MARCH 8TH, INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY
March 8th International Women’s Day
Original article written by Alex, Socialism Survivor
Note: Alex is the Nom de Plume of a former USSR citizen who now resides in the U.S.
For those who know little about “Gulags” some research into Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s famous novel, “The Gulag Archipelago” is in order.
Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970.
Most of former soviet men know nothing about socialistic roots of this holiday, they just use it as opportunity to give flowers to women and girls they love.
And I have nothing against that, actually I do the same for my wife. I wish we, men could do that every day for our women, they deserve it. For now I’ll leave the holiday alone.
While the Soviet regime removed religious holidays, they realized that the new Soviet man needs new Soviet holidays.
In the beginning of Soviet Era, talking about the new Soviet man or the “Soviet people” system often referred to both male and female, although mostly it considered only a man, another incarnation of the “Soviet man” was constantly overlooked.
With the development of women’s history and gender studies the situation began to change somewhat; now there are a number of major works, providing a picture of what it meant to be a woman in the Soviet Union.
Many women of the Soviet era, brainwashed by propaganda even didn’t want to be referred to as a woman, but rather as “tovarishch” which means “comrade” in Russian.
Female comrades played an important role in Soviet socialist revolution, in building soviet industry and agriculture, in the Civil War and in the country’s defense during WWII.
The first woman in space was Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova. She orbited the earth in Vostok 6 between June 16 and 19, in the year 1963.
Later, she was president of the Committee of Soviet Women and a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Soviet regime used literature as one of the methods of social engineering through indoctrination and began building the image of a new soviet woman.
And Tereshkova was one of their models.
The first ideal of the new Soviet woman, who quite naturally became the heroine, was born in the flames of revolution and civil war. The Soviet heroic woman first appeared in the pages of periodicals as a nurse, army commissar, and even as a fighter.
She was modest, firm, loyal, brave, dare, hardworking, energetic and often young. She didn’t think about her personal welfare. If she was needed at the battlefront, she could, though with regret, leave her children, she could put up with physical difficulties, without flinching, engage in the battle, and in case of capture – withstand torture and even death, believing that her sacrifice was the contribution to the construction of a better world.
The ideal Soviet woman had to sacrifice everything for the ideals of communism. That’s what the Soviet regime expected from her.
But in fact soviet woman had a double burden, because the regime also wanted her to reproduce, as it needed vast human resources for the Army, for the GULAG or simply as cheap, underpaid general workers.
Soviet men mostly wanted to see their women as lovers, wives, mothers, keepers of the family but this didn’t fit the line of Communist Party and Soviet government.
Even the International Women’s Day was introduced primarily to celebrate women as a worker rather than the traditional woman.
Gender as a category that helps structure society was not considered important in the Soviet Union. A notion that was more important in the USSR was class; belonging to the working class was clearly an advantage.
The so called soviet family obviously had a different role than, for example, the traditional Jewish family, or the Christian family.
Because our family was traditional and faith-based, we were viewed as enemies. And our women were seen as enemies too. Because we refused to be identified with Soviet class structure, we were hated stumbling stones on the happy road to communism.
And we were persecuted for that. My grandma had to stay alone with her younger children while her husband and older son, my dad, were in GULAG camps.
Many stories can be told of soviet woman’s fate, especially those who opposed socialism. My mom, along with my unborn sister, didn’t survive the Soviet regime’s assault on the traditional woman and family existence.
As a revenge for their death, so-called “soviet woman” didn’t survive too. She collapsed and died with the death of Soviet Union. But it left millions of damaged and wounded women’s souls and lives.
As a spiritual counselor I’ve spent my best years helping both women and men to recover and heal from soviet contagion. Those who are healed from that contagion aren’t soviet women anymore, but free women, known as loving moms and grandmas, wives, daughters and sisters.
Unfortunately right here in America are many of those who miss the idea of soviet woman as class unit. Good thing is that most of Americans are sick and tired of that socialistic attack on women and the traditional woman becomes popular again.
Now, for those of you who still wonder what there is about this Day, here’s my short review of it the way I see it.
March 8th – International Women’s Day was seen as counterpart to Man’s Day (February 23rd, Soviet Army & Navy Day).
It was and still is a custom to celebrate and give flowers to all women: mothers, wives, daughters, sisters. Comparing to American holidays it was probably like Valentine’s and Mother’s Days combined (just add daughters and sisters there!)
On the surface this holiday looks nice and innocent. Men were happy to give and women – to receive all gifts, respect and appreciation. However, like with many other international holidays, it’s origins are deeply rooted in paganism, in rebellion against God-given women’s role, as described in the Bible.
But, what else could you expect from the regime that had atheism as it’s cornerstone. With such disrespect of Judeo-Christian values it was adopted by ungodly International socialist movement.
According to a history reference, the first IWD was observed on 28 February 1909 in the United States following a declaration by the Socialist Party of America. In 1910 the first international women’s conference was held in Copenhagen by the Second International and an ‘International Women’s Day’ was established, which was submitted by the important German Socialist Clara Zetkin, who as I remember was highly respected by Soviet Communist Party.
But, why they chose spring for Women’s Day? I tend to think that there is connection to Eostre, pagan goddess of spring and fertility. Now, guess where the name “Easter” comes from?
Evidently, because socialists hate Passover and Resurrection of Christ, they also needed to fill springtime with something that would divert people’s attention away from God.
While socialists propagate atheism, declaring that there’s no God, they employ well demons and pagan gods to attack Biblical faiths.
