, there is another highly dramatic episode – the second of this huge gathering tonight. A relatively small number of women have dared defy the customs of the Orient to take part in this meeting. Most of them are veiled. Then, a Muslim woman [a ‘female Muhammedian’, in Zetkin’s parlance] emerges from a group of male and female comrades standing at the back of the stage. She casts her veil aside and, somewhat hesitantly, slowly and solemnly, approaches the speaker’s lectern. It is the first time that an unveiled Muslim woman has addressed a public gathering in Batumi. The impact of this move is tremendous, beyond words: the piercing screams and passionate sobs of women can immediately be heard. Several veiled women tear their scarves from their heads. Everybody understands that this woman’s act is an open rebellion against the customs and dogmas that enslave the women of the Orient. It is even more than this – it is a call on all women Muslims to rebel openly against the forces that place them in chains. The comrade then speaks. She says:
‘The veil does not protect us Muslim women from defilement. It makes us weak and helpless. It is a brick in the harem’s wall. We have to look the truth in the eye. We must not separate ourselves from our brothers who want to build a new, higher form of life for us all. Our enemies are the rich, the powerful and those who rule. We women have but one aide: communism. We must work and struggle alongside those are in favour of communism. It is for this reason that we rally around the banner of the soviets and the Communist International. We Muslim women – all of us – must stand by this flag. It will lead us to our rights, to freedom.’
The multitude listen to these words in silence, with bated breath. The erupting storm of applause that fails to die out, but begins over and over again, affirms how those present are grateful for the comrade’s great moral courage and that they share her views. To the left and to the right, we hear people talking about how the comrade stepping forward will act as a fresh, rousing, cleansing gust of wind through the stuffy atmosphere in which female Muslims are wasting away. The comrade’s words will be the topic of of conversation among women for days to come. Old, rotten prejudice is collapsing and a new courage with which to go about life is blossoming. And even when the comrade’s words have died away, the example that she set will continue to resonate.
However much the national question might dominate the psyche of the peoples of the Transcaucusus region and its forelands, the idea of international revolutionary solidarity between all working people has established strong roots and blossomed wherever the Russian Revolution has sown its consecrating seeds of lighting [the mixed metaphor is Zetkin’s!]. And so it is that the enormous meeting in Batumi is also a powerful rally for the Communist International. This rally by no means takes the form of rote-learnt, externally imposed conventions that draw on empty dead formulae and end in humiliating hypocrisy. No, it is the expression of a mighty, genuine feeling, which among some has already crystallised into a clear consciousness, and which among others still amounts to an instinctive sense or feeling. Every speech sees a passionate pledge to the Communist International, which is repeated in the cheers of approval among the thousands in attendance. To conclude the meeting, they rise as one and sing ‘The Internationale’. And now the meeting held behind closed doors becomes an tremendous demonstration on the streets outside. The voices of the thousands who could not fit into the meeting room and so had to wait patiently at the doors now ring out. Their cheers and chants in opposition to the old, parochial world fill the streets and squares near the meeting hall. Only by taking backstreets am I able to slip away from the crowds.