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The continuing debate inside the Women's Liberation Movement (WLM) about the relation between women's liberation and the class struggle, the massive rejection of Selma James' anti-trade-union positions at the last WL conference, and the growth of a socialist current within the WLM, make an article on the relationship between the revolutionary organisation (The Leninist Party) and that layer of people radicalised around the question of women's oppression and loosely grouped in the WLM timely, not to say overdue.
For discussion, both inside the WLM and in the revolutionary groups., on the relation between capitalism and women's oppression, class struggle and women's struggle, Marxism and feminism, has overwhelmingly been characterised by a failure to confront the key problem of defining the relationship between the WLM and the revolutionary organisation (which is a specific instance of a more general relationship between the revolutionary organisation on the one hand and on the other the mass vanguard" that is constituted by all those who have become radicalised during the big upturn in the class struggle in the advanced capitalist countries since 1967-68). Nor has this problem been explicitly taken up either by those militants of the left groups who are active also in the WLM or by those members of the WLM who reject the revolutionary groups as male-dominated. However, the precondition for transforming the present WLM into a movement of mass proportions is that the revolutionary organisation should become capable of playing a leading role in this process. The problem is thus an urgent one-this article is only a preliminary attempt to define it.
'WOMEN'S POLITICS' v. LENINISM R evolutionary Marxists active in the WLM find themselves confronted by a very powerful ideological current which argues that the Leninist theory of organisation has no relevance-certainly no immediate relevance-to women's struggle against their oppression. For some exponents of this current there is an automatic contradiction between being a militant and being active in the WLM, for others the question of a party is for a distant future. Many feel that the WLM represents, if only in embryo, the rise of a new' politics which challenges capitalism by drawing into the struggle all the oppressed. Unlike the organisations of the working-class, which are bureaucratised, hierachical, male-dominated and antidemocratic, the WLM is seen as being truely democratic abolishing the seperation between the private and political, between the leaders and the led; it tolerates no division of labour because to do so implies a departure from true democracy. Instead of demanding an adherence to a strategic political programme, all that the WLM demands from its members is a sincere commitment to women's liberation: the movements" practice is left to the spontaneity of its members. This is sometimes called 'women's politics" or the "new politics" and occasionally and in a slightly different context. "community politics. It is not difficult to discover that this "new politics is actually a rather old politics, a politics which is neither social-democratic or Leninist but that of spontaneity. Its arguments, as often as not, are accepted even by those who claim adherence to Marxism inside the WLM. What underpins them all is a belief that the WLM is women's answer to Leninism.
SYLVIA PANKHURST There have been various attempts inside the WLM to provide a "scientifie" basis for the concept of women's politics, a concept which leads to the view that women's priority lies in the development of a spontaneous, autonomous women's movement. This very aim forces the theorists of, for example, the mode of reproduction to depart from the terrain of classical Marxism as soon as they start. They postulate an inverse relationship between the mode of production and the mode of reproduction, or set up a model of capitalism in which the two compete for dominance. This argument is taken up elsewhere in this issue of SW!, what is relevant for us here is that in these theories the fundamental concept of Marxism, that of a class, is replaced by the category of "sex" and the Leninist theory of organisation is rejected in favour of an autonomous movement of Revolutionary Marxists have dismissed the concept of women's politics without trying to understand precisely why anti-Leninism is so strong in the WLM. The reasons are complex but we can identify three crucial factors: a) The origins of these politics are to be found in the historical and political conditions that produced the WLM. The mass vanguard, of which the WLM is an important and integral part, arose first of all on the basis of solidarity with the colonial revolutions (Cuba, Vietnam) and was strengthened by a deep crisis of confidence in the imperialist metropolises. This radicalisation took & Women's Liberation
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place outside the traditional organisations of the working class and in reaction against the bureaucratic leadership of these organisations and was combined with an initial relative passivity of the working-class. This spontaneous revolt against capitalism produced an optimistic belief that capitalism can be successfully challenged and perhaps even overthrown with or without the working-class by a spontaneous movement of the oppressed social layers. Hence the ideology of spontaneity is a general feature of the mass vanguard. b) The continuing dominance of this politics inside the WLM cannot be reduced to the historical factors present at its birth. This movement did not deline, like the student movement, with the entry of the working-class into the political arena. On the contrary, it has continued to grow and produce a considerable literature and ferment of ideas. While the movement here in Britain has not achieved the dimensions of that in the United States, (Which partly explains the strong American influence) it has nevertheless survived all predictions of its imminent disappearance, grown in numerical strength, developed theoretically and responded very positively to the upsurge in the working-class struggle of the last two years. The continuing presence of the WLM is one important indication that the social crisis of the capitalist order continues unabated. But that the politics of spontaneity continue to dominate this layer of the mass vanguard is a direct consequence of the failure of the revolutionary groups to react sufficiently swiftly, or in an adequate fashion to this new front opening in the class struggle. At the level of theory, the revolutionary left has largely failed to understand the precise connection between women's oppression and the class nature of society; and how the basic contradiction: of the system the contradiction between the level of development attained by the productive forces and the maintenance of capitalist relations of production-affects the social division of labour between men and women in general and its weak link, the family, in particular. While accusing the WLM of petty-bourgeois feminism, it has itself failed to understand and explain in its platforms and documents, in the organisation of its work in this field, in its general political practice-the link between the class struggle and the struggle for women's emancipation.
