THE EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN AND SOCIALISM: The bourgeois revolutions of the past proclaimed the “rights of man” yet in practice never achieved the equality of woman. In fact, the advance of women under capitalism has been partly a byproduct of the class struggle and in part a result of the changed role of women in production. Certain political rights have been won in the advanced capitalist countries (a minority of the world), but genuine emancipation has not been achieved and can never be achieved on the basis of capitalism. As early as 1848, Marx and Engels raised the demand for the abolition of the bourgeois family. However, they understood that the family cannot be abolished at a single stroke. This demand cannot be achieved unless there is a material basis for it. It can only be achieved by the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a new society based upon a harmonious and democratic plan of production, with the involvement of the whole of society in the common tasks of administration. Once the productive forces are freed from the straitjacket of private property and the nation state, it will be possible rapidly to reach an undreamed-of level of economic wellbeing. The old mentality of fear, greed, envy and covetousness will disappear to the degree that the material conditions that give rise to it are removed. The road will be open for a radical transformation of the conditions of life, and thus a transformation of the relations between men and women, and of their entire way of thinking and acting. Without such a giant leap, all talk of changing people’s character and psychology will be just so much clap-trap and deception. Social being determines consciousness. The barbarism of class society, with its emphasis on selfishness, egotism and indifference to human suffering, is a remnant of slavery. The working class itself is not immune to the pressures of bourgeois society, its so-called morality, its hypocrisy and general rottenness. Backward attitudes to women can be found in the ranks of the labour movement and this poison must be combated tooth and nail. We stand for a new society based upon complete equality between men and women, and while it will never be possible to create this new society amidst conditions of capitalist barbarism, we must at least strive for a genuinely proletarian morality and strive to purge the movement of backward attitudes that hinder the unity of men and women workers. On the one hand, it is necessary to understand that under capitalism, any improvements will possess a partial, distorted and unstable character, and will be constantly threatened by the crisis of the system and the general deterioration of condition and social, moral and cultural decay. On the other hand, it is necessary to link the struggle against the oppression of women firmly with the struggle of the working class against capitalism. That is the only possible road to victory. The psychological scars of the old society with its selfish calculation, greed and egotism will not disappear overnight, even after the overthrow of capitalism. A period of time must inevitably elapse before all the old filth finally disappears. But from the very beginning, relations between men and women will begin to improve. The terrible economic pressures that blight lives and distort all human relations will be abolished almost immediately with the introduction of decent jobs, housing and education for all. A democratic socialist plan of production will create the conditions for everyone to participate in the running of society. This will, among other things, abolish the old introverted family, and the atomized individual, and create the conditions for the creation of an entirely different psychology, rooted in the new, free and human relations. The elimination of class society—and eventually of the slave mentality that flows from the dirt of class society—will lead to the creation of a new man and a new woman: free human beings, capable of living together in harmony, as truly liberated persons, free of the old possessive slave psychology. Having freed men and women from the humiliating pursuit of material things, which distorts and degrades human life, it will be possible for the first time for people to relate to each other as humans. Freed from any external coercion, egotistical calculation or humiliating dependence, the relationship between men and women will be free to develop and flourish on the basis of genuine equality.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 13:26:16 +0000
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