A woman can be freed from sexual slavery only if she is freed from class slavery. That is why the communists consider the fight for liberation of women as a necessary part of the class struggle of the entire proletariat.
In 1989, the American sociologist Arlie Russell Hochchild published a book called The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home, in which she talks about the so-called double burden of mothers employed in the United States.1 The book set off a wave of public debate and controversy and became a bestseller shortly after its publication. Introduced by Arlie Hochschild, the term “second shift” describes work done at home after paid work in the public sector. Yet the notion of a second shift or “double burden” was nothing new. Slovak communist women had been discussing these issues a hundred years ago, i.e., sixty years before the publication of Hochchild’s book. This article examines the activism of women associated with the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (Komunistická strana Československa, ksč) and its newspaper Proletárka (Proletarian Woman) (see Figure 5.2), which was dedicated to Slovak women. An analysis of Proletárka, one of the most important sources of information about the activism of communist women in the region of Slovakia, sheds light on its commitment to social and gender justice, its criticism of the labour market and women’s second shift, and its pioneering work in the field of sexual liberation.
Based on an in-depth analysis of Proletárka, this article examines how Slovak communist women’s struggle for improved access to contraception and abortion drew on their understanding of class struggle and the Slovak national issue. I show that the distinct discourse that emerged around the issues of abortion and contraception reflected the dynamic interaction between three pillars: class struggle, reproductive rights, and nationalism, and explain how this discourse shaped communist women’s writing.
Communist perceptions of family planning, birth control, and sexuality were closely connected with the class struggle and, thus, stood in opposition to the pronatalism of the newly established Czechoslovak republic, which the party saw as an instrument for the capitalist exploitation of working-class. The arguments made by Slovak communist women in support of sexual liberation shaped the official party discourse on birth control and abortion; they even affected the work of scientists who had begun to study how the lack of women’s access to contraceptives led working-class women to seek out dangerous, criminal abortions, which often had harmful effects on their health, including
This chapter analyzes communist women’s political and educational activism in Proletárka in the 1920s. I focus specifically on their demands for access to contraception and abortion as means to help women from disadvantaged backgrounds and as an issue related to working-class liberation, while considering how their arguments reflect particularities of Slovak nationalism as represented by the party. In the first section, I briefly introduce the status of women’s health and reproductive rights in Czechoslovakia; the struggle between national self-determination and centralized leadership within the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia; and the specific conditions in which the communist women’s movement developed in Slovakia. The second section of the article analyzes the main arguments for women’s sexual emancipation, including debates on access to birth control and safe, professional abortion as discussed in Proletárka, which were considered the chief concerns for working-class women in Slovakia. Through this analysis, this chapter reveals the challenges faced by the communist women’s movement, whose activism was supposed to reflect the party’s general goals. However, I argue that Slovak women in the Communist Party often found themselves caught between a politics of reproductive rights and a commitment to class struggle specific to Slovak national circumstances. This eventually led to their marginalization in the movement and their absence from the broader history of communist women’s activism.
1 New Nation—Old Woman?
The parliamentary democracy of Czechoslovakia tended to represent more liberal and progressive attitudes toward gender equality compared to Dual Monarchy to which Czechoslovakia had previously belonged. However, regarding population policy, it fell back into old habits. Despite its goal to halt demographic decline, throughout its entire existence, even during the period of stabilization in the 1920s, the Czechoslovak republic never managed to increase the birth rate. Additionally, the multinational state decided to promote a single
Because some believed that “[Czechoslovakia] emancipated not only all the Czechoslovak people but especially its women, to whom it granted suffrage [in 1920], and otherwise essentially placed on the same level as men in public life,” many politicians assumed there was no place or reason for any further measures to advance the equality of women.6 Indeed, Czech and Slovak women involved in the prewar women’s movement recognized the urgency of and their responsibility and role within the Czech and Slovak movements for national liberation. Their women’s agenda and commitment to the international feminist movement was secondary.7 The Czech and Slovak national liberation movements emerged in the nineteenth century as counterparts
When public, political, and scientific debates on women’s unequal position in marriage, lack of access to employment opportunities, and sexual emancipation in Czechoslovak society began, they met with suspicion, scorn, and denunciation. However, an increasing number of women became active in politics and entered the National Assembly and Senate in Czechoslovakia, and most of the female mps represented the most progressive force within the Czechoslovak legislature, especially on topics related to women’s employment, gender equality, health care for women and children, and family planning.9 Some of the most radical proponents of sexual liberation and reproductive rights for women were women associated with the Communist Party. Their work primarily grew out of the postwar social situation, the development of an independent Czechoslovak society, the Austro-Hungarian past, and most importantly, communist theories of women’s emancipation. Recognizing the despair of working-class women burdened by their childcare responsibilities and social inequality, communist women activists reached out to the marginalized female masses.10 However, women in different regions of Czechoslovakia
Slovak press committee of the communist party. On the left, the chief editor of Proletárka Barbora Rezlerová Švarcová, and on the right author Hermína Pfeilmayerová
source: photograph (archiv národního muzea praha [archive of the national museum prague]), fond verčík, box 4, file 166.
