Zetkin, Clara

Clara Eisner was born on July 5, 1857 in the Saxon town of Wiederau in the family of a German day laborer, later a teacher of the parish village school Gottfried Eisner and Josephine, née Vitale. She received education in a private pedagogical educational institution in Leipzig , where she became close to a circle of revolutionary emigrant students from Russia, including her future common- law husband Osip Zetkin (who was seven years older).

After Otto von Bismarck introduced the “ Exclusive Law against the Socialists ” of 1881, Clara Zetkin was forced to leave Germany and leave first to Zurich , and after visiting Austria and Italy in 1882 - to Paris , where Osip Zetkin was expelled from Germany at that time.

Since November 1882, Clara and Osip began to live together in a tiny apartment in Montmartre . At the same time, she changed her maiden name to Zetkin. There were born two sons - Maxim (1883-1965) and Constantine (1885-1980). They lived hard - Osip was published for pennies in the left-wing newspapers, Klara gave lessons and washed clothes from the rich. At the same time, Clara studied revolutionary activities with her friend, the daughter of Marx , Laura Lafargue . Here, in Paris, she had a great friendship with Laura and her husband, Paul Lafargue , as well as with Jules Guesde , one of the leaders of the French labor movement. Communication with them was a very serious school for Clara Zetkin and helped her expand and deepen her theoretical knowledge ^[5] .

In 1889, Osip Zetkin died of tuberculosis . The prominent revolutionary Clara Zetkin was able to return to her homeland only after the repeal of the Exceptional Law in 1890 . Like her close friend Rosa Luxemburg , she represented the left wing of the SPD and actively criticized the political stance of the reformist views of Edward Bernstein . Along with theoretical discussions, Zetkin participated in the struggle of women for equal rights, including the easing of labor legislation for women and the provision of universal suffrage .

She became the editor of the SPD newspaper for women “Equality” ( Die Gleichheit ), and she persuaded to finance the newspaper of the founder of the famous electrical engineering concern Robert Bosch . Editing this newspaper in 1891-1917, it turned the Social Democratic Women's Movement in Germany into one of the strongest in Europe.

In 1897, the 40-year-old Clara fell in love with the Stuttgart Academy of Fine Arts student and future artist Georg Friedrich Zundel . He was younger than her by 18 years. Soon they got married. Zundel successfully painted portraits to order, earned good money and could afford to buy in 1904 a fairly spacious house in Zillenbuch near Stuttgart . Lenin liked to admire the view from his windows. A couple of years later, the couple bought a car. Even Augustus Bebel , who at first sharply opposed this marriage, resigned himself. But in 1914, the couple broke up. The reason was a different attitude to the First World War . Clara Zetkin opposed the imperialist war, and Georg Friedrich defied her as a volunteer in the army. Clara was worried about leaving her husband and for many years did not give him an official divorce. Only in 1928, when she was almost 71, did she agree to a divorce, and the artist immediately married his long-time darling, Paula Bosch , daughter of Robert Bosch , the founder of the electrical engineering concern, which by the time of their official marriage had already exceeded thirty.

In 1907, her 22-year-old son Constantine became the lover of the 36-year-old Rosa Luxemburg ^[6] . Because of this, Clara was in a quarrel with Rosa for some time. But when George and Clara broke up, at the same time as Constantine and Rosa, their common grief brought them together again.

In 1907, Clara headed the women's department created under the SPD.

World War I

During the First World War, Clara Zetkin together with Karl Liebknecht , Rosa Luxemburg and other representatives of the radical wing of the Social Democratic Party of Germany condemned the opportunism of the party leadership, in the framework of the “civil peace” strategy, voted for the provision of military credits and thus adopted the position of social chauvinism . She was one of the organizers of the anti-war conference in Berlin in 1915 and was repeatedly arrested for speaking out against the imperialist war.

