Klara Zetkin

author

Klara Zetkin

1857–1933

A fierce socialist thinker and organizer, she devoted her life to the struggle for working women’s rights and became closely linked with the origins of International Women’s Day. Her story moves from Imperial Germany through exile, revolution, and the rise of European communism.

1 Audiobook

Social-Democracy and Woman Suffrage A Paper Read by Clara Zetkin to the Conference of Women Belonging to the Social-Democratic Party Held at Mannheim, Before the Opening of the Annual Congress of the German Social-Democracy

Social-Democracy and Woman Suffrage A Paper Read by Clara Zetkin to the Conference of Women Belonging to the Social-Democratic Party Held at Mannheim, Before the Opening of the Annual Congress of the German Social-Democracy

by Klara Zetkin

About the author

Born in Saxony in 1857, Klara Zetkin became one of the best-known voices in the German socialist movement. She trained as a teacher, but politics soon took center stage in her life, and years of anti-socialist repression pushed her into exile, where she stayed active in radical circles and built an international network of allies.

Zetkin is remembered especially for her work on behalf of women in the labor movement. She edited the socialist women’s newspaper Die Gleichheit for many years and argued that women’s emancipation was tied to broader social and economic change. She is also widely associated with the early international campaign that led to International Women’s Day.

After World War I, she joined the German Communist Party and remained active in left-wing politics into old age. She spoke out strongly against war and, in the final years of her life, against fascism. She died in 1933, leaving behind a legacy that still shapes debates about feminism, socialism, and political resistance.