2 Slovak Communists and the National Question
The young communist movement emerged in the newly founded Czechoslovak state in the early post-World War One period, and the Czechoslovak Communist Party was formally established in 1921. At the time, it was one of the largest communist parties in the world. This strength was reflected in its position in domestic politics. As early as 1925, in the first election in which the party could
While the national issue was consistently present from the very beginning, it did not seem to be one of the party’s most pressing problems. However, Prague soon became the center of the party, and its practices proved to be strongly centralist and inattentive to the needs and goals of Slovak communists in the eastern part of the country. The Czech leadership abolished the relatively autonomously formed local cells in the national party as well as the trade union organs and called for a united and centralized party.12 Additionally, Czech communists strongly opposed the autonomist proposals submitted by the Slovak nationalist camp within the party. Meanwhile, Slovak communists pointed out the economic neglect of the eastern part of the Czechoslovak republic and the marginalization of the Slovak nation, which soon produced a sense of grievance that undermined the Czechoslovak consensus.13 Slovak communists were also concerned about the underfunding of the movement’s regional structures and the unbalanced representation of Czech communist officials in Slovakia. Július Verčík (see Figure 5.1), a functionary of the party in Slovakia and an editor of the party’s newspapers, criticized the party for filling all the important leadership positions in Slovakia with “their people,” i.e., Czechs, “as if they did not trust us Slovaks.”14 Furthermore, for Slovak communists, the Communist Party’s attention to the national question effectively co-opted the core agenda of the nationalist and conservative Slovak People’s Party.15 Therefore, Slovak communists had to fight on two fronts—in Slovakia, they competed with the Slovak People’s Party for votes; and within the Communist Party, they struggled against Czech communists for recognition.
In 1924, the 5th Congress of the Communist International adopted the Leninist position on the recognition of the right of all nationalities to self-determination, which explicitly rejected the “fictional Czechoslovak nation” and described Czechoslovakia as the “new small imperialist state”; in response, Slovak communists became eager supporters of Lenin’s national theses.16 Those Slovak men and women who resisted the doctrine of Czechoslovakism
“Komunizmus chce šťastnú ženu a šťastné dieťa!” [Communism wants a happy woman and a happy child]
source: proletárka, title page, 16 november 1922
3
Women’s public roles in the new Czechoslovak state reflected the legacy of states to which the territories had formerly belonged. Given the impact of prewar Magyarization policies and “restrictions on educational opportunities that had existed during Austro-Hungarian rule prior to 1914, women’s as
Notwithstanding the relatively low number of female political representatives, Czech, Slovak, German, Hungarian, Jewish, and Ruthenian women began to participate in political parties, and the Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party boasted the highest number of female members.26 In the 1920s, the Czechoslovak Communist Party had the highest proportion of women members: 24 percent. This proportion was higher than in Germany and Russia, where in the 1920s, women’s share was 17 percent and 14 percent, respectively; in France and Italy, women represented just around 2 percent of Communist Party members in both countries.27 Since many women (as well as men) had become active in politics, especially in the Social Democratic Party, following the establishment of Czechoslovakia, a communist women’s movement coalesced at the same time the Slovak Communist Party was established in 1921, and the first regional conference of communist women took place in Vrútky in 1922.28
These women are dominated by a childish belief that charity, diligence, and goodwill on all sides are the means to remove social misery from the world. […] it is offensive to give alms to social disadvantaged people from whom humble thanks and a hunched back are required. […] Alms remain alms.31
Most importantly, communist women claimed that their activism was not “a struggle against men, but a struggle against a common enemy: the capitalist model of production.”32 For this reason, they regarded feminism’s opposition to working-class women as “a dangerous enemy of workers and an obstacle on the road to resolving the question of the female proletariat.”33 Asserting the ideology of what we define as Marxist feminism, contributors to Proletárka claimed that women were exploited through capitalism, and women’s liberation could only be achieved by dismantling the capitalist system.34
Second, Czechoslovak authorities investigated and persecuted both women and men who were active in the Communist Party. For example, Anna Jurisová (Slezáková), a leader of communist women in Trnava, was called an