Work on the question of women's oppression has been approached in a sectoral fashion. And where such work has been done, the analysis of women's oppression adopted has been very much influenced by the relatively sophisticated theoretical production of the WLM itself. Ironically, instead of the revolutionary vanguard hegemonising the WLM it has been the WLM that has largely hegemonised the revolutionary vanguard on this question. This is a real case of the crippled supporting the blind, for the revolutionary vanguard has acted as if the question of women's oppression was seperate from the mainstream of the class struggle, while the feminists in the WLM have argued that the class struggle is more or less irrelevant to women's liberation.
Thus the revolutionary left has consistently taken into the WLM, not the whole of its political programme, but only a part, ie. it has talked 'women's politics' to women. The political vacuum left by the revolutionary left's failure to hegemonise the WLM was filled by other ideologies. Anti-Leninism has thus continued to dominate this movement since the revolutionary left has not shown itself able to offer anything that was not already supplied by the movement itself: it was after all the WLM that radicalised hundreds of women and encouraged them to break with a traditional role seen as increasingly unbearable. c) A third factor of crucial importance to the continuing anti-Leninist slant of the WLM, closely related to those above but needing to be spelled out, concerns the history of Leninism. The anti-Leninist of the present WLM relies on the feeling that the oppression of women is not really anthing to do with the oppression of one class by another under capitalism (and all preceding modes of production). After all, what is the position of women in the non-capitalist countries? True, a great deal has been achieved in these with respect to the position of women, but women have certainly not become the equal to men. Of course, the explanation for this can only be given in terms of the concrete history of Leninism, of the degeneration of the first workers" and the international Communist movement. The rise of the WLM does not undermine the fundamental thesis of Marxism, which is that the proletariat is the only revolutionary force capable of overthrowing capitalism and replacing it with a socialist order. What it does do is to undermine all workerist and economistic tendencies on the revolutionary left, and all spontaneist theories of mass struggle. It is increasingly realised that the WLM cannot take on really mass movement proportions without joining the working class struggle and that the struggle for women's liberation has to be carried on within the framework of the political activity of the MALE CHAUVINISM IN THE REVOLUTIONARY ORGANISATION A major contribution of the WLM has been to document in great detail all apsects of women's social inferiority. The social division of labour between men and women in capitalist society is reflected at all levels, including within the organisations of the working class. As long as women are oppressed in society at large, men will tend to have a numerical majority even inside therevolutionary party. For the social division of labour between men and women makes it hard for female comrades to be as active as male ones. The subordinate position of women in society at large means that within the revolutionary organisation men too, even if only subconsciously, tned to treat women as inferior and women tend to act diffidently, thus helping to perpetuate the male image of them. An invisible mechanism is thus set up resulting in what the WLM would call a male dominated organSHASH TREECE IMG Militants on International Wome
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The problem of male chauvinism inside the revolutionary organisation cannot be reduced to the personal attitudes of its male and female members. It affects the overall practice of the organisation. The number of women in positions of responsibility is invariably much smaller than would be expected from their numerical strength in the organisation as a whole. This means a massive under-utilisation of the talents and skills of the membership, a failure to realise its full political potential. Male chauvinism is also visible in the relative lack of importance that tends to be given to work among the masses on the question of women's oppression. Documents and platforms tend to treat the question of women's oppression as something separate from the mainstream of the class struggle, as an area of work which is basically the responsibility of women. This results in the effective autonomy of this work from other activities of the organisation. Political and organisational decisions which at each stage appear to be governed by purely technical considerations in effect reproduce the sexual division of labour inside the organisation-what Lenin called 'feminism a la rebours". Thus in a number of very concrete ways male chauvinism transcends the frame work of personal attitudes and becomes an obstacle to transformation of the organisation into a revolutionary party capable of leading the political struggle of the proletariat at all levels of the society. A party under the sway of male chauvinism will be severely hampered in its efforts to bring the female masses into revolutionary polities. Moreover, once the political power of the bourgeoisie is overthrown, such a party will not be capable of leading the working masses in the construction of It is instructive here to consider a historical example: the German Social-Democratic Party at the beginning of this century. As is well known, the SPD held that while it was absolutely necessary for the proletariat to conquer political power (the state), it was not necessary that the oxisting state should be smashed. Hence for the SPD, the parliamentary struggle was of paramount importance and provided the ground upon which it built its entire political strategy. The founding conference of the SPD put the demand for equality of all, regardless of sex, race etc into its programme.
BR But for a long time this was just so many words-until the question of electoral reform became an acute political problem. As Kollantai reports: "The Party's indifference ((to the question of women's oppression)) had deep and vital roots in the following: while women were deprived of political rights, the involvement of women in the party politics had incomparably less significance for the immediate success of the Social Democrats than energetic work among the male proletariat. Agitation among women workers was somehow intangible-it was work, not for the present, but only for the remote future. The question of radical reform of the electorial system brought women too into the circle of the political fight. Getting women workers.
Kollontat these possible future voters, into the Party life acquired a topical interest'.
The main principle around which SPD organised its work in this field was that of separation and autonomy of agitation among women. This was justified on the basis that, although the women's struggle was inseparable from the general working-class movement, it had certain specific features due to the specificity of women's social position. Thus the fact that women were also mothers gave rise to special demands-labour protection of nursing mothers, creches, struggle against prostitution etc. In Germany women at that time had fewer political rights than men (for example, they were not allowed to join political organisations). For women to become politicised required a far more radical break with traditional morals, concepts and customs than was the case for men.
All these factors were seen as demanding a separate structure for agitation among women: commission, bureaux, etc staffed by women. The Central Committee of the Party always had a woman member in charge of