FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!
International Communist Workers Party
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FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM! |
International Communist Workers Party | |
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The first two parts of this series described how the wage (work-point) system in socialist China made it impossible to end sexism.
“Women play an active role as leaders at all levels and in various kinds of work at the Taching Oil Field,” the woman leader Hsin Hua wrote proudly in 1977.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) made many efforts to develop women as leaders (“cadre”). The representation of women in leadership positions did increase, in some situations up to about 30% but less at higher levels. However, they did not influence or change party policy, even towards women. More women officials did not change things for the masses of Chinese women any more than it did in the West.
A deeper question is what the CCP meant by “leadership.”
As in other class societies, leadership was equated with having an official position in the party, civil service, army or production. These cadres were usually CCP members. However, in 1973 only about 6% of adults were even Party members.
Today the International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP) has a very different idea. We aim to build a mass party embracing everyone willing to help mobilize even broader masses for communism. Our collectives help all members to take leadership around this, in big ways or small. We expect that, a generation after we’ve won power, most of the population will be ICWP members.
“We lead women in the study of Mao Tse-Tung Thought and in collective labor,” the leader of the Long Bow Women’s Association told William Hinton in 1971.
“I encourage all the women to go out and work. Women are the majority on our team and my work is to mobilize them,” said the assistant leader.
These women described Party policy. The role of women cadres was mainly to mobilize women to become more active in collective production, achieving better results there and also in housekeeping. Cadres were to be industrious, impartial, and unselfish and to share the work and conditions of masses. They were specifically advised not to scorn doing “women’s work.”
As our previous articles explained, the slogan “women hold up half the sky” didn’t mean ending gender discrimination or the sexual division of labor.
It meant that they should work harder: in social production (wage labor) as well as their heavy unpaid housework. The ideal revolutionary woman was supposed to do her political work on top of shouldering her duties in a “stable family” and being an exemplary production worker.
The ICWP struggles with this today in working to develop young leaders. Some men in and around the Party take on major responsibilities in their families and households. But this is much more common among women. Sometimes this limits their ability to participate in meetings and other typical Party work. We need to get better at finding ways to develop them as communist leaders and at recognizing the important leadership they already give.
During the Cultural Revolution the one-sided emphasis on production was criticized with the slogan “politics in command.” A better slogan would be: “COMMUNIST politics in command.”
The CCP told women cadres to get women to improve their ideological thinking. But in practice this meant that women should accept the same old party line: that they should prove their revolutionary zeal by living up to the multiple demands made on them, rather than fighting for further collectivization or an end to the work-point (wage) system.
New women cadre themselves were mainly educated to give leadership to traditional “women’s work.” By all reports, their political education (like that of most men) was generally limited to an uncritical study of Mao’s writings. They were not expected to help make important decisions or develop the Party line.
Today the ICWP encourages all members and friends to study fundamental principles of communism, especially the philosophical tools of dialectical materialism.
We are developing multi-media materials in several languages so that masses can learn to analyze the world situation and criticize our work. In small and larger meetings, and in the pages of Red Flag, we strive to involve everyone in developing the Party line.
In communist society, a mass ICWP will provide the structure for everyone to help make decisions that affect our lives, not just to carry out decisions already made.
Communism, and only communism, can end sexism.
SOURCES: Vibeke Hemmel and Pia Sindbjerg, Women in Rural China (1984); William Hinton, Shenfan (1983); Chi Pen, Ed. Chinese Women in the Fight for Socialism (1977)