Author: thefreeonline

No revolution without women’s liberation. No women’s liberation without revolution.

by Anarchist Communist Group on 8th March 2025 via thefreeonline at https://wp.me/pIJl9-Gg3 Telegram t.me/thefreeonline/2510

March 8th is International Women’s Day. Every year, capitalist institutions, media, and politicians show their support, forgetting the Day’s working class and anti-capitalist origins.

This date actually commemorates March 8th 1909, when 129 women employees of a cotton textile factory in New York were killed when the factory boss set fire to the factory while all of them were inside making a protest demanding labour rights.

It was the German social democrat Clara Zetkin who proposed the idea of an International Women’s Day in 1910 at the International Congress of the Second International in Copenhagen. She wanted to unite women together behind the German Social Democratic Party to counter the suffragists who were concentrated only on the vote for women. Zetkin was inspired by the American initiative in response to the fire of 1909.

March 8th is therefore a celebration of resistance and commemoration of working class women’s continued oppression and exploitation. It is not a day to celebrate all the women bosses, politicians and millionaires. It is a day of struggle that it is there to recall all the inequalities, all the violence, all the oppressions of the patriarchal system which is embedded within capitalism and to make visible the struggles of women. It is especially significant at a time when rights of women and LGBT+ are under attack from right-wing groups, both religious and secular.

Statistics from all over the world show how far we are from ending exploitation and oppression.

· Women in the UK do 60% more unpaid work (housework, caring for children and others) than men. This is the case even when women are working in paid employment.

· Royal College of Psychiatrists found that violence and abuse is a major cause of mental ill health amongst women and girls.

· UK mothers earned £4.44 less an hour less than fathers

· According to the International Labour Organisation: Around the world, finding a job is much tougher for women than it is for men. When women are employed, they tend to work in low-quality jobs in vulnerable conditions, and there is little improvement forecast in the near future.

· In 2015, 1 in 4 Japanese women suffered violence from a partner, according to government statistics.

· In the USA, 23 women were murdered each month by a partner.

· Worldwide, more than 650 million alive today were married as children. This continues as every year 12 million girls are married before they reach the age of 18.

· Two women a week are killed by a current or former partner in England and Wales.

Image:Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Demonstration, New York

· Transgender people are over four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violent victimisation, including rape, sexual assault, and aggravated or simple assault, according to a new study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.

· About 215 000 violent sexual crimes were recorded by the police in the European Union in 2015. A third of these (nearly 80 000) were rapes. More than 9 in 10 rape victims and more than 8 in 10 sexual assault victims were girls and women, while nearly all those imprisoned for such crimes were male (99%).

· 81% of 10-year-old girls in the USA are afraid of gaining weight and 42% of pre-teen girls want to lose weight.

· The World Health Organisation that over 200 million girls and women worldwide have been affected by female genital mutilation (FGM). An additional 3 million are at risk of FGM every year.

· Globally, girls face a greater risk of illiteracy than their male peers. Approximately 496 million adult women worldwide cannot read and write (Readingpartners.org) – this is 2/3 of the illiterate population around the world.

And yet, year after year, more and more women are saying no and fighting against patriarchy in all its forms, at work, at home, in the street. This fight needs to be against all forms of oppression and explicitly anti-capitalist. Capitalism, born from commercial expansion by force of arms during colonisation then structured around large-scale industry, developed after patriarchy, which is based on the subjection of women and which is thousands of years old. These systems of domination must be abolished.

Any feminist position which does not combat capitalist exploitation amounts to maintaining in place a system which exploits women and men, which benefits from the free or underpaid work of women. Feminist, anti-capitalist, anti-racist struggles cannot be separated. That common struggle must be reaffirmed.

No revolution without women’s liberation. No women’s liberation without revolution.

