Why Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxemburg quarreled: Big passions and weaknesses of small strong women

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

International Women's Day today is perceived primarily as a holiday of spring and beauty and has long been not associated with the struggle of women for their rights. But these are the goals pursued at the beginning of the twentieth century by Rosa Luxemburg and Clara Zetkin, thanks to whom the holiday of March 8 appeared. During the Soviet era, their images were actually canonized, which made it quite difficult to discern ordinary women, with all their passions and weaknesses, in the textbook fighters for equality. Although it is certainly impossible to call them ordinary, but in the personal life of each of them revolutions were made worse than in the public one.

Parallel destinies

Their fates seemed to develop in parallel and were surprisingly consonant: they were born and raised in different countries and, at first knowing nothing about each other, came to the same ideas. Both from their youth were carried away by social and political activities, the struggle for equality, both were not beauties (small stature, awkward figures, non-cute facial features), but easily conquered men, both ignored the traditional institution of marriage, both in their youth were disillusioned with family life, and at the age of 36, they met men much younger than themselves and lost their heads from them, both in their declining years focused on social work, putting an end to their personal lives. In the end, both were called symbols of the twentieth century and women who destroyed stereotypes about the standards of beauty and the norms of relationships with men.

Clara Eisner, while still at the pedagogical gymnasium, met Osip Zetkin, a revolutionary emigrant from Odessa, with whom she attended secret meetings of the Social Democrats, and then, fleeing persecution of the socialists, left first to Zurich, and then to Paris. They were not officially married, but Klara signed herself with the last name Zetkin. When Osip passed away, they already had two sons.

Rosa Luxemburg had a similar story. She was carried away by revolutionary ideas, while still a high school student, because of her convictions, she was persecuted and left for Switzerland. There she met her first love - Leo Yogiches, with whom she lived without official registration for 16 years. First of all, they were united by political convictions, and although Rosa dreamed of children, Leo constantly reminded her: her main vocation is not the birth of children, but political struggle!

Truth and myths about the "Valkyries of the revolution"

No matter how they were treated both during life and many years later, one thing is certain: they were very extraordinary women who were in many ways ahead of their time. Flamboyant personalities always provoke a lot of rumors, and the figures of Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxemburg have also been mythologized. So, for example, Rosa is often called a native of Russia, although this is not true: in fact, she was born into a Jewish family on the territory of modern Poland, which at that time was part of the Russian Empire. At 18 she moved to Switzerland, at 27 to Germany, where she received German citizenship.

During the Soviet era, they were called the female faces of the revolutionary struggle. In fact, Rosa Luxemburg warmly welcomed the 1917 revolution in Russia, but a year later she spoke very critically about the Bolsheviks: "". She was a communist, but at the same time condemned terror and advocated a peaceful democratic struggle for power. But Clara Zetkin was a convinced communist and thought more radically. Back in 1907, she met Vladimir Lenin, who became her associate. Later, together with Nadezhda Krupskaya, he often visited Zetkin.

There is a myth that the holiday fell on March 8 for the reason that this date was the birthday of Clara Zetkin, or even the day on which she lost her innocence. In fact, she was born on July 5, and history is silent about the second remarkable date. But the legend that March 8 is actually a holiday on February 23 is not a legend at all. It was on February 23, 1917, according to the old style, that Russian communists staged massive demonstrations in Petrograd under the slogan “Bread and Peace!”, In which not only women participated. And the very idea of establishing a special day for women's rallies and processions, Clara Zetkin proposed back in 1910 during a speech at the 8th Congress of the Second International in Copenhagen.

Imaginary "blue stockings"

The most common stereotype about feminists and the biggest misconception about them is that they are supposedly man-haters and blue stockings. This was not true either then or now. The main ideas advocated by Clara Zetkin were equal pay for both sexes, universal suffrage, and the ability for women to decide about abortion and divorce. At the same time, neither Clara nor Rosa ever denied the importance of realizing a woman in family life, although they preferred an open relationship.

Both Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxemburg at the age of 36 met young people whom they loved very much. Clara's chosen one was the artist Georg Friedrich Zundel, who was 18 years younger than her. Together they lived for 17 years and parted because of the difference in views on the First World War - after all, she was a pacifist and was categorically against aggression, and Georg was eager to go to the front. The love story of her companion Rosa Luxemburg was much more dramatic.

At 36, Rosa had a whirlwind romance with the son of Clara's friend Konstantin, who was 14 years younger than her. He saw her at the next congress of the Second International and was impressed by the fiery speech delivered from the rostrum. Their relationship lasted almost 8 years and was very passionate and affectionate. Their love correspondence consisted of more than 600 letters, and they were so intimate that they were published only in part and only today. Although Zetkin herself promoted an open relationship, she could not come to terms with the fact that her son became the chosen one of her friend. Because of this, at first, a conflict arose between the women. But since Clara herself knew firsthand about the passion for a young man, over time she was able to come to terms with such a choice of loved ones. In addition, with Rosa, they became not only comrades-in-arms, but also close friends, and this discord between them was the only one for the entire time of their communication. When Constantine met another woman and left Rosa, it was Clara who consoled her friend, and they restored their former friendship.

In their declining years, both women remained lonely and talked about the fact that their personal life was now replaced by a public one. Rosa's desire to end her life "on a combat post" came true in 1919 in a very prosaic and tragic way: after her arrest, the guards beat her with rifle butts and shot her. Clara Zetkin, fleeing persecution, spent the rest of her days in the USSR and passed away in 1933 at the age of 74. They say that her last word was the name of a friend, the memory of which she kept until her last breath.

For her uncompromising and passionate disposition, she received the nickname Wild Clara: How activist Zetkin solved the "women's question".