This essay was completed while the author held a grant from the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung.

1. At its peak strength the USPD claimed a membership of 893,923 members and in the national elections of June 6, 1920, it polled nearly five million votes, making it the second largest party in the Reichstag. Long neglected by historians except for Prager's, Eugen semiofficial Geschichte der U.S.P.D. (Berlin, 1922), the Independent Social Democratic Party has recently been the subject of a number of doctoral dissertations in Europe and America.Google Scholar See for example Ryder, A. J., “The Independent Social Democratic Party and the German Revolution, 1917–1920” (University of London, 1958);Google ScholarNaumann, Horst, “Der Kampf des revolutionaren Flügels der USPD für den Anschluss an die Kommunistische Internationale und die Vereinigung mit der KPD” (Institut für Gesellschaftswissenschaft, Berlin/DDR, 1961);Google ScholarBuchsbaum, Ewald, “Die Linksentwicklung der Gothaer Arbeiterbewegung von 1914 bis 1920. Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von der Entstehung und Entwicklung des linken revolutionaren Flügels der USPD bis zu dessen Vereinigung mit der Kommunistischen Partei Deutschlands im Dezember 1920” (Universität Halle, 1965);Google ScholarMeiritz, Heinz, “Die Herausbildung einer revolutionaren Massenpartei im ehemaligen Land Mecklenburg-Schwerin unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Vereinigung des linken Flügels der USPD mit der KPD, 1917–1920” (Universität Rostock, 1965);Google ScholarPohland, W., “Die Entwicklung der Arbeiterbewegung in Ost-Thüringen von 1914–1920 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Herausbildung des revolutionären linken Flügels der USPD” (Universität Halle, 1965);Google ScholarWalter, Henri and Engelmann, Dieter, “Zur Linksentwicklung der Arbeiterbewegung im Rhein-Ruhrgebiet unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Herausbildung der USPD und der Entwicklung ihres linken Flügels” (Universität Leipzig, 1965);Google ScholarMorrill, Dan Lincoln, “The Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany and the Communist International: March 1919-October 1920” (Emory University, 1966);Google ScholarSchultz, Eberhard, “Rolle und Anteil des linken Flügels der USPD im ehemaligen Regierungsbezirk Halle-Merseburg bei der Herausbildung und Entwicklung der KPD zur revolutionären Massenpartei, 1917–1920” (Universitat Halle, 1969);Google Scholar and especially Morgan, David, “The German Independent Social Democratic Party, 1918–1922” (St. Antony's College, Oxford, 1969),Google Scholar and Wheeler, Robert F., “The Independent Social Democratic Party and the Internationals: An Examination of Socialist Internationalism in Germany 1915 to 1923” (University of Pittsburgh, 1970).Google Scholar

2. See Manifest, Richtlinien, Beschlüsse des Ersten Kongresses: Aufrufe und offene Schreiben des Exekutivkotnitees bis zum zweiten Kongress (Hamburg, 1920), p. 69.Google Scholar This resolution was published in the Communist women's journal Die Kommunistin on July 7, 1919 (no. 7, p. 54), and in the USPD women's magazine Die Kämpferin on Apr. 1, 1920 (no. 6, p. 46).

3. See Zinoviev, G., Bericht des Exekutivkomitees der Kommunistischen Internationale: An den Zweiten Weltkongress der Kommunistischen Internationale (n.p., 1920), p. 27,Google Scholar and Die Kommunistische Internationale, no. 10, 1920, p. 239. For Zetkin's role in the West European Secretariat see Kendall, Walter, The Revolutionary Movement in Britain 1900–1921 (London, 1969), p. 237.Google Scholar

4. For Zetkin's past in the Socialist women's movement see Dornemann, Luise, Clara Zetkin Leben und Wirken (Berlin/DDR, 1973).Google Scholar

5. In a letter to the author (Dec. 2, 1973), Rosi (Wolfstein) Frölich, one of the participants in this conference, described the gathering as “de facto keine internationale Konferenz kommunistischer Frauen, sondern ein während des II. Weltkongresses meeting der auf diesem Kongress anwesenden weiblichen Delegierten.” A report on “Die erste internationale Konferenz kommunistischer Frauen” in Die Kommunistin, no. 20 (1920), pp. 159–60, characterized the conference as “überstürzt und daher nicht genügend vorbereitet und organisiert.” See also Bericht über die Verhandlungen des 2. [7.] Parteitages der Kommunistischen Partei Deutschlands (Sektion der Kommunistischen Internationale): Abgehalten in Jena vom 22. bis 26. August 1921 (Berlin, 1922), p. 200.Google Scholar

6. For a copy of the “Richtlinien der Kommunistischen Frauenbewegung” which Zetkin submitted to the Second Comintern Congress see Die Kommunistin, no. 22 (1920), pp. 175–76. An expanded version of the same was worked out later in the year under Zetkin's supervision and published “on instructions from the Second Congress” by the ECCI. See Richtlinien fur die kommunistische Frauenbewegung (Lepzig, 1920).Google Scholar Reprinted in Clara Zetkin: Ausgewählte Reden und Schriften, 2 (Berlin, 1960); 260–89.Google Scholar The latter contains the following editorial note: “Der II. Weltkongress der Kommunistischen Internationale konnte wegen Zeitmangel die Frauenfrage nicht, wie urspriinglich vorgesehen, behandeln.”

