Union Calendar No. 730
81st Congress, 2d Session _ . _ _ - House Report No. 1953
REPORT
ON THE
CONGRESS OF
AMERICAN WOMEN
OCTOBER 23, 1949
(Original release date)
April 26, 1950. — Committed to the Committee of the Whole House
on the State of the Union and ordered to be printed
Prepared and released by the
COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES
U. S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
UNITED STATES
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
65891 WASHINGTON : 1950
Committee on Un-American Activities, U. S. House of
Representatives
John S. Wood, Georgia, Chairman
Francis E. Walter, Pennsylvania
Burr P. Harrison, Virginia
John McSweeney, Ohio
Morgan M. Moulder, Missouri
Richard M. Nixon, California
Francis Case, South Dakota
Harold H. Velde, Illinois
Bernard W. Kearney, New York
Frank S. Tavenner, Jr., Counsel
Louis J. Russell, Senior Investigator
John W. Carrington, Clerk of Committee
Benjamin Mandel, Director of Research
II
CONTENTS
Page
List of illustrations in
Introduction 1
Congress of American Women — How it started 3
Women's International Democratic Federation 7
Soviet Union in the forefront 12
The real status of women in the Soviet Union 19
WIDF activities between the first and second congresses 21
In the Soviet orbit 29
Anna Pauker, Stalin's hatchet woman 39
Second congress of the WIDF 43
Treason the keynote 48
American WIDF delegates report 53
The Congress of American Women, 1946-49 55
Pressure politics 55
Defense of Communist leaders 60
"Founding" convention 63
Muriel Draper 67
Communistic hierarchy 76
Communists and pro-Communists in the CAW 83
Margaret Undjus Krumbein, leading exponent of the perty line 86
International Women's Day 89
The peace offensive 95
The WIDF part in the World Peace Congress 96
Behind a "suffrage" camouflage 99
Susan B. Anthony II 100
Nora Stanton Barney 102
Cooperation with Communist fronts 105
National Council of American-Soviet Friendship 105
Other Communist fronts 105
Attitude toward other women's organizations 109
Conclusion 110
Appendix ll.i
Lenin-Zetkin conversations 111
Officers of the Congress of American Women 11^
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Second Congress of the Women's International Democratic Federation,
held in Budapest, December 1948 iv
2. American delegates to First Congress of Women's International
Democratic Federation, 1945 (2 pictures) , 6, 8
3. Ringleaders of the Women's International Democratic Federation 10
4. Nina Popova, Soviet Commissar of the Women's International Demo-
cratic Federation, addressing the First Congress of the WIDF 14
5. Members of the Executive Committee of the Women's International
Democratic Federation 22
6. Members of the Executive Committee of the Women's International
Democratic Federation 28
7. Anna Pauker, Stalin's hatchet woman 38
8. Banner presented to the Soviet Union by the Union of French Women,
affiliate of the Women's International Democratic Federation 49
9. Congress of American Women delegation in behalf of Communist
cases 61
10. Muriel Draper, president, Congress of American Women 66
11. Red Greek guerrilla fighters, delegates to Second Congress of the
Women's International Democratic Federation 94
12. Susan B. Anthony II 101
13. Tea on International Women's Day, March 8, 1946, given by the
National Council of American-Soviet Friendship in honor of Soviet
women, at the Soviet Consulate in New York 104
m
IV
Union Calendar No. 730
81sT Congress ) HOUSE OF KEPEESENTATIVES j Report
M Session j t No. 1953
REPORT ON THE CONGRESS OF AMERTC.VN WOMEN
April 26, 1950. — Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the State
of the Union and ordered to be printed
Mr. WtX)D, from the Committee on Un-American Activities, submitted
the following
^t^
REPORT
[Pursuant to H. Res. 5, 79th Cong., 1st sess.]
REPORT ON THE CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
Affiliate of the Women's International Democratic Federation
INTRODUCTION
The Congress of American Women is an afl&liate of the Women's
International Democratic Federation, which was founded and sup-
ported at all times by the international Communist movement. The
purpose of these organizations is not to deal primarily with women's
problems, as such, but rather to serve as a specialized arm of Soviet
political warfare in the current "peace" campaign to disarm and
demobilize the United States and democratic nations generally, in
order to render them helpless in the face of the Communist drive for
world conquest. While professedly American in name, the Congress
of American Women has been anti-American and pro-Soviet since its
inception. In fact, the Congress of American Women, as well as its
parent body, the Women's International Democratic Federation, has
consistently denounced and opposed all recognized non-Communist
women's organizations both here and abroad.
It would indeed be unfortunate if any significant body of American
women were persuaded to join or lend themselves to the purposes of
this organization simply because it has adopted so deceptive a name
as the Congress of American Women. It is the purpose of this report
to offset any such eventuality.
The Congress of American Women is a part of a solar system of
international Communist-front organizations which have been estab-
lished in recent years, consisting of the Women's International Demo-
cratic Federation, the World Federation of Democratic Youth (Ameri-
can affiliates: the American Youth for Democracy, the Labor Youth
League, and the American Youth for a Free World), the World Peace
Congress (American affiliate: the Scientific and Cultural Conference
for World Peace), the All-Slav Congress (American affiliate: the
American Slav Congress), and the World Federation of Trade-Unions
(American supporters including the left-wing unions within the Con-
gress of Industrial Organizations). Wliile operating against the demo-
cratic nations under close Soviet direction and control, these inter-
national Communist-front organizations have not yet been the subject
of any coordinated action by the various democracies under attack.
The administrative and policy-making core of the Women's Inter-
national Democratic Federation consists of leading women Commu-
nists, beginning with Nina Popova, Soviet deputy and president of
the Government-sponsored Soviet Women's Anti-Fascist Committee,
down to the Congress of American Women, led by Elizabeth Gurley
Flynn and Margaret Cowl, representing the Communist Party,
U. S. A. This core extends down to each individual chapter in
2 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
various cities throughout the United States, and is supplemented by
a number of wilHng dupes and sympathizers.
In its international "peace" offensive, the Soviet propaganda
machine seeks to utilize the World Federation of Democratic Women
and its American affiliate, the Congress of American Women, to
promulgate the following anti- American propaganda:
1. That America is preparing to initiate a "new war."
2. That the Atlantic Defense Pact is really "aggressive" in
character.
3. That the Soviet Union, with its huge standing army, expan-
sionist program, aggressive "cold war," and active fifth column,
is the only country which really desires to maintain world peace.
4. Support of the Red Army in the event of war, in accordance
with the declarations of leading Communists : Maurice Thorez of
France, Palmiro Togliatti of Italy, Harry PoUitt of England, and
Wifiiam Z. Foster of the United States.
5. To utilize women's groups to "strike a blow at the rear" of
the non-Soviet armies in the event of a conflict.
6. To carry on propaganda to the effect that conditions in the
United States are so bad that this country is not worth defending,
and that on the other hand conditions in the Soviet Union are so
vastly superior that it is the only country worth defending.
7. To attack the Marshall plan despite the fact that housewives
throughout the world are its chief beneficiaries.
The Congress of American Women has received open cooperation
and support from the Soviet Embassy in this country, while its
parent body and foreign affiliates have received similar aid from
Communist governments abroad.
CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
HOW IT STARTED
Proclaimed originally as the "first women's political-action organi-
zation since the suffrage movement," the Congress of American
Women is just another Communist hoax specifically designed to
ensnare idealistically minded but politically gullible women. This
member of the Communist solar system of front organizations did
not stem from any demand emanating from such long-established
women's groups as the American Association of University Women,
American Legion Auxiliary, the National Comicil of Catholic Women,
the Daughters of the American Revolution, the General Federation
of Women's Clubs, Hadassah, National Federation of Business and
Professional Women's Clubs, the Women's National Democratic
Club, the Women's National Republican Club, the National Council
of Jewish Women, the National Council of Negro Women, Inc., the
National League of Women Voters of the United States, the Veterans
of Foreign Wars Ladies Auxiliary, the National League of American
Pen Women, or the Young Women's Christian Association. Instead,
it traces its origin to a directive of the Soviet-dominated Women's
International Democratic Federation Congress held in Paris in Novem-
ber 1945, and it subscribes fully to the latter's aims. Its leading
persormel consists chiefly of women active in the Communist Party
of the United States or its front organizations and in various groups
carrying on propaganda in behalf of the Soviet Union.
The chief purpose of the Congress of American Women is to act as
part of a world-wide pressure mechanism among women, in support
of Soviet foreign and domestic policy. From its inception this group
has displayed a marked an ti- American bias. Its real aims are dis-
creetly hidden behind a smoke screen of such attractive idealistic
bait as equal rights for women "in all aspects of political, economic,
legal, cultural, and social life," the extension of educational and
health benefits, child care, "defeat of the maneuvers of the Fascists,"
and unity for world peace. The Congress of American Women and
its international parent body assume that these purposes have reached
their fruition in the Soviet Union and that the United States is chiefly
derelict along these lines. The memberships of both organizations
have been exaggerated to tremendous proportions.
Under no circumstances does the committee wish to leave the im-
pression that it is critical toward any women's organization sincerely
interested in social reform, in promoting world peace or honestly
critical of our foreign policy. However, the organization with wliich
we are dealing is definitely not of that character.
The Congress of American Women was officially launched at the
City Center Casino in New York City on March 8, 1946, at the cele-
bration of International Women's Day, subsequent to a preparatory
meeting held at the Essex House in the same city and subsequent to a
3
4 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
gathering in honor of International Women's Day held at the Soviet
consulate in New York City, in which initiators of the Congress of
American Women participated. The purpose of this rally was to hear
reports from American delegates to the First Congress of the Women's
International Democratic Federation at Paris, among them Henrietta
Buckmaster, Mrs. Vivian Carter Mason, Dr. Gene Weltfish, and
Muriel Draper.
At that first meeting its propaganda keynote was sounded. Held
out as symbolic of the leadership of this international front were
Dolores Ibarruri, outstanding Spanish Communist, and Irene Joliot-
Curie, wife of the French Communist physicist. Col. Bernard Bern-
steiu, formerly with the American military government in Germany,
assailed a group in Congress for their "attacks on Russia." Mrs.
Muriel Draper criticized Winston Churchill's "anti-Soviet war-
mongering and scored President Truman tor going along with it."
At a press conference, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, a member of the
national board of the Communist Party, said, "W^e feel the urgency
of organizing this anti-Fascist women's congress to keep the peace." ^
Clear proof of the non- American origin of the organization is to be
found in a report by Thyra Edwards, recording secretary of the Con-
gress of American Women, as follows:
The unique feature of the Congress of American Women, which distinguishes it
from existing women's organizations, is its international character and its inter-
national conception.
The congress was conceived in Paris last November, when 13 United States
delegates to the first Women's International Democratic Federation pledged
themselves to return home and organize American women to carry out the pro-
gram outlined at Paris.^
Miss Edwards further states that, having heard the report of the
Paris conference, the New York meeting, which represented no out-
standing American women's organizations, approved it and author-
ized commissions to undertake work in the three areas outlined at
Paris: action for peace and democracy; childhood and youth; and the
political, social, and economic status of women.
Another meeting was held on May 25, 1946, at the Essex House in
New York. This was the so-called first "working conference" of the
CAW. Speakers mcluded "the militant Communist leader. Mother
Bloor," and the organization's mternational military aspect was
emphasized by the attendance of Lt. Vana Kraigher, a guerrilla fighter
in Tito's army.^ A message was also received from Marie-Claude
Vaillant-Couturier, general secretary of the Women's International
Democratic Federation, who is a leader of the Communist Party of
France.
This meeting, which claimed 600 delegates, approved the proposed
constitution, accepted the interim reports of the three commissions,
established itself as a permanent organization to be known as the
Congress of American Women, and elected the following officers :
President: Dr. Gene Weltfish.
Executive vice president: Muriel Draper.
Treasurer: Helen Phillips.
Secretary: Josephine Timms.
Recording secretary: Thyra Edwards.
1 Daily Worker, March 9, 1946, p. 12.
2 Daily Worker, June 23, 1946, p. 11.
3 Ibid.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 5
Vice chairmen: Elinor Gimbel, Mrs. Fredric March, Charlotte
Hawkins Brown, Mrs. Vivian Carter Alason, Mrs, Gifford
Pinchot, Ruth Young, Susan B. Anthony II, Jeannette Turner,
Dr. Beryl Parker.
Chapters are claimed in Los Angeles, Oakland, Chicago, Pittsburgh,
Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington, New York, and other cities.
Affiliations may be made on a bloc or individual basis. The general
membership fee is from $1 to $10: group affiliation, $10 to $50.
On January 17, 1947, Gene Weltfish, Helen Phillips, Muriel Draper,
Josephine Timms, Susan B. Anthony, and Elinor S. Gimbel signed a
certificate of incorporation for the Congress of American Women.
It is interesting to note that the commissioner of deeds who notarized
the document was Bella V. Dodd, an attorney and former member of
the national committee of the Communist Political Association. She
has also been a member of the Congress of American Women. Thus a
leading Communist was instrumental in drawing up the incorporation
papers for the Congress of American Women.
6
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
American Delegates to First Congress of Women's International Democratic
Federation, 1945.
Left to right: Vivian Carter Mason, Elizabeth Gm'ley Flynn, Communist.
—Soviet Woman, No. 1, 1946, page 11.
WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION
One may well inquire how it happened that the initiative for this
movement came from Paris, a city plagued with innumerable problems
of postwar recovery.
For some time the international Communist movement has utilized
Paris as a directive center in a transparent maneuver to obviate the
charge of "orders from Moscow." Thus it was Jacques Duclos,
secretary of the Communist Party of France and former member of
the executive committee of the Communist International, who issued
from Paris the pronouncement which resulted in the ouster of Earl
Browder as general secretary of the Communist Party of the United
States and the reversal of the previous line of the party under Browder's
leadership. It was Maurice Thorez, secretary-general of the Com-
munist Party of France, who sounded the keynote for cooperation
with the Red Army, in the event of a conflict, which was echoed by
Communist leaders throughout the world, Paris is also the founding
center and headquarters for the Communist-dominated World Federa-
tion of Democratic Youth, the World Federation of Trade-Unions,
and the World Peace Congress.
Communists throughout the world place little or no reliance upon
the United Nations, basing themselves chiefly upon these pressure
organizations of their own which are closely interlocked. It is
significant that the American Youth for a Free World, United States
branch of the Communist-dominated World Federation of Demo-
cratic Youth, has its offices at 144 Bleecker Street, New York City,
which until recently has also been the address of the Congress of
American Women, United States branch of the Women's International
Democratic Federation.
The constitution of the World Federation of Democratic Youth
states that the organization shall "maintain the closest possible con-
tact with the World Federation of Trade-Unions" ;* a statement
issued by the executive committee of the World Federation of Demo-
cratic Youth proposes that "with regard to the World Federation of
Trade-Unions, and the Women's International Democratic Federa-
tion, special joint activities are recommended * * *." ^ Ridicul-
ing the United Nations for its slowness in organization, Louis Saillant,
pro-Communist secretary of the World Federation of Trade-Unions,
congratulated the Women's International Democratic Federation on
its success in setting up a world organization. When the Congress of
American Women approved a telegram to President Truman con-
demning his "draft labor" speech, a copy was sent to the World
Federation of Trade-Unions, from which the British Trade-Union
Congress and the American CIO recently withdrew because of its
Communist character.® Nina Popova, a Russian, the vice president
and probably most important member of the WIDF, went to Prague
* Subsection (g), section IV, Constitution of the World Federation of Democratic Youth.
s Undated circular letter, American Youth for a Free World.
• DaUy Worker, June 23, 1946, p. II.
8
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
American Delegates to Firat Congress of Women's International JJemucratic
Federation, 1945.
Front row, left to right: Muriel Draper, Mrs. Gifford Pinchot, Gene Weltfish.
Back row, left to right: Ann Bradford, Henrietta Buckmaster, Elizabeth Gurley
Flynn, Thelma Dale.
—Worker, March 10, 1946, page 12.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 9
when the general council of the World Federation of Trade-Unions
met there in 1947, and made a highly publicized speech during that
conference — another example of the close tie connecting the three
organizations.^
The establishment of the Women's International Democratic
Federation is shrouded in mystery to which only the subterranean
ramifications of the international Communist movement can supply
the clue.
The WIDF was organized at the so-called "International Women's
Anti-Fascist Congress." This congress was initiated at a convention
of the Communist-controlled Union des Femmes Frangaises, a purely
national French women's organization. However, for some imex-
plained reason their convention was well attended by sympathetic
delegates from the Soviet Union, China, Czechoslovakia, Belgium,
Britain, Yugoslavia, Spain, and Italy. After a motion to establish
an initiative committee to set up the international Women's Congress
was put forth by Eugenie Cotton, of France, delegates from these
countries and from France selected themselves to constitute the
International Initiative Committee. Mme. Cotton, a well-known
fellow traveler who has been refused entrance to the United States,
was appointed chairman of this committee.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn describes the obstacles which beset the
organization as follows:
The difficulties under which the initiatory committee worked were incredible.
Without office supplies, with no list of organizations, with communication and
transportation broken down throughout Europe, it was a herculean task.^
The public press carried no announcements of elections of delegates
throughout the world. A preliminary meeting had been held in
London in 1945, and, according to a U. S. S. R. publication, Soviet
Woman, "The International Initiative Committee * * * [did]
* * * a great deal to popularize its program and the program
of the * * * International Congress among broad sections of
women in many countries." ®
By September 1945, when a plenary session of the International
Initiative Committee was held in Paris, the program had been aug-
mented by the support of additional Communist women's organiza-
tions in Algiers, Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Mexico,
Norway, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Sweden, Switzerland, and the
United States.
In the United States the organization most active in behalf of the
International Women's Congress was the National Council of Ameri-
can-Soviet Friendship, which was cited as subversive and Com-
munist by the Attorney General of the United States. Prior to the
first congress of the WIDF, the Russian magazine, Soviet Woman,
published excerpts from a statement made before the Soviet Women's
Anti-Fascist Committee by Jessica Smith, editor of the Communist-
front publication, Soviet Russia Today, and educational director of
the Women's Committee of the National Council of American-Soviet
Friendship. Miss Smith said:
When the program and aims of the International Women's Congress become
widely known, American women may be counted on to play an important role in
this organization.
J Daily Worker, July 2, 1947, p. 2.
8 Worker, January 20, 1946, p. 6, 7m.
• Soviet Woman, No. 1, 1945 (November-December) pp. 3-4
i
10
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
Ringleaders of the Women's International Democratic Federation.
Left to right: Gene Weltfish (U. S. A.), vice president, WIDF; Nina Fopova
(U. S. S. R.), vice president, WIDF; Eugenie Cotton (France), president, WIDF;
Dolores Ibarruri (Spain), vice president, WIDF. Pictured at first executive
committee meeting of the WIDF, at Paris, June 27-July 1, 1946.
—Soviet Woman, No. 4, 1946, page 2.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN H
On behalf of the Women's Committee of the National Council of American-
Soviet Friendship, which I have the honor to represent, I assure you that we shall
do everything in our power to obtain and stimulate the widest support for the
great aims of the congress.'"
According to Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Mrs. Elinor S. Gimbel, who
is the vice chairman of the Women's Committee of the National
Council of American-Soviet Friendship, was the chairman of the
"temporary committee in New York" to organize the Paris conference.
But no one has publicly disclosed who selected Mrs. Gimbel for this
post.
The Communist Party of the United States has been openly inter-
ested in the WIDF since its inception and has taken ojB&cial cognizance
of the organization. Upon her return to the United States, Elizabeth
Gurley Flynn reported to the National Committee of the Communist
Party, U. S. A., on her "recent visit to Paris as a member of the Amer-
ican delegation to the International Women's Congress." **
The WIDF was denounced as a Communist organization by most
of the women members of the British Parliament, including Dr. Edith
Summerskill, and this group refused to participate.
In the face of admitted difficulties, the results claimed for the 4-day
conference which began on November 23, 1945, are truly astounding —
so astounding in fact that at various times Communist estimates found
themselves completely at variance. Reports released through the
New York Times on December 1, 1945, and May 26, 1946, claimed
a total of 600 delegates, representing 81,000,000 women in 35 coun-
tries. In her articles in Political Affairs for March 1947, and the
Worker of March 9, 1947, EUzabeth Gurley Flynn claimed 900 dele-
gates representing 81,000,000 women in 41 countries. The official
report of the Congress of American Women dated February 20, 1947,
claimed 44 countries, with a membership of 81,000,000 women. The
Daily Worker of November 29, 1945, claimed 800 delegates, repre-
senting 100,000,000 women in forty-odd countries. On December
23, 1945, the Daily Worker claimed that the Paris conference repre-
sented a total of 120,000,000 women. Writing in Glamour for March
1946, Mr. David Preston went so far as to claim that WIDF aims
were "identical with the aims of women all over the world." In other
words, this newly organized group with admittedly meager resources
operating in the face of numerous physical obstacles presents the
fantastic claim to representing 1 out of every 10 to 13 of the billion
women throughout the world. The official report of the Congress
of the WIDF contains no break-down by countries to support these
figures. Such well-known international women's organizations as
the International Council of Women, established 59 years ago, the
International Alliance for Women's Suffrage and Equal Citizenship,
St. Joan's Social and Political Alliance, and the Equal Rights Inter-
national did not participate and were completely ignored. The first
of these included 900 outstanding women delegates from 31 countries.
These figures must be further discounted in the light of the fact that
the great bulk of the membership stems from Communist-dominated
countries in which the government can arbitrarily juggle figures
regarding the membership of officially sponsored organizations.
Despite these tenuous and highly inflated figures, the Women's Inter-
10 Soviet Woman, No. 1, 1945 (November-December), p. 6.
» Daily Worker, February 15, 1946, p. 2.
65891—50 2
//
12 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
national Democratic Federation succeeded in securing consultant
status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.
On issue after issue the WIDF, including the American delegates,
alined itself against the United States and in favor of the Soviet
position. Mme. FranQoise Leclerc, the Communist leader of the Union
des Femmes Frangaises, outlined a program which declared that —
peace will be constantly endangered as long as trusts and economic combines,
which are prepared for war, have not been abolished.^^
This is strictly in line with Communist propaganda now being
spread throughout the world, in which the United States is being
identified with allegedly fascistic, warmongering monopolies and
trusts.
On November 30, 1945, the gathering held at the Palais de la
Mutualite in Paris, demanded that the atomic bomb be uncondi-
tionally submitted to the control of the United Nations. Mrs. Gifford
Pinchot, representing the American delegation, declared that the
United States and Britain were not justified in keeping the secret
to themselves. "The so-called secret," she insisted, "must not be
kept from our Russian ally."
Indicative of the general attitude of the conference toward the
American Government is the following comment by Miss Elizabeth
Gurley Flynn, Communist commissar of the American delegation:
Only the American Embassy conspicuously refrained from holding a reception
to welcome the delegations. They disapproved of our presence and had no
interest in the purpose of the conference, which promised no commercial ad-
vantages to the U. S. A. 13
It should be noted in this connection that the Soviet, Bulgarian, and
Yugoslav Embassies, the latter being at that time within the Soviet
bloc, tendered lavish receptions to the delegates.
One would imagine that the bitter antagonism toward all things
American displayed by the delegation from the United States was the
result of hardships suffered by them in contrast to the comparative
well-being of the delegations from the totalitarian countries. For
some curious, psychological reason, the opposite was the case. With
apparent shame and mortification. Miss Flynn explained: "We were
increasingly conscious of our warm clothes, well-filled suitcases and
purses," and the fact that her group came from a "richer, safer,
happier" land.