At the beginning of 1916, Zetkin, among the left and centrist wing of the SPD, who denounced the war and reconciliation with the Kaiser government, took part in the founding of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany , which left the mother party in 1917 as a protest against its social chauvinism. As part of the NSDPG, Zetkin was part of the Union of Spartak , on the basis of which the Communist Party of Germany was founded on December 31, 1918 - January 1, 1919 . Zetkin was well acquainted with Lenin V.I. and Krupskaya N.K .; in 1920, she visited Soviet Russia for the first time and interviewed the leader of the Bolsheviks for the "Women's Issue".

In 1920-1933, throughout the existence of the Weimar Republic , the German revolutionary represented the Communist Party in the Reichstag . In 1919-1924 and 1927-1929, she was a member of the Central Committee of the KKE. In parallel, she was busy in the Executive Committee of the Comintern (1921-1933), headed by its International Women's Secretariat, as well as the International Organization for Assistance to the Fighters of the Revolution, established in 1922 . She participated in several congresses of the Communist International (starting from the 2nd Congress). Since their inception, Clara Zetkin consistently condemned fascism and the NSDAP .

Since 1920, Clara Zetkin has been regularly elected to the Reichstag as a deputy from the Communist Party, she has repeatedly visited Soviet Russia, where she often met with Lenin.

A year before her death, in 1932, at the opening of the newly elected Reichstag , presiding over seniority at its first meeting, she appealed to oppose Nazism by all means.

I open the first meeting of the Reichstag, fulfilling my duty and in the hope that despite my current disability, I can live to a happy day when I, as an elder, open the first meeting of the Congress of Soviets in Soviet Germany.

The requirement of the moment is the united front of all workers in order to overthrow fascism and thereby preserve the strength and power of organizations enslaved and exploited, and even their physical existence itself. Before this urgent historical necessity, all exciting and burning disagreements — political, trade union, religious and ideological — must recede into the background. All those in danger, all those who suffer repression from fascism, all those who seek liberation - in a united front against fascism and its agents in the government! Organization, a clear awareness of their goals by the working people in the struggle against fascism - this is the immediate necessary prerequisite for a united front in the fight against crises, imperialist wars and the reasons for their occurrence - the capitalist mode of production.

After these words, she handed over the chairmanship, according to the protocol, to the representative of the faction, which received a majority of votes at the recent elections, to Hermann Göring .

After the Reichstag arson and Hitler came to power, the left-wing parties in Germany were banned, and Zetkin for the last time went into exile, this time in the Soviet Union .

Zetkin died at 2 am on June 20, 1933 in Arkhangelsk, near Moscow. She always recalled Rosa Luxemburg , but it was difficult for her to speak, and her last word was: "Rose ...".

After her death, she was cremated, an urn with ashes was placed in a necropolis near the Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow, on the wall space from the Senate Tower in the direction of the Nikolskaya Tower; on the burial site is a memorial plaque with the inscription: “Comrade. CLARA CETKIN. gen. CLARA ZETKIN. 5.VII.1857 - 20.VI.1933 " ^[7]

• The portrait of Clara Zetkin was placed on a banknote of 10 GDR marks issued in the GDR in 1971 .
• The Clara Zetkin House Museum works in her native Birkenwerder .
• Clara Zetkin peak, mountain peak in the ridge system of the Academy of Sciences , Pamir .
• In Soviet times, in Leningrad , the oldest and largest tobacco factory in Russia was named after Clara Zetkin (now ZAO Nevo-Tabak).
• In Moscow, the name of Clara Zetkin was assigned to the Experimental Technical Factory, Moscow Medical College, Maternity Hospital No. 11.
• In Novosibirsk there is a house of culture named after Clara Zetkin.
• In Veliky Ustyug there is a Kindergarten No. 17 named after Clara Zetkin.
• In Nizhny Novgorod , a hosiery-knitwear factory was named after her (HPCWTO named after K. Zetkin)
• In the village of Königshayn-Wiederau ( Middle Saxony ) her name is school and museum.
• The workers' culture center in Stuttgart is called Klara Zetkin House.
• In the Samara region there is a village named Klara Zetkin.
• In Berlin (since 1987) and Leipzig (since 1955) there are parks named after Clara Zetkin .
• Since 2007, the Industriegewerkschaft Metall Union in Frankfurt am Main has presented the Clara Zetkin Prize for its contribution to the movement for women's equal rights.
• In 2011, the Klara Zetkin Parliamentary International Prize was established in Germany for “outstanding achievements of women in society and politics”.
• The Left Party Hall in the Bundestag is named after Clara Zetkin.
• The entrance to the Bundestag from the side of Wilhelmstrasse , house 65, since 2012 has been named after Clara Zetkin.