7. A good deal of material on the Second International Communist Women's Conference can be found in the first four issues (Apr.-July) of Die Kommunistische Frauenintemationale. For a report on the conference, which met on June 15, 1921, by a participant see Hertha Sturm's remarks in Bericht über die Verhandlungen des 2. [7.] Parteitages, pp. 200–207.

8. See for example Hulse, James W., The Forming of the Communist International (Stanford, 1964), esp. pp. 218ff.Google Scholar

9. Nettl, J. P., Rosa Luxemburg (London, 1969), 2: 495–97;Google ScholarEberlein, Hugo, “Spartakus und die Dritte Internationale,” Die Revolution: Geddchtnisnummer zum 5. Jahrestag der Kommunistischen Internationale;Google Scholar and Eberlein, , “Die Gründung der Komintern und der Spartakusbund,” Die Kommunistische Internationale 10 (03 13, 1929): 676.Google Scholar Less well known is the fact that in Die Rote Fahne of Nov. 18, 1918, Luxemburg had urged the immediate calling of a “world congress of workers” to be held in Germany in order to illustrate “clearly and sharply” the socialist and international character of the German Revolution.

10. The first four issues of Die Kommunistin (May 1–June 21, 1919) carried the manifesto of the founding congress along with a favorable comment.

11. By the summer of 1919 pieces by Zetkin were appearing in The Communist International. When the KPD formally affiliated is not completely clear. A report on the founding congress was presented to a national conference on Aug. 16 and 17 in Frankfurt a.M. See Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung: Chronik, 2 (Berlin, 1966): 73.Google Scholar

12. See Thönnessen, Werner, Frauenemanzipation: Politik und Literatur der deutschen Sozialdemokratie zur Frauenbewegung 1863–1933 (Frankfurt a.M., 1969), pp. 86 and 92, concerning the attractiveness of the USPD for Social Democratic women.Google Scholar

13. One measure of this dynamism was the party's tremendous electoral growth. Between the national elections of January 1919 and June 1920 the USPD had increased its share of the popular vote to 18.8%, a gain of 11.2%. By contrast the SPD vote in June 1920 was only 21.6% (a loss of 16.3% since January 1919), while the KPD could manage a mere 1.7%. Another indication was the USPD's success in gaining control of the Metal Workers’ Union (DMV), with 1,608,932 members the largest single labor organization in the country.

14. For example, the women present and voting at the USPD's national congress in Leipzig (Nov.-Dec. 1919) and Halle (Oct. 1920) accounted for 10.6% and 10.9% respectively of all those present and voting, although women made up 15.2% of the USPD membership.

15. See Die Kämpferin, no. 6, June 12, 1919, p. 46 (“Tagung des Frauen-Reichsausschusses”); no. 10, Aug. 7, 1919, p. 80 (“Internationales”); no. 12, Sept. 9, 1919, p. 95 (“Frauenkonferenz für den Bezirk Mecklenburg”); no. 13, Sept. 18, 1919, p. 103 (“Konferenz der Berliner Funktionärinnen”); no. 14, Oct. 2,1919, pp. 105–6 (“Die Tagung des Frauen-Reichsausschusses”); no. 16, Oct. 30, 1919, p. 126 (“Berlin: Die Frauen-Arbeitskommission”); no. 17, Nov. 13, 1919, p. 136 (“Frauenkonferenz der U.S.P. Grossthüringens”); and no. 19, Dec. 11, 1919, pp. 150–51 (“Zur internationalen Frauenkonferenz,” by Emmy Bloch). The subject of this commentary, the International Socialist Women's Conference, had initially been scheduled to meet in Switzerland during late September or early October but for unknown reasons was eventually postponed indefinitely. Although the conference never did manage to convene, Zetkin is reported to have indicated on Feb. 17, 1920, during a visit to Amsterdam on Comintern business that she hoped it might meet in the early summer of that year. See Ibid., no. 7, Apr. 15, 1920, p. 55, which reprinted a report in De proletarische Vrouw of Feb. 21, 1920.