They traveled expensively by air all the way. A number of sup-
porters of the Congress of American Women are individuals of con-
siderable means. Why these women did not feel called upon to extol
the virtues of the land with such blessings and why they lost no
opportunity to eulogize a land without them is something for a
psychologist to fathom.
SOVIET UNION IN THE FOREFRONT
Observers at the first Congress of the Women's International Demo-
cratic Federation, directing bod}^ of the Congress of American Women,
were impressed by the overshadowing influence of the Soviet delega-
tion. The New York Herald Tribune of December 9, 1945, declared:
The Communists, it was very evident, are straining to direct this powerful
feminine movement. * * * Jt was no less certain that the congress was a
n New York Times, November 28, 1945, p. 30.
" Worker, January 20, 1946, pp. 6, 7m.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 13
great success for Russian prestige and influence. The Soviet delegation dominated
the others as much by its size as by the quality of its individual members.
The largest delegation, consisting of 40 members, came from the
Soviet Union. According to the Daily Worker of December 22, 1945,
"This delegation was the pride and joy of the whole convention."
Particularly honored in this group was Claudia Kirsanova, former
Soviet political commissar, of whom the Daily Worker declared that
"she knew Lenin, had been in prison with Stalin, and is a veteran
Bolshevik."
Despite the fact that the official insignia of the Women's Interna-
tional Democratic Federation and its American affiliate is the dove of
peace holding an olive branch, members of the Soviet delegation
appeared in full uniform with a generous display of medals. Among
them were Major General Troitskaya and two colonels. Of course,
they completely outranked militarily the lowly Sgt. Ann Bradford,
WAC, who had spent 3 years overseas doing teletype communications
for the American Army. It is obvious that this demonstration was
consciously staged in order to emphasize by contrast the status of
military women in democratic America with that of Soviet Russia.
Miss Bradford, at one time, was a member of the then Communist-
controlled Los Angeles Newspaper Guild Auxiliary.
The Soviet delegation was given five places on the council of the
Women's International Democratic Federation, with five alternates,
as against four for the United States, with three alternates.
The Soviet Union laid a thorough ground work for its dominant role
in the Women's International Democratic Federation before most of
the women in the world had any intimation that such a federation was
projected. ^Members of the Soviet Women's Anti-Fascist Committee
attended, as delegates, the conference of the Union des Femmes
Frangaises, where preliminary plans for the WIDF were first publicly
proposed. Delegates from the Soviet Union were members of the
original International Initiative Committee which formulated and
promoted the program for the First International Congress of Women.
Before the first congress, the Soviet Women's Anti-Fascist Com-
mittee, together with the Central Council of Trade Unions of the
U. S. S. R., brought out an expensive, slick-paper magazine entitled
"Soviet Woman," which was published in Russian, English, French,
and German editions. Special emphasis was laid on the forthcoming
congress. The lead article, written by Nina Popova, president of
the Soviet Women's Anti-Fascist Committee, was entitled "An
Epoch-Making Event"; it covered in detail the preliminary steps to
the Congress. Although the Congress had yet to take place, Nina
Popova confidently outlined the course that would be pursued and
ventured to declare:
The programmatical principles of the International Initiative Committee and
the First International Congress of Women will become the firm foundation of an
international democratic women's federation. •*
This prediction proved tojbe accurate right down to the detail of the
name of the new organization.
The editor in chief of Soviet Woman is Zinaida Gagarina, a secretary
and member of the executive committee of the WIDF.
i< Soviet Woman, No. 1, 1945 (November-December), p. 4,
y
14
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
Nina Popova, Soviet Commissar of the Women's International Democratic
Federation, Addressing the First Congress of the WIDF.
— Soviet Woman, No. 1, 1946, page 12.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 15
For the first issue of Soviet Woman several statements were col-
lected which clearly demonstrate that the dominant role in the
WIDF had already been assumed by the Soviet Union. Mme.
Eugenie Cotton, chairman of the Initiative Committee for the first
congress and scheduled to be president of the WIDF declared:
We know in advance that the part played [at the International Women's
Congress] by our Soviet friends will be one of the greatest importance and we
shall be glad to be able to take advantage of the experiences gained by their
great country. '^
Dolores Ibarruri, the Spanish Communist, who was also a member
of the Initiative Committee, sent the following message to the editors
of Soviet Woman acknowledging the leading role of the Soviet delega-
tion:
* * * I am certain that Soviet women, who took such an active part in the
fight and contributed so much to the victory over Hitlerism, will bring their rich
experience to the work of the Congress and will combine their efforts with
the efforts of women of all countries. This will yield great results in the
struggle * * *.'^
In sharp contrast to these tokens of deference to Soviet women was
Nina Popova's complacent assumption of superiority:
Many of the problems confronting women of other countries and the Inter-
national Congress have already been solved in the U. S. S. R."
Outstanding Soviet delegates were Nina Popova, president of the
Soviet Women's Anti-Fascist League, leader of the Soviet trade-
unions, and Larissa Alexandrowskaia, both Soviet deputies, who
obviously (?ould not be present without the tacit approval of the
Soviet Government.
It is significant that the first article in the first issue of Soviet
Woman late in 1945 was written about this new Communist project
by Nina Popova prior to the Paris congress. It was the first public
indication of her ensuing career as spokesman for the WIDF. Popova
has led the WIDF from its earliest days, as executive vice president —
the most strategically important position in the Federation.
At the First International Women's Congress in Paris in 1945,
where the WIDF was founded, Popova described the superior qualities
of Soviet women:
Nina Popova, president of the Soviet Women's Anti-Fascist Committee, told
the Congress about the great services of Soviet women in the defense of their
country's freedom and independence. She described the courageous fight waged
by Soviet women patriots against the Nazi invaders * * *.'^
The Congress obediently echoed this eulogy of Soviet efforts:
In the decision which it adopted on the first two questions considered, the
Congress noted the efforts of all freedom-loving women in the fight against
Hitlerism * * *. Particular emphasis was laid on the decisive role of the
Red Army in the defeat of fascism and on the tremendous contribution made by
the peoples of the Soviet Union to the cause of saving civilization * * *."
The Soviet Union was pictured as a veritable paradise for women
where all their problems had long been solved. A Miss Allen, of the
British Labour Party, "discussed the inequality in pay received by
women as compared with men in the majority of countries." It was
" Soviet Woman, No. 1, 1945 (November-December), p. 6.
i« Ibid.
" Ibid., p. 5.
'• Soviet Woman, No. 1, 1946 (January-February), p. 9.
'•Ibid.
16 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
stated flatly that "only in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslo-
vakia, and Bulgaria do laws exist guaranteeing women equal pay
for equal work," ^^
Another item on the congress' agenda concerned the status of women
with regard to civil and property rights.
All these and a multitude of other economic, juridical, and social problems,
which rightly agitate women abroad, have long since been settled in the Soviet
Union, as was abundantly demonstrated at the congress. The splendid achieve-
ments of Soviet women aroused the profound interest and the hearty approval of
all delegates.21
During a discussion of child care and health at the congress, it was
asserted that:
The Soviet Union is the only nation in the world where care for children con-
stitutes one of the most important aspects of governmental and public activities,
and where the State devotes special attention to the needs of the mother.22
In line with Soviet practice, the congress called for "extensive
government sponsored measures" and "a network of institutions" to
be set up for the care of children and mothers.
Women Communist leaders from other countries joined in this
torrent of praise for the U. S. S. R. Among these were Anna Pauker,
Jeannette Vermeersch, Tsola Dragoicheva, Dolores Ibarruri, and
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, all of whom are active leaders of the WIDF.
Anna Pauker told the first congress:
The Rumanian woman was particularly downtrodden by fascism. The Red
Army liberated her and the entire Rumanian people from this oppression. ^^
The following excerpts are typical of the speeches made by dele-
gates from the so-called People's Democracies:
Mme. Wolynska, a colonel of the Polish Army, told the congress
that "women played a significant part in the organization of the
Polish Army formed in the Soviet Union. "^*
Anka Berus, Minister of Finance of Croatia and deputy to the
Constituent Assembly of Yugoslavia, asserted "the Red Army dis-
pelled the myth of Nazi invincibility."^^
Other countries which were engaged in the war against the Axis
Powers at no time during the course of the congress received more
than a mere mention for their part in World War 11. The defeat of
the Nazis was attributed by the congress solely to the prowess of
the Red Army. Muriel Draper added her voice to that of these
Communist spokesmen:
We did not experience the moral and physical sufferings that were inflicted by
the Nazis on our allies * * *^ What a stirring experience to meet and shake
hands at this congress * * * with women who fought so splendidly during
the years of war and political struggle.
Particularly warm and full of sympathy is the mutual understanding between
American and Soviet women. There is no force that can break this friendship.26
After the congress Nina Popova wrote a pamphlet. The Inter-
national Women's Federation, a Great Force, which was published
»" Ibid. page. 10.
2' Ibid.
2» Ibid.
2' Ibid. p. 17.
2< Ibid. p. 15.
»« Ibid. p. 16.
!» Ibid. p. 13.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 17
in 1946 by the publishing house of the All-Union Central Council of
Trade Unions. In this book Popova frankly acknowledges the
obsequious attitude of the delegates toward the Soviet group:
We Soviet delegates felt like elder sisters * * * ^^e congress delegates
treated the representatives of our great people with tenderness, admiration, and
high esteem * * * Even far away from our borders, the greatness of our
country, the heroism of its people, the fame of its army, and the wisdom of its
leaders, accompanied us.^'
Describing the meeting of the Women's International Democratic
Federation, to which she was the leading American Communist
delegate, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn made the following ecstatic comment
on "the tremendous progress" of women in the Soviet Union, "the only
Socialist state as yet in existence:"
We should use this example of the country of socialism to demonstrate to
American women that Communists actively champion the rights of women
* * * which bourgeois democracies grant them only piecemeal after tremen-
dous struggles .28
Traveling on a tour for the Congress of American Women, Miss
Flynn drew the following distinction between the United States and
the Soviet Union:
This country belongs by right to the people, as their country does actually
belong to the people of the U. S. S. R.^s
Again striking the keynote that pervades the literature and the
pronouncements of both the Women's International Democratic
Federation and its American affiliate. Miss Flynn boasts that "Soviet
women have voted since 1917," while there is, she charges, "no equal
democratic suffrage in the U. S. A." She does not say that Soviet
women have the right— nay, the duty — to vote for one party and for
one set of candidates only, nor that American women have enjoyed
full suffrage since 1920.
While there was not even a hint of official criticism of the Soviet
Union, the Paris meeting condemned "present tendencies in world
diplomacy," ^° the reference to the United States being obvious to all.
In the light of the marked pro-Soviet bias of the Women's Interna-
tional Democratic Federation, it is fully understandable that the
quasi-official Anti-Fascist Committee of Soviet Women was most
insistent in its demand that the United Nations Economic and Social
Council grant the WIDF recognition.^^
A number of incidents occurred during the proceedings which
originated the Women's International Democratic Federation which
high light the operation of the Communist steam roller. When
Mme. Sedoux, a member of the French delegation, arose to suggest
at the Paris conference that the meeting should oppose all forms of
totalitarianism, not just fascism, she and two other supporters were
excluded from the meeting. After discovering that the arrangements
board of the conference was stacked with Communists, they dis-
associated themselves from the organization.
2' Soviet Woman, No. 1, 1947, p. 57.
S8 Political Affairs, March 1947, p. 219.
29 Daily Worker, July 9, 1946.
30 New York Times, November 28, 1945, p. 30.
31 Information Bulletin, Women's International Democratic Federation, January 1947.
18 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
Mrs. Alice Hemming, delegate from the Women's Organization for
a New World Order, handed Mme. Cotton a letter to be read to the
assembly from her organization. After some objections were raised
to its contents, it was finally reported that the letter was lost.
Mrs. Jessie Street, Australian delegate, objected to the high-
pressure tactics employed in the selection of candidates for the
permanent executive committee. She recommended that the candi-
dates' names be submitted for approval to the members of the various
organizations throughout the world. The Communist clique crushed
this democratic proposal with characteristic ruthlessness.
THE REAL STATUS OF WOMEN IN THE SOVIET UNION
In order to demonstrate that the supporters of the Women's
International Democratic Federation and the Congress of American
Women had no real interest in improving the status of women through-
out the world and that their blind devotion to the Soviet Union was
such that they would hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil
about the conditions of women in that country regardless of the facts,
we cite the testimony of weU known and well informed observers as
to the status of Soviet women:
EUGENE LYONS
Russian women preserved some doubtful freedoms in vogue under
the czars — especially the freedom to work as longshoremen, miners,
sailors and in other trades elsewhere reserved for men only. * * *
Since Russia is not a signatory to the Geneva convention which
forbids women as combat troops, they are free to engage in that field
of activity.
When Hitler's government promulgated measures for enforcing
large families, the Soviet press branded it as "debasement of women
to the role of brood mares." It pointed out that Germany was breed-
ing additional millions of soldiers for aggressive adventures.
Today practically every one of those Nazi measures is law in
Russia. * * * Large families receive state subsidies, the mothers
of seven to nine children are awarded the title "Motherhood Glory";
superior breeders with 10 or more children are designated "Heroine
Mothers." ^'
ORIANA ATKINSON
"Sure we have equality," one young woman said; "equal rights to
go out and kill ourselves working hard all day and then the right to
come home and do all the housework and washing and cooking and
shopping for food in the evenings. Besides getting the kids to bed." ^^
LUDWELL DENNY
Now, as then, the typical women of Russia are not the few who wear
the finery of Paris or loot from central Europe, or the exquisite
priestesses of Russian culture from the superb Bolshoi Ballet, or
publicized professional women. Instead, they are the tens of millions
who rise from childbirth to shovel snow, fell trees, work roads, sow,
till, and harvest in the fields and pull their weight in industrial gangs.
They are the mothers of Mother Russia — old at 30, as always silently,
ploddingly, carrying a burden of the dark land they love.^*
W. N. EWER
Ewer contrasts the 275 rubles monthly wages of women who shovel
snow from the streets with the 40,000 rubles a month which he says
a popular writer, doctor or lawyer can make. "That is 130 times as
much as an unskilled worker earns." ^^
« Eugene Lyons, Washington Daily News, December 25, 1945, p. 12.
" Oriana Atkinson, Woman's Home Companion, November 1946, p. 144.
M Ludwell Denny, Washington Daily News, April 28, 1947, p. 27.
" Quoting W. N. Ewer, correspondent for the Daily Herald, official organ of the British Labor Party,
PM, May 9, 1947, p. 8.
19
20 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
HAROLD DAVIS
Communist Russia boasts that its women have equal rights with
men, and they certainly have — particularly when it comes to heavy
work, American correspondents reached Moscow 7 weeks ago,
right after a heavy snowstorm. Thousands of persons were on the
streets with shovels — and they were all women, old women, young
women, and even children, * * * \Ye were told, for example,
that 40 percent of all miners in Russia are women. They do the
heavy work in factories and sometimes even carried heavy luggage
in the hotels. * * *
Of course, women have achieved fame in medicine and the arts in
Russia. This is true in most countries; the percentage, with the
exception of doctors, appeared no higher in Russia than in the United
States, although much publicity has been given to their exploits.^^
FERDINAND KUHN, JR,
Across the road two long lines of about 80 women apiece had con-
verged upon a government food stall that was selling unrationed
food. The lines moved so slowly that each of the women must have
been waiting for more than an hour.
The women shoved so hard to get at the window of the food stall
that a policeman stationed there to keep order, was having trouble,
I saw him push two women to the end of the line because they were
too frantic to get to the window and were edging into other people's
places. Soon he had to call for another policeman to help him keep
the crowd in check.
The cause of the commotion, as nearly as I could see, was a half
loaf of bread, sliced down the middle, with a little packet of chopped
meat inside. Most of the women stuffed their precious purchases
into their shopping bags and hurried away. But there were other
women, older women, with shawls around their skinny faces who
couldn't wait. They started eating their loaves then and there.
It would be wrong to generalize from this mstance that all Moscow
women have to struggle for extra food or that all Moscow or all
Russia is underfed. But women do not usually struggle for a half
loaf of bread, as these women did, unless they or their families are
hungry.
The regular rations in Moscow are so small that everyone tries to
supplement them with unrationed food — if there are enough rubles
to pay for it,
A girl in a Moscow oflEice, for example, is entitled under her ration
to a pound of bread a day and to monthly purchases of 3^ pounds
of starchy foods like macaroni, dried beans, and cooking cereals,
2K pounds a month of meat and fish, less than a pound of fat a month,
and a pound of sweets.'^
8' Harold Davis, Washington Times-Herald, May 2, 1947, p. 7,
" Ferdinand Kuhn, Jr., Washington Post, May 14, 1947, p. 1,
WIDF ACTIVITIES BETWEEN THE FIRST AND SECOND
CONGRESSES
The bylaws of the Women's International Democratic Federation,
drawn up at the first congress, provide that in the 3-year interval
between full congresses of the federation the organization shall be
directed by the council, meeting once a year. Between sessions of
the council the executive committee meets twice a year, and acts as
the actual guiding body of the federation, assisted by the permanently
functioning secretariat and an auditing committee.
The executive committee of the WIDF held its first meeting in
Paris from June 27 to July 1, 1946. It was marked by the number
of prominent women Communists dominating the proceedings. Among
them were Tsola Dragoicheva, Alice Sportisse of Algeria, Anezka
Hodinova-Spurna and Milada Horakova of Czechoslovakia, Camille
Ravera of Italy, Jeannette Vermeersch and Marie-Claude Vaillant-
Couturier of France, and Dolores Ibarruri of Spain.
It has been the consistent practice for the Soviet representative to
present the official line at international Communist front organizations.
Thus V. V. Kuznetov, representing the Soviet trade-unions, was the
main reporter at the World Federation of Trade Unions; Red Army
Lt. Gen. Alexander Gundorov was the dominant figure of the All-Slav
Congress and the American Slav Congress; and A. A. Fadeev, secre-
tary-general of the secretariat of the Union of Soviet Writers, acted
in an identical capacity at the World Peace Congress in Paris and the
Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace in New York.
Nina Popova of the Soviet Union, who represents the voice of
authority of the WIDF, held the executive committee's "particular
interest" as she gave an account of the Soviet Union's newest Five-
Year Plan and its efforts to "consolidate international security through-
out the world." She was greeted with "hearty applause."
The first report heard by the executive committee was that of the
secretariat, headed by the secretary-general of the federation. She is
Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier, a member of the central committee
of the Communist Party of France.
The secretariat's report was endorsed by the executive committee
with a resolution stressing the need for continued recruitment of
members. This resolution declared that "fascism and reaction con-
tinue to constitute a menace," and it "warned all women against the
splitting maneuvers of the reactionaries." The resolution called for
"concerted action with women's organizations not yet aflaliated to the
federation." The executive committee "unanimously went on record
in favor of collaboration with all international organizations of a
democratic nature." Then the executive committee proceeded to
condemn the International Alliance of Women Voters as a "bourgeois
organization" carrying on activities of a "subversive nature," with
leaders engaged in "antidemocratic and anti-Communist propaganda."
Affiliated organizations of the International Alliance of Women Voters
21
22
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 23
were advised to withdraw from the alliance and to "expose the
reactionary policy of the alliance and its president" — a policy designed
to expose and counteract the influence of the WIDF. In spite of its
declared intention to "collaborate" with other women's organizations,
the WIDF has consistently and bitterly attacked women's organiza-
tions all over the world which are not prepared to affiliate with the
WIDF.
Referring to the various bona fide women's organizations in the
United States, Gene Weltfish declared to the executive committee, in
her report on the establishment of the Congress of American Women,
that:
* * * reactionary and fascist organizations in the United States trj' to
slander the Congress of American Women and intimidate them by red baiting.
Despite all this the congress has been able to interest wide sections of American
women in its work. * * * at present the congress unites over 500,000
women. ^*
It is worth noting that although Mrs. Weltfish claimed 500,000 mem-
bers for the Congress of American Women as early as 1946, in 1949
the congress was calling for a supreme, all-out effort from its members
in order to secure a mere 50,000 signatures to a petition to be presented
to the United Nations.
The preponderance of Communist influence evident at the first
meeting of the WIDF's executive committee has been maintained
through every subsequent meeting. It is significant that the second
WIDF executive committee meeting was held in Moscow during the
celebration of the twenty-ninth anniversary of the Revolution.
Delegates to the meeting, numbering many government officials from
the so-caUed "people's democracies," sent greetings to the Soviet
women for the occasion. These messages, reprinted in the Soviet
Woman, hailed the U. S. S. R. as the world's greatest "peace" force,
praised the "example" set by the U. S. S. R. "to the whole world,"
and urged "cooperation" with it.
The women of France, who are eager supporters of peace, will work for the close
cooperation of our two great democratic nations.
— Eugenie Cotton,
President, WIDF.
President, Union of French Women.
On this twenty-ninth anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution I
convey my hearty greetings to the Soviet women who * * * showed them-
selves to be * * * unyielding fighters for democracy and peace.
— Dolores Ibarruri,
Vice president, WIDF.
My greetings to the Soviet women, who are tirelessly working for peace.
—Gene Weltfish,
Vice President, WIDF.
President, Congress of American Women.
We are happy to be in your great country and convey to you the heartfelt
greetings of all Yugoslavian women on the occasion of the twenty-ninth anni-
versary of the Great October Revolution.
This significant anniversary of the establishment, under the leadership of the
party of Lenin and Stalin, of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the homeland
of free peoples, is indeed a holiday shared by the entire democratic world * * *
The fruits of your Socialist revolution serve as the foundation for the progressive
future of the whole world * * *
«• Soviet Women, No. 4, 1946, p. 6.
24 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
Hail the October Revolution! * * *
Long live the great strategist of the world-wide struggle for peace, Generalis-
simo Stalin! * * *
— Vida Tomsic,
— Olga Milosevic,
Members, Central Committee,
Yugoslavian Anti-Fascist Women's Front.
On this day of the glorious anniversary of the October Revolution the Czecho-
slovak women tender to the women of the Soviet Union their sincere congratula-
tions. * * * Thewomenof theU. S. S. R.are an exampleto all of us. * * *
— Milada Horakova,
President, Council of Women of Czechoslovakia.
— Anezka Hodinova,
Vice President, Czechoslovak Parliament.
— Maria Trojanova,
Secretary, National Front of Czechoslovak Women.
On behalf of the women of Poland united in the Polish Women's League, we
express to the Soviet women our sincere greetings and congratulations on the
twenty-ninth anniversary of the October Revolution. This revolution * * *
shows the working women throughout the world how the principle of true equality
and genuine democracy can be carried out.
— Eugenia Pragerowa,
Vice Minister of Labour and
Social Welfare, Lt. Col.
— Isolda Kowalska,
Deputy of the Krajowa Rada Naradowa.
Secretary, Polish Women's League.
— Zanna Kormanowa,
Director, School Reform Department,
Ministry of Education.
My dear Russian sisters, * * *. xhe example of our glorious liberator, the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and our Russian sisters inspires us in our
work.
— T. A. Obbova,
Secretary, Bulgarian Popular Women's Union.
On behalf of the women of Rumania I convey to my Soviet sisters greetings
^-id congratulations on this anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revo-
lution * * *_ Following the example of Soviet women we pledge * * *
to consolidate democracy and peace.
— Anna Pauker,
Honorary President, Union of Rumanian Women.
