Clara Zetkin Quotes

• For reforms ameliorate the situation of the working class, they lighten the weight of the chains labour is burdened with by capitalism, but they are not sufficient to crush capitalism and to emancipate the workers from their tyranny.

  Clara Zetkin

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Capitalism, Emancipated, Lighten, Burdened, Tyranny, Chain

• What made women’s labour particularly attractive to the capitalists was not only its lower price but also the greater submissiveness of women.

  Clara Zetkin

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Particularly, Submissive, Capitalist

• When a battle for suffrage is conducted, it should only be conducted according to socialist principles, and therefore with the demand of universal suffrage for women and men.

  Clara Zetkin

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Battle, Suffrage, Conducted, Demand

• When the men kill, it is up to us women to fight for the preservation of life.

  Clara Zetkin

  Topics in Life

  Tags in Preservation, Fight

• Women’s propaganda must touch upon all those questions which are of great importance to the general proletarian movement. The main task is, indeed, to awaken the women’s class consciousness and to incorporate them into the class struggle.

  Clara Zetkin

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Awaken, Proletarians, Touch

• In individual industries where female labour pays an important role, any movement advocating better wages, shorter working hours, etc., would not be doomed from the start because of the attitude of those women workers who are not organized.

  Clara Zetkin

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Advocating, Doomed, Wages, Labour

• The workers have nothing to gain from this war, but they stand to lose everything that is dear to them.

  Clara Zetkin

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Dear, Worker

• These interests of the workers, as the exploited and oppressed, class of society, are the same in all countries.

  Clara Zetkin

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Oppressed, Countries, Worker

• When the men are silent, it is our duty to raise our voices in behalf of our ideals.

  Clara Zetkin

  Topics in Ideals

  Tags in Voices, Scenic

• Social Democratic and trade union organs have approved of the illegal invasion of Belgium, of the massacre of suspected guerrillas, as well as their wives and children, as well as the destruction of their homes in various towns and districts.

  Clara Zetkin

  Tags in Estruction, Approved, Various, Massacre

• The capitalists speculate on the two following factors: the female worker must be paid as poorly as possible and the competition of female labour must be employed to lower the wages of male workers as much as possible.

  Clara Zetkin

  Tags in Lower, Speculate, Worker

• The machines, the modern mode of production, slowly undermined domestic production and not just for thousands but for millions of women the question arose: Where do we now find our livelihood?

  Clara Zetkin

  Tags in Livelihoods, Undermined

• The most disastrous phenomenon of the current situation is the factor that imperialism is employing for its own ends all the powers of the proletariat, all of its institutions and weapons, which its fighting vanguard has created for its war of liberation.

  Clara Zetkin

  Tags in Imperialism, Disastrous, Vanguard, Employing

• The proletarian woman fights hand in hand with the man of her class against capitalist society.

  Clara Zetkin

  Tags in Proletarian, Capitalist

• We are not making this demand for the sake of a principle, but in the interests of the proletarian class.

  Clara Zetkin

  Tags in Sake, Proletarians

• We would, however, perform an injustice to the bourgeois women’s rights movement if we would regard it as solely motivated by economics. No, this movement also contains a more profound spiritual and moral aspect.

  Clara Zetkin

  Tags in Movement, Bourgeois, Rights

• What practical conclusions may we now draw for our propaganda work among women? The task of this Party Congress must not be to issue detailed practical suggestions, but to draw up general directions for the proletarian women’s movement.

  Clara Zetkin

  Tags in Task, Movement, Conclusions, Proletarian

• Each reform, therefore, improving the economical and political situation of the workers proves to be an arm that increases the energy with which the proletarian struggle of classes is fought.

  Clara Zetkin

• Bourgeois society is not fundamentally opposed to the bourgeois women’s movement, which is proven by the fact that in various states reforms of private and public laws concerning women have been initiated.

  Clara Zetkin

Clara Zetkin (19)

Birth:	5th July, 1857
Death:	20th June, 1933
Nationality:	German
Profession:	Activist, Lawyer, Politician, Theorist

About

Clara Zetkin was born in Wiederau, Saxony, Germany. She was a German Marxist theorist, activist, advocate for women's rights and politician. In 1911, she organized the first International Women's Day. Having studied to become a teacher, Zetkin developed connections with the women's movement and the labour movement in Germany from 1874. In 1878 she joined the Socialist Workers' Party. In 1890 its name was changed to its modern version Social Democratic Party of Germany. Zetkin was memorialized on the ten mark banknote and twenty mark coin of the German Democratic Republic. In 1954, the GDR established the Clara Zetkin Medal to honor women particularly active for women's rights.

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