The name of Clara Zetkin named streets in the settlements

• • Germany
    • Dresden , Erfurt
    • In Berlin, there was Klara Zetkin Street (now Dorotheenstraße)
  • Belorussia
    • Brest , Minsk , Rogachev , Mogilyov, Pinsk
  • Georgia
    • In Tbilisi (earlier - Elisavetinskaya, now M. Tsinamdzgvrishvili )
  • Kazakhstan
    • Almaty , Karaganda , Semey , Taraz , Uralsk , Ust-Kamenogorsk , Shymkent , Petropavlovsk, Rudny .
  • Transnistrian Moldavian Republic
    • Bender , Tiraspol
  • Russia
    • Almetyevsk , Astrakhan , Bataysk , Bryansk , Vladimir , Volgograd , Voronezh , Georgiyevsk, Dinskaya (Krasnodar Territory), Yekaterinburg , Zarechny (Sverdlovsk Region), Irkutsk , Iskitim , Yoshkar-Ola , Kazan , Kaliningrad , Kameshkovo , Kemerovo , Kerch , Kishekovo , Kerch , Yoshkar-Ola , Kazan , Kaliningrad , Kameshkovo , Kemerovo , Kerch , Kishekovo , Kerch , Yoshkar-Ola , Kazan , Kaliningrad , Kameshkovo , Kemerovo , Kerk , Yekarlov , Osh , Kazan , Kaliningrad , Kameshkovo , Kemerovo , Kerk , Yekarlov , Osh , Kazan , Kaliningrad , Kurgan , Lipetsk , Magnitogorsk , Mineralnye Vody, Moscow , Nalchik , Novokuibyshevsk , Novorossiysk , Novosibirsk , Omsk , Opochka , Penza , Perm , Podolsk , Pyatigorsk , Rostov-on-Don, Samara , Sebezh , Serov , Sibay , Sosnovka (in Azov German national district of the Omsk region ), Stavropol , Stara Russa , Sterlitamak , Syktyvkar , Tuapse , Tuymazy , Tula , Tobolsk, Tyumen , Ulyanovsk , Usolye-Siberian , Hadyzhensk , Chelyabinsk , Shatura , Yakutsk , Solikamsk.
    • In Galich of the Kostroma region there is Klara-Zetkin street (through a hyphen).
    • In Vologda (in the 1990s, the former name Blagoveshchenskaya was returned)
    • In Grozny (renamed to Avtorkhanov St. in 2008)
    • In Kaluga (in the 1990s, the former name Nikolo-Kozinskaya was returned)
    • In Tobolsk (in the 1990s, a new name was given - Remezova)
    • Simferopol
    • Theodosius
    • Yalta
  • Uzbekistan
    • Andijan , Tashkent
  • Ukraine
    • Kiev , Donetsk , Lugansk , Khartsyzk , Lysychansk .
    • Until recently, Klara Zetkin Street was also in Lutsk (it was renamed Ulas Samchuk Street).
    • Clara Zetkin’s lane was in Odessa (currently renamed Lutheran Lane).
    • In Chernivtsi (Western Ukraine ) was Klara Zetkin Street (now Pink)
    • In the village Velikodolinskoe ( Odessa region ) was Klara Zetkin Street, now renamed in ul. Black Sea
    • Since February 2016, Klara Zetkin Street has been renamed in Kramatorsk (Donetsk region) in honor of Ekaterina Belokur .
    • in the Dnieper ( Dnipropetrovsk region ), now renamed in the street named after VI. Mossakovsky .