16. For a detailed examination of this “Groundswell for Moscow,” see the author's forthcoming book, USPD und Internationale: Sozialistischer Internationalismus in den Jahren der Revolution (Berlin:Ullstein, 1975), pp. 132ff.Google Scholar

17. See Zietz's remarks at the Saxon, Württemberg, and Silesian district congresses in Prctokoll über die Verhandlungen der ausserordentlichen Landesversammlung der USP Sachsens: Abgehalten am 10. und 11. August 1919 im Volkshaus zu Leipzig (Leipzig, 1919), pp. 128–29,Google ScholarDer Sozialdemokrat (Stuttgart), Oct. 25, 27, 28, 1919Google Scholar, and Schlesische Arbeiterzeitung (Breslau), Nov. 19, 1919. In addition she was often the featured speaker at women's meetings. Born into a weaver's family, the fifty-four-year-old Zietz worked as a maid and as a “Kindergarten” teacher before entering the labor movement on a full-time basis shortly before the turn of the century. The first woman in the national leadership of the SPD, Zietz served as national secretary for women from 1912 to 1916. She was a founding member of the USPD and was elected to its Central Committee at every national congress. Zietz represented the USPD in the National Assembly and the Reichstag.

18. See “Die wahre Internationale” in the July 25, 1919, issue. The thirty-one-year-old Sender came from a middle-class Jewish background and worked as a secretary and translator until becoming editor of the Volksrecht in 1919. Active in the French Socialist Party prior to the summer of 1914, she returned to Frankfurt after the outbreak of war, joined the Opposition and, at its founding, the USPD. A member of the Frankfurt city council in 1919, she was elected to the Reichstag in 1920. Sender had a very close personal relationship with Robert Dissmann, the USPD leader in Frankfurt and DMV chairman.

19. See the Halle Volksblatt, Aug. 15, 1919. Daughter of an old Social Democratic sculptor, the twenty-six-year-old Geyer, an insurance secretary, was active in the Frankfurt Opposition and in 1917, with her husband Kurt, joined the USPD. She resigned her position in the Saxon Landtag to join the staff of the Halle Volksblatt in the summer of 1919, but shortly thereafter took the position of Secretary for the “Zentralstelle der Betriebsräte” in Berlin.

20. See Nemitz's remarks at the Teltow-Beeskow and Pommern district congresses in Freiheit, no. 506, Oct. 20, 1919, and Der Kämpfer (Stettin), Nov. 1, 1919. Like her good friend Luise Zietz the forty-six-year-old Nemitz had a reputation as an effective popular speaker. From a Catholic working-class family, she worked as a seamstress and a housewife until gradually becoming involved full-time in the Social Democratic Women's movement prior to 1914. Elected to the USPD Central Committee at the Berlin Congress in March of 1919, Nemitz also served the party on the Berlin city council and, beginning in June of 1920, as a Reichstag deputy.

21. For example, the Halle, Lower Rhineland, Teltow-Beeskow, Potsdam IV, Western Westphalian, Württemberg, Pomeranian, and Bavarian district organizations had formally declared for the affiliation of the USPD with the Communist International. Exactly how many delegates signed a resolution to this effect at Leipzig is not clear. There is no question, however, that it was a majority, albeit a narrow majority, of the party congress. See, for example, Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, Protokoll über die Verhandlungen des ausserordentlichen Parteitages votn 30. November bis 6. Dezember 1919 in Leipzig (Berlin, n.d.), pp. 382, 397, 431.Google Scholar

22. See the positive comments on “Die Reichsfrauenkonferenz der Unabhangigen Sozialdemokratie” in Die Kommunistin, no. 4, Feb. 1, 1920, pp. 27–29.Google Scholar

23. USPD, Protokoll… Leipzig, p. 481.

24. Besides the thirty-two-year-old Braunthal, an Austrian secretary living in Berlin, the resolution's original sponsors included at least the following supporters of affiliation: Martha Arendsee (Berlin), Anna Kiesel (Reinickendorf), Auguste Lang (Tilsit), and Hanna Porsch (Sensburg.) See Die Kommunistin, no. 20, Dec. 21, 1919, p. 159.

25. USPD, Protokoll…Leipzig, p. 480.

26. Ibid., p. 395.

27. Ibid., p. 391.

28. See the comments of “P. L.,” i.e., KPD chairman Levi, Paul, who was very much in evidence at Leipzig, in Die Rote Fahne, Dec. 14, 1919.Google Scholar

29. USPD, Protokoll…Leipzig, pp. 364–65. Among the leaders of the Opposition during the war, Sender and Anna Geyer had the nickname “Ledebour's nieces.” See Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich, Kurt Geyer: Erinnerungen, p. 77.