Third, communist women in Slovakia had to confront resistance from their own comrades, whose activism and political and ideological beliefs often retained a patriarchal understanding of woman’s role in society. Whereas the party proclaimed that only a communist society would ensure women’s full equality, in practice, enthusiastic communist women found it difficult to incorporate gender-specific issues into the class-based political agenda of the party, and they were distressed by the strong objections of some of their comrades, who suggested that the party did not need a women’s movement because a woman belonged in the kitchen.39 Indeed, many men were active members of the party only because their wives took on all domestic tasks, child care, and even paid work.40 For instance, during the meeting of the executive committee in 1925, Mária Bachratá emphasized that most of the women present had to make sacrifices to attend the meeting: they had to leave their families and children and stay up late even though they needed to wake up early in the morning to go to work. She then argued that instead of dealing with urgent matters, a boring resolution had been discussed for four hours, and the discussion on women’s issues had been postponed.41 At the same meeting, Maria
Poster for International Women’s Day, 1926
source: poster (slovenský národný archív [slovak national archive], fond policajné riaditeľstvo, box 271, file 56)
Slovak communists’ disappointment and frustration with the Czechoslovak Communist Party’s Czech centralism was also prevalent among communist women. For this reason, Proletárka was first published in November 1922 as an appendix to the Slovak newspaper Hlas ľudu (Voice of People), and only later as a separate bi-weekly newspaper starting in January 1924.45 Its contents did not mirror its Czech equivalent Komunistka (Woman Communist). The guidelines for agitation among communist women published in the 29 March 1927 issue of Proletárka suggest that one of the duties of women in party cells was to subscribe to a women’s magazine, and men were encouraged to buy such magazines for their wives and sisters. The guidelines also encouraged women to subscribe to the Slovak Proletárka, the German Die Kommunistin (Communist Woman), or the Hungarian Nömunkás (Woman Worker), but, perhaps in line with anti-Czech sentiments, avoided mentioning equivalent Czech magazines
4 The Sexual Liberation of Women—a Vital Issue for the Working Class
Women communist politicians and activists in the interwar period tried to promote a new model of family that fundamentally reorganized relations between men and women and reconceived child-rearing duties. They referred to the work of Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Lenin, who supported the legalization of divorce, demanded the abolition of all laws punishing abortion,
Heretofore, Proletárka has not received much scholarly attention apart from a recent study by Eva Škorvanková. In general, the newspaper is believed to have been fully subordinated to the goals of the Communist Party, first and foremost, the class struggle.54 This misinterpretation of the paper’s position has led to ignorance about its content, which consisted not only of ideological texts and articles that uncritically praised the situation of women and children in the Soviet Union but also included candid descriptions of the actual condition of working-class women and children in Slovak national discourse. The
Matka s dvomi deťmi [Mother with two children]
source: drawing. arnold peter weisz-kubínčan, 1920–1929 (slovenská národná galéria [slovak national gallery], k 19099)
Additionally, Proletárka is an invaluable source for understanding the specific local experiences of Slovak women and the agency of Slovak communist women, since most of their political activism was limited to the Slovak context. They understood that they must address the needs of women in Slovakia not only as a class issue but also as a (Slovak) national issue, since Slovakia brought its past, connected to the Kingdom of Hungary and its legacy, into
Communist women politicians had limited access to Czechoslovak high politics, which translated to a low number of Slovak women mps in Parliament.57 Thus, communist women’s formal agency was limited. In fact, the activism of Slovak communist women generally remained confined to the local Slovak context, and Proletárka serves as crucial evidence of their work. Many of the texts published in Proletárka offered concrete advice and assistance for working-class women and children. Among the issues most frequently addressed by the newspaper were women’s unequal position in the workplace, women’s “second shift,” the sexual exploitation of women, and the effects of women’s lack of access to sexual education and contraception within the specific Slovak context.58 Some of these issues were also on the agendas of numerous feminist organizations in Slovakia and abroad, but the communist women’s movement refused to identify as feminist because of communists’ hostility toward “bourgeois” women’s movements.59 On the contrary, communist women saw the chance to define themselves in opposition to feminism to gain more supporters because according to them, the bourgeois women’s movement was unable to address the everyday problems of working-class women.60 At the same time, the authors and editors of Proletárka sought to address working-class women’s issues independently from the Czech party core.