On behalf of the women of the Mongolian People's Republic, I extend warm
greetings to our dear sisters in the Soviet Union on the occasion of the twenty-
ninth anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution.
Soviet women * * * as a result of the greatest revolution in human his-
tory * * * are active champions of lasting and stable peace among
nations * * *
— Yanzhima Suhe-bator,
President, Council of Mongolian Working Women."
The first session of the council of the WIDF was held in Communist-
dominated Czechoslovakia. According to the account of the session
given in the Soviet Woman, Prague turned out in enthusiastic
crowds to welcome the Soviet delegation, which arrived by air a day
or two ahead of the other members of the council. Whenever these
delegates appeared on the streets they drew general attention and
were "eagerly sought out."
The Women's International Democratic Federation must be viewed
as an instrument of Soviet political warfare with military objectives
primarily in mind. The council session held between February 22 and
26, 1947, demonstrated this feature. It was timed to occur simul-
»• Soviet Woman. No. 5. 1946. pp. 5 ana b.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 25
taneously with the celebration of the twenty-ninth anniversary of the
Soviet Army. On this day, February 23, the Council suspended its
work and all the delegates attended a meeting and memorial service for
the Red Army soldiers who fell in Czech territory. The crowds, in-
cluding many Czech children, gathered about a marble monument,
and eulogies to the Red Army were delivered not only by Nina
Popova of the Soviet Union but by Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier,
a prominent French Communist, and by Elinor Gimbel of the United
States.
Two days after the council session closed, the delegates gathered in
Lucerne Hall to speak to 5,000 Czechs gathered to honor the WIDF.
A deafening roar of applause greeted Nina Popova, head of the Soviet delegation
when she rose to speak. Everyone stood up. Shouts of "Long live the Soviet
Union!" "Glory to Stalin!" "Long live the friendship of the Czechoslovak and
Soviet peoples!" could be heard amidst the ovation.*"
At this meeting Jeannette Vermeersch told the audience:
As we bow before the monument to the Soviet Army here on Czech soil, the
Council of the International Democratic Women's Federation also bows before
the mothers of the Soviet Union.'"
The chief topic of discussion before the council was the report of a
commission sent by the WIDF to study women's organizations in
Germany. The British and American authorities properly refused
the commission permission to visit their zones. Although the commis-
sion inspected only the Soviet sector of Germany it claimed to have
proof that in the western occupation zones —
the work of democratization and denazification is proceeding unsatisfactorily.
Monopolistic concerns have been preserved, and in many cases their activities are
directed by fascist elements. The land remains in the hands of the big landowners.
Many war criminals are still at large. Democratic parties and organizations en-
counter numerous obstacles in their activities.'*^
The WIDF Council closed its discussion of its commission's so-called
"Study of women's organizations in Germany" by drafting a message,
embodying the commission's attack on British, French, and American
foreign policy, to the Council of Foreign Ministers. This was done
at the suggestion of Elinor Gimbel of the United States. The Council
requested "fulfillment of the Potsdam decisions." The note of Soviet
glorification permeated the conference throughout, according to
this issue of Soviet Woman:
Throughout the session the Soviet delegation attracted general attention. The
delegates took every occasion to express their deep gratitude to the Soviet people
and the Soviet Army for their part ia winning victory over Hitler Germany. The
delegates displayed a keen interest in the achievements of Soviet women and
often commented on the difference in the position of women in the U, S. S. R. and
abroad. Whereas in the capitalist countries, they pointed out, postwar conditions
brought with them the danger of unemployment and new hardships for women,
Soviet women were able to look to the future with confidence.*^
Democratic Stockholm provided a reception for the WIDF very
different from the enthusiasm accorded — especially to the Russian
delegation — by Red Prague.
In spite of concerted protests from the Swedish press that "Stock-
holm was providing a platform for 'Communist propaganda and for
the popularization of Russia,' " ** the Left-wing Swedish Women's
" Soviet Woman, No. 2, 1947, p. 36.
" Ibid.
<» Ibid, p. 31.
« Ibid.
" Soviet Woman, No. 6, 1947, p. 43.
26 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
League managed to secure the Riksdag (the Swedish Parliament
Hall) for the fourth meeting of the WIDF executive committee. But
there were no holidays to celebrate Red Army anniversaries. When
the deputy mayor of Stockholm received the executive committee in
Stockholm's Golden Hall, a Soviet delegate noted, much to her
chagrin, that —
Amidst beautiful designs of mosaic and gilt were painted the coats of arms
of many countries, but that of the Soviet Union was absent. Why? Who if not
the Soviet Union, by her heroic struggle against the Fascist invasion, saved
Sweden from the fate of the other Scandinavian countries? *^
This was a far cry from the marble monument erected to the Red
Army in Prague.
The "warmest and most cordial" reception for the delegates was
organized by the Left-wing Swedish Women's League. The president
of the league, Andrea Andreen, was sharply criticized by the Swedish
press. At this meeting the audience "cordially welcomed" Nina
Popova of the Soviet Union, who at the end of her speech "severely
criticized the way certain Swedish newspapers had treated the execu-
tive session." According to the Soviet Woman, "her observations on
this score were punctuated by loud applause." *° Popova was followed
on the platform by the usual procession of Communists.
When Dolores Ibarruri, the vice president of the WIDF, appeared on the
platform, the audience simply went wild with enthusiasm, * * * The audi-
ence gave an enthusiastic welcome to Mitra Mitrovic, the woman partisan who
fought in Tito's unit and is now Minister of Education in Yugoslavia.^^
None of the WIDF sessions has been complete without a speech
from an American delegate. Reuha (Rheua) Pearce, an American
delegate, who is president of the Chicago branch of the Congress of
American Women and a supporter of the (Communist) Chicago Star
said in her speech America was not to be thought of as a united whole.
She declared a reactionary and imperialistic-minded 10 percent of the
people claimed to represent the American people.*^
In a summary of the proceedings of the executive committee session
at Stockholm, which appeared in the Soviet Woman for November-
December 1947, a Russian delegate stated:
The specific features of the present international situation — the increasingly
sharp differentiation between the forces of reaction and the forces of democracy
and the increasingly acute struggle between the two camps, imperialist and anti-
imperialist — shaped the agenda of the fourth session of the Executive Commit-
tee."
In another article in the same issue of Soviet Woman, Nina
Popova was even more specific:
The struggle between these two opposite camps is becoming more and more
evident. The first, headed by the U. S. A., is pursuing a policy that is directed
toward strengthening imperialism, toward establishing the world domination of
the American monopolies, toward the strangulation of democracy, and toward
universal support for the reactionary and antidemocratic pro-Fascist regimes and
movements.
The anti-imperialistic and anti-Fascist forces constitute the other camp, the base
of which is formed by the U. S. S. R. and the other countries of the new
democracies * * *
" Ibid.
** Ibid.
" Ibid.
«• Ibid.
" Ibid.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 27
The imperialist and reactionary policy of the U. S. A. is encountering the firm
resistance of the U. S. S. R., of the countries of the new democracy, who have
thrown off Anglo-American imperialist tutelage * * *
In this grave situation the WIDF has shown that it stands firmly in the camp
of the active champions of democracy * * * ^
The United States was bitterly attacked by delegates to the execu-
tive session. Keuha Pearce, a delegate from the Congress of American
Women, joined the voices raised against her own country, ''exposing"
the "suppression of democracy" in America and the "encouragement
and activization of reactionary pro-Fascist organizations." She
criticized "the reactionary character of the home and foreign policy
pursued by the Truman government."
"Democrats in the United States," she said, "realize how false is the path
along which Truman is leading the country." ^^
As usual French Communist delegates took the lead in their tirades
against the United States. Frangoise Leclerc told the delegates that
the United States had promised to send grain to France if France
changed its governmental policy and that as a consequence the economy
of France was steadily deteriorating.
"The polic}' was changed," said Leclerc, "in a direction that is fatal for the
country * * *" ^^
Jeanette Vermeersch accused the United States of pursuing a foreign
policy of "blackmail and starvation."
"We are told," she said, "that bread can be had if France abandons her inde-
pendence; we are told: 'you will eat if you have a government that suits us.' " ^
The WIDF Commission which was sent to Germany reported to
the executive committee that United States and British officials
had refused entry permits to the Commission, "no doubt because they
were eager to conceal from world public opinion the true state of
affairs in their zones." "The Commission's report * * * con-
firmed * * * [this] * * * conclusion." ^*
In preparation for the Second Congress of the World Federation of
Democratic Women, the fifth session of the executive committee of
the WIDF, a so-called world convention of anti-Fascist women, was
convened in Rome in May 1948, to reaffirm the aim of their organiza-
tion— to fight "American, British, and French imperialists and war-
mongers."
The "most important" item on the executive committee's agenda
was "the part played by women in the struggle against the war-
mongers."
The report on this question, delivered by Eugenie Cotton, was an indictment
of American imperialism.^^
The main speech, however, was delivered by Nina Popova, who
informed the convention at Rome that the only country proving its
love of peace and workmg for it was the Soviet Union, while other
countries ignore the United Nations resolution against warmongering.
By way of proving her point Miss Popova set forth the theory that
American "imperialists" were —
«» Ibid. p. 6.
»' Ibid. p. 43.
52 Ibid.
" Ibid.
" Ibid.
55 Soviet Woman, No. 4, 1948, p. 45.
65891-— 50 3
28
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
3 s a
> o o
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c3 " 83
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REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 29
directing the Fascist detachments in Greece which are shooting the peaceful
population; * * * bribing sheiks and emirs in Arab countries; * * *
seizing foreign territory in Greenland and proclaiming it as their own and
building military bases on it; * * * striving to place [in Latin America]
representatives of the American stock exchange and the general staff in leading
positions which enable them to direct the life of those countries.*^
Popova wound up by accusing Americans of organizing gangs of
bandits in Pakistan.
She then called upon the delegates to launch a "tremendous"
campaign through all media of publicity to tell the women of the world
that only the Soviet Union and its satellites are the true friends of
peace. To implement these so-called "peace" activities, the women
of the world are to join the WIDF, she continued. Many women have
been prevented from joining the WIDF because the Catholic Church
is "threatening them with the tortures of Hell" and "frightening them
with the danger of the destruction of 'Christain civilization.' " Catho-
lic women were to be instructed that they are the mere tools of reac-
tionaries—still, the WIDF must carefully "respect the religious feel-
ings." Popova offered no explanation of a method by which these
diametrically opposed objectives may be accomplished simultane-
ously."
The executive committee adopted and published an "appeal" to
the "Women of All Countries" confirming the WIDF's pro-Soviet
stand as laid down by Popova:
The imperialists are once again at work — overtly and covertly— preparing a
new war. They are howling in a hundred and one different strains about its
inevitability, artificially fanning a war psychosis, mustering all the forces of
world reaction for new military adventures, trying to intimidate the peoples and
to enslave them by using the threat of war as a means of blackmail. All the
means of psychological pressure — the daily and periodical press, radio, the
cinema — are being employed by the reactionaries to stir up public opinion and to
slander the democratic countries.
Who are they that are provoking a new war? * * *
The American and British reactionaries are urged on by an insatiable thirst for
new billions of dollars and insane aspirations for world domination. * * *
They are the chief instigators of war. * * *
Sisters! Do not believe the lies of the reactionaries! * * *
The Soviet Union is the basic force engaged in the struggle for peace the world
over. * * *
Women of all countries! We appeal to you to intensify the struggle for peace,
to repulse with vigour the instigators of a new war! ^^
IN THE SOVIET ORBIT
Between the First and Second Congresses of the WIDF, the national
affiliates of the organization worked diligently to promote its pro-
Soviet stand, frequently calling upon the Soviet Women's Anti-
Fascist Committee, as the leading affiliate of the WIDF, for support,
guidance, and praise. Between the two congresses, delegations
sponsored by the Soviet Women's Anti-Fascist Committee visited
Albania, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Poland, Finland, and Italy, at the
invitation of the women's organizations of those countries. Delega-
tions from the Communist women's organizations of France, Italy,
Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Finland, and Germany have visited the
U. S. S. R. at the invitation of the Soviet Women's Anti-Fascist Com-
M New York Herald Tribune, May 18, 1948.
" Ibid.
" Soviet Woman, No. 4, 1948, inside front cover.
30 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
mittee. It is obvious that tlie fiction of a present menace of facscism
is being maintained by Moscow as a propaganda weapon against the
United States.
YUGOSLAVIA
In the early months of 1946, the Central Committee of the "Yugo-
slav Anti-Fascist Women's Front" wrote to the Soviet Women's Anti-
Fascist Committee:
Your work among women can help us greatly.™
When speaking of the Yugoslav affiliate to the WIDF, the Soviet
Union always, at least before the Stalin-Tito break, emphasized the
military nature of this affiliate of an organization which talks of noth-
ing but "peace." Olga Milochevitch and Mitra Mitrovitch, the
most prominent members of the affiliate, were invariably described
as former partisans in Tito's army.
The Yugoslav Anti-Fascist Women's Front claimed a membership
of 3,500,000 women — a claim which is understandable for the reason
that the organization is under state control, and comprises all or most
of the women's groups in Yugoslavia. The Second Congress of the
Yugoslavian Anti-Fascist Women's Front, held in Belgrade in Janu-
ary 1948, was addressed by Tito himself (then in good grace with
the Comintern), who "stressed the fact that the Yugoslavian Anti-
Fascist Women's Front is a most important part of the People's
Front and one of its bulwarks." ^° This congress was attended by
delegates from Albania, Bulgaria, Czechsolvakia, Hungary, and
Poland — the "People's Democracies" — and from sympathetic groups
in France, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, and Trieste.
ALBANIA
Foreign "fraternal delegations" to the Second Congress of Albanian
Women included not only representatives of Albanian women living
in Bulgaria, Rumania, and Yugoslavia, but also representatives of
the women of the U. S. S. R., Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Rumania, and
Hungary. In no case could women from these iron-curtain countries
attend without official Government approval. The official description
of the meeting declared:
The Soviet delegation was greeted by a storm of applause when it mounted the
platform to present the Albanian women with an embroidered portrait of J. V.
Stalin. 61
After the congress the foreign delegation made a tour tlirough
Albania, which was glowingly publicized as follows :
Everywhere we saw ample proof of Albania's great affection for the Soviet
Union. * * * Stalin's name is known to every Albanian, and is pronounced
with affection and respect. The Albanian people regard the Soviet Union as
their liberator from Fascist aggression.''^
!^ Guests of honor at the Congress were Gen. Enver Hoxlia, Com-
munist?prime minister of Albania, and his deputy. Communist Gen.
Koci Xoxe. Enver Hoxha is the husband of Mme. Nedjimie Hoxha,
»9 Soviet Woman. No. 2, 1946, p. 46.
«o Soviet Woman, No. 2, 1948, p. 60.
•1 Soviet Woman, No. 5, 1946, pp. 55-56.
M Ibid.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 31
who is the president and one of the founders of the Albanian Women's
League. Naturally, therefore —
All delegates spoke of their support for the new people's government, and of
their loyal adherence to the principles of the Democratic Front. ^*
Nedjimie Hoxha sent a message to the Soviet Union on the thirty-
first anniversary of the Russian revolution in behalf of the Albanian
Women's Union :
We all join in celebrating * * * for the October Revolution, which brought
freedom and salvation to the Soviet people, inspired all mankind with the hope
of liberation. * * *
The Soviet Union today stands at the head of the democratic anti-imperialist
camp * * *64
The Albanian Anti-Fascist Women's Council publishes a magazine
called "Woman of the New Albania," which has solicited "literature
on your activities" from Soviet women's organizations.^^
BULGARIA
According to a report made by Tsola Dragoicheva in 1946, the
National League of Bulgarian Women claimed 250,000 members. ^^
A year later it was reported that the Bulgarian Women's Alliance,
"the only women's political organization in Bulgaria," had 400,000
members and 170,000 affiliated members. In her capacity as chair-
man of the National Women's League of Bulgaria, the Communist
"lady executioner," Tsola Dragoicheva, wrote to the Russian women
on the thu'ty-first anniversary of the October revolution :
Greeting you on this great holiday, we pledge to devote all our strength to
the construction of socialism in our People's Republic of Bulgaria, to the struggle
against any new imperialist aggression * * *_ Long live the cause of the
great October revolution, the cause of Lenin — ^Stalin."
The Bulgarian Popular Women's Union publishes a magazine called
"Zhenata Dues" (Woman Today), extolling the "democratic" govern-
ment of the "fatherland front." In addition, this journal, "meeting
the wishes of its readers," publishes various reports on activities in
the U. S. S. R. and many of its contributors are actual Soviet citizens,
sending their material from Russia. One article deals in detail with
the establishment of the Rumanian Women's Democratic Federation.
The "Soviet Woman" praised "Zhenata Dnes" careful attention to
the WIDF and its other national affiliates :
Bulgarian women are taking an active part in the international democratic
women's movement against the forces of reaction. The journal gives an exhaus-
tive report of the International Women's Congress in Paris, describes the work
of Dolores Ibarruri * * *.*8
RUMANIA
The First Congress of the Rumanian Women's Federation was held
early in 1946. It met in the Parliament building. "Fraternal dele-
gates from the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Albania,
and Holland occupied seats of honor on the platform." Speeches
«3 Ibid, p. 56.
«< Soviet Woman, No. 6, 1948, p. 7.
65 Soviet Woman, No. 2, 1946, p. 46.
«« Soviet Woman, No. 4, 1946, p. 3.
«' Soviet Woman, No. 6, 1948, p. 6.
88 Soviet Woman, No. 5, 1946, p. 58.
32 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
made by delegates from Yugoslavia, Albania, and the U. S. S. R. were
featm'ed. "The head of the Soviet delegation, Leontyeva, could not
begin her speech because of the stormy applause that rocked the
haU."«»
At this First Congress much was made of the fact that Anna Pauker,
Rumanian Communist leader, was seated among the guests of honor
on the platform. At another conference, held in Bucharest between
February 14 and 17, 1948, a "Union of Democratic Women" was
formed, and Anna Pauker was elected honorary chairman of the
organization/"
HUNGARY
In March 1946, women's organizations in Hungary held a congress
to popularize decisions made at the first International Women's
Congress. The most important member of the Democratic League of
Hungarian Women is the general secretary, Magda Joboru, who is a
member of the Central Committee of the Hungarian Workers' (Com-
munist) Party. On the thirty-first anniversary of the Russian
Revolution, the Democratic League of Hungarian Women sent a
message to the women of the Soviet Union:
November 7, the anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, is also
a great day for Hungarian women. * * * Now that our country is on the road
to Socialism, it must not be forgotten that this would have been impossible without
the great October Socialist Revolution. * * * Long live Stalin, the great
defender of peace. ""■
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
There are two large women's organizations in Czechoslovakia. One,
the Czechoslovak National Women's Front, draws its members from
representatives of political parties in Czechoslovakia. Its chief tasks
are political. This organization has a central body of 15 members,
and publishes a monthly journal called "The Czechoslovak Woman."
The presidium of the Czechoslovak National Women's Front belongs
as a body to the largest women's organization, the Council of Czecho-
slovak Women, which claims to unite 22 Czech women's organizations.
The chief spokesmen in the WIDF for the CouncU of Czechoslovak
Women are Milada Horakova, a leader of the Communist Party of
Czechoslovakia, and Anezka Hodinova-Spurna, the outstanding
representative at present. She is a Communist Party vice president
of the Czech Parliament. On the thirty-first anniversary of the
Soviet Revolution, Anezka Hodinova-Spurna sent a message to the
Russian women:
Our eyes are turned with hope to your country, to your patriotic people, these
days. The Soviet Union is the powerful bulwark of peace. * * * «
POLAND
The Polish Women's League claims to unite all the women of
Poland, "irrespective of their social status or political affiliations."
But of course it "supports the Polish Government of National Unity."
It has also "established contact" with "democratic organizations" in
•» Soviet Woman, No. 3, 1946, p. 33.
" Soviet Woman, No. 2, 1948, p. 60.
" Soviet Woman, No. 6, No. 1948, p. 8.
" Soviet Woman, No. 6, 1948, p. 6.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 33
France, the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia,
Switzerland, and Sweden. In Communist jargon this means Com-
munist organizations, of course. Controlling officers of the League
of Polish Women include Izolda Kowalska, secretary-general of the
league, who is a member of the Polish Workers' (Communist) Party;
Stanislawa Garncarczyk, a vice president of the League of Polish
Women, who is head of the women's section of the Communist-
controlled Stronnictwo Ludowe Party; and Eugenia Pragerowa, a
vice president of the league, who is Vice Minister of Labor and Social
Welfare in the Communist Polish Government. Another prominent
member of the league is Zhanna Kormanowa, who is the Director of
School Reform in the Department of the Ministry of Education.
The leader of the women's section of the Polish Workers' (Communist)
Party is Edwarda Orlowska, who is a Polish representative on the
Executive Committee of the WIDE. Eugenia Pragerowa and Izolda
Kowalska also are members of the Executive Committee of the WIDE.
Early in 1948 the Democratic League of Polish Women invited a
delegation from the Soviet Union to visit the "women of the New
Poland." The delegation was received "with great cordiality" by
the Communist President of the Polish Republic, Boleslaw Beirut.
Shortly after this visit, a Polish women's delegation was invited
to the Soviet Union. A plenary meeting of the board of the League
of Polish Women was held to receive the delegation's report. At
this meeting a resolution was adopted which read:
We learned that the most ardent wish of your people, of every Soviet citizen,
is the strengthening of peace. * * * \Ye will spread the truth about the
U. S. S. R., about its achievements and about Soviet women everywhere.™
The Central Board of the Democratic League of Polish Women,
through the Communist Izolda Kowalska and Irena Sztachelska,
members of the Executive Committee of the WIDE, sent a message
to the U. S. S. R. on the Thirty-first anniversary of the Soviet
revolution:
The great ideas of the October Revolution serve as the guiding star for our
complete victory too, and we shall march along the road of history shoulder to
shoulder with you, our dear sisters.^*
FRANCE
The Union des Femmes Frangaises sent a delegation to visit the
U. S. S. R. from April 24 to May 12, 1946. The delegation was
headed by Eugenie Cotton, who afterwards wrote to the editor of
Soviet Woman.
At the close of our unforgettable visit to the U. S. S. R. the delegation wishes
to convey its greetings to the Soviet women * * * everywhere we admired
the heroic efforts of our Soviet sisters in the battle against the enemy * * *
The members of our delegation are proud of the welcome accorded them, and
through them to all the women of France. We wish to express to the other
women of the U. S. S. R. our feelings of admiration, gratitude, and friendship.^*
According to the Soviet Woman:
The many statements made by the delegation in Moscow, Leningrad, and
Minsk show that its trip was a tremendous event in the lives of the delegates. ''^
•« Soviet "Woman, No. 2. 1948, p. 60.
'* Soviet Woman, No. 6, 1948, p. 7.
» Soviet Woman, No. 3, 1946, p. 26.
'« Ibid.
34 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
FINLAND
In 1946 the Democratic Women's League of Finland wrote to the
Soviet Women's Anti-Fascist Committee for information on pubHc
education and mother and child welfare in the U. S. S. K..
SWITZERLAND
Between the two congresses of the WIDF, women members of the
Swiss (Communist) Labour Party affiliated with the WIDF and
participated in Communist-inspired demonstrations against Franco
in Spain and May Day celebrations."