30. Die Kommunistin (see above, n. 22), for example, while enthusiastically praising her speech on “Die Frauen und das Rätesystem” (which the USPD eventually published as a pamphlet), branded her public change of heart on the Third International resolution a “klägliche Schauspiel.”

31. I have been able to pinpoint with relative certainty at least twenty-two “switches,” i.e., those who favored affiliation but ultimately voted against it. Of these individuals three were women—Sender, Nemitz, and Anna Ziegler, a delegate from Heilbronn. The thirty-seven-year-old Ziegler, a social worker and housewife who had previously worked as a maid and a dressmaker, was one of the few female county councillors (Gemeinderätin) in Württemberg. In June of 1920 she was elected to the Reichstag.

32. In absolute terms the male vote was 149 nay to 102 yea; the female 19 to 12.

33. The male vote was 201 to 49, the female vote 26 to 5 in favor.

34. There is obviously a problem about the representativeness of this small group of women at the Leipzig Congress. Unfortunately, since the Women's Conference avoided the issue, there is no better measure available.

35. For the Twenty-One Conditions in their entirety see Degras, Jane, ed., The Communist International 1919–1943: Documents, 1 (London, 1956): 166–72.Google Scholar

36. Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, Protokoll der Reichskonferenz vom 1. bis 3. September 1920 zu Berlin (Berlin, n.d.), pp. 90–93, 95–99.Google Scholar Attended by ca. 200 functionaries, this national conference was the first and last real debate at the national level over the Twenty-One Conditions.

37. By the early fall of 1920 there were 135,464 women in the USPD. See Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, Protokoll über die Verhandlungen des ausserordentlichen Parteitages in Halle vom 12. bis 17. Oktober 1920 (Berlin, n.d.), p. 24.Google Scholar

38. See also Zietz's article “Wir und Moskau,” Freiheit, no. 370, Sept. 7, 1920, written at least a week earlier and closely resembling her national conference speech.Google Scholar

39. This statement was made at a meeting of Berlin functionaries. See Ibid., no. 376, Sept. 10, 1920.

40. While Zietz was particularly active in the Greater-Berlin area, Sender, besides writing a detailed and widely circulated refutation of the conditions entitled Diktatur iiber das Proletariat oder: Diktatur des Proletariats (Frankfurt a.M., 1920), made speaking appearances throughout Germany, e.g., in Brunswick, Frankfurt, and Zeitz.Google Scholar

41. See Braunthal, Bertha, “Unsere Frauenreichskonferenz,” Komtnunistische Rundschau, no. 5, Dec. 6, 1920. In an interview on Dec. 8, 1973, Rosi (Wolfstein) Frölich indicated that Zietz had a greater following among women than even Clara Zetkin.Google Scholar

42. In addition to Zietz and Sender the critics included Toni Breitscheid, Emmy Bloch, Herta Geffke, Anni Röttcher-Mertins, Emilie Schröfel, Frieda Unger-Eckert, and Mathilde Wurm. Urging acceptance of the conditions were Martha Arendsee, Bertha Braunthal, Anna Geyer, and Auguste Mané. In the course of the debate Herta Geffke changed her position and accepted the conditions, while four additional USPD women, namely Auguste Drechsel, Ella Seger-Lachmann, Anna Stiegler, and Anna Ziegler, expressed themselves against the conditions after the split. See Die Kämpferin, nos. 17–19, 21–22, and 24, Sept. 16 and 30, Oct. 14, Nov. 11 and 25, and Dec. 23,1920, pp. 129–30, 137–41, 145–48, 162–63, 174, and 186; Freiheit, nos. 388, 390, and 411, Sept. 17, 18, and 30, 1920; Der Kämpfer (Stettin), Sept. 9 and 28, 1920; Komtnunistische Rundschau, nos. 1–2, Oct. 1 and 14, 1920; Gothaer Volksblatt, Sept. 17, 1920; Sozialistische Republik (Karlsruhe), Sept. 27, 1920; Bremer Arbeiter-Zeitung, Nov. 2, 1920.

43. See “Die Frauen und die dritte Internationale,” Freiheit, no. 388, Sept. 17, 1920,Google Scholar and “Die Frau und der Anschluss an die dritte Internationale,” Die Kämpferin, no. 18, Sept. 3, 1920, pp. 137–39.Google Scholar The thirty-four-year-old Arendsee, a former bookkeeper and “Heimarbeiterin,” came from a working-class background and was a leader in the prewar Social Democratic women's movement in her native Berlin. A member of the USPD since its founding, she had voted for affiliation at the Leipzig Congress.