Proletárka published articles on issues that had a direct impact on working-class women in Slovakia, and reported on state policies and how
Among the crucial questions related to the status of women in the class struggle was whether sexual emancipation was vital for working-class women’s broader liberation? The Marxist perception of women’s labour, family planning, birth control, and sexuality were a part and parcel of the class struggle. Unlike idyllic, propagandistic portraits of patient mothers surrounded by many children, communist women understood motherhood differently. An article entitled “Is it smart to have many children?” declared, “what a misfortune it is for the poor to have many children,” referencing numerous foreign authors.66 Although Slovak communist women often referenced the Soviet Union as the example to be followed, their writings also suggest that it was equally important to address any author—woman or man—whose work
Proletárka also published information about abortion laws in Czechoslovakia and abroad and provided instruction on which contraceptive methods and products to use and how to use them correctly to prevent unwanted pregnancies. In several texts, they pointed out that limited access to safe and affordable contraceptives led many women to seek out abortions, performed in secret, unsanitary conditions that might result in life-threatening illness and even death because abortion remained illegal and criminalized in interwar Czechoslovakia:69 “uneducated women sometimes do insane things with their bodies to protect themselves from motherhood.”70 While authors of Proletárka strongly discouraged women from undergoing life-threatening illegal abortions, they also described the desperate social circumstances in which working-class women and families raised children: “In the current economic crisis and poverty, […] it is no wonder women avoid or reject motherhood. Every new addition to the family means a financial catastrophe.” (see Figure 5.4)71 Unequal access to contraception and safe abortion were presented as problems related to poverty that were intentionally caused by the capitalist system (see Figure 5.6). Indeed, the lack of access to medically induced abortion was omnipresent on the pages of Proletárka, which included stories about wealthy and middle-class women bribing physicians to safely terminate their
Bieda [Misery]
source: drawing. mikuláš galanda, 1928–1929 (slovenská národná galéria [slovak national gallery], k 592)
We are of the opinion that this prohibition is also incorrect, that a law that does not protect children from poverty cannot and should not prohibit abortion. On the contrary, it should be ensured that medical care is
available, and that a woman has the free will to decide whether she wants to have a child or not.81
However, Proletárka did not regard legalized abortions as a good solution, and the periodical warned women to avoid them: “We do not recommend abortions, […] Any abortion is harmful to women’s health, and every woman can avoid it if she is well informed about the means of protection.”82 Understanding the dangers of illegal and unprofessional abortion, Proletárka called for the translation of books by American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse Margaret Sanger—especially Family Limitation—and by the British author, paleobotanist, and eugenics and women’s rights campaigner Marie Stopes, including Wise Parenthood: A Treatise on Birth Control or Contraception and Married Love or Love in Marriage. The newspaper even provided an abbreviated Slovak translation of a book about birth control by Swiss physician Fritz Brupbacher.83 Authors of Proletárka also added further information and instructed women about methods of birth control, especially condoms, despite their high price: “[W]e can only advise our women on what has already been said here—caution and the use of means that prevent conception. These products are sold in pharmacies and drugstores and are not prohibited.”84
As far as it was able, Proletárka took part in informal sexual education dedicated to Slovak working-class women due to its belief that preventing multiple pregnancies would help their socioeconomic situation. This was especially emphasized in Slovak communist discourse because women in Slovakia had more children than women in the Czech lands, and communists considered the Slovak part of Czechoslovakia to be the main supplier of new workers for the state.85 Proletárka’s contributors also never missed a chance to explain how the criminalization of abortion and the lack of reliable and accessible contraception was the result of the capitalist exploitation of female bodies: “The immorality of the bourgeoisie lies in its relationship with women, requiring a woman to become a mother to satisfy a man, often because of a simple urge and not out of an overwhelming and mutual desire to have a child.”86 Similarly, the paper highlighted the hypocrisy of religious and bourgeois circles who, on
Proletárka stated that only those who were in charge of pronatalist propaganda benefited from large working-class families, such as “legislators of the capitalist state, Catholic priests who themselves were not allowed to marry or have children, or Protestant pastors who had fewer and fewer children, or backward thinking individuals.”88 When discussing family planning, despite protecting the national agenda and interests of the Slovak Communist, Proletárka rejected any political notions of extinction of the nation as the work of capitalists seeking to achieve a high birth rate among working-class women in order to “expand the army of workers and soldiers.”89 The authors opposed the state’s pronatalism—demands for an increase in the birth rate—as a capitalist demand for cheap labour supplied by the working class. As, according to communist women, the society did not provide working-class women with material security for motherhood, it should not demand that any woman take on the burden of unwanted motherhood.90
Čo mohol poskytnúť takýto domov tejto rodine? [What could such a home provide for this family?]
