The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-12-23
Enroll Working Women Into
the Party
BY ANNA DAMON.

THE Address of the Communist International
to the Communist Party of the United
states and the decisions of the Sixth Congress
of the Communist International and the
Tenth Plenum of the Comintern put very def
mite tasks before our Party. To put them
into effect the October Plenum of the Com
munist Party of the United States decided on
nationwide recruiting drive. The success
of this drive will enable our Party to carry
through the tasks of the third period and will
be the best answer to all the enemies of our
Party and the Communist International
The conditions for winning large sections of
the working class for the Communist Party
of the United States are very opportune
Capitalist naturalization, speed-up, longer
hours, lowering of general conditions of the
workers, has brought about rapid radicaiza-
ton of the working women and of the work
ing class generally as eXemplified by the
class battles in mining, textile, needle, and
shoe industries all over the country in which
women play very important part, militantly
resisting the bosses offensive. 1t will be the
task of the Party, especially during the re-
cruiting drive, to recruit the most militant
and class conscious working women into our
Party.
What Lenin Taught.
The industries assigned to each district for
concentration, employ large numbers of work
ing women. This means that we will have to
enroll in the ranks of the Party during this
campaign, working women from basic and war
industries While the campaign applies to
workers a whole, special methods will have
to be employed to reach the women. What
Comrade Lenn taught us about reaching
women in czarist Russia is applicable to i'm
periaist America today. Comrade Lenin said:
"The working women must be taught to
fight together with the against the
tyranny of the capitalists, to fight for So
ciaI legislation. for a shorter working day,
for better wages. The working and peasant
women must be taught to fight together with
their brothers and husbands against czarism
and against capitalism for their full eman-
cipatiOn. The lesson is taught first of all
by the factory itself, which unites the work
ing men and women into one family of
labor"
While the Importance of work among women
has been accepted by our Party in theory, very
little has been carried out in practice. There
still exists in our Party very grave under
estimation of the importance Of work among
women, remnants of social democratic ten
denotes In many districts work among women
is considered the task of the Women's De
partment or the women members of the Party
only. We must recognize the Importance of
this work in the present period of rationaliza-
ton, and combine our present membership
drive with building the apparatus for work
among women. In letter sent us by the
International Women's Secretariat of the CT,
they say in part the following:
"The C. P. can only function as a leader
of the proIetarat of the USA insofar as it
recognizes (not merely theoretically but in
practice) how to arouse and organize the
working women and understands how to do
it."
In the present period of postwar capital