44. See “Die Frauen und die Internationale” and “Die Frauen vor der Entscheidung,” Kommunistische Rundschau, nos. 1 and 2, Oct. 1 and 14, 1920.Google Scholar

45. Of the six articles published in Die Kämpferin prior to the split at Halle only one supported acceptance. For Breitscheid see “Die Frauen und die Moskauer Bedingungen,” Freiheit, no. 411, Sept. 30, 1920.Google Scholar The forty-one-year-old Breitscheid, daughter of a manufacturer, came to the SPD in 1908 with her husband Rudolf after having been active in the democratic women's movement. During and after the war she helped her husband edit the oppositional Sozialistische Auslandspolitik and its successor, the USPD theoretical organ, Der Sozialist.

46. A possible indication of the potency of this line of argumentation was that Breitscheid's article drew a direct response not only from Braunthal but also from the KPD's leading journalist, Dr. August Thalheimer. See “Die kommunistische Internationale und die proletarischen Frauen,” Die Rote Fahne, Oct. 9, 1920.Google Scholar

47. Freiheit, no. 376, Sept. 10, 1920. A close friend of Rosa Luxemburg, the forty-fiveyear- old Wurm, a social worker and prewar Social Democrat, participated in every USPD national congress. She was a Berlin city councilwoman in addition to taking a leading role in the women's movement.

48. See the remarks of Herta Geffke at a general meeting of the USPD Randow- Greifenhagen in Der Kämpfer (Stettin), Sept. 9, 1920. The twenty-seven-year-old Geffke, a former maid and office worker, had joined the labor movement in 1912. She was a member of the USPD Pomeranian leadership. Emmy Bloch, “Fur oder gegen die Bedingungen?” Volksrecht (Frankfurt a.M.), Sept. 24, 1920. A twenty-seven-year-old student, Bloch attended the Leipzig Congress as a delegate from Rostock. Schröfel, Emile, “Zur Internationale,” Die Kämpferin, no. 18, Sept. 30, 1920, pp. 139–41. Schröfel, from Göppingen, was a Die Kämpferin correspondent for Württemberg.Google Scholar

49. Nonetheless, even after the split Reichstag deputy Anna Ziegler could write that the “day will come when the conditions must be changed.” See “Die Parteispaltung in Halle,” Die Kämpferin, no. 22, Nov. 25, 1920, p. 174.Google Scholar

50. According to the USPD's organizational statutes women were supposed to receive representation at least in proportion to their percentage in the party, i.e., ca. 15 %. See USPD, Protokoll…Leipzig, p. 131.

51. Leipziger Volkszeitung, Sept. 30, 1920. Because of a USPD Central Committee ruling requiring direct primaries and proportional representation, the membership generally voted for lists of candidates rather than specific individuals.

52. Volkszeitung (Düsseldorf), Sept. 28, 1920.

53. Bremer Arbeiter-Zeitung, Sept. 15, 1920; Magdeburger Volks-Zeitung, Sept. 29, 1920; Oberfränkische Volkszeituug (Hof), Oct. 4, 1920; Tribüne (Erfurt), Sept. 27, 1920; Reussische Volkszeitung (Greiz), Oct. 9, 1920; Republik (Kiel), Sept. 30, 1920.

54. See the Volkstribüne, Oct. 5, 1920. The vote of the males was 1,356 to 1,287, the females 426 to 316. As of July 1, 1920, there were 12,220 Independent Social Democrats in Elberfeld-Barmen, of whom 2,254 were women.

55. See Reichs, Statistik des Deutschen, Volks-Berufs-und Betriebszählung vom Juni 1925: Berufszählung (Berlin, 1927–29), no. 15, pp. 88 and 94;Google Scholar and Reichsamt für Arbeitsvermittlung, Jahrbuch der Berufsverbände im Deutschen Reich (Berlin, 1922), pp. 95 and 103.Google Scholar

56. The combined vote in these areas was 10,306 to 4,406 against acceptance. For the importance of the textile industry in this region see Berufszählung, no. 10, pp. 106–7, no. 11, pp. 73 and 78, and no. 30, p. 81, and Jahrbuch der Berufsverbände, pp. 95 and 103. Since 1913 the chairman of the Textile Workers' Union had been Hermann Jaeckel, a USPD Reichstag deputy from Plauen im Vogtland.

57. Protokoll der Verhandlungen der ordentlichen Landesversamtnhmg der USP Sachsens: Abgehalten am 12. und 13. September 1920 im Volkshaus zu Leipzig (Leipzig, 1920), p. 60.Google Scholar

58. Volkstribüne (Elberfeld-Barmen), Oct. 18, 1920. In this context it is interesting to note that in the Halle district—one of the centers of USPD strength and an area in which the conditions were overwhelmingly endorsed—the only subdistrict to vote against acceptance in the primary (Naumburg-Weissenfels-Zeitz) also had the highest percentage of women members in the district—ca. 23% compared to a district average of ca. 18%. See the Volksblatt (Halle), Sept. 13, 1920.