• Memorials and monuments
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  House Museum of Clara Zetkin in Birkenwerder

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  Clara Zetkin House-Museum in Königshain-Waiderau ( Middle Saxony )

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  Monument to Clara Zetkin in Dresden

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  Monument to Clara Zetkin in Leipzig

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  Monument to Clara Zetkin in Neubrandenburg

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  Monument to Clara Zetkin in Berlin

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  Monument to Clara Zetkin in Königshain-Waiderau ( Middle Saxony )

• On money and postage stamps
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  Clara Zetkin on the GDR banknote

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  Postage stamp of the USSR , 1957

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  Postage stamp Hungary , 1960

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  Postage stamp of the GDR , 1955

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  Postage stamp of the GDR , 1957

• Rosa Luxemburg, ( Czechoslovakia , Germany ), dir. Margaret von Trotta (1985).

For her merits in the international communist and labor movement Clara Zetkin was awarded the Order of Lenin (1932) and the Red Banner (1927) ^[8] .

• Zetkin K. Women's issue: Per. with him. - Gomel: Gomel Worker, 1925. - 70 p.
• Zetkin K. Lenin and the liberation of women. - M .: Mosk. Worker, 1925. - 25 p.
• Zetkin K. International Women's Communist Day: A report at a meeting of agitators in the MK RCP (B.) On February 12, 1925. - M .: Mosk. worker, 1925. - 61 p.
• Zetkin K. Essay on the history of the emergence of the proletarian women's movement in Germany: Trans. from the manuscript. - M .: Kom. Acad., 1929. - 158 p.
• Clara Zetkin. Collection of articles and materials, M., 1933.
• Zetkin K. On literature and art / Preface., Trans. articles and footnotes. M.M. Corallova. - M .: Goslitizdat, 1958. - 132 p.: Portr.
• Zetkin K. Socialism will come to victory only with a female proletarian / Preface. A. Itkina. - M .: Gospolitizdat, 1960. - 99 p .: portr.
• Zetkin K. Memories of Lenin . - M .: Politizdat, 1968. - 62 p.
• Zetkin K., Lenin's Testaments to women around the world. - M .: Politizdat, 1974. - 72 p.
• Zetkin K. Art - Ideology - Aesthetics: Per. with him. - M .: Art, 1982. - 416 p.
• Clara Zetkin: Selected Writing, Clara Zetkin, 1991 ISBN 0-7178-0611-1
• Clara Zetkin. Art and the proletariat

• Krupskaya N. K. Clara Zetkin. - M., 1933.
• Peak V. Clara Zetkin / Per. with him., M., 1957.
• Ilberg G. Clara Zetkin / Trans. with him. and note. A. Shtekli. - M .: Mol. Guard, 1958. - 206 s .: ill., porr.
• Boyarskaya Z. S. Klara Zetkin / Boyarskaya Z. S. - Moscow: Sotsekgiz, 1959. - 115 p .: ill., Portr.
• Klarin V.M. Klara Zetkin in the struggle for the communist education of the youth, M., 1963.
• Guro I.R. Alder Alley: The Story of Clara Zetkin. - M .: Politizdat, 1973. (Flaming revolutionaries). - 415 s, il. Also. - 2nd ed. - 1976. - 415 s, il.
• L. Dorneman. I declare the Reichstag meeting open ...: The life and work of Clara Zetkin. Per. with him. - M .: Politizdat, 1976. - 518 pp., Ill.
• Moscow. Encyclopedia. Ch. ed. A. L. Narochnitsky. - M .: "Soviet Encyclopedia", 1980. - 688 p. with ill.

Foreign literature

• Clara Zetkin: Selected Writing, Clara Zetkin, 1991 ISBN 0-7178-0611-1
• Clara Zetkin. Eine Auswahibibliographie der Schriften von und über Clara Zetkin, B., 1957.
• Clara Zetkin as a Socialist Speaker Dorothea Reetz, 1987 ISBN 0-7178-0649-9
• Clara Zetkin, Alan Freeman (introduction) ISBN 0-7453-0453-2

• Clara Zetkin - speech at the Reichstag meeting
• Clara Zetkin - quotes, aphorisms .