ITALY
In 1946, the League of Italian Women wrote to the Soviet Woman
that "following the International Women's Congress we in Italy
spared no efforts to explain to our women the tasks and aims of the
International Democratic Women's Federation." ''^ Since that time
the Democratic Italian Women's Union has been a bulwark in support
of the Soviet Union. In the spring of 1947, a delegation of six Soviet
women spent a month in Italy at the invitation of the Union of Italian
Women. The organization, which claims to be a "mass democratic
organization" of "500,000 members," boasts of its support of the left-
wing political parties of the so-called "Popular Bloc."
In 1948, as the whole world awaited the outcome of the struggle
between the Communists and the genumely democratic forces of
Italy, which was to be resolved in the crucial election of April 18, when
the Communist forces suffered overwhelming defeat at the polls, it
was announced that —
The Democratic Italian Women's Union is playing an important part in the
election campaign now underway in Italy. The anti-Fascist women are well aware
that the future progress of tneir country will depend on the victory of the demo-
cratic camp in the polling on April 18 and the rebuff that the Italian people will
give to the machinations of the Italian reactionaries and their American backers."
Affiliates of the WIDF have consistently fought legitimate and
responsible women's organizations in each country. The best-laiown
women's organization in Italy is the right-wing Italian Women's
Centre, which works in conjunction with many other women's groups
throughout Italy, such as the women's section of the anti-Communist
Christian Democratic Party, but does not support the Union of Italian
Women. Even the rabidly left-wing Union of Italian Women is
forced to admit, in a grudging understatement, that the Italian
Women's Centre is "influential." Nevertheless, it assaUs the Italian
Women's Centre as "reactionary," and attacks its various publications
as "vehicles of antidemocratic propaganda."
The magazine Soviet Woman praised the Union of Italian Women
as a "true democratic organization * * * which stands at the
head of the working women's struggle * * * [it] is a worthy
member of the International Democratic Women's Federation." ^^
" Soviet Woman, No. 4, 1946, p. 7.
'8 Ibid p. 6.
'« Soviet Woman, No. 2, 1948, p. 27.
» Soviet Woman, No. 3, 1947, p. 35.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 35
Among the leaders of the Union of Itahan Women are Ada Gobetti,
Camilla Ravera, and Maria Maddalena Rossi — all leaders of the
Communist Party of Italy.
The chairman of the Union of Italian Women, Maria Maddalena
Rossi, writes that —
The servitors of reaction are again attacking the Soviet Union, the political and
social forces of democracy. They are employing the same means that were used
by the Nazis and the Fascists. * * * The Italian Women's Union * * *
is drawing broad strata of women into the struggle against the brazen enslavement
of our country by the American imperialists and their satellites. * * * Qux
strength, our weapon lies in that we tell the people the truth, the truth about the
U. S. S. R. and the new democracies, the truth about the constant victories of
socialism.''
GERMANY
Ninety-eight and five tenths percent of the Soviet-zone membership
of the Democratic Women's Union of Germany voted to affiliate with
the WIDF. At meetings held in Brandenburg Province "the women
spoke of the honest and unselfish policy of the Soviet Union and the
generosity of Soviet women * * *." When Jeanne tte Ver-
meersch, the French Communist, addressed a conference, she was
given a "hearty reception." ^^
The German WIDF affiliate is completely controlled by Soviet
sympathizers and is discouraged by American, British, and French
occupation authorities.
The Social-Democratic, Liberal, and Christian-Democratic Parties
of Germany have actively opposed the Democratic Women's Union of
Germany as subversive. Women have been expelled from the Social-
Democratic and Liberal Parties because of membership in the WIDF.
The Social-Democratic Party adopted a resolution which read:
Membership in the Democratic Women's Union of Germany, and likewise par-
ticipation in the congresses called by this union, are incompatible with member-
ship in the Social- Democratic Party. ^
FAR EAST
The Women's International Democratic Federation claims to
have large forces in the Far East. According to their figures, over
20,000,000 women of the "liberated" (Communist) areas of China
belong to an organization called the General Women's Association.
The hand of Russia is apparent in that only in the Communist areas
of China and in Soviet-occupied northern Korea is there any significant
support of the Soviet-dominated WIDF. The China organization is
headed by a long-time Communist, Tsai Chang. Chief task of the
General Women's Association is to render assistance to the so-called
"liberation" — i. e., Communist — Army in its fight against the Kuo-
mintang troops.
When two Soviet writers, Alexander Gitovich and Boris Bursov,
visited northern Korea, they reported back approvingly on their
meeting with the Communist Pak Den Ai, who is president of the
Women's Democratic Union of Northern Korea:
Throughout her years of underground party work, there had not been a single
May Day when Pak Den Ai was not in jail.'*
» Soviet Woman, No. 6, 1^48, p. 8
82 Soviet Woman, No. 4, 1948, p. £
«3 Ibid.
M Soviet Woman, No. 3, 1948, p. 55.
36 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
The Women's Democratic Union of Northern Korea claims 750,000
members. It also claims, interestingly, one male member — the
Russian commandant of one of the Genzan province districts, who
was elected to full membership and to the presidium of a meeting he
attended.
Before the two Soviet writers left Korea, they were led by Pak Den
Ai into a room where she showed them a portrait of Stalin, embroidered
in silk. She gave the two a good example of the WIDF affiliate's
fanatical devotion to the Soviet Union:
This portrait was embroidered by five of our finest masters from Phyongyang,
members of the Women's Democratic Union. It's to be sent as a gift to Stalin.
The women put on their best clothes before they sat down to work. And the
woman who embroidered the eyes first studied a portrait of Stalin for 2 diays and
2 nights. I mean that literally. She did not sleep for 2 days, just sat looking at
the eyes which, as she put it, see the whole world. The women worked for 18
days and now the portrait is finished. In a few days a delegation leaving for
Moscow will take it along and present it to Stalin.**
INFORMATION BULLETIN
The Women's International Democratic Federation, known also
as the Federacion Democratica Internacional de Mujeres and the
Federation Democratique Internationale des Femmes, publishes an
Information Bulletin in at least four languages from its headquarters
at 37 rue Jouvenet, Paris, which is sent to its affiliates throughout the
world to keep them abreast of the current line. The bulletin reflects
everywhere a pro-Soviet, pro-Communist, anti-American slant on the
part of WIDF affiliates.
The November 1947 issue of this magazine praised Soviet Foreign
Minister Molotov for his advocacy of a German Government "elected
by the German people," charging that United States Secretary of
State Marshall had proposed a government representing "the leaders
of the German war industry." Despite the fact that the Soviet Union
has been looting the resources of the Eastern zone of Germany, the
magazine declared that Mr. Molotov demanded only such reparations
as would "aid to the development of current production" in Germany.
It called attention to the activities of its German affiliates, the Demo-
cratic Union of German Women and the 7,000 Women's Anti-Fascist
Committees of Berlin.
In the interest of furthering the cause of the Greek Communist
guerrillas, the national sections of the federation were urged to "mo-
bilize the greatest possible number of women, so as to impress upon
the United Nations' Organization their indignation and their determi-
nation to bring to an end American interference" in Greece. This
plea was supported by the Pan-Hellenic Federation for Women, the
Greek affiliate of the WIDF.
The November 1947 bulletin also carried an announcement from its
Egyptian adherents in the League of Egyptian Patriots expressing
their gratification on learning that "the Brooklyn branch of the Con-
gress of American Women would organize on September 29 a mass
meeting" to take issue with American policy on the atomic bomb.
"Your struggle for peace," they declared, "is our struggle." Here we
have demonstrated the close coordination of this movement on a
world-wide scale.
8» Ibid.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 37
On November 10 and 11, 1947, the Friends of Peace, created by the
French Coordinating Committee of the WIDF, decided at a national
conference to oppose "resolutely the American strangle hold on
our country."
In the Information Bulletin for December 1947, Eugenie Cotton,
president of the WIDF, who was denied a visa by the United States
Government because of her Communist associations, was most forth-
right in her condemnation of the democracies and of any antagonism
toward communism or the Soviet Union, declaring that feminine —
mother love * * * rebels at the progressive forsaking of guaranties which
the Allies have erected against a new war.
She insisted that the federation "must oppose everything that
divides men, anticommunism, antisovietism, which are the stamps not
only of intolerance but of ingratitude." She made no strictures
against slave-labor camps or the Soviet campaign of vilification against
the United States, whose aid had saved the Soviet Union from
Hitler's legions. Mme. Cotton's appeal was supplemented by another
by Dolores Ibarruri, vice president of the WIDF, woman leader of the
Spanish Communist Party.
An unsigned editorial expressed a most cordial attitude toward the
Communist governments. We quote in part from an article entitled
"On the Threshold of the New Year":
The new democracies, masters of their future, forcibly progress on the road to
reconstruction and economic and social improvement. The U. S. S. R. recovering
with amazing speed from the terrible consequences of the war is the strongest
support of peace and of the security of all peoples.**
Reporting on the activity of the French branch of the WIDF, the
Information Bulletin declared:
This ardent fight of the Communist representatives for the defense of trade-
union freedom rang the alarm among the Republicans and Democrats in every
country.
The central committee of the Women's Democratic Union of
Northern Korea went even further, stating that —
The military defeat of Hitler Germanv and imperialist Japan by the Allied
forces, at the head of which stood the Soviet Army, led to the end of the Second
World War.
8* Information Bulletin, December 1947, p. 2.
38
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
•f,
Anna Pauker, Stalin's hatchet woman.
—Wide World Photo.
ANNA PAUKER
STALIN'S HATCHET WOMAN
Anna Pauker, founder and member of the executive committee of
the Women's InterDatiooal Democratic Federation, is a woman who
has reached the pinnacle of power. In fact she is the most powerful
woman Communist in the world. As the secretary of the Com-
munist Party of Rumania, the first woman to hold the post of Minister
of Foreign Affairs, she is the actual ruler and dictator of that country.
She is the chief spokesman for the Kremlin in the Communist-
dominated countries of Europe. Acting simultaneously as the hon-
orary chairman of the WIDF affiliate, the Democratic Women's
Union of Rumania, of which she was the founder, "Tovarish Anny,"
as she is familiarly called, is the outstanding personality in the inter-
national movement of which the Congress of American Women is a
part, one to whom its members point with greatest pride. The Daily
Worker of December 14, 1947, has referred to her as "one of the most
distinguished personalities of modern times."
At the second congress of the Women's International Democratic
Federation in December 1948, it was decided that in spite of Anna
Pauker's absence her credentials "be considered as valid" just as if
she had attended the congress, since she was recognized as "among
the beloved founders and leaders of our federation."
Wliat manner of woman is Anna Pauker? Anna Pauker is no
patrician Muriel Draper. She climbed to power the hard way.
She was born in Moldavia in 1893 in the humble home of Zvi Rabin-
sohn, a shochet, i. e. a man who slaughters cattle in accordance with
orthodox Jewish ritual. Most of her life was spent in the meaner
areas of Bucharest.
While she has avowed her concern about the poverty of her people
and has declared "we want the people to be rich," her way of life dis-
closes a marked eagerness to feather her own nest. Today she resides
in three great mansions, moving about every night because her
popularity is such that she fears assassins. She speeds about in a
bullet-proof, chauff cured Zis-Pobeida — Soviet equivalent of a Packard.
One of her homes belonged to Prince Brancoveanu, another to Nicolae
Malaxa, wealthy industrialist and speculator, and a third belonged to
Magda Lupescu, ex-King Carol's mistress and now his wife. One
two-story, high-walled villa is in the fashionable Parcu Filipescu of
Bucharest with a garden and needle showers. She also has a lakeside
retreat at Snagov.
Aunty Anna, as she sometimes is referred to, has shown a strong
predilection for tailored suits and velvet gowns — mostly gray and
black — averaging about $400 apiece and ordered from the most
fashionable couturiers in the leading capitals of Europe. Communist
agents and diplomats returning from the capitalistic west always
remember to bring her nylons. She has also developed a penchant for
pedigreed dogs.
39
40 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
Reports published in the Swiss weekly, Weltwoche, in June 1949
charge that she is out of favor with the Kremlin because "she deposited
party funds in foreign countries, including Switzerland, and did not
inform the financial bureau of the Cominform."
According to Zvi Rabinsohn, his daughter was brought up "in the
strictest Orthodox way" under the stern guidance of the Old Testa-
ment. She attended the Jewish school on Anton Pan Street in
Bucharest and later taught Hebrew at the Temply Coral Synagogue
School. Since then Anna has repudiated her religious faith for com-
munism. Finding religious conditions unbearable in Bulgaria under
the rule of his daughter, the old man has sought a refuge in Palestine.
In an authoritative study entitled "Jews Behind the Iron Curtain,"
published by the Jewish Labor Committee, the following description
is given of the plight of her own people under Anna Pauker's dic-
tatorship :
In Rumania, the Jewish community is on the verge of extinction. During
1948, Jewish communities and all Jewish social organizations throughout Rumania
underwent a systematic "purge." The "purge" was conducted ruthlessly by
Jewish Communists.
In the summer of 1948, the forced liquidation of the Jewish school system took
place. * * *
In November 1948 Jewish communities were deprived of their right to admin-
ister social-security institutions, homes for aged, as well as orphanages. * * *
On November 5, 1948, the Union of Rumanian Jews was dissolved after 40 years
of faithful activity.
By the end of October 1948, the Rumanian police had raided the offices of the
Jewish national funds, Keren Hayesod and Keren Kayemet. The editor of
the Rumanian Zionist weekly Montvirea, Mr. Leon Itskor, the director of the
Keren Hayesod, Mr. Shmuel Rosenhaupt, and others, were arrested.
The Communist newspaper Unirea, which is the organ of the so-called Jewish
Democratic Committee, declared on November 3, 1948, that Zionist institutions
had been closed. * * * -pj^e political bureau of the Rumanian Communist
Party * * * adopted a resolution. * * * This resolution reads: "Zion-
ism is a politically nationalistic, reactionary movement of the Jewish bourgeoisie
which aims to divert the Jews from the common struggle, side by side with its
progressive forces, against capitalism and their own bourgeoisie."
Before the war, there were 750,000 Jews in Rumania. Scarcely 400,000 of
them survived. * * * At the end of 1946 * * * over 150,000 Jews
were forced to apply for relief. As late as the fall of 1947, over 50,000 Rumanian
Jews were still without livelihood.
Acts of desecration of cemeteries and a considerable number of rowdy assaults
on Jews have taken place. Refugees from Rumania * * * in 1947 and
1948 were unanimous in declaring that increasing anti-Semitism had been one of
the reasons impelling them to leave the country.
Despite her poverty Anna Pauker managed to enter Bucharest
University where she studied medicine. Later she continued her
studies in Zurich, Switzerland, where she met and married Marcel
Pauker, a Rumanian student of a prominent family, who later became
an engineer. He and his wife visited the United States while he was
an employee of the Soviet trading agency, the Amtorg. In 1936 he
was executed in Russia as a so-called Trotskyite. The report persists
that Anna gave evidence against him. At any rate his Uquidation
did not minimize in the slightest degree her devotion to the Com-
munist movement which she had joined in 1921.
What makes this woman so ruthless — so utterly devoid of those
gentler qualities of her sex? What has driven the iron into her soul?
Anna Pauker joined Rumania's tiny illegal Communist Party in
1921 when it had less than 100 members. She spent 15 years in
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AIMERICAN WOMEN 41
underground activity and 5 years in prison. She was twice con-
demned to death and once shot in the right leg while escaping. She
still carries the bullet.
In 1933, she helped to organize the Bucharest railway strike which
ended in bloody fighting between the barricaded workers and Govern-
ment troops. She was arrested, escaped and arrested again. Juliu
Maniu, leader of the Peasant Party, helped her and publicly defended
her. Third-degree methods could not break her down. She was
sentenced to 10 years in jail of which she served 5. She conducted a
hunger strike for 35 days. In 1940 when Rumania was "liberated"
by the Red Army, she clapped the aged Maniu in prison with the
heartless comment, "In his old age, Maniu has earned his rest."
Maniu is now dying behind bars, branded as a Fascist.
Pauker's ruthless purges have eliminated outstanding Rumanian
leaders, some of them long and intimately associated with her. Among
those arrested are Florica Bagdasar, Minister of Public Health; Gen.
Michael Lascar, of Pauker's own Tudor Vladimirescu Red Army
Division; Gen. Constantm lonescu, chief of the Rumanian general
staff; Constantin Doncea, deputy mayor of Bucharest, colonel in the
Red Army, member of the central committee of the Communist Party
of Rumania and her coworker in the Bucharest railway strike of 1933.
"Doncea fell into petty bourgeois habits," she coolly explained, "I
advise all Communists not to sleep on their glory, and take heed from
this lesson."
Anna Pauker is no product of bohemian boudoirs. She has even
had first-hand military experience. In 1940, the Soviet Government
held her ui such high esteem that it exchanged a Rumanian nationalist
politician taken prisoner by the Red Army in Bessarabia, for Anna
Pauker. In Russia she organized Rumanian prisoners of war into the
Red Army's Tudor Vladimirescu Division, named after a fierce nine-
teenth century peasant fighter whose slogan was, "If a serpent crosses
your path, hit it and kill it." Evidently this forceful slogan captured
Anna's fancy. When Rumania was "liberated" by the Red Army,
she returned to her native land with her regiment with the title of
colonel. It was said of her that she was so tough that she bawled
out generals and even Red Marshal Tolbukhin.
Tovarish Anna has become Stalin's leading representative and
spokesman in eastern Europe. It is reported that she was so highly
regarded by the Soviet dictator that she was free to call him directly
on the telephone. She resided for a number of years in Moscow, be-
coming a Soviet citizen.
She is reported to have long been an ex officio member of the Soviet
Politbureau and top lieutenant to the late Andrei Zhdanov in the
Cominform. She was one of the 17 signers of the pronouncement of
the "dissolution" of the Communist International in 1943 in Moscow.
She was one of the founders of the Cominform in September 1947,
successor organization of the Communist International. She was a
member of its executive committee. It is worthy of note that the
headquarters of the latter organization was moved from Belgrade
to Bucharest after Tito's defection. She it was who was chosen to
castigate Tito's regime as "bureaucratic" and "terrorist" and her
statement is featured in For a Lasting Peace, for a People's Democracy
42 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
for July 15, 1948, official Cominform organ. Here she attests her
stanch devotion to the Russian Communist Party, as follows:
The experience of nearly half a century of the Bolshevik Party brilliantly
demonstrates the correctness of the Leninist-Stalinist doctrine about the party
* * * This historical experience of the Bolshevik Party was the basis on which
all the Communist Parties grew and developed as Leninist parties * * * xhe
fact that one of the leaders of the Yugoslav Communist Party declared that
Stalin's Short History of the CPSU (B) should not be studied in party schools
* * * cannot be regarded as a chance occurrence. It is not at all accidental
that such objections were raised in connection with the Short History of the
CPSU (B) which is the clearest, most profound and militant account of the
experience of the Soviet Communist Party.
In the May 1, 1949, issue of For a Lasting Peace, for a People's
Democracy, she contributed a special May Day article entitled
"Soviet Union Heads Struggle for Peace."
Keynoting the celebration of International Women's Day in
Bucharest on May 8, 1949, Anna Pauker boldly called for fraterniza-
tion with the Red Army. She declared:
"The most bestial hatred of the imperialists is directed against the U. S. S. R.
in the same way as the warmest thoughts, hopes, and love of the working people
throughout the world are turned toward the U. S. S. R. * * * peoples
throughout the world can clearly see the bright luminous face of Soviet proposals,
the luminous faces of the Soviet people who are building a happy present and
future * * * The Soviet Army was, is and will be a liberating army. On
behalf of the Italian, French, and' British peoples their leaders state that with
this Army their peoples will fraternize.
Anna Pauker' followed in the wake of the Red Army as it entered
Bucharest on August 30, 1944. Since King Michael enjoyed popular
support at the time, she smothered him with tokens of friendship.
At ber request he was awarded the diamond-and-ruby-studded Order
of Victory. She had his picture artfully displayed beside Stalin's
throughout the country and ordered that he be eulogized in aU Com-
munist speeches. Meanwhile she was plotting his destruction. With
900,000 Red Army troops occupying Rumania, she drew up a slate of
a pro-Soviet stooge Cabinet which the King was forced to accept
in a 20-minute ultimatum handed to him by Soviet Minister Andrei
Vishinsky. Later, on her orders, an abdication document was thrust
into Michael's hands and he was forced to leave the throne on pain
of being tried as a spy in the pay of the United States. Thus she has
the distinction of having double-crossed her father, her husband, her
associates, her King, and her people.
This is the individual who, in the eyes of Muriel Draper and the
Congress of American Women, represents the crowning glory of Com-
munist womanhood, the ideal which they are trying to achieve, the
model they hold forth to attract the women of the United States.
SECOND CONGRESS OF THE WIDF
Joseph Starobin, a member of the Commmiist Party, U. S. A., and
a columnist for the Daily Worker, in his column of November 16, 1948
accused the United States press of ignoring important world news, as
he reported meetings in Paris preliminary to the Second Congress of
the WIDF, scheduled for Budapest in December 1948. He claimed
that on October 27th, 50,000 women jammed a meeting called by the
Communist-dominated Union des Femmes Frangaises. The major
speech at this meeting was made by a leading member and repre-
sentative of the French Communist Party, Jeannette Vermeersch,
the wife of Maurice Thorez (the general secretary of the Communist
Party of France). Miss Vermeersch has been an active leader of the
WIDF since its initial meeting in 1945.
A week later a delegation from the Union of Italian Women arrived
in Paris to meet in preparation for the Second Congress of the WIDF.
An ofRcial Soviet source, New Times, published by the Moscow
newspaper Trud, reported on December 15, 1948 that at the time of
the Second Congress of the WIDF, during its third year of existence,
the WIDF was represented in 56 countries, as compared with 33 coun-
tries claimed in 1945. Membership was placed at 80,000,000 women,
whereas in 1945 the Daily Worker claimed the Federation had
120,000,000 members. There is no explanation for the discrepancy
between the alleged gain of 23 countries and the apparent loss of
40,000,000 members.
The Second Congress of the WIDF pointed up a notable departure
from the first, insofar as the Soviet domination of the proceedings was
even more crudely visible. Evidence of this is found in the fact that
the WIDF originally proposed to hold the Second Congress in Belgrade.
However, a few months after this announcement came the news of
the Stalin-Tito break, and the meeting place of the Congress was
immediately transferred to Budapest, without public explanation.
There were other clear indications that the Russian delegation actually
pulled the strings. In an article in the New Times of December 15,
1948, M. Makarova, a Soviet delegate to the Congress, furnishes some
details. She "came to Budapest some time earlier . . . with two
more of the Soviet delegates, to participate in the work of a committee
set up to prepare materials for the Congress discussion."
The importance attached to the Congress by the Soviet regimes
was brought out by the fact that the delegates included ministers of
Soviet Republics and members of central and local Soviets.
On every possible occasion the Soviet Union was eulogized and
spotlighted. Makarova declared that on its arrival in Budapest "the
welcome extended to the Soviet women" was "particularly heartfelt."
She described how a "simple peasant woman" of Hungary, only a few
years ago "illiterate and downtrodden," delivered herself of the
following flowery remarks:
It is with a feeling of great love and boundless gratitude that I address the
heroic Soviet women who sent their sons to die for our freedom. Dear Soviet
65891—50 4 48
44 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
women, our guests today, accept our sincere respect and love for these heroic
mothers.
When delegates visited the various Hungarian factories under the
auspices of the Communist government of Hungary, their speeches
were often interrupted by enthusiastic cheers in honor of the Soviet
Union and J. V. Stahn.