59. A “participant” is defined as anyone who either voted for or signed one of the two resolutions submitted to the Halle Congress. This definition is used since at Halle, only elected delegates could vote, whereas at Leipzig members of the party leadership and the Reichstag could also vote, and at Halle nonvoting participants generally fell into one of these two categories. For a list of resolution signers and the roll-call vote see USPD, Protokoll…Halle, pp. 70–73 and 257–61.

60. Although she attended the Halle Congress in her capacity as Reichstag deputy, I have included Anna Nemitz in this category since she was elected as a delegate opposing the conditions for the Teltow-Beeskow district.

61. See the comments of Bertha Braunthal at the first national Women's Conference of the VKPD in Bericht über die Verhandlungen des Vereinigungsparteitages der U.S.P.D. (Linke) und der K.P.D. (Spartakusbund): Abgehalten in Berlin vom 4. bis 7. Dezember 1920 (Berlin, 1921), p. 280.Google Scholar

62. For the VKPD see Braunthal, Bertha, “Die Frauenbewegung der Vereinigten Kommunistischen Partei Deutschlands,” Die Kommunistische Fraueninternationale, no. 1, 04 1921, p. 17;Google Scholar for the “Rest-USPD” see the Central Committee circular letter of Apr. 6, 1921, reprinted in part in Vorwärts, no. 274, June 13, 1922, and Hamburger Echo, no. 270, June 13, 1922.

63. For the KPD membership prior to the formation of the VKPD see Bericht iiber den 5. Parteitag der Kommunistischen Partei Deutschlands (Sektion der kommunistischen Internationale) vom 1. bis 3. November in Berlin (Berlin, 1921), p. 5.Google Scholar

64. A minimum of 26% of the female members in the pre-Halle USPD “dropped out” compared with a maximum of 17% of the male members. In calculating these figures I assumed that none of the 6,090 women in the KPD joined the VKPD (although most of them probably did) and that all of the 60,233 men in the KPD entered the VKPD (some of them surely did not.) The advantage of this procedure is that it maximizes the male while minimizing the female “drop-outs.” In this way the overall tendency becomes quite clear: relatively more women were lost to organized labor as a result of the Twenty-One Conditions than men. (As the SPD's female membership dropped by over 14,000 between 1920 and 1921, it is unlikely very many former USPD women joined the Social Democrats.) This generalization conforms to the practical experience of Dorothea Losche in the Hagen subdistrict headquarters of the “Rest-USPD.” Here the number of women members who let their membership lapse after Halle and were known not to have joined another labor party was far out of proportion to the men who “dropped out.” Interview with Dorothea Lösche on Oct. 25, 1973. See also Bloch, Emmy, “Die Spaltung,” Volksrecht (Frankfurt, a.M.) 10 5, 1920.Google Scholar

65. The hope was expressed that the women's conference would not repeat the “mistakes” of the Berne conference but would “show the working class women of the whole world the right way.” See Zinoviev, Bericht des Exekutivkomitees, p. 27. The main “mistake” of the Berne conference, which Zetkin had organized in her capacity as Interna tional Secretary of the Socialist Women's movement, was its decision to adopt a declaration submitted by Zetkin rather than one by the Bolsheviks! For an account of the Berne conference see Gankin, Olga Hess and Fischer, H. H., The Bolsheviks and the Third International (Stanford, 1940), pp. 286ff. Die Kommunistin, edited by Zetkin, , reprinted the Berne declaration on Nov. 26, 1919; apparently Zinoviev had reason for concern.Google Scholar

66. See Wurm's “Für und Wider,” no. 19, Oct. 14, 1920, pp. 145–46.

67. The exception was Arendsee; the other three were Toni Sender, Lore Agnes, and Margarete Wengels. The forty-four-year-old Agnes, daughter of a miner, had been arrested for her part in the Berne conference. Active in the SPD and Domestic Servants’ Union—she was originally a maid—Agnes took part in the USPD founding congress and was a member of the party's control committee from its inception. She also sat as a USPD deputy from Düsseldorff in the National Assembly and Reichstag. Wengels, sixty-four and from a weaver's family, was one of Zetkin's closest friends and was involved in the Social Democratic women's movement from the outset. A founding congress member of the USPD, she represented Berlin in the party's national women's committee.