source: photograph. iľja jozef marko, 1936–1937 (slovenská národná galéria [slovak national gallery] of—marko, i. j—17)
5 Forgotten Women?
In order to truly help women and their children from the scourge of poverty and infant mortality, women must first fight together with men for the dictatorship of the proletariat and only then will they construct better protections for motherhood and children according to the communist program as needed for the benefit of their class.91
Anna Malá, a Communist mp, published these words in Proletárka, expressing her position on the incorporation of gender-specific issues into the class-based political agenda of the party. Clearly, women affiliated with the Communist Party, whose work and activities are analyzed above, represent
By designating class struggle as the highest priority, Proletárka’s authors were able to tackle distinctive issues related to Slovak nationalism within the party, specifically those matters that directly impacted their activism and writing on reproductive rights. Due to Slovak communist women’s limited political influence in Czechoslovak high politics, Slovak communist women activists
But despite their predominantly local focus, the women editors of and contributors to Proletárka were politicians, activists, and talented journalists familiar with politics, feminism, and different women’s movements in Western and Eastern Europe and beyond. While they wrote about the position and problems of women in Slovakia in the 1920s, their reflections, opinions, and attitudes were also characteristic of the international communist women’s movement.92 The historical experience of national struggle against Austria-Hungary, too, taught both Slovak and Czech women to see men as allies. This clearly did not mean that women held the same position and performed the same roles as men, but it does show that the participation of women was considered essential for the achievement of national goals. Additionally, following communist ideology, Slovak communist women did not understand their activism as a struggle against men, but “a struggle against the common enemy: the capitalist model of production.”93 Articulating positions of what we would call Marxist feminism today, the contributors of Proletárka claimed that women were exploited through capitalism, and that women’s liberation could only be achieved by dismantling the existing system.94 Stemming from their political affiliation and ideological focus on class struggle, authors of Proletárka understood equal payment, the fair division of child care and domestic work, and women’s health and reproductive rights within a broader context of social justice.95 Therefore, legal access to reliable contraceptive and the legalization of abortion were understood as matters related to not only the “woman question” but also to class struggle.
The activism of Slovak communist women around Proletárka was not an exact replica of the women’s movement in the West or the East. One the one hand, it was produced within the communist movement, and it reflected dominant political, scientific, and ideological thinking in the wider European context—both West and East; on the other hand, it reflected the local Slovak
The research for this article was conducted thanks to the generous support of the project zarah: Funding from the European Research Council (erc) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 833691—zarah), and within the project “Family planning” in East Central Europe from the 19th century until the approval of the “pill,” funded by Ministry of Education and Research, bmbf, fkz 01uc1902.
See Bakke 2011, 247–268; Šuchová 2011.
For instance, Slovak Catholic priest Jozef Tiso became Minister of Health and Sports in 1927; he strongly opposed any proposals related to sexual liberation. See Fabricius 2002.
Nešťáková 2020, 31–51; Aláč 2017, 90–154; Repková 2014, 147–173; Šubrtová 1991, 9–46; Šubrtová 2002, 233–244.
See Krylova 2017, 434; Falisová 2013, 51–65; Zavacká 2001, 23–30.
About the feminist movement in Czechoslovakia, see Škorvanková 2021b, 62–80; Adams 2014; Kodymová and Haburajová-Ilavská 2014, 81–86; Dudeková 2011; Feinberg 2006, 20–40.