The gathering received full official recognition from the Hungarian
Communist government. Flags decked the streets of Budapest as on
a national holiday, when the delegates arrived. The formal opening
of the Congress tooK place in the Budapest House of Parliament, in
the presence of Sakasits, President of the Republic, and all the mem-
bers of the Hungarian Government. As the delegates came out of
the parliament building they found Kossuth Square flooded with
people in a parade ''lit oy the glare of hundreds of torches." More
than a hundred thousand girls and women had marched to the square
from all parts of the capital. The parade culminated in a mass meet-
ing addressed by Nina Popova of Russia and Tsai Chang, a member of
the Central Executive Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.
The meeting was climaxed by the singing of the "Internationale,"
official anthem of the Communist movement throughout the world.
A Soviet source declared that:
The Second International Women's Congress was convened in a situation
marked by an increasingly acute struggle between the camp of the dark forces of
reaction headed by the United States and Britain which is seeking to unleash a
new world war, and the camp of the democratic forces at whose head stands the
Soviet Union, the camp of forces fighting for peace and progress.*'
When the Swedish delegate Andrea Andreen rose at the Congress to
express her alarm at a "certain mistrust between East and West,
which may serve as a cause of war," and requested that the Federation
institute a "certain change in propaganda methods" and proceed
more "diplomatically" in order "not to frighten off nondemocratic
women," the Congress rallied behind its Soviet whip, Nina Popova,
who rejected what was termed "lady-like prattle." This was the only
speech in any way critical of the Soviet Union. Miss Popova told
Miss Andreen :
The reactionaries of the U. S. A. use all possible means to give simple people the
monstrous idea that there is danger of aggression on the part of the Soviet Union
* * * [This is] degrading expansionist propaganda. The instigators of a
new war must be exposed * * * -p^e warmongers must be surrounded by
the hate and contempt of all people. We must see to it that the hundreds of
millions of women, in whatever corner of the globe they may live, know that the
aggressive circles in the United States and England are the most dangerous
enemies of peace and security.
Miss Andreen bowed humbly before this criticism and subsequently
stated:
I know very well that the most important guaranty for peace at present is the
will for peace of the governments of the Eastern countries.
Having corrected herself, Miss Andreen was rewarded at the closing
of the Congress by election to the Executive Committee of the Fed-
eration.
Special welcomes were extended to delegates from the Soviet Union
and "liberated" (Communist) China, "Republican" (Communist)
Spain, and "Free" (Communist) Greece. It was said that Greek
" Soviet Woman, No. 1, 1949, p. 60.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 45
delegates to the Congress came straight "from the Hne of battle
against Washington's Fascist hirelings." Mme. Cotton told of
WIDF activities in behalf of the Communists of Spain and Greece.
Major speeches were made by representatives from the Commmiist
areas of China and Greece concerning the "heroic armed struggle their
peoples are waging against the reactionary regimes supported by the
American imperialists."
After the formal opening of the second Congress on November 30,
1948, in the Budapest Hall of Parliament, the WIDF started its
regular sessions on December 1.
The opening speech at the Congress was made by the president,
Mme. Eugenie Cotton, who said:
A sinister role has been played by the Government of the United States, which,
in violation of all international agreements, is pursuing a policy of expansion and
of fomenting war. But this policy comes into collision with the powerful will of
that staunch champion of peace, the Soviet Union.
The United States Government is waging a campaign of slander against the
Soviet Union, whose prestige among the peoples of the whole world has risen still
higher since the war.
Ninety percent of the losses sustained by Hitler's forces were inflicted by the
Soviet Army. * * * The Soviet Union brought liberation * * * The
Soviet Union is the land where the great dream of Socialism that lies in the hearts
of all men and women has come true.^^
At the first session, Marie Couette, who is a member of the Com-
munist Party of France, handed down the proposed list of members
of the Board (presidium) of the Congress. The delegates "acclaimed"
these "symbolic" names:
Eugenie Cotton (France) who has been refused a U. S. A. visa because of her
pro-Communist activities; Nina Popova (U. S. S. R.), Soviet whip of the WIDF;
Tsai Chang (China), a member of the Central Executive Committee of the
Chinese Communist Party; Jeannette Vermeersch (France), wife of the general
secretary of the Communist Party of France, Maurice Thorez, and member of
the Central Committee of the Communist Party of France; Elizabeth Andics
(Hungary) , in charge of educational work for the Communist Party in Hungary ;
Anezka Hodinova-Spurna (Czechostovakia), Communist vice-president of the
Czechoslovakian Parliament; Eugenia Pragierowa (Poland), Vice-Minister of
Labour and Social Welfare in the Communist Polish Government; Maria Madda-
lena Rossi (Italy), a Communist Party deputy in the Italian legislature; Muriel
Draper (U. S. A.) ; Sarah Abraham (India) ; Thai Thi Lien (Viet-Nam) ; Allaouiche
Baia (Algeria); Nora Wooster (Great Britain); Anna Nevlainen (Finland), who
is reported to be a member of the Communist Party; Marguerita Ponce (Argen-
tina) ; Chryssa Hadjivassiliu (Greece), a member of the Politburo of the Communist
Party of Greece; Ju En Djun (Korea); and Mariam Firouz (Iran).
The report of the credentials committee, given by Nexhmye Hoxha,
wife of the Communist prime minister of Albania, Enver Hoxha, was
then heard. The credentials committee proposed that a special
honor be accorded to four members of the WIDF, by accepting them
as delegates to the Congress even though none of them attended.
Dr. Gene Weltfish, of the Congress of American Women, shared this
special accolade with three women known throughout the world for
their Communist activities — Dolores Ibarruri, secretary-general of
the Communist Party of Spain ; Anna Pauker, secretary of the Central
Committee of the Workers (Communist) Party of Rumania, notorious
for the ruthless pm-ges she has conducted; and Tsola Dragoicheva,
w Soviet Woman, No. 2, 1949, p. 3.
46 REPORT ON (X)NGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
sometimes referred to as the "Bulgarian Lady Executioner," and
"Communist Terrorist." The credentials committee reported:
Considering that they are among the beloved founders and leaders of our
Federation, the credentials committee proposed that their credentials be con-
sidered valid just as if they had attended the Congress.
The report on new affiliations to the WIDF was given by Marie"
Claude Vaillant-Couturier, a member of the central committee of the
Communist Party of France.
After hearing the report on the activities of the Women's Inter-
national Democratic Federation, the Congress adopted a resolution
urging that the Federation intensify its activities among national
affiliates and demanding that it —
enlarges the collaboration with the international progressive organizations and
organizes joint demonstrations with all those who fight effectively for the assuring
of peace and against the danger of a new war.
Since this resolution was adopted the WIDF and, in the United
States, the Congress of American Women, have expanded their pro-
gram of cooperation with the World Federation of Trade Unions, the
World Federation of Democratic Youth, the Communist Party, the
National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, the World Peace
Congress, and other Communist or Communist-front organizations.
On the day this resolution was discussed, Kittie Hooldiam, represent-
ing the World Federation of Democratic Youth, presented her organi-
zation's greetings to the WIDF Congress.
The report on "Women's Political and Economic Hights" was
delivered by Helen M. Phillips of the CAW. In another section we
have described the plight of women under communism. But Helen
Phillips told the Congress:
The constitutions of the new democracies acknowledge the basic human rights
the equality of women, and this gives them a basis to work enthusiastically for the
economic stabilization of their countries.
Only the Soviet Union, the nation of victorious socialism, has reached the stage
of complete equality in women's rights * * *
Women in the capitalist countries are denied equal rights not only in the political
respect but also in the sphere of marital and civil rights * * *
In the people's democracies women's economic equality is assured by
law * * *
If there have been such striking changes in the people's democracies, then what
can be said of the Soviet Union, where the complete economic equality of women
really exists * * *?
After Miss Phillips' report, the Congress of the WIDF adopted a
formal resolution, declaring that:
Following the example of the U. S. S. R. * * * equal rights for women
have been proclaimed in the new democracies: Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia,
Hungary, Poland, Rumania, and Yugoslavia as well as the Popular Republic
[Communist] of Mongolia, in those areas of China which have been liberated by
the People's [Communist] Army and in North Korea. The democratic govern-
ments of these countries established the indispensable conditions for putting these
aims into practice.
Zhanna Kormanowa, director of school reform in the department of
the ministry of education of the Polish Communist government, pre-
sented the report on children to the Congress.
Ignoring the widespread prevalence of child labor in Communist
countries, the regimentation and militarization of education and the
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 47
heavy penalization of children for legal offenses, a resolution on the
conditions of children and the protection of their rights was adopted
by the Congress praising the educational opportunities in Kussia and
its satellite "popular democracies":
A great deal was accomplished * * * to improve the life of children in
the U. S. S. R. and in the popular democracies; thanks to the attainment of power
by governments representing the interests of the popular masses * * * all
have taken measures which guarantee * * * a democratic education of the
new generation. * * *
On the other hand, the United States and England are branded
as "reactionary governments" which have abandoned true democratic
education in order to implant ideas of "imperialism" and "militarism,"
according to the Women's International Democratic Federation:
The congress reports with special anxiety the offensive of reaction on the
domain of child education and training * * *. Each day militarism stamps,
to a greater extent, the system of child education and training. Schools are
changed into a weapon in the hands of the imperialists for the preparation of
obedient soldiers to be called in the future to conquer the world.
"Wilfully oblivious of recent Soviet purges in the field of science, the
Federation declared: "In the United States and England true science
is driven out of the schools."
The congress heard a report on the development of the "democratic
women's movement"' in Asia and Africa. A member of the central
executive committee of the Communist Party of China, Tsai Chang,
was chosen to deliver this report. She told the delegates that:
The imperialists are seeking to crush the people's liberation movement by
force of arms but are encountering the ever-mounting resistance of the colonial
peoples, including the women * * * [who] are aware that the imperialists
are seeking to enslave the colonial countries, to seize their wealth and exploit their
cheap labor. That is why the women of Asia and Africa are following with alarm
the activities of the American imperialists who are setting up military bases in
the East, encouraging Japanese imperialism, and preparing a new world
shambles * * *.
The position of women in the Soviet Union serves as an inspiring example to
all colonial peoples * * * that is why women in all countries look with
admiration and hope to the Soviet state which * * * jg the bulwark of free-
dom and democracy.
The resolution adopted by the congress following this report
concurred in every particular with the statement of the Communist
Tsai Chang. The congress also adopted a call to be issued for a
"Conference of the Women of Asia." This "conference" had been
previously arranged by the WIDF, and it was decided to continue with
the plans in spite of the fact that no meeting place had been agreed
upon. It was originally scheduled to meet in Calcutta, but the
WIDF received a set-back when the Government of India refused to
authorize such a conference. In great indignation the WIDF sent
the following telegram:
TELEGRAM TO THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
In the name of more than 80,000,000 members from 56 countries, the Congress
of the WIDF energetically protests against the refusal of the authorization to hold
the Conference of the Women of Asia at Calcutta. We consider this gesture a
sign of hostility toward the people's movement for peace, liberty, democracy.
Eugenie Cotton, President.
48 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
TREASON THE KEYNOTE
"The congress heard Nina Popova, secretary of the Central Council
of the Trade-Unions of the U. S. S. R., chairman of the Soviet Women's
Anti-Fascist Committee, and head of the Soviet delegation, with
rapt attention. Her speech was frequently interrupted by applause
and stormy ovations in honor of the Soviet Union, the Soviet army,
and the great leader of the working people, Joseph Stalin." ^^
Nina Popova launched a vicious attack upon the United States:
We have gathered at our second international congress in a tense world situa-
tion, at a time of fierce struggle between the forces of reaction and the forces of
democracy * * * in order to unite * * * for the struggle against the
warmongers * * *
To be able to fight the warmongers successfully, the women of all countries
must know who the enemies of peace are. They must know that the inspirers
and organizers of aggression, the inspirers and organizers of another war, are the
present rulers of the United States and Great Britain * * *_
The American imperialists are utilizing the Marshall plan as a means of en-
slaving the peoples of western Europe, Latin America, and many other countries;
they are robbing these countries of their sovereignty and are subordinating them
to the military interest of the United States. Reactionary circles in the United
States and Great Britain are hatching insane plans of conquest in an endeavor to
establish the world domination of the Anglo-American bloc.
The Soviet Union is the vanguard of the international camp that stands for
peace and democracy. This explains why the spearhead of the aggressive policy
of the fomenters of another war is directed primarily against the Soviet
Union * * *. The foreign policy of the U. S. S. R. is guided by respect for
the independence and sovereignty of all countries, big and small * * *.*"
It has already been stated that only one speech made at the congress
might in any way be construed as critical of the Soviet Union. Dele-
gate after delegate rose to praise Russia and the Communist Party;
each of them carefully made a point of attacking the United States
in conformance with the line laid down by Popova. This was true
also of the chief American delegate, Muriel Draper, who condemned
the "reactionary offensive" and "efforts to introduce fascism" in the
United States.
Jeannette Vermeersch, wife of Maurice Thorez, general secretary of
the Communist Party of France, who is a leader of the French Com-
munist Party in her own right, told the convention:
The plan of Anglo-American and French imperialism is * * * to make
the people pay for the preparation of the next war, while the profits will go to
the arms manufacturers * * * ^^ owe this criminal French policy to
American imperialism because, without its power, the French people would have
already put an end to French reaction * * * This interference takes the
form of the Marshall plan, the so-called "European recovery program" * * *
Above all, the Marshall plan means war. * * * The reactionaries are carry-
ing through this policy in the name of "western civilization" against "the East,"
that is to say, against socialism and the Soviet Union * * *
She repeated the pledge of outright treason originally voiced by her
husband speaking for the French Communist Party which was con-
firmed by Communist parties through the world. Miss Vermeersch
spoke for the Union des Femmea FrauQaises, French affiliate of the
WIDF:
* * * the political committee of the French Communist Party has de-
clared, "The people of France will never make war on the Soviet Union" * * *
The Union of French Women, expressing the will of the majority of our country
women, has replied on this flag which we want to present to the Soviet women's
»« Soviet Woman, No. 1, 1949, p. 51.
•• Soviet Woman, No. 2, 1949, pp. 16-17.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
49
"TO OUR SOVIET SISTERS
"FRENCH MOTHERS WILL NEVER GIVE THEIR SONS TO MAKE WAR AGAINST THE
SOVIET UNION
"UNION DES FEMMES FRAN5AISES"
Banner presented to the Soviet Union by the Union of French Women, affiliate
of the Women's International Democratic Women.
—Soviet Woman, No. 3, 1949, page 42.
50 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
delegation, "The mothers of France will never give their sons to fight against the
Soviet Union."
Fanny Edelman of Argentina voiced the same opinion:
We, the women of Latin America, solemnly declare: "Our sons shall never
serve American imperialism and shall never take part in a war against the great
Soviet Union and the people's democracies."
Each delegate from a non-Communist country who addressed the
federation supported the Soviet Union by attacking not only the
United States but her own government. Rosetta Longo Jazio, of the
Union of Italian Women, said:
The words of Wallace, "The Marshall plan has been drawn up to serve the
interests of American businessmen and militarists," are confirmed by the present
political situation in Italy.
She went on to explain that "American imperialists" are using the
Marshall plan to "transform Italy into a colony and make of her a
war base. She claimed that the Italian Government acquiesces in
this project because it is corrupt and represents not the people but
big business interests. Nora Wooster of Great Britain claimed
England was enslaved to the American dollar and was pursuing
an "imperialist" policy against U. S. S. R. against the will of the
people:
At the end of the war, millions of people passionately hoped that our country
would contihue to follow the path of friendship and cooperation with the Soviet
Union and the new democracies. But, instead of this, they have seen their
hopes * * * fading in face of an imperialist policy which has led to our
country's enslavement to the American dollar, a policy leading to a new war
* * *. They dread the establishment of United States bombing bases in
Britain.
Hrissa (Chryssa) Hadjivassiliou, a member of the Politburo of the
Greek Communist Party and director of women's activities in the
party, identified the United States with Hitler's Nazi Germany,
and the government of her own country with the Quislings:
When the resistance of a people becomes an obstacle to the realization of
expansionist American plans for domination, then the Wall Street imperialists,
assisted by local reactionaries, fall back on fascism * * * Anglo-American
intervention in Greek internal affairs is no different from German occupation.
She went on to say:
The royalist Fascists and their American bosses are trying to drown in blood
the Greek people's desire to be free and independent. With barbaric cruelty
they slaughter Greek patriots, sparing neither women nor children. The People's
Liberation Army [Communist] of Greece is showing, however, how powerful a
force is the people's will to victory.
However, the assistance rendered to Communist rebels by the
so-called "people's democracies" bordering Greece was not criticized
as "intervention in Greek internal affairs."
Uma Rai Chaudhm-i of India joined the chorus in denouncing her
government:
The foreign policy of the Indian Government at UN was one of complete
subservience to the imperialist powers against the Soviet Union.
Tcho En, representing the Democratic Union of the Women of
North Korea, "expressed her unbounded gratitude to the great
Soviet Union and its leader, Generalissimo Stalin."
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 51
Noo Young Choon, representing the Democratic Union of the
Women of South Korea, "denounced the terrible effects of the occupa-
tion of their country by American troops."
We have no rights at all and are subjected to cruel exploitation.
Hilde Mareiner-Nuremberger of Austria also expressed a sharply
critical attitude toward her government and her gratitude toward
the Soviet Union:
The imperialists are using Austria as a political barrier against the new democ-
racies, and are trying to sabotage Austria's fight for independence. Thanks
to the presence of Soviet troops, we have not lost all our libertJ^
Edith Buchacca of the Democratic Federation of Cuban Women
excoriated the "war plans of Washington," charging that the United
States was making an "arsenal" of Latin America.
Miriam Firouz of Iran said:
Attracted by our large oil fields and by our proximity to the Soviet Union,
American imperialism has forced itself upon us. At one with its English prede-
cessor, it is trying to stifle all popular movement and wants to make Iran into
a fortress against the U. S. S. R.
Louise Dorneman of Germany insisted that the United States,
Great Britain, and France are promoting the rebhth of nazism in
Germany in order to make western Germany into "a military base
for imperialist aggression."
Marie Bernetti-Bernetic of Trieste "explained that, owing to the
interference of the American imperialists, the peaceful construction
of the Free Republic of Trieste has not been successful."
The high light of the Congress came when the "WIDF Manifesto
for the Defense of Peace" was adopted. M. Makarova, Soviet
delegate to the congress, described it:
"This document condemns the quest for world supremacy, the policy of aggres-
sion, of fomenting a new world war, pursued by the rulers of the United States
and Britain. * * * j^ galls upon the women of all lands to expose the war-
mongers; * * * to demand the reduction of armaments and military
expenditures, and the prohibition of the atomic bomb; to organize mass meetings
and processions calling for a struggle * * * against fascism and aggression." ^^
When presenting this document to the Congress, Maria Maddalena
Rossi emphasized the Soviet Union's alleged desire for "reduction of
armaments" and "reduction of military expenditures," in its so-called
quest for "peace." She bitterly criticized the United States, claiming
that:
The 1948-49 budget appropriations for military purposes in the United States
are 11 times the allocations for 1940, and 43.4 percent above those for the previous
year, comprising 15,000 million dollars or 36.1 percent of the whole national
budget.^2
The figures offered by Mme. Rossi are deliberately misleading.
She failed to point out to the Congress that, although actual billions
of dollars allotted for direct military expenditures in the United States
amount to 1L9, whereas in the Soviet Union 10.2 billions of dollars
are appropriated, in the United States this larger amount comprises
only 5.3 percent of the national income, whereas in the Soviet Union
the smaller amount comprises 15.1 percent of the national income.
" New Times (published by the newspaper Trud, Moscow) December 15, 1948, pp. 19-23.
» Soviet Woman, No. 2, 1949, p. 13.
52 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
She also neglected to tell the Congress that for this amount the Soviet
Union is enabled to maintain a military establishment manned by
two and one-half times the personnel employed by the Department of
National Defense in the United States. Because of the high standard
of living in the United States, a military establishment much smaller
than that maintained in the U. S. S. R. costs considerably more.
Furthermore, A. G. Zverev, Finance Minister of the Soviet Union,
recently told the Parliament in Moscow that the Soviet Union plans
to spend nearly 20 percent more for military forces this year than last.^
The standing army of the Soviet Union is reliably estimated at 4,-
050,000, with a reserve of at least 20,000,000 since Russia has universal
military training. By comparison, the United States has a standing
army of 1,655,000 without universal military training. Nor was the
Congress informed that in the United States social and cultural
expenses amount to $162 per capita, whereas in the Soviet Union only
$74 per capita is spent. Nor was the Congress apprised of the fact
that the United States has engaged in no act of aggression since
World War II despite its possession of the atom bomb, whereas
country after country has been forced into the Soviet orbit by means
of Communist terroristic or military pressure.
The adoption of the so-called "peace" manifesto was made the
occasion of an uproarious demonstration in behalf of Russia and the
Communist leaders of the world and marked the high point of the
gathering. We quote from official Soviet sources:
The adoption of the manifesto for the defense of peace was an unforgettable
moment. * * *
The delegates' enthusiasm mounted. * * *
Mention of the Soviet Union, the stanch champion of peace and democracy
against imperialism and the instigators of a new war, evoked a prolonged, stormy
ovation. All the delegates rose to their feet, and the hall echoed with exclama-
tions in many languages:
"Long live the Soviet Union! Long live Stalin!" "Vive Stalin!" "Eilen
Stalin!"
And the hall responded with an echoing "Thorez! "Thorez! "Thorez!"
The Soviet delegates sang the national anthem of the U. S. R. R. which was
taken up by the entire hall:
"Vive U. S. S. R.! Vive Stalin! Eilen Stalin!" * * *
* * * the hall was shaken by a thunderous "Stalin! Stalin! Stalin!" More
applause and again a mighty "Stalin! Stalin! Stalin!" repeated over and over
again by hundreds of voices.
The hall resounded with the strains of national anthems and hymns of struggle.
The women of Spain sang; then the women of Greece, and the Italian women:
"Eilen Pasionaria! Eilen Markos! Togliatti! Togliatti!" * * *
Then more singing: Hungarian, Polish, Bulgarian, Chinese, American songs.
The delegates rose to cheer the leaders of this struggle, men lieloved the world
over, the best of mankind's sons — TogHatti, Dimitrov, Rakosi, Mao Tse-tung,
Kim Ir Sen, Enver Hoxha.
Another burst of applause, and a mighty surge of voices raised in a unanimous
"Stalin! Stalin! Stalin!" Then the militant strains of the Internationale
swept the hall."
The WIDF chose to cheer as "mankind's best sons" Dolores
Ibarruri, secretary general of the Communist Party of Spain, and
chairman of the central committee and the Politburo; Markos
Vafiades, then commander in chief of the guerrilla rel3el army of Greece
and president and minister of war in the Communist Junta; Palmiro
Togliatti, secretary general of the Communist Party of Italy; Georgi
M Associated Press. March 10, 1949 (Baltimore Sun, March 11, 1949, p. 1).
" Soviet Woman, No. 1, 1949, pp. 52-63; No. 2, 1949, p. 36.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN. 53
Dimitrov, formerly secretary general of the Communist International,
recently deceased prime minister of the Commmiist government of
Bulgaria; Matyas Rakosi, secretary general of the Hungarian Com-
munist Party; Mao Tse-tung, chaii'man of the central executive com-
mittee of the Chinese Communist Party; and Enver Hoxha, Com-
munist prime minister of Albania.