68. Apparently the Comintern was simply opposed to the idea of an independent international socialist women's movement just as it was opposed to an independent international trade union movement or, for that matter, an independent international political labor movement. Following a meeting with Lenin in the fall of 1920 Zetkin attempted to organize a “non-party International Women's Congress” but this effort also failed, allegedly because of the opposition to the idea by Communist women in Germany and Bulgaria. See Zetkin, Clara, Reminiscences of Lenin (New York, 1934), pp. 60–64;Google Scholar also a letter of Zetkin, to Alexandra Kollontai of Feb. 1, 1921 in Zetkin, Reden und Schriften, 2: 327–34.Google Scholar

69. Rosi Wolfstein and the Austrian woman present at the conference led the opposition to this Bolshevik proposal. Letter of Rosi (Wolfstein) Frölich to the author, Dec. 2, 1973.

70. Balabanoff was the only woman in the Comintern's first Executive Committee and according to her own account had next to no influence. See Balabanoff, Angelica, My Life as a Rebel (London, 1938), pp. 240–51, 261–75.Google Scholar She was formally removed from the Executive prior to the Second Comintern Congress and it was not until the appointment of Zetkin to the Executive Committee sometime after the Third Congress in the summer of 1921 that a woman was again included in this august body. The official organ of the Executive Committee—The Communist International—listed forty-four names on its masthead; five were women (Balabanoff, Zetkin, Henriette Roland-Hoist, Sylvia Pankhurst, and Louise Saumoneau). Similarly, during 1920 and 1921 no women were to be found among the forty-odd members of the Bolshevik Central Committee. See Barbara W. Jancar, “Women and Soviet Politics,” a paper presented at the American Political Science Association meeting, Washington, D.C., Sept. 5, 1972. Finally, Weber, Herman, Die Wandlung des deutschen Kommunismus (Frankfurt a.M., 1969), 2: 26, has shown that of the 504 leading functionaries in the German Communist movement between 1924 and 1929 only 34 or less than 7% were women.Google Scholar

71. Besides the previously cited articles by Braunthal see Auguste Mané's piece in the Tribüne (Mannheim) reprinted in the Gothaer Volksblatt, Sept. 17, 1920. The thirty-seven-year-old Mané, a USPD Stadtrat and editor in Mannheim, was a member of the national women's committee and had attended the Lepzig women's conference. The appeal of the Russian model was also exemplified in the excellent attendance throughout 1919 and 1920 at women's meetings when the subject of a talk or discussion was Soviet Russia. Interview with Dorothea Lösche on Oct. 25, 1973.

72. See for example in Die Kämpferin: “Die erste Botschafterin,” no. 3, Feb. 12, 1920; “Soziale Fürsorge in Russland,” nos. 17, 18, and 21, Sept. 16 and 30, and Nov. 11, 1920, pp. 133–34, 143–45, and 167–68; “Die Arbeiterinnen in Sowjetrussland,” nos. 21–22, Nov. 11 and 25, 1920, pp. 166–67 and 175–76; in Die Kommunistin: “Soziale Fürsorge für Mutter und Kind in Sowjetrussland,” no. 9, Aug. 11, 1919, pp. 69–70; “Der erste russische Arbeiterinnenkongress,” no. 11, May 15, 1920, p. 83; “Bericht über die Arbeit der Kommunistischen Partei Russlands unter den Proletarierinnen und Bäuerinnen,” no. 22, 1920, pp. 171–73.

73. See Stoecker, Walter, “Unsere Partei und die dritte Internationale,” Freiheit, no. 357, 08 30, 1920.Google Scholar Stoecker was a USPD national secretary and had been one of the party's four delegates to the second Comintern congress.

74. For example, the articles by Arendsee and Breitscheid.

75. See for example Geyer. Erinnerungen, pp. 330, 333; International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam, Wilheim Dittmann. Erinnerungen, p. 1151; Staatsarchiv Miinster, Reg. Arnsberg I Pa—392—U.S.P.D. (report of State Security Police Hagen, Aug. 2, 1920); also Stampfer, Friedrich, Die Ersten 14 Jahre der Deutschen Republik (Offenbach a.M., 1947), p. 212.Google Scholar

76. I would, however, question Thönnessen's assertion (Frauenemanzipation, p. 140) that women are “naturally pacifist.”

77. See Geffke's initial response to the Twenty-One Conditions (above, n. 48) and Unger-Eckert, Frieda, “Wird die U.S.P. untergehen?” Sozialistische Republik (Karlsruhe), 09 27, 1920.Google Scholar A USPD city councilwoman in Lahr, the thirty-two-year-old Unger-Eckert came from a farming family and had originally worked as a maid. She joined the SPD in 1911 and switched to the USPD in 1917.