Declan Hayes

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From an anarcho-communist perspective, the story is not about good versus evil states but about imperialism, nationalism, and the manipulation of working-class people by ruling elites.

by The Polar Bl@st   on 6th March 2025   via thefreeonline    at  https://wp.me/pIJl9-G8H

Introduction The war between Russia and Ukraine is often presented as a clear-cut narrative of imperial aggression versus national defence.

In mainstream discourse, Russia is portrayed as the sole aggressor, with Ukraine as a victim bravely defending its sovereignty…..

However, this oversimplified framing serves the interests of Western imperialism, NATO expansionism, and global capitalist powers, while conveniently ignoring the complexities of the conflict—particularly the long-standing tensions in the Donbas region.

From an anarcho-communist perspective, the story is not about good versus evil states but about imperialism, nationalism, and the manipulation of working-class people by ruling elites. A more nuanced analysis recognises that the seeds of this war were planted long before the 2022 invasion, especially in the political and military developments following the 2014 Maidan uprising and the subsequent conflict in Donbas.

Acknowledging that Ukraine played a role in escalating this conflict—particularly through its actions in Donbas—does not justify Russian imperialism. Instead, anarchists must reject both Russian and Ukrainian state violence, embracing revolutionary defeatism. In this war, as in all wars between states, the true enemy is not the “other” nation but the capitalist class and state structures that profit from bloodshed. Our rallying cry must remain: No War but Class War.

The Donbas Conflict—Roots of the War

To understand the origins of the war, it’s essential to focus on the Donbas region—an industrial heartland in eastern Ukraine, home to a significant Russian-speaking population. Following the 2014 Maidan uprising, which overthrew Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, the new government in Kyiv moved toward stronger alignment with Western powers and NATO. This shift triggered deep political and cultural tensions in Donbas, where many felt alienated by the central government’s increasingly nationalist policies.

The Ukrainian government’s actions following Maidan were perceived by many in Donbas as oppressive. Efforts to suppress Russian language rights, promote nationalist narratives, and sideline the region’s economic interests deepened resentment. This was compounded by Kyiv’s decision to launch a military operation against separatists in Donbas, known as the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO). While the separatist movements were undoubtedly supported and exploited by Russia, it is equally true that their emergence was fuelled by real grievances and fears of cultural erasure and economic marginalisation.

The war in Donbas quickly turned into a brutal conflict, with both Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists committing human rights violations. Entire cities were devastated, thousands of civilians were killed, and the working class on both sides bore the brunt of the violence. The people of Donbas became pawns in a geopolitical struggle between Ukrainian nationalism, Russian imperialism, and Western capitalist interests.

From an anarchist perspective, this conflict reveals the failures of both nationalism and state power. The people of Donbas were not fighting for liberation but caught between two oppressive systems—each using their suffering to justify their own political goals.

Ukraine’s Role in Escalating the Conflict

Nato urged to enforce conscription

Mainstream narratives often ignore Ukraine’s role in escalating the war, particularly through its military actions in Donbas and policies that alienated the region’s Russian-speaking population. Following the 2014 revolution, the Ukrainian government pursued a nationalist agenda that included laws restricting the use of the Russian language and glorifying nationalist figures with historical ties to fascist movements.

While these actions were framed as moves toward national unity and decommunisation, they were experienced in Donbas as cultural aggression. The central government’s refusal to engage in meaningful dialogue with the separatist regions and the imposition of military solutions over political negotiations exacerbated the crisis.

The Ukrainian military campaign in Donbas was brutal and indiscriminate, with reports of shelling civilian areas, enforced disappearances, and abuses by nationalist militias integrated into the armed forces, such as the Azov Battalion. These actions alienated not just pro-Russian separatists but also many ordinary working-class people in the region who wanted peace but found themselves caught between Kyiv’s aggression and Russia’s opportunism.

Acknowledging these facts doesn’t absolve Russia of responsibility, nor does it imply support for its imperial ambitions. Instead, it highlights the reality that both the Ukrainian and Russian states have used the people of Donbas as tools in their struggle for regional dominance.