For obvious reasons, the WIDF was praised after its second con-
gress by the Moscow Soviet Home Service in a radio broadcast on
December 31, 1948.
However, the British Labor Party has recognized and labeled the
Women's International Democratic Federation as a Communist or
Communist-front organization, and has purged the Labor Party of
WIDF members. According to an Associated Press dispatch from
London on May 19, 1949:
Britain's Labor Party ordered its entire membership of more than 5,000,000
today to pujrge itself of any fellow traveling with Communists. * * * Today's
ban on fellow traveling applies to rank-and-file party members as well as party
officials and members of Parliament. Prime Minister Attlee and the Labor
Party's executive committee blacklisted 14 Communist or Communist-front
groups and told Laborites to shun those bodies. Members of the 14 organizations
are banned from Labor Party membership. The list included * * * the
Women's International Democratic Federation.
Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt headlined her column on December 14,
1948, "Budapest Meeting of American (?) Women Amazes Me." She
said:
The American delegates painted an astonishing picture of life in the United
States. Apparently these women find our country a place where the police are
ordered by President Truman to track down people who differ with him politically.
The French newspaper reporting this meeting wondered why this group of 25
women, who believe the American Government is seeking imperialist domination
of the world and presented a resolution accusing the United States of "pursuing
an aggressive and cold war against the Soviet Union", did not decide to remain
in the "free countries" behind the iron curtain. * * *
Of course, in Europe this group is known to be completely Communist-con
trolled. Otherwise, it could not be meeting in Budapest. * * * '*
AMERICAN WIDF DELEGATES REPORT
In an interview in the Worker, Dorothy Hayes, an American dele-
gate to the congress, gave a preliminary report of its proceedings.
She said that memorable delegates to the congress were Mme. Eugenie
Cotton of France, the president of the WIDF (who has been refused a
United States visa) ; Nina Popova of the Soviet Union; Marie-Claude
Valliant-Couturier, widow of the French Communist editor of the
French Communist paper "Humanite" who was reelected executive
secretary of the Federation; the Chinese delegates from the "liberated"
(Communist) areas and from the "People's Republic" (Communist)
of Outer Mongolia; the Hungarian and Albanian women; a delegate
from Iran who "told of conditions there as a result of United States oil
interests taking over. They burned the date palms in Iran, the source
of much of the people's sustenance." The Iranian delegate said,
"America sends food to Iran, but the people can't afford to buy. And
now, they're starving." Miss Hayes emphasized that "by everyone
at the congress * * * regardless of their political aflUiations, the
Soviet Union was looked upon as the leading force for world peace." ^*
M "My Day," by Eleanor Roosevelt, Washington Daily News, December 14, 1948, p. 45.
•« Worker, January 16, 1949, p. 5, magazine section.
54 REPORT ON (X)NGRES6 OF AMERICAN WOMEN
The Congress of American Women had a dinner in New York in
honor of the returning delegates from the WIDF, to hear their reports.
Nora Stanton Barney was applauded when she observed in criticizing
the United States:
Some of the people I spoke to, who were opposed to the [Hungarian] govern-
ment, were non-Communists. So, you see they get better treatment than the
Communists over here. ©
Haloise Moorehead, another delegate, said Hungary had provided
her with her "first taste of human freedom." Muriel Draper reported
not only on the congress but on her subsequent, and second, visit to
the Soviet Union, where Moscow's citizens "laughed at the Voice of
America." ^^
It was advertised in the Daily Worker that Pearl Lawes, an open
Communist, and Betty Millard would report on the Budapest congress
under the auspices of the Jefferson School Forums, sponsored by the
Jefferson School of Social Science, which has been cited as an "adjunct
of the Communist Party" by the Attorney General. Betty Millard
is an instructor at the Jefferson School of Social Science and a member
of the Congress of American Women. She was formerly an assistant
editor of the New Masses, official Communist weeldy publication.
In a pamphlet, Women Against Myth, published by International
Publishers, official Communist publishing house, she saj^s:
While the Soviet government has a conscious political philosophy and program
designed to bring women into equality, ours does not; and it is here that we reach
* * * the problem. For it is up to the progressive movement to supply
that conscious leadership * * * j(; means * * * struggle together with
such organizations as the Congress of American Women * * * as a way of
arresting the drive of the monopolists toward reaction and war (pp. 22-23).
The official Communist Party organ, the Worker, for August 8,
1948, page 9, magazine section, approved this pamphlet for its "correct
Marxian approach."
" Daily Worker, February 2, 1949, p. 5.
THE CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN, 1946-49
During the intervening years, between the first and second con-
gresses of the Women's International Democratic Federation, the
Congress of American Women had so fully performed its appointed
functions as the American affiliate of the WIDF as to receive the
highest commendation from the Daily Worker, as the "only anti-
Fascist women's organization in the United States." ^®
PRESSURE POLITICS
In her report to the international council of the WIDF meeting in
Moscow on October 10, 1946, Mrs. Muriel Draper explained the type
of pressure politics in which the Congress of American Women, as
an affiliate of the WIDF, is engaged. In addition to demonstrations
at the White House, delegations to Congress, Secretary of State
Marshall, Secretary of War Patterson, and Secretary of the Navy
Forrestal, the commissions of the Congress of American Women,
she declared —
have put the aims of the Women's International Democratic Federation and the
Congress of American Women forward on every possible occasion in letters, cables,
and telegrams to the men and women in Government, in the United Nations,
in industry, in radio and press networks, and other influential organizations.
Addressing a cablegram to the first w^orking conference of the Con-
gress of American Women held at the Essex House in New York
City on May 25, 1946, Mme. Vaillant-Couturier, French Communist,
general secretary of the WIDF, indicated pointedly her hope that the
conference will —
act as a check to all reactionary forces who are trying, everywhere, ways of dividing
and ways of preventing the democratic forces from strengthening their hand.
Assembled delegates fully understood this Communist double talk
for what it was intended to be — a rallying call for mass pressure tactics
against the policies of the American Government and in favor of an
appeasement policy toward the expansionist designs of the Soviet
Union.
Even before the CAW was established as a permanent organization
at the working conference which received this cablegram, the CAW
had anticipated the appeal by gathering 300 strong for a trip to Wash-
ington, where they exhorted Members of Congress to defeat the
Truman plan for a loan designed to save Greece and Turkey from
communism.
The CAW attacked President Truman's proposal as support of a
"corrupt government" in "aggressive control" of the "democratic"
Greek faction (to this day the CAW refers only to Communist Greek
rebels as "democratic"), and "an undemocratic and unrepresentative"
Turkish Government.
«8 Daily Worker, December 27, 1948, p. 4.
55
56 REPORT OX COXGRESS OF .\MERia\X WOMEN
Several orgaiii2^:ioii5 joined this attack under the aegis of the
CAW. In addition to a number of local Brooklyn groups, representa-
tives from the following Communist-front organizations appeared:
American Committee for Greek Democracy. Anierican Labor Party.
American Youth for Democracy. Committee for a Democratic Far
Eastern PoHcy. National Negro Congress, and the Emma Lazarus
Division. International Workers Order.
At a Brooklyn CAW meeting on March 22. 1947. a motion was
made and carried that the CAW write President Truman officially
"condemning" his proposal. Another motion was carried that the
CAW officially commend Henry Wallace for his position ia opposi-
tion to the President. The CAW was uistructed to make every
enort to have Wallace's speech on this question rebroadcast and
reprinted.
Mrs. Muriel Draper echoed this appeal in behah' of the Congress
of American Women by demanding pressure upon the American
delegates to the United Nations —
to use their i)0"!*^eri :z :ie service of peace and not in stimulating impkerialistic
rivsLlries which ri=i war; coiiLinued urging our Government to reject ^e policy
of deiaj in connecrion with breaking relations with Franco Spain; immediate
destmctJon of the war-making potential of Japan and Germany and the inter-
ns:::-i" r^r^els which sjjawn aggression; international civilmi control of atomic
energ7.
These demands are fully in line with those of the Soviet press and
Soviet UN delegates. In veiled form they are intended as an attack
ur>on American foreisn pohcv and upon American delesrates to the
UN. "[ " '
Attacking congressional efforts to prevent the diversion of Ameri-
can relief material in Soviet-controlled areas for military and pohti-
cal purposes. Pearl Ortenberg. chairman of the CAW Commission on
Child Care and Education, insisted that "internationally L'NRRA
should not be used to stem the tides of democracy.'' She was refer-
ring, of course, to the dictatorial regimes in Yugoslavia. Rumania,
Aibanifl, etc.. as the ••rides of democracy."
The conference accused Secretary of Agriculture Anderson of
"callous indifference to world famine needs, of consistently placing
considerations of profits above human welfare, of conspiring for an
economic scarcity, of selling out veterans, farmers, workers, of favoring
Fascist-minded monopolies in the United States'' and demanded his
removal. This accusation was leveled in the face of the fact that the
United States has done more for the rehef of starving populations
throughou: the world rhfln any country, including the Soviet L'nion,
which will be remembered as having sent a highly advertised shipment
of wheat to France on the eve of an election £md of diverting needed
American wheat from Rumania. Contrary to the Soviet practice of
looting areas under her direct or indirect control, the L'nited States has
sought to raise the productivity of friendly nations throughout the
world- No criticism of the Soviet Union was even whispered.
The Commi^ion on Peace and Democracy sent a cable to Secretary
of State Byrnes in Paris urging that no artificial obstacles be created
to the realization of peace and security for our wartime aUi^, "par-
tacolaily the Soviet L'nion."
Since the Soviet Union fears military control of atomic energy, pro-
tests were urged to Congressmen demanding the passage of the
McMahon bill (S. 1717; for civilian control.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 57
In a statement caustically critical of the United States Congress, the
'^Commission on the Status of Women" reported to the May 25 con-
ference of the Congress of American Women that "50 percent of the
Congresswomen are assets to the nation. Less than 1 percent of
Congressmen are assets to a democratic nation." **
The CAW has made the United States Congress one of its chief
targets. It was persistently referred to as "do nothing" and "re-
actionary." The Congress of American Women reported to the
Prague executive conmiittee meeting of the WIDF in February 1947,
in an attack intended for international pubhcation, that —
certain reactionary forces in the United States are making every effort to gain
control of the sources of our national life and well-being at the expense of the
working men and women. * * * These forces are operating through monop-
oly capital and international cartels, and by means of these members of the United
States Congress whose interests are identified with these groups, and who are
thereby largely responsible. * * *
The CAW claimed that—
these reactionary forces are aided in their action by the United States Chamber of
Commerce, its subsidiary city chambers of commerce, and the National Associa-
tion of Manufacturers. * * «
In a sweeping condenmation upon the American press, the CAW
stated this "reactionary propaganda" —
is insidiously spread throughout the country by the tyranny of the press and the
syndicated columnists, as well as by the widely heard radio commentators. * * *
Quick to resent any attacks on the Communist Party, a motion
carried at a Brooklyn meeting of the CAW on March 22, 1947, in-
structed the executive board to send "immediately" a letter to Secre-
tary of Labor Schwelienbach, and the chairman and members of the
House Labor Committee, protesting his demand for outlawing the
Communist Party.
In April 1947, the Congress of American Women effected a neat
coup. Unfortunately for the organization, the maneuver was exposed
and defeated a few short weeks later, with a subsequent loss of prestige
to the CAW.
After hearing a sales talk from Ann Wharton, a CAW representa-
tive, in which she insisted the CAW was nonpartisan and nonpoUtical,
the Hunter College Student Self-Groverning Association voted to
affiliate with the CAW. Hunter CoUege is a New York public
women's college. When the seLf^oveming association announced to
the campus that it had the "distinction" of acting as a spearhead to
interest other women's colleges in the CAW, immediate protests arose.
Students objected to the commitment of 6,000 undergraduate women
to membership in a nonstudent, outside political organization. As a
result, the student council rescinded the affihation and decided to hold
an open forum on the question. Dr. George X. Schuster, president
of Hunter College, said:
The students involved were at first completely unaware of the true character of
the^Congress of American Women.
He went on to say he had not the slightest doubt that the student body
would refuse to affihate with such an organization, since:
The action of the student council indicates it now understands very clearly the
nature of this organization.!""
•» Daily Worker, July 14, 1946, p. 11.
■M New York World-Telegram, April 24-25, 1947.
58 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
He added that he himself did not have "the sUghtest doubt" that "a
direct affihation between the Congress of American Women and the
Communist Party" exists.
The Eastern Seaboard Conference held by the Congress of American
Women was the occasion for excoriating President Truman's loyalty
order; at the same time the congress went on record as fighting the
Truman doctrine because it was "injurious to the cause of peace."
Dr. Gene Weltfish, president of the CAW, told the assembled delegates
it was time that —
American women assume their political responsibilities before it is too late to
alter the dangerous course our country is being steered into by the Truman
doctrine.!"!
Of course, this conference received a big play in the DaUy Worker.'"^
Despite the fact that the United States was footing the bill for the
bulk of all aid received in Europe, the CAW accused the administra-
tion of sponsoring a food program only for the "political strings
attached." In behalf of the countries in the Soviet orbit, they urged
"aid to the needy of Europe on a nondiscriminatory basis, without
any attempt to interfere with their politics." A "mass trek" to
Washington, sponsored by the CAW, was planned, to urge that all
European aid be placed under the United Nations' sole control;
although no objection was raised to the United States continuing to
furnish the wherewithal, the CAW felt that other countries should
have equal voice in its distribution, with the Soviet Union in a po-
sition to exercise decisive veto power.
The Information Bulletin of the Women's International Democratic
Federation carried two laudatory articles on its American affiliate.
One of them was a message from the "women of Egypt" saying they
were glad the Brooklyn Chapter of the Congress of American Women
carried on with them in the struggle against selfishly ambitious forces
who wished to launch a war of imperialist expansion by using the
atom bomb.^°^
The second article stated that "The dangers to world peace inherent
in the policies of the United States Government present the most
pressing problems the Congress of American Women is to be con-
cerned with." Consequently, the congress had set up and was
circulating a "peace poll" consisting of questions slanted to promote
criticism of American foreign policy — never of Soviet policy. They
asked :
Do you approve of thejforeign policies of the government?
Do you approve of the attitude of the United States in the UNO?
Do you approve of the Government's policy regarding the atom bomb and
atomic energy? i"*
In January 1948, the committee on international affairs of the
Congress of American Women got out a publication entitled "Around
the World," containing reports from members of the CAW who had
been abroad. Reports were returned which eulogized Marie-Claude
Valliant-Couturier, a leader of the Communist Party of France;
Russia was praised; German women- — ^in the Soviet zone- — were
reported "grateful" to the WIDF; an invidious comparison was
drawn between the United States attitude towai'd women and the
101 New York Times, June 7, 1947, p. 11.
102 Daily Worker, June 10, 1947, p. 8.
103 Information Bulletin, Women's International Democratic Federation, November 1947, p. 5.
•M Information Bulletin, Women's International Democratic Federation, December 1947, pp. 6 and 8.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AJXIERICAN WOMEN 59
"enlightened" attitude in Communist Hungary. According to
Around the World, everything was perfect in the Soviet sphere, with
one tiny exception- — in Germany, life was hard, even in the Soviet
zone.
Jessie Brieger, reporting to the CAW on her native land, Hungary,
enviously observed that the Hungarian Government supports the
Hungarian so-called "Women's Democratic Federation." She said
she found it "hard to explain" why the United States did not subsidize
the Congress of American Women.
Two members of the Union of Italian Women, affiliate of the
WIDF, were singled out for praise by CAW correspondents. They
were Camilla Ravera, a leader of the Communist Party of Italy, and
the Communist Rita Montagnana, wife of Palmiro Togliatti, head of
the Communist Party of Italy.
Featured in this publication was an attack on Dutch, French, and
Chinese anti-Communist forces, and the CAW claimed " * * *
it is American loans, left-over guns, and American food that keep
the Dutch, French, Chiang Kai-shek fighting." The CAW intended
to do everythmg in its power to force the United States Congress to
revise their far-eastern policy. Therefore, Around the World urged
members of the CAW to attend a "National Conference on American
Policy in the Far East" sponsored by the Committee for a Democratic
Far-Eastern Policy, a Communist-front organization. The CAW's
motive for promoting this conference in conjunction with other
organizations was to "form a new policy to be presented to our State
Department."
Fearful of dividing the organization on political lines, the third
meeting of the national executive board of the CAW decided that the
organization would not endorse any particular candidate in the Presi-
dential elections of 1948. However, permission was granted for any
chapter of the CAW to act autonomously in support of Henry A.
Wallace's candidacy. Permission for CAW chapters to go on record
in favor of other party's candidates was not mentioned.
Subsequently, the Congress of American Women and the American
Youth for Democracy, also cited as a Communist-front organization,
offered their services as baby sitters for New York women who wished
to register to vote. This offer appeared in the Daily Worker, which
was then actively supporting Wallace.
On January 30, 1949, Joseph Stalin told an American newspaper
reporter that he had "no objection" to meeting President Truman
to consider a no-war agreement between the U. S. S. R. and the
U. S. A. The Daily Worker rushed to feature this as a "peace bid"
and accused the State Department of trying to kill a peace agreement.
The State Department press officer remarked pointedly that the
United States Government had received no official notice of any
peace bid and was therefore unable to act.
The next day Henry Wallace stated that in May 1948, "the admin-
istration closed the door to peaceful discussion," when a similarly
unofficial letter from Stalin to Wallace was published.
On February 2, Secretary of State Dean Acheson discussed Stalin's
statement at a press conference. Criticizing the unofficial character
of the statement, he indicated that he believed a government's foreign
policy should not be made in press interviews, when "there are many
65891—50 5
60 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
ways serious proposals could be made, through normal channels of
communication." However, he said:
The implication of the answer [Stalin's to the reporter] is that the President
of the United States for the fourth time should travel half-way around the world
to meet Marshal Stalin, and on this occasion, to do so for the purpose of talking
with him about a matter so tenuous as to defy specific statement.
Furthermore, the Secretary of State pointed out:
The President of the United States, in his inaugural address, stated it was the
position of this Government to give unfaltering support to the United Nations.
* * * He did not say he was prepared to consider making that statement —
he made it.
Dean Acheson pointed out that signatories to the United Nations
Charter were pledged not to make war, and in that light he could
only find Stalin's statement "puzzling."
At President Truman's press conference the next day, he told re-
porters the matter had been completely and thoroughly answered by
Secretary Acheson, who had consulted with him.
On Sunday, February 6, the Worker, official Communist Party
organ, ignored both the Secretary of State's and the President's
concise statements. An editorial declared that "Stalin's invitation
* * * only adds to the fury and hatred of the war makers" and
it instructed readers to —
wire, write to President Truman now urging him to accept Stalin's peace oflFer.
Do the same with all Congressmen and Senators * * * Q^t up peace peti-
tions.
Ignoring the deceptive character of Stalin's maneuver, the Congress
of American Women bypassed the Department of State, and the
President's stated position, and "urged President Truman to meet
with Premier Stalin for peace." Their statement was published in
the Daily Worker on February 7, 1949, page 9.
May 1 is an international mobilization day for Communists and
their supporters. Parades are usually staged on this auspicious
occasion with the Communist Party occupying a place of honor. The
Congress of American Women marched in this parade in 1949.
DEFENSE^OF COMMUNIST LEADERS
An outstanding feature of CAW activity is its energetic defense of
Communist leaders now under indictment or subjects of deportation
proceedings because of their membership in an organization that
teaches and advocates overthrow of the United States Government
by force and violence.
The Congress of American Women initiated "Women Fight Back
Day" on October 25, 1948, when mass meetings were held all over
the country under the joint auspices of the CAW and several other
organizations, including such Communist fronts as the Civil Rights
Congress and the Emma Lazarus Division of the Jewish People's
Fraternal Order, an affiliate of the International Workers' Order.
The purpose of the meetings was to protest what they termed "con-
temptible witch-hunts" and "invasions of civil rights."
Claiming the "shadow" of fascism is "across the land," they said
"police brutality" is "on the increase" and "in academic circles it is
dangerous to exercise the right to speak as a free citizen." The CAW
said that a House labor subcommittee had launched "smear cam-
paigns" against the unions.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
61
Without exception, those the CAW Hsted as victims of "violations
of civil liberties" have been defended in the Communist press as
causes celebre. The so-called "Hollywood Ten" — 10 motion picture
writers and directors who were held in contempt of Congress for
refusing to answer questions put by a congressional committee, were
subject to "one of the first attacks on American civil rights," accord-
ing to the CAW. Although the CAW asserted the 10 were "standing
on their constitutional rights," the United States courts have upheld
the contempt citation in the "test case" of John Howard Lawson.
These 10 men refused to affirm or deny membership in the Communist
Party.
Others defended at these rallies included members of a Communist-
front organization known as the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Com-
mittee, who have also been convicted of contempt of the United
States Congress.
Congress of American Women Delegation in Behalf of Communist Cases.
Delegation sponsored by the CAW, which visited Judge Medina, sitting in the
trial of the Communist leaders, to protest jury procedure and his "discriminatory"
attitude.
First row, left to right: Rose Thaler, chairman, Child Care Commission, CAW,
Brooklyn; Helen Wortis, Child Care Commission, CAW; Helen PhiUips, treasurer,
CAW (now vice president) ; Rose Weinstock, executive secretary, Hungarian
Women's Association; Claudia Jones, secretary, National Women's Commission,
Communist Party.
Back row, left to right: Leah Nelson, Emma Lazarus Division, Jewish People's
Fraternal Order, International Workers Order; Adele Adams, executive secretary.
United Harlem Tenants and Consumers Organization; Gene Weltfish, president,
CAW (now honorary president) ; Agnes Vukcevich, executive secretary, Women's
Division, American Slav Congress, member, executive committee, CAW; Clara
Bodian, New York State Women's Commission, Communist Party, member,
executive committee, CAW.
—Daily Worker, February 20, 1949, page 10.
62 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
Leon Josephson, who has recently completed a prison term after
being convicted of contempt of Congress, was singled out for defense
by the CAW. His wife, Ruth Josephson, was a guest of honor at
one rally.
In Denver, a grand jury which was investigating Communist Party
activities cited for contempt Communist Party officials who appeared
in answer to subpenas but refused to answer questions. The CAW
claims their civil rights were violated.
Gerhart Eisier, the agent of the Communist International who was
the principal in the sensational illegal exit case' — the man who jumped
his bail and escaped from United States authorities via the Polish
steamship Batory — was represented by the CAW as having been
persecuted by this country's officials for 4 years.
The " persecuted victims" who were honored guests at these "Women
Fight Back" gatherings included Claudia Jones, an alien Communist
leader against whom the United States Government has instituted
deportation proceedings, who was also a speaker for the CAW ("First
attacks," said the CAW, "were against the foreign born."); Mrs.
Hilde Eisier, wife of Gerhart Eisier, agent of the Communist Inter-
national; and Mrs. Lil Green, Mrs. Helen Winters, Mrs. Elizabeth
Hall, Mrs. Peggy Dennis, Mrs. Jack Stachel, Mrs. Mae Williamson,
Mrs. Edna Winston, Mrs. Lillian Gates, Mrs. Gita Potash, and
Mrs. Leona Thompson- — whose husbands are now on trial in a Federal
court for conspiracy to overthrow the Government of the United
States by force and violence. These men- — all of whom are members
of the National Committee of the Communist Party, U. S. A.- — are
Gilbert Green, Illinois State Communist Party chairman; Carl
Winter, Michigan State Communist Party chairman; Gus Hall, Ohio
State Communist Party chairman; Eugene Dennis, general secretary.