78. “Ein Gruss,” Die Kämpferin, no. 1, 04 1, 1919, p. 1.Google Scholar

79. See Zietz's, Luise formal reply of Sept. 12, 1919Google Scholar, Ibid., no. 14, Oct. 2, 1919, p. 106.

80. No. 4, Feb. 1, 1920, pp. 27–29.

81. An exception were some remarks Zietz made at a general meeting of Berlin's ninth ward. See the exchange that followed between Zietz and Eschbach, Martha in Freiheit, nos. 396, 398, and 403, 09 22, 23, and 25, 1920.Google Scholar

82. See Reisberg, Arnold, Lenins Beziehungen zur deutschen Arbeiterbewegung (Berlin/DDR, 1970), pp. 415–16.Google Scholar

83. See Wurm, Mathilde, “Gesuchte Konflikte,” Freiheit, no. 492, 11 21, 1920.Google Scholar

84. “Unsere Frauenreichskonferenz,” Kommunistische Rundschau, no. 5, 12 6, 1920, p. 10.Google Scholar

85. For Geyer see Freiheit, no. 390, 09 18, 1920.Google Scholar She also published a Korrespondenz for supporters of the conditions. Copies can be found in the Stadtarchiv Leipzig, Abteilung Arbeiterbewegung, and the Institut für Marxismus-Leninismus/Zentralparteiarchiv, Berlin, Fritz OhloffFond, no. 31. One prominent non-USPD woman who spoke out for acceptance was Clara Zetkin. See her pamphlet, Der Weg nach Moskau (n.p., 1920), and a two-part series in Die Rote Fahne, nos. 199–200, 10 3 and 5, 1920, under the same title. In the latter series, however, Zetkin criticized the Second Comintern Congress for not formulating the conditions “more skillfully” and complained that “die harte Schale lenkt die Aufmerksamkeit mehr auf sich als der lebensvolle, keimkräftige Kern.”Google Scholar

86. Of the seventy-one women who attended the national women's conference at Leipzig twenty-nine opposed acceptance, fourteen supported it, and the remaining twenty-eight are unknown.

87. For a discussion of “relative deprivation” see Gurr, Ted R., Why Men Rebel (Princeton, 1970),Google Scholar and Runciman, W. G., Relative Deprivation and Social Justice (Berkeley, 1966).Google Scholar Runciman notes, for example (p. 3), that “people's attitudes to social inequalities seldom correlate strictly with the facts of their position…. Dissatisfaction with the system of privileges and rewards in a society is never felt in an even proportion to the degree of inequality to which its various members are subject.”

88. See Thönnessen, Frauenemanzipation, pp. 102, 107–8; also Wurm, Mathilde, Die Frauenerwerbsarbeit (Berlin, n.d.), pp. 6–9, and the comments of Bertha Braunthal at the first national Women's Conference of the VKPD in Bericht…Vereinigungsparteitag, p. 283.Google Scholar

89. See for example Protokoll…Leipzig, pp. 466 and 472; Bericht tiber den 3. Parteitag der Kommunistischen Partei Deutschlands (Spartakusbund) vom 25. bis 26. Februar 1920 (n.p., n.d.), pp. 58 and 65; Hunt, Richard N., German Social Democracy (New Haven, 1964), p. 128;Google Scholar and Thönnessen, Frauenemanzipation, pp. 121–30.

90. See the statistical tables in Bremme, Gabriele, Die Politische Rolle der Frau in Deutschland (Göttingen, 1956), pp. 243–58.Google Scholar

91. See Thönnessen, Frauenemanzipation, p. 131, and nn. 37 and 63, above.

92. See Statistische Reichsamt, Statistisches Jahrbuch fur das Deutsche Reich 1921/22 (Berlin, 1922), 42: 424 and 440.Google Scholar

93. See for example the comments of Lina Fiedler (Merseburg), “Frauenkonferenez des Kreises Merseburg-Querfurt,” and Plottke, Helene (Leipzig), “Berufsorganisation der Hausfrau,” Die Kämpferin, nos. 5 and 11, 03 11 and June 17, 1920, pp. 40 and 84.Google Scholar

94. See Auguste Drechsel (Gotha), “Zersplitterung Überall!” Ibid., no. 24, Dec. 23, 1920, p. 186.

95. For example, of the male delegates opposing the conditions only 37.5% had attended a USPD national meeting. Still this was roughly twice as many as the delegates supporting acceptance—19.3%. One explanation for the large number of new male delegates was that the total delegate count at Halle was over a hundred more than at any previous national congress.

96. The mean age of women participants supporting the conditions was 36.5, compared with 46.3 for those opposing acceptance. For all congress participants these figures were 36.6 and 43.9 respectively. These averages are based on a fortuitous sample of 45.8% of the women participants and 54.2% of all congress participants. It is perhaps of some significance that, as these percentages suggest, it was generally more difficult to obtain biographical information on leading women as opposed to men in the USPD, although the numbers of the former were markedly smaller than the latter.