The editorial of the first issue of Revolutionärin, the magazine of the Revolutionary Women’s Collective in Austria.
We are the revolutionary women’s` collective (Revolutionäres Frauenkollektiv), a union consisting of women from the youth organization REVOLUTION as well as from the League of Socialist Revolution (LSR). In times like these it is enormously important that revolutionary-socialist structures organize themselves, that’s why the RFK was founded in July 2009.
The current system – Capitalism – has fallen into a period of historical crisis. This crisis manifests itself in different manners. Banks and enterprises are almost bankrupt and the capitalist state is spending millions of tax dollars to save them. In the year 2008 billions of people all over the world fell into complete poverty after prices for staple foods rose sharply. Hunger-riots and mass-uprisings became more common, especially in third world countries. Also in Austria we are confronted with growing unemployment-rates and a massive increase of people living below the poverty line. In times like these especially women suffer some of the worst aggravations. Although historically we are being oppressed for thousands of years the ruling class in this period of crisis imposes even more on us.
It’s women who are affected more strongly by the cuts in our social system and our workplaces.
Unsafe employment relationships, so called precarious jobs, are mainly done by women. The pension cuts affect us very hard, after all the average woman’s pension is only half of a males pension – and this situation was current even before the crisis. The ruling class is saving on day care and it’s us women who are called to jump in and do the work for free. Since the beginning of the economical crisis violence against women has risen massively. This list can be extended even further with all the wrongs that women suffer under capitalism. In order to defend ourselves against the oppression in so many social sectors, in order to end the discrimination we had to bear for thousands of years, it is necessary to organize the abolishment of all forms of oppression and with it the oppression of women. This not only means that we have fight against inequality in certain sectors (e.g. social sector or educational sector), it also means that we have to fight the cause for this inequality: the ruling class, the capitalist class.
As revolutionary women we see ourselves in the tradition of the revolutionary workers movement. This means that we stand in tradition to the fight of the oppressed class the working class against the capitalists. This is why we decline any political union with bourgeois feminist forces. These feminist groups strive towards the emancipation of women within the capitalist system. They stress the sisterly bond between women of all classes. But we say: Women who are part of the ruling class can stand up for women’s` rights but they also promote attacks against our class, they agree and even conduct wage-cuts, lay-offs and other measures that the capitalist class take against the workers.
These feminists – for an example Alice Schwarzer – even partly approve racist agitation. Whoever actually stands against the oppression of women and fights against it consequently must also fight the entire capitalist system. Those who want equality of women also want the destruction of capitalism.
So we know that we can only free ourselves of oppression if we smash capitalism and build a new system. This new system of actual equality is named socialism and the path towards socialism is a revolution, the destruction of the current system. And the path towards the revolution is the organization in a new revolutionary fifth international – a global party of the working class and all oppressed people. Every single step we walk towards this path brings us closer to the end of women`s oppression.
Download the first issue here