Clearly, there were also persons who opposed women’s suffrage, e.g., Milan Rastislav Štefánik, one of the leading Slovak members of the Czechoslovak National Council who contributed decisively to the cause of Czechoslovak sovereignty, opposed women’s right to vote. For further reading, see Šiklová, 1997, 264. See also Lengyelová 2004; David 1991, 26–45.
About women in Czechoslovak politics, see Musilová 2007.
About the socialist women’s movement in Czechoslovakia, see Škorvanková 2021b, 62–80; Kodymová and Haburajová-Ilavská 2014, 81–86; Dudeková 2011; Feinberg 2006, 20–40. See also Lengyelová 2004; David 1991, 26–45.
Rupnik 2003, 42, 60.
Hertel 2006, 53. See also Rychlík 2012, 306–316.
See Benko and Hudek 2021, 313–342.
Archív Národního muzea (anm) Praha, Fond Verčík, Box 1, Archival Unit 2c, Július Verčík, Životopis, p. 73.
Benko and Hudek 2019, 289.
See Theses on the National Question by Lenin 1977, 243–251. See also Kopeček 2012, 123 and Fowkes 2008, 215.
Benko and Hudek 2019, 286.
See Hudek 2015, 51–68; Rapoš 1957, 50–52; Gottwald 1951, 45–57.
“Martin—zhromaždenie Komunistickej strany (rezolúcia)” [Martin—Meeting of the Communist Party (Resolution)], 1 May 1925, Fond Okresný úrad Turčiansky Sv. Martin, ša ZAm.
“Vypracte Slovensko (odpis)” [Get Out of Slovakia!], 1926, Fond Okresný úrad Turčiansky Sv. Martin, ša ZAm.
See Švarcová 1925. See also Juráňová 2006, 467–469.
See Wolchik 1996, 525–538; Johnson 1985.
Garver 1985, 71–78.
Wolchik 1996, 530.
Musilová 2007, 96–121.
Studer 2015b, 26 and 48; Sewell 2012, 280; Bayerlein 2006, 27–47; Grossmann 1998, 139; Waters 1989, 29–56.
“Konferencia komunistických žien vo Vrútkach 1922 /1. zemská konferencia” [The Conference of Communist Women in Vrútky 1922/ 1st Land Conference], 1923, Signature1136/23, Box 6, Fond Magistrát Banská Bystrica 1850–1922 [Municipality Banská Bystrica 1850–1922], ša bb. See also Malá and Křenová 1921, 11–15; Bahenská, Heczková, and Musilová 2010.
Proletárka never openly nor explicitly attacked any Czechoslovak women’s organizations; it kept its criticism very general. About the rather voluntarily and charitable work of Živena, see Kodajová 2019.
“Beseda. Dopis ploretárskej žene” 1924.
“Beseda. Dopis ploretárskej žene” 1924.
For more about Marxist Feminism, see Ferguson and Hennessy 2010. See also foundational works on women’s position in society, for example, Engels 1962 and works by Clara Zetkin and Alexandra Kollontai.
“Komunistická strana v Trnava” [Communist Party in Trnava], Box 303, Fond pr, sna.
“V. Kongres komunistickej internacionály v Moskve” [5th Congress of the Communist International in Moscow], Fond Župný úrad Turčiansky Sv. Martin [County Office Turčiansky Sv. Martin], ša ZAm.
“Hermína Pfeilmayerová—žiadosť o milosť” [Hermína Pfeilmayerová—request for pardon], 1925, Fond Okresný úrad Turčiansky Sv. Martin [Regional Office Turčiansky Sv. Martin], ša ZAm.
See Švarcová 1925. See also Juráňová 2006, 467.
See Krylova 2017, 435.
Uhrová 2004, 27–40.
“Schôdza výkonného výboru 20. Kraja” [The Meeting of Executive Committee of the 20th region], 5 March 1925, File 271/25, Fond pr, sna.
“Schôdza výkonného výboru 20. Kraja,” 5 March 1925, File 271/25, Fond PR SNA.
“Župný úrad vo Zvolene; Predmet Komunistické hnutie žien v čsr” [County Office in Zvolen; Subject: the Communist Women’s movement in Czechoslovakia], 1924, Signature 1559/2488, Box 12, Fond Magistrát Banská Bystrica 1850–1922 [Municipality Banská Bystrica 1850–1922], ša bb.
See Studer 2015a, 136.