Communist Party, U. S. A.; Jack Stachel, education secretary.
Communist Party, U. S. A. ; John Williamson, trade-union secretary,
Communist Party, U. S. A.; Henry Winston, organizational secre-
tary. Communist Party, U. S. A.; John Gates, editor of the Daily
Worker; Irving Potash; and Robert Thompson, New York State
Communist Party chairman. The CAW denounced their indictment,
saying the United States Government's charge against them is
"unfounded."
The "Women Fight Back" rallies were publicized in the Daily
Worker, which stated:
The issues of these meetings are political issues. The Congress of American
Women suggests that delegations be sent to all political candidates and leaders
demanding their stand on civil rights, as expressed in these particular cases. ""^
In other words, the Congress of American Women was seeking
to intimidate election candidates to force them to intervene in behalf
of Communist leaders on trial.
In February 1949, a few months after the wives of the indicted
Communist leaders were honored by the organization, the Congress
of American Women organized a delegation, which included Claudia
Jones of the national women's commission of the Communist Party,
who was featured as a "victim" at the "Women Fight Back" rally, and
Clara Bodian of the New York State Communist Party women's
commission. The delegation presented itself before Judge Harold
"" Daily Worker, October 22, 1948, p. 10.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 63
R. Medina, who is sitting in the trial of the members of the Commimist
Party's National Committee, to protest the court's procedure in the
trial, and to charge him with being "discriminatory."
"FOUNDING" CONVENTION
After 3 years of activity as a going concern officially launched in
March 1946 the Congress of American Women suddenly decided to
hold a "founding" convention in New York, May 6 to 8, 1949.
This meeting was hailed by the Cominform, formerly known as the
Communist International, in its official publication, "For a Lasting
Peace, for a People's Democracy!," as follows:
Consolidating Forces of Democracy, Against Imperialism
The national convention of the American Women's Congress held in New York
at the beginning of the month adopted the congress rules and a program in defense
of peace and democratic rights embodying the main aims of the World Federation
of Democratie Women to which the congress is affiliated.
The convention pointed out that in view of the war danger fomented by the
American monopolists, American women bore a special responsibility. It stressed
the need to mobilize the broadest sections of women to fight for peace. The
convention demanded that the atom bomb should be outlawed * * * and
that the Atlantic Pact be annulled. '°*
The Women's International Democratic Federation sent a "stirring
greeting" to the convention. The WIDF's secretary -general, Marie-
Claude Vaillant-Couturier, who was in the United States as a WIDF
representative to the United Nations, attended the convention.
This woman, who is a member of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of France, "dramatically symbolized" to the CAW
"the hour * * * f^j. getting in the fight." She stood before the
convention "as one of the most revered and honored women leaders
on five continents." According to the testimony given before a
Senate Judiciary subcommittee by Ruth Fischer, the ex-Communist
sister of prominent Communists Gerhart and Harms Eisler, the
"highly dangerous" Mme. Vaillant-Couturier entered the United
States for the purpose of "propaganda against the United States,
and organization of cells * * * Communist cells in all of the
48 States for affiliation with the Communist Party." ^"^
The CAW held its convention at the Yugoslav- American Home at
405 West Forty-first Street, New York City. The Yugoslav-American
Home is known as a regular rendezvous and meeting place for Com-
munist-front organizations. Bogdan Raditsa, once head of Tito's
information service in New York, testified before a Senate Judiciary
subcommittee that the Yugoslav-American Home is a center of Com-
munist activity among Slavs.
This "founding" convention was described at length on June 19,
1949, in the Worker, official organ of the Communist Party, U. S. A.,
in a story written by Claudia Jones, a member of the Congress of
American Women, who is the secretary of the Women's Commission
of the Communist Party.
Listed in the Worker among organizations represented at the CAW
convention were the American Association of University Women and
i»8 For a Lasting Peace, For a People's Democracy!, May 15, 1949, p. 1.
'«' Washington Times-Herald, July 31, 1949, p. 1.
64 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
the National League for Pen Women. In response to inquiries made
by the Committee on Un-American Activities, the following communi-
cations were received:
The National League of American Pen Women, Inc.
Headquarters: 814 National Press Building
washington, d. c.
June 21, 1949.
Mr. Benjamin Mandel,
Director of Research,
Commitiee on Un-American Activities.
Dear Mr. Mandel: Your letter referring to the magazine section of the
"Worker" in which it is stated that the National League of American Pen Women
was represented at the Constitutional Convention of the Congress of American
Women held on May 6, 7, and 8, in New York City, has been received.
You are advised that this statement made by the "Worker" is absolutely untrue.
The National League of American Pen Women did not have a representative at
this meeting. A member representing the League before another organization
must be authorized to do so by the national board and have credentials signed by
the national president. Such authorization was not issued.
This is very embarrassing to the League and I hope something may be done to
protect our good name.
Thank you, so very much, for calling my attention to this misstatement of
facts.
Very truly yours,
Margaret H. Sebree,
National President, National League of American Pen Women.
[Western Union]
Seattle, Wash., June 21, 1949.
Benjamin Mandel,
House Un-American Activities Committee,
House Of/ice Building:
Regarding report of Congress of American Women in the Worker, June 19
magazine section, page 2, no authorization was given anyone to represent American
Association of University Women at that meeting.
Kathryn McHale, General Director.
No explanation has ever been presented of this outright falsification
on the part of the Congress of Araerican Women.
The chief topics of discussion at the CAW convention were the
Atlantic Pact, the Paris "Peace" Conference, and the case of the 12
indicted Communist leaders.
Speaking as the president of the Congress of American Women,
Dr. Gene Weltfish defined its stand on the case of the Communist
leaders, who are on trial charged with advocating the overthrow of
the United States Government by force and violence.
There is terror on Foley Square, where 11 men are on trial before an arrogant
judge for criticizing the economic system * * * j assure you this judge is
arrogant.
The CAW asserted the trial of the Communists is the "present
phase" of the administration's "offensive against all political opposi-
tion to war and profiteering."
Elizabeth Moos, an active member of the Communist Party, and
Mineola Ingersoll, the CAW representative to Paris, reported to the
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 65
convention on the Paris "Peace" Conference, a Communist-inspired
gathering denounced as such by the State Department. Miss
Ingersoll told the CAW delegates that "72 nations, representing
600,000,000 people, are for peace. And the threat of war comes from
our Nation — America."
The CAW convention "recognized" that "the source of war"
stemmed "from the present foreign policy of the administration," and
was "reflected in such designs for destruction as the Atlantic War
Pact."
Dr. Annette Rubinstein, whose candidacy for Congress on the
American Labor Party ticket has received full Communist support,
denounced the North Atlantic Pact as "the first definitive step for
war."
The convention "boldly challenged" the "barrage of war propa-
ganda" they said was directed by the United States against the Soviet
Union, and passed a resolution demanding that the Atlantic Pact be
rejected. They also voted in favor of two other Soviet-inspired
projects, again insisting that President Truman meet with Stalin "to
establish an understanding for peace," and calling for "the outlawing
of the atom bomb because its very existence creates suspicion and
distrust of the United States among other nations."
Flouting the authority of the American Government, and going over
its head, the CAW prepared a "petition for peace and international
unity" for presentation to the United Nations, as the organization's
first public act under its new set-up.
Speakers at the convention included Claudia Jones, of the Com-
munist Party; Ada Jackson, head of the American Labor Party's
women's division, who has consistently defended Communists under
indictment and has appeared on public platforms with them; Charlotte
Stern, also known as Charlotte Todes, a member of the CAW's ad-
visory council now held for deportation as an alien Communist;
Thelma Dale, a member of the New York State Committee of the
Communist Party; and Agnes Vukcevich, executive secretary of the
women's division of the American Slav Congress, a Communist front.
Maude Russell, "a friend of the Chinese People's [Communist] Army,"
received the "enthusiastic assent" of the delegates to her proposal that
a delegation of American women attend the "First All-China Confer-
ence of the Union of Chinese Women," aflaliate of the WIDF, to be
held in "Liberated" (Communist) China.
The CAW reorganized its set-up to add a new Commission on
Trade-Union Women, in response to the instructions handed down at
the second congress of the WIDF for closer cooperation with the
World Federation of Trade Unions.
In the election of officers. Gene Weltfish was elevated to the title of
honorary president, while Muriel Draper assumed the office of presi-
dent of the Congress of American Women. The position of executive
vice president, heretofore held by Mrs. Draper, fell to an open Com-
munist, Pearl Lawes, who is an ofiicer of the New York State Com-
munist Party. Other Communist Party members who are officers of
the CAW include Thelma Dale, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and Clara
Bodian.
66
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
Muriel Draper, president, Congress of American Women.
— CAW Souvenir Journal.
MURIEL DRAPER
FROM BOHEMIANISM TO COMMUNISM
The newly elected president of the Congress of American Women is
Muriel Draper, daughter of the distinguished Sanders family, of Haver-
hill, Mass., who married into the even more socially and artistically
prominent Draper family, of ]Sl ew York. Her husband, Paul Draper,
was a singer well known throughout Europe; his grandfather was
Charles Dana, founder and publisher of the Islew York Sun; his sister
is the famous monologist, Ruth Draper. Before their divorce, Muriel
and Paul Draper lived and entertained brilliantly in London; she sent
their son, Paul Draper, Jr. (who is also now a well-known fellow
traveler of the Communists), to expensive and fashionable schools in
this country; today, according to the Washington Post of December 9,
1948, she "pursues her furies on a comfortable income supplied by her
dancing son, Paul Draper." While she damns American capitalism
and all its works, the chief spokesman for the Congress of American
Women has been an ardent protagonist of the Soviet Union for nearly
two decades.
Muriel Draper might be discounted as harmless were it not for the
fact that the Communists have succeeded in exploiting for their own
shrewdly calculated, conspiratorial purposes her standing in exclusive
social circles. Her views on the most intricate questions of foreign
policy have been featured to full advantage by the Communists in
Moscow, Budapest, Paris, and New York, in their cold war against the
United States. Meanwhile in their own inner circles the Communists
view this woman with undisguised contempt and ridicule, while she
paves the way for their rise to power. It is difficult to understand her
furious outbursts against her own country and her enthusiastic admira-
tion for the Soviet Union, with all its poverty, degradation, and
tyranny.
Muriel Draper is well known in artistic circles as a pianist, a lecturer
of sorts, a dabbler in the field of poetry — a patron of the arts. Every-
body who is anybody in the artistic world is to be found at her highly
bohemian parties. The walls of her home are decorated with bizarre
horse skulls. The New Yorker for January 7, 1939, carried a descrip-
tion of her social activity, which included teas, dinners, suppers,
impromptu concerts lasting from midnight to dawn.
Her ideological somersaults have been startling. In her book,
Music at Midnight, Muriel Draper set forth an attitude which
exemplifies all that the Communists of the world profess to despise,
an attitude that she now denounces in her every published word.
Commenting on the fact that "music and ballet on the grand scale
are no more," she scornfully blamed " abortive democratic principles,"
and "the socialization of the arts for the standardized benefit of the
prolific 'brotherhood' of man."
QT
68 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
On one occasion in Florence in 1913 she made the following comment
as she donned a "divine dress" and a turban which "took me 10
minutes to wind around my head." She philosophized to her com-
panion: "I suppose you are thinking of the poor devils who sweated
to make them. Well, I don't care if they have. If they could wear
them they wouldn't have to make them — there is a chemistry about
things that is much more important than justice * * *." Never-
theless, with characteristic inconsistency, she bemoaned "the lack of
one great figure to dominate so many interrelated parts of the world
as have been thrown pell-mell together." Was she yearning for some
international fiihrer like Joseph Stalin to rule the world?
Mrs. Mabel Dodge Luhan in one of her books explained that the
defection of Muriel Draper's husband had embittered and hardened
her, that —
* * * Paul's attention turning to someone else so soon proved the turning
point in her destiny. * * * After that she lived for the satisfactions of the
fi fXf\ •!* *!» 'I-
From then on, Mrs. Luhan says, Muriel Draper lived for personal
triumphs to bolster her feeling of self-importance:
The Drapers moved to London. Muriel had a transfiguration there. * * *
They became rich and fashionable. * * * One heard fantastic tales of her
triumphs in London. * * * g^e triumphed in London while the money
lasted. * * *
Then, when Muriel Draper had nearly achieved the pinnacle of her
consuming desire for importance, fame, even adulation, her husband
entered their London residence at teatime to confess that he had lost
their last cent on a horse race. From that time on her faith in capital-
ism suffered a heavy decline In her disillusionment and travail, she
declared:
I knew life could not stop for me; I had not had enough of it. How it would
be lived was a matter of changing detail. The essential values were an imperish-
able challenge which would not be denied. * * * jyjy earrings grew a little
longer, head feathers a little higher, the champagne a shade colder in the July
heat.ios
The Drapers were forced to quit the whirl of elegant London society
and return to the United States. Her telephone and gas were cut off
and her unpaid servants left in a huff. According to Muriel Draper,
the relative barrenness of life as a result of the dwindling family funds
induced in Paul Draper, Jr., a pronounced stutter, a sort of unconscious
revolt against the new way of life.
A bored and disgruntled woman suddenly deprived of opportunities
for the satisfactions of the ego, condemned to "the relative barrenness
of life" in the United States — shorn of her position, her importance,
and significantly, her audience, artistic cliques — she turned elsewhere
for an outlet — to the pro-Soviet artistic circles in New York City.
Since 1937, her name has been actively associated with the League of
American Writers throughout its varied gyrations in accordance with
the line of the Communist Party. Here the former intimate of such
celebrities as Artur Rubinstein, Henry James, John Sargent, and
Gertrude Stein, hobnobbed with such avowed Communists as Fred-
erick V. Field, Sender Garlin, Earl Browder, Michael Gold, A. B.
Magill, and others. Most recently she was a sponsor of a similar
\<» Music at Midnight (Harper, 1929) p. 197.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 69
group, the Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace, held
in New York City on March 25, 26, and 27, 1949, which Secretary of
State Dean Acheson referred to as a "sounding board for Communist
propaganda" and which this committee in a lengthy report cited as a
Communist front.
During the Stalin-Hitler Pact, she was a sponsor and active partici-
pant in a testimonial to Rockwell Kent, arranged by the United
American Artists and publicized in the (Communist) New Masses for
May 6 and 20, 1941. After Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, she
sponsored the Artists' Front to Win the War, another Communist
decoy organization.
Muriel Draper has, since the close of World War II, become a tire-
less and furious critic of the land of her birth.
In December 1948, she was again in Europe, as chief United States
delegate to the Women's International Democratic Federation meet-
ing in Budapest. In her capacity as vice president of the federation,
Mrs. Draper told the delegates that the Congress of American Women,
United States affiliate of the federation, had been placed on a list of
subversive organizations by the "notorious" Attorney General, Tom
Clark. She said members of the organization were being "persecuted."
Our members are losing their jobs, are being dragged before investigation com-
mittees, threatened with imprisonment and deportation and in general subjected
to intimidation.
She claimed the United States Government was tapping the organ-
ization's telephone wires and scrutinizing its mail. She continued:
HostiHty to the Soviet Union is initiated by reactionary militarist elements in
our Government with the help of the monopoly press, radio, film, and other
propaganda.
She described lynchings, beatings, and life imprisonment as —
The form fascism is taking in its attempt to control America.
Mrs. Draper was accorded a five-minute ovation by her pro-Soviet
audience at the conclusion of her fiery blast against the United States.
Writing in the March 1947 issue of Soviet Russia Today, after her
return from a meeting of the executive committee of the Women's
International Democratic Federation in Moscow, how the women of
the United States were spared from the horrors and suffering of the
war and the postwar period, she was moved by no spirit of gratitude
or pride, but rather by a feeling of complete and abject inferiority
toward her Communistic associates from the Soviet Union, its satellite
states and the various front organizations in other countries. "We
had believed," she said, "that we might bring a reservoir of strength
and courage to the women who had lived day and night at the heart
of this reality. It was they who, by their example^ gave us strength
and courage in full measure to take back to the women of our own
country" —courage in other words to fight against what Moscow
describes as "A.merican imperialism and warmongers."
On March 9, 1946, at a mass meeting launching the Congress of
American Women, she began her career as spokesman for the Congress
of American Women. According to the official Communist organ,
the Daily Worker:
Mrs. Draper attacked Churchill's anti-Soviet war-mongering and scored
President Truman for going along with it. She declared that American women
will not be dragged into an anti-Soviet policy * * * i°»
»i" Daily Worker, March 9, 1946, p. 12.
70 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
The Congress of American women delegated Muriel Draper and
Dr. Gene VVeltfish to a meeting of the executive committee of the
Women's International Democratic Federation held in Moscow on
October 10, 1946, to which they presented a report, including resolu-
tions condemning the "reactionary forces" in this country which, they
charged, ar3 supported "by the tyranny of the press and the syn-
dicates." They demanded American disarmament. They charged
that Nazis are still permitted to liold key positions in the American
zone in Germany. Going over the heads of the American delegates
to the United Nations, they demanded "world recognition" of the
problems of American Negroes and especially "those affecting Ameri-
can Negro women." In no case were there any criticisms or demands
directed toward the Soviet Government.
The Congress of American Women sponsored a meeting on March
26, 1947, at the Hotel Capitol in New York City for the purpose of
denouncing the Truman Doctrine. They advertised in the Daily
Worker that Muriel Draper would speak to those who "Don't Like
United States Policy in Greece" and those who "Don't Like United
States Dollars for Turkey." "° The next week found Mrs. Draper as
a leader in the Congress of American Women's delegation to Wash-
ington to fight this "war plan" to help Greece and Turkey.^^^
As chief of the American delegation to a Women's International
Democratic Federation convention in Rome, Muriel Draper concurred
in Nina Popova's statement that the only country in the world work-
ing for peace was Russia. According to the following account in the
New York Herald Tribune of May 18, 1948:
Mrs. Draper said that the recent report of Russian submarines in Japanese
waters was an '"invention" of the United States Navy, and that the American
people are being given a dose of anti-Soviet propaganda worse than that against
Germany's people before the Second World War. She spoke of conversions "to
the camp of war and anti-Sovietism."
At a dinner given by the Congress of American Women to hear
reports of American delegates to the federation's convention, Mrs.
Draper told members that citizens of Moscow "laughed at the Voice
of America." Russians told her that they had never heard an
American worker broadcasting, "We are happy * * *" lu
In the April 1949 issue of Soviet Russia Today, she explained ap-
provingly that the Russian people "do not believe our government
understands the true will of the people."
The bright flame of Muriel's hatred for the United States is sur-
passed only by the blaze of her enthusiasm for the Soviet Union, despite
the fact that as far back as 1929 she wrote in her book, "Music At
Midnight" that a singing teacher talked to her for "40 minutes one
evening in New York * * * on the subject of why Lenin had
been 'the bloodiest tyrant and cut-throat ever known in history' " —
a warning she has chosen to ignore. Since then she has rarely missed
an opportunity to demonstrate publicly her devotion to Moscow, which
she has visited repeatedly since 1934 and where she "spent five thrill-
ing days" in October 1946, according to her own story in the March
1947 issue of Soviet Russia Today.
110 Daily Worker, March 24, 1947, p. 5.
111 Daily Worker, March 30, 1947, p. 12.
•12 Daily Worker, February 2, 1949, p. 5.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 71
On her return from a meeting of the executive committee of the
Women's International Democratic Federation held in Moscow in
1946, Mrs, Draper was interviewed by the Daily Worker. "I was
carried away by the atmosphere of it all." She admitted a young
Russian approached her: "He beamed, spoke again too rapidly for
me to understand." Nevertheless, she adds, "We were quite im-
pressed." Mrs. Draper expressed her gratification at being in the
Soviet Union and thanked the young man cordially for what she
blithely assumed was a welcome to his country. The stranger cleared
his throat and said very slowly, "What I originally intended to tell
you * * * was that there was no smoldng allowed in this cafe."
Nevertheless, Mrs. Draper remained deeply impressed.
For the edification of her Russian audience, where prolific breeding
is encouraged by government decree, Mrs. Draper added these pearls
of wisdom: "Having a baby these days has become a political
problem." ^'^ '
She was either unaware or she chose to disregard the fact that the
Soviet government, like the Nazi government, granted huge subsidies
for large families and awarded titles of Motherhood Glory and Heroine
Mothers in order to furnish cannon fodder for its huge standing army.
It is really remarkable how much factual information Muriel
crowded into her "five thrilling days in Moscow," without even a
conversational knowledge of the language, during her strictly con-
ducted tour. She recites chapter and verse in Soviet Russia Today
for March 1947:
But it is the life of the men and women and children as it flowed around me
in Moscow that made the 5 days spent there of such value.
What can you know of it in 5 days? You can know what you see in the eyes
of people, what you hear in their voices, what you feel when they grasp your
hand. You feel the unique assurance of an inner-tested strength, of a somber
pride in victory over an evil enemy, the certain confidence in the future. * * *
Luxuriating in a style far beyond the reach of the average Soviet
citizen, wined and dined by Soviet officialdom, Muriel was confident
that the Russian people know their place, that they "are not deceived
by promises of what they cannot get, nor do they romanticize what
they know they cannot expect."
In the same magazine for April 1949, she writes that she discovered
"one fact above all others," about the Russian people.
It is the fact of the wholeness of the individual in himself, and the identification
of this self with government. Men and women and even children feel they are
the government. They affirm it. * * * They love it.
And then she adds the incontrovertible proof:
Such things can be seen as well as felt. They show in the expression of a face,
the tone of a voice, the sound of laughter, the look of an audience, the steps of a
child. You feel them in just being with people.
Mrs. Draper did not explain why under these circumstances there
is a need for strict censorship, the one-party dictatorship, for the vast
network of the Soviet secret police, for the numerous prison camps.
Within the past 10 or 15 years, she has rarely missed an occasion
to lend her name to a pro-Soviet round robin or gathering in behalf of
the Soviet fatherland. In 1937 she signed a statement of greeting in
"' Daily Worker, November 22, 1946, p. 9.
72 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
honor of the twentieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution, printed
in full in Soviet Russia Today for November of that year. In 1938
when all the world was shocked by the Moscow trials, she signed a
document urging that we "support the efforts of the Soviet Union to
free itself from insidious internal dangers" — -a singular phenomenon
indeed where "men and Avomen and even children feel they are the
government."
In Soviet Russia Today, for September 1939, appears a strident
defense of the Soviet Union issued almost simultaneously with the
announcement of the Stalin-Hitler pact. Appended to this proclama-
tion, from which we quote in part, is the name of Muriel Draper:
With the aim of turning anti-Fascist feehng against the Soviet Union they
(reactionaries) have encouraged the fantastic falsehood that the U. S. S. _R. and
the totahtarian states are basically alike. * * * Our object is to point out
the real purpose behind all these attempts to bracket the Soviet Union with the
Fascist states, and to make it clear that Soviet and Fascist policies are diamet-
rically opposite.