In 1927, Proletárka ceased to exist as a separate paper due to financial difficulties and the persecution of its editors. Subsequently, starting in August 1927, it was published as an appendix to the newspaper Pravda [Truth] once a week. Similar newspapers dedicated to communist women were Komunistka for Czech women, with a circulation of 10,000 copies; Die Kommunistin for German speakers with a circulation of 10,500 copies; Žena for women in Moravia and Silesia with a circulation of 7,000 copies, Proletárka for Slovak women with a print run of 2,300 copies; and Nömunkás for Hungarian-speaking women with a circulation of 300 copies. For more about communist women in Czech Lands, see Matysková 2011; Jahodářová 2015, 102–118.
“Komunistická strana, hnutie žien” [The Communist Party, women’s movement], Fond Župný úrad Turčiansky Sv. Martin [County Office Turčiansky Sv. Martin], ša ZAm.
“Robotnícke hnutie a dejiny ksč” [Labour movement and history of the Czechoslovak Communist Party], Fond Okresny úrad v bb 1923–1945 [Regional Office Banská Bystrica 1923–1945], ša bb.
See Lenin 1984, 321–324; Marx, Engels, and Lenin 1973; Engels 1962. See also Brown 2012; Slušná 1988.
Zetkinová 1973, 207–230. See also Nečasová 2013, 107–115; Ashwin 2000.
Musilová 2007, 77. See also Škorvanková 2021a, 162–168.
For the similarity with the German case, see Grossmann 1995, 19.
For more about history of Proletárka, see Ruttkay 1987, 132–134; Darmo 1966, 462–467.
Škorvanková 2014, 17–44. About Czech women in the Communist Party, there are numerous works, among them, Báhenská, Heczková, and Musilová 2013; Musilová 2007; Uhrová 2004, 27–40.
Šprocha and Tišliar 2008, 29–30, and Chura 1936, 82.
Throughout the existence of the interwar Czechoslovak republic, only two women mps from Slovakia represented the party: Gisela Kolláriková and Irena Kaňová. The latter woman represented Social Democracy in the Revolučné národné zhromaždenie [Revolutionary National Assembly] in 1919–1920, and only afterward, in 1921, did she join the Communist Party. See Musilová 2007, 96–121.
About birth control in the interwar Slovakia, see Falisová 2013, 51–65; Falisová 2011, 29–36.
Studer 2015a, 132.
About Marxist feminism, see Lokaneeta 2001, 1405–1412. For its interpretation among Slovak communist women, see Braunová 1924, 3.
“Vrútky, zhromaždenie komunistických žien” [Vrútky, Meeting of communist women], 1925, Okresný úrad Turčianský Sv. Martin [Regional Office Turčianský Sv. Martin], ša ZAm.
See, for example, “Medzinárodný týždeň žien” [International week of women], 1925, Box 291, Fond pr, sna.
K. 1924.
See Dudeková-Kováčová 2019, 99–140.
“Je múdre mať veľa detí?” 1924.
See the similar case of Weimar Germany in Grossmann 1995, 37.
Nešťáková 2023.
“Matka a dieťa” 1923.
See Feinberg 2006.
See Žáčková 2016, 55–78.
The Medical Women’s International Association is a non-governmental organization founded in 1919 with the purpose of representing women physicians worldwide. See Bornholdt 2008.
Dewetterová 1935, 507–510.
The Women’s National Council was the most significant feminist organization in the interwar period. Its members fought for the reform of marriage laws and against employment restrictions on women. It was founded by Františka Plamínková, a Czech feminist and suffrage activist and member of the Czechoslovak Socialist Party, who was elected to the National Assembly and Senate Chair.
Chlapcová-Gjorgjevičová 1932, 193–194.
Dewetterová 1935, 507–510.
See Panýrek 1932, 628–630.
See, for example, Stopes 1925a; Stopes 1925b; Stopes 1925c. For more about the work of Marie Stopes, see Debenham 2018. See also Brupbacher 1925.
See Grossmann 1995, 36.
See Krylova 2017, 427.
See, for example, Ferguson 2010.
About equal payment, see also Bahenská, Heczková, and Musilová 2014, 187–189.
Studer 2015a, 132.
Šiklová 1997, 262. See also Kusá 1996, 129–137.
See Kościanska 2020, 22–23.
About domestication of East Central Europe, see Myslinska 2021, 271–307.
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