She was a participant in a round table conference arranged by the
American Council on Soviet Relations, held on May 24-25, 1940, in
the midst of the Stalin-Hitler Pact. Again on the occasion of the
twenty-fifth anniversary of the Russian Revolution, she sent greetings
to the Soviet Union published in the Daily Worker of November 7,
1942. Two years later, as chairman of the New York Committee of
Women of the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship,
she signed a call to a conference on Women of the U. S. A. and the
U. S. S. R. in the Postwar World, which was held at the Hotel Com-
modore in New York City on November 18, 1944. Incidentally, the
National CouncU was cited as subversive by Attorney General
Clark on December 4, 1947, and September 21, 1948. She retained
this position until 1947 when she became executive secretary, during
which year she was also a member of the advisory council of the
magazine, Soviet Russia Today. In 1948 and 1949 letterheads show
Muriel Draper as a member of the board of directors of the National
Council of American-Soviet Friendship. In behalf of this organiza-
tion she either spoke or signed public statements on May 20, October
22, and March 9, 1948, and March 1, 1949.
The Soviet Government has gone all out in its efforts to show its
appreciation for Muriel's services, which are legion.
When the Soviet consulate in New York City opened its doors to
the Women's Committee of the National Council of American-Soviet
Friendship on International Women's Day, March 8, 1946, Muriel
Draper presided at the meeting. Every official courtesy was extended
to her when she visited the Soviet Union to attend the executive
committee meeting of the Women's International Democratic Federa-
tion in October of the same year, as she herself attests in Soviet
Russia Today for March 1947:
And what a plane. It was a two-motor Douglas machine owned by the Soviet
Union * * * -^^e had only reached Paris the night before, but nevertheless
had found places on what they all referred to as the Conference Plane, * * *
she (Nina Popova, secretary of the AU-Union Central Council of Trade Unions)
stood waiting with a group of friends to welcome us when the plane arrived at the
Moscow Airport. * * * After the storm of welcome had subsided, we were
rushed by motor car to the Naval Officers' Club in Moscow, which had been lent
to us for the sessions of the executive committee. * * * At the entrance of
the club building, a young Soviet sailor stood on guard and saluted us vigorously
as we passed * * * .
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 73
When Marshal Tito was still basking in the Kjemlin's favor, she
was an honored guest at the Yugoslav Embassy in Washington, D. C,
according to the Washington Star of November 20, 1947. On Novem-
ber 7, 1948, the anniversary of the Russian Revolution, she was again
a guest at the Soviet Embassy. She told reporters that she had made
the trip from New York "especially to attend" the thirty-first anni-
versary of the Russian Revolution.
In her infatuation for the Soviet Union, Muriel Draper did not
confine herself merely to admiration for the Communist regime in that
country; she went far afield into every phase of foreign policy to aline
herself undeviatingly with the current position of Moscow.
At the Seventh World Congress of the Commimist International,
held in Moscow in the summer of 1935, George Dimitroff, general
secretary, called upon aU afiiliated Communist Parties to give the
utmost support to the Spanish Communists in Spain's Civil War.
A number of high-ranking Red Army officials were assigned to super-
vise the military operations. In the United States, the Communists
promoted numerous projects in aid of the Communist forces in Spain,
in which Mm-iel Draper actively participated. The New Masses of
March 16, 1937, page 26, shows her as a guest of honor of the American
Friends of Spanish Democracy, Medical Bureau. She was a sponsor
of an exposition to aid Spanish democracy, according to the Daily
Worker of May 28, 1937, page 1. She was a sponsor of the North
American Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy as announced in the
New Masses for September 28, 1937, page 28.
She was an honored guest of the Women's Division to Aid the Chil-
dren of Spanish Democracy, according to the Daily Worker of Febru-
ary 15, 1938, page 7. A letterhead of the American Relief Ship for
Spain, dated September 3, 1938, shows her as a sponsor. The military
force organized by the Communists for service in Spain was known as
the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. A letterhead of the Friends of the
Abraham Lincoln Brigade, dated September 22, 1938, carries Muriel
Draper's name as a sponsor. She was a participant in a picket line
around the Spanish Embassy which was organized by the Veterans of
the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, according to the Daily Worker of
January 15, 1948, page 5. On December 4, 1947, and September 21,
1948, the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade was cited as sub-
versive by Attorney General Tom C. Clark. In each case these
activities were significantly publicized by the Communist press. The
Daily Worker of February 7, 1939, page 8, announced her as a speaker
for the Crown Heights Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy. The
same publication for February 23, 1939, page 2, mentioned that she
was a speaker for the Greenwich Village Joint Committee to Aid
Spanish Democracy. She was a sponsor of the North American Span-
ish Aid Committee and the United American Spanish Aid Committee.
In a memorandum appearing in the Congressional Record for
September 24, 1942, Attorney General Francis Biddle characterized
the American League for Peace and Democracy as an organization
established "to create public sentiment on behalf of a foreign policy
adopted to the interests of the Soviet Union." It is not surprising
to find the name of Muriel Draper'attached to a statement sponsored
by this organization, appearing in the New Masses for March 15, 1938,
page 19.
74 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
The Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy, cited as sub-
versive by Attorney General Tom Clark, has been consistent in its
active support of the Chinese Communists. Its letterhead shows
Muriel Draper as a member of its board of directors, having sponsored
the organization since 1946.
A similar organization in behalf of the Greek Communist rebels
is the American Council for Democratic Greece, which was cited
as subversive by Attorney General Tom C. Clark on June 1, 1948,
and September 21, 1948. Mrs. Draper was publicized as a speaker
for this organization in the Daily Worker for February 21, 1949, page 9.
She was also a sponsor of the Scientific and Cultural Conference
for World Peace held at the Hotel Waldorf Astoria on March 25, 26,
and 27, 1949, called to attack the North Atlantic Defense Pact, and
attacked by Secretary of State Dean Acheson as "a sounding board
for Communist propaganda." This conference was a forerunner of
the World Congress for Peace called for a similar purpose by its
Communist initiators and held in Paris on AprU 20, 21, 22, and 23,
1949, with Muriel Draper as a sponsor.
As a group dedicated to the destruction of the Government of the
United States, the Communists frequently find themselves in the
clutches of the law. Numerous front organizations, formed for the
protection of such individuals, have received the support of Muriel
Draper.
The American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born has
specialized in the defense of alien Communists like Gerhart Eisler.
It was cited as subversive by Attorney General Tom C. Clark
on June 1 and September 21, 1948, Airs. Draper sponsored its
Fifth National Conference held in Atlantic City on March 29 and 30,
1941, and another national conference held in Cleveland on October
25 and 26, 1947. She has signed its statement against the deportation
of Communists appearing in the Daily Worker for May 12, 1948,
page 4.
Attorney General Francis Biddle has referred to the International
Labor Defense as the "legal arm of the Communist Party." Mrs.
Draper was an active participant in a Hudson County, N. J., meeting
of this organization publicized in the Daily Worker for May 7, 1938,
page 2.
Attorney General Biddle has characterized the National Com-
mittee for People's Rights as "substantially equivalent to Inter-
national Labor Defense." According to the 1938 letterhead of this
organization, Muriel Draper w^as a member of this committee.
Attorney General Tom C. Clark cited the National Federation
for Constitutional Liberties as subversive on December 4, 1947, and
September 21, 1948. Mrs. Draper has signed her name to a number
of statements issued by this organization.
Mrs. Draper has not hesitated to appear on the public platform with
Gerhart Eisler, representative of the Communist International, as
attested by the Daily Worker of October 20, 1948, page 7. She was
a member of the committee for the reelection of Benjamin J. Davis,
who ran on the Communist ticket for the position of New York City
councilman (Daily Worker, September 25, 1945, p. 12). On March
9, 1947, the Daily Worker included her name on this Communist pub-
lication's "honor roll" of women.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 75
The Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, also cited as subversive
by Attorney General Tom Clark, has provided transportation and sup-
port for such alien Communists as Gerhart Eisler. Its officers were
cited for contempt of Congress on April 16, 1946. Nevertheless,
letterheads of the Spanish Refugee Appeal of the Joint Anti-Fascist
Refugee Committee from 1946 to 1949 show Muriel Draper as a
national sponsor.
Claudia Jones is a member of the national committee of the Com-
munist Party, USA, and secretary of its women's commission. She
is now the subject of deportation proceedings. According to the
Daily Worker of February 26, 1948, page 10, Muriel Draper was a
speaker in behalf of the Claudia Jones Defense Committee.
When attorneys for the 11 Communist leaders now on trial in
New York City launched an attack upon the jury system in con-
nection with this case, an Emergency Conference on Rigging of
Juries was formed, which joined in the attack. According to the
Daily Worker of January 31, 1949, page 2, Muriel Draper was a
sponsor. Later this set-up became known as the Provisional Com-
mittee for a Democratic Jury System, of which she was a member
(Daily Worker, February 6, 1949, p. 2).
On May 8, 1948, the Provisional Committee for Democratic Rights
held a meetmg at the Central Needle Trades High School in New York
City directed against the Subversive Activity Control Act of 1948.
A published Partial List of Sponsors shows Muriel Draper along with
such well-known Communists as Benjamin J. Davis, Jr., Howard
Fast, Ben Gold, Max Perlow, John Steuben, Doxey Wilkerson, Ruth
Young, and others.
Ella Reeve Bloor, now 87 years of age, was a former member of the
national committee of the Communist Party, USA. On February
24, 1938, Mrs. Draper introduced EUa Reeve Bloor, on a "pre-Inter-
national Women's Day radio program" over WJZ as follows:
Among the thousands of women all over the world * * * there is one in
America who has fought many of the battles, survived the defeats and — most of
all used the victories of this long campaign * * * gi^g jg Mother Bloor — and
I feel the impulse to pause here until the applautee dies down — I have heard it rise
so often in a devoted roar when she is presented to an audience— who has fought
steadfastly through 50 of her 75 years * * * for the workers of
America * * * "^
Mrs. Draper mentioned Mother Bloor's "recent trip" to the Soviet
Union. Mrs. Draper also sponsored the Mother Bloor Celebration
Committee in 1937 and another in 1947 on the occasion of the Com-
munist leader's seventy-fifth and eighty-fifth birthdays.
Among other Communist-front organizations which Muriel Draper
has sponsored are the American Slav Congress, New Masses (a
Communist magazine), its successor, Masses and Mainstream;
People's Radio Foundation, Inc.; Progressive Committee to Rebuild
the American Labor Party; Committee for Equal Justice for Mrs.
Recy Taylor; and others. In the 1948 campaign she was a member
of the Wallace for President Committee and was photographed by
Newsweek as part of a welcoming committee for the Red Dean of
Canterbury, originally sponsored for a lecture tour by the National
Council of American Soviet Friendship.
"< Daily Worker, Feb. 25, 1938, p. 3.
65891—50- 6
COMMUNISTIC HIERARCHY
Rarely does it happen that Communist-front organizations are
formed with such unconcealed Communist leadership as is to be found
from the top circles of the Women's International Democratic Feder-
ation right down to the local chapters of the Congress of American
Women. Where these leaders do not have an outright record as
members of the Communist Party, they are to be found as sympa-
thizers with the Soviet Union or associated with Communist-front
organizations. In a word, none are to be found opposed to, or outside
of, the Communist orbit.
The following chart is tabulated from official Communist sources
and shows the section of the Communist Party or Communist-front
organization with which the individual is affiliated and his or her
official post:
76
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
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83
It can be safely assumed that the Soviet delegates were all members
of the Communist Party, which rules that country. It should also
be noted that countries represented from the Soviet-controlled areas
included: Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Ru-
mania, and Yugoslavia. It is inconceivable that anyone opposed to
the ruling Communist regimes in these countries would be sent as a
delega,te to these conferences.
COMMUNISTS AND PRO-COMMUNISTS IN THE CONGRESS OF
AMERICAN WOMEN
The Congress of American Women shows the same preference for
Communists in posts of power as has been shown by its parent body,
the Women's International Democratic Federation. A number of
instances have already been cited from among the American officers
and delegates of the WIDF. The following list traces this Red thread
down to the local organizations and activities of the CAW:
Congress of American
Women: Name and position
Communist Party or front connections
Susan B. Anthony, vice
president.
Mrs. Zlatko Balokovic, mem-
ber, advisory council.
Sylvia Beitscher, leader of
Washington, D. C, chap-
ter.
larriet Black, treasurer
Ella Reeve Bloor, speaker.
May 2.5. 1946.
Clara Bodian, member, exec-
utive committee.
Dorothy Douglas, member,
advisory council.
Virginia W. Epstein, cochair-
man, Committee on Inter-
national Affairs.
Claudia Jones, speaker at
CAW convention.
June Gordon, member, ad-
visory council.
See pp. 100 to 102.
Supporter of the following Communist fronts: American Slav Congress;
American Committee for Yugoslav Relief, Soviet Russia Today. On
mailing list of Progressive Citizens of America as having supported
Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions,
or the National Citizens Political Action Committee.
Executive secretary of the Committee to Reinstate Helen Miller (1941),
who was fired from the Labor Department because of her Communist
activities; wife of Henry Beitscher, head of Washington CIO Council,
who opposed President Truman's loyalty program.
Delegate to Communist-controlled World Peace Congress at Paris; sup-
porter of Communist-front International Workers Order.
Former member, Central Executive Committee, Communist Party, U. S. A.
Communist Party candidate for New York State Assembly in 1934; mem-
ber. Women's Commission, Communist Party; protests jury procedure in
Communist trial (Daily Worker, Feb. 16, 1949, p2); protests Government
procedure in Communist trial, (Daily Worker, Feb. 20, 1949, p. 10);
defends Robert Thompson, Communist (Daily Worker, Nov. 30, 1948);
sponsors banquets for Mother Bloor, Communist; contributor to Daily
Worker, official organ of Communist Paity; supporter of the following
Communist-front organizations: American League Against War and
Fascism; Civil Rights Congress; Fight; National Council of American-
Soviet Friendship; the Working Woman.
Sponsor of meeting to greet Soviet Constitution (Daily Worker, Nov. 30,
1936, p. 5); sponsor of meeting in behalf of the Soviet Union (Daily
Worker, Mar. 22, 1938, p. 2); signer of open letter for closer cooperation with
the Soviet Union (Soviet Russia Today, September 1939, p. 25); signer
of open letter to American liberals in behalf of Soviet Union (Daily
Worker, Feb. 9, 1937, p. 2); author of book, Child Workers of America
reviewed by Daily Worker, book advertised by Daily Worker and the
Communist International (publication); supporter of following Com-
munist fronts; American Committee for the Protection of the Foreign
Born; American Council on Soviet Relations; American League Against.
War and Fascism; League of Women Shoppers; National Council of
American-Soviet Friendship; National Council of the Arts, Sciences, and
Professions.
Member of executive board. Committee of Women, of National Council of
American-Soviet Friendship.
Now subject of deportation proceedings as an alien Communist. Activities
in Communist party include: Member, national committee. Communist
Party; secretary National Women's Commission, Communist Party;
identified with the youth movement for 15 years; member of the national
committee of the Young Communist League; education director of the
Young Communist League. Writer and member of editorial board of the
Daily Worker, official organ of the Communist Party, and writer for
Political Affairs, official organ of the Communist Party.
Contributor to Daily Worker, official organ of the Communist Party;:
national president of the Emma Lazarus Division, Jewish People's Fra-:
ternal Order, affiliate of the International Workers Order, a Communist:
front; International Workers Order representative.
84
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
Congress of American
Women: Name and position
Communist Party or front connections
Sidonie M. Qruenberg, mem-
ber, advisory council.
Gertrude Lane, member, ad-
visory council, former vice
president.
Clara Savage Littledale.
member, advisory council.
Mary Jane Melish, presi-
dent, Brooklyn chapter.
Audley Moore, leader of
CAW delegation to Wash-
ington, D. C.
Jean Muir, vice president.
Estelle Massey Riddle Os-
borne, member, executive
committee.
Mrs. Eugene V. Persoiuiet,
representative, Newark,
N.J.
Mrs. Louise Pitner, presi-
dent, Manhattan No. 1
chapter.
Eslanda Qoode Robeson,
member, executive com-
mittee.
Rose V. Russell, member,
advisory council.
Lillian Rubin, speaker, De-
troit chapter.
Anna Center Schneiderman,
member; vice president.
Editor of book, More Favorite Stories, Old and New, recommended by the
Worker (Dec. 19, 1948, p. 11m), oiBcial organ of the Communist Party:
supporter of the following Communist front organizations: National
Council of American-Soviet Friendship; People's Radio Foundation;
Progressive Citizens of America; Win-the-Peace Conference.
Member of delegation in 1940 against barring of the Communist Party
from the New York State ballot; signer of a petition to President Roose-
velt in behalf of Earl Browder (Communist) in 1942; eulogized in the
Worker (Dec. 20, 1942, p. 6m), official organ of the Communist Party.
Candidate for secretary-treasurer of AFL Hotel and Club Employees,
Local 6, New York City, on Communist-supported slate (Dally Worker,
Jan. 30, 1948, p. 10); credentials withheld by New York State American
Federation of Labor as a Communist (New York Star, Aug. 4, 1948. p.
17); supporter of following Communist fronts: Jefferson School of Social
Science; National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, Inc.
Sponsor and member of Committee of Women, National Council of Ameri-
can-Soviet Friendship, Inc., a Communist front organization. Sponsor
of New Jersey branch, League of Women Shoppers, Communist front
organization.
Wife of Rev. William H. Melish, literary contributor to the Daily Worker,
and New Masses— official Communist Party organs— and Soviet Russia
Today, a Communist front publication. He is also vice chairman of
the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, a Communist front
organization. Mary Jane Melish has supported Simon W. Oerson. a
Communist, and is a member of the Committee of Women of the National
Council of American-Soviet Friendship.
Conununist candidate for New York City councilman in 1943; alternate
member, national committee. Communist Party, U. S. A.; member.
Women's Commission, Communist Party, U. S. A.; Field organizer,
Citizens Committee to Free Earl Browder (Commimist); campaign man-
ager for Benjamin J. Davis, Jr., Communist candidate for New York
City coimcilman in 1943; leader of several committees defending Claudia
Jones, Communist; participated in picket line in behalf of Alexander
Bittelman, Communist (Daily Worker, Feb. 3, 1948, p. 10); defended
Robert Thompson, Communist (Daily Worker, Sept. 27, 1948, p. 7);
member of delegation in behalf of indicted Communist leaders (Daily
Worker, Jan. 19, 1949, p. 3); supporter of following Commimist front
organizations: Civil Rights Congress; Harlem Legislative Conference;
United May Day Committee; National Negro Congress; American Labor
Party.
Cited by a former California Commimist as having attended Communist
study groups, loaned her car and home for party purposes, met with
Communist leaders (committee hearings, executive, vol. 3, pp. 1387-
1389). Supporter of following Communist front organizations: Progres-
sive Citizens of America; Spanish Refugee Relief Campaign; Southern
Conference for Human Welfare.
Supporter of following Communist fronts: Civil Rights Congress; Ameri-
can Labor Party; Council on African Affairs.
Wife of Eugene V. Personnet, who supported the defense of Harry Bridge
and the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties, a Communis
front organization.
Member of delegation in behalf of Robert Thompson, Communist (Daily
Worker, Dec. 15, 1948, p. 4); member of Harlem May Day Committee.
Supports her husband Paul Robeson's statement against American Negro
participation in any future war against Russia; listed on honor roll in
Worker, Mar. 9, 1947; sends greetings to Soviet women Mar. 8, 1949; mem-
ber of following Communist front organizations: Coimcil on African Af-
fairs; National Council of American-Soviet Friendship.
Signer of Communist Party nominating petition for councilman, city of
New York, borough of Manhattan, 1945; refuses to affirm or deny Com-
munist Party membership (New York Times, Oct. 2, 1948, p. 7); supporter
of 9-point program for CIO presented by left-wing members; legislative
representative of teachers union (United Public Workers) which has been
cited by the Committee on Un-American Activities as having Communist
leadership strongly entrenched; supporter of the following Communist
fronts: American Youth for Democracy; American Labor Party; Civil
Rights Congress; Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy; Joint
Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee; National Council of American-Soviet
Friendship; National Council of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions; Pro-
gressive Citizens of America; School of Jewish Studies.
Signer of statement demanding reinstatement of the Communist Party on
the ballot in Michigan, 1940.
Signer of statement supporting Francis Thompson, Communist (Daily
Worker, Jan. 19, 1948, p. 5); supporter of following Communist fronts:
American League for Peace and Democracy; Friends of the Chinese
People; Progressive Citizens of America; Arts, Sciences, and Professions
Council.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
85
Congress of American
Women; Name and position
Communist Party or front connections
Maude Slye, vice president.
Faye Stephenson, member,
advisory council.
Charlotte Stern, member, ad-
visory council; member, ex-
ecutive committee.
Rose Tillotson, representa-
tive, Minneapolis.
Mary Van Kleeck, member,
executive committee.
Ann I' Wharton, former field
secretary.
Betty Willett; member, exec-
utive committee, executive
secretary, Los Angeles
chapter.
Olga Zemaitis, recording sec-
retary, Detroit chapter.
Signer of petition in behalf of indicted Communist leaders; signer of state-
ment against Broyles anti-Communist bill; sponsor of Cultural and Scien-
tific Conference for World Peace in New York, Mar. 25-27, 1949; member
of American sponsoring committee for the World Congress for Peace, a
Communist-controlled gathering in Paris; supporter of the following Com-
munist-front organizations: American Youth for Democracy; Committee
for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy; Joint Ajiti-Fascist Refugee Com-
mittee; National Council of American-Soviet Friendship; National Coun-
cil of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions; sends greetings to Soviet women-
Mar. 9, 1948.
Signer of petition to free Earl Browder (Communist) (Daily Worker, May
2, 1941, p. 2); listed on Worker honor roll (Worker, Mar. 9, 1947, p. 7m);
supporter of following Communist fronts: American Committee for
Protection of the Foreign Born; American Peace Mobilization.
Also known as Charlotte Todes; held for deportation as an alien Commu-
nist; defended by Ehzabeth Qurley Fljmn (Communist) (Daily Worker,
April 23, 1948, p. 10); member, Executive Board, Joint Anti-Fascist
Refugee Committee, a Communist front— sentenced to 3 months in jail
and $500 fine for contempt of Congress; supporter of following Communist
front organizations: National Council of American-Soviet Friendship;
National Federation for Constitutional Liberties; Open Letter on Harry
Bridges; Veterans Against Discrimination of Civil Rights Congress of
New York.
Conunnnist Party candidate for city council in St. Paul in 1942; member
publicity and press committee. Communist Political Association, 1944;
contributes money for defense of indicted Communist Party leaders
(Daily Worker, Dee. 17, 1948, p. 10); member of Minnesota Defense
Committee for Civil Rights for Communists (chairman).
Cited before the Committee on Un-American Activities as a member of
the professional unit of the Communist Party, U. S. A.; drafted legislation
for the Communist Party, U. S. A., files Supreme Court brief in behalf
of indicted Communist leaders (Daily Worker, Jan. 9, 1949, p. 3); speaker
in behalf of indicted Communist leaders (Daily Worker, Oct. 13, 1948,
p. 7); supports candidacy of Simon W. Gerson (Communist); signer of
greetings to women of Soviet Union, Mar. 9, 1948 (Daily Worker, Mar.
9, 1948, p. 5); speaker for United Office and Professional Workers of
America, which has been cited as having Communist leadership strongly
entrenched; member of the following Communist-front organizations:
American Council for a Democratic Greece; American Friends of Spanish
Democracy; American Labor Party; American Slav Congress; Civil
Rights Congress; Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee; John Reed
Club; Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy; National Council
of American-Soviet Friendship; New Masses; National Council of the
Arts, Sciences, and Professions; Soviet Russia Today; World Youth
Festival (United States Committee).
Member, Washington Committee for Democratic Action, which defended
Communists; signer of telegram to President Roosevelt in defense oj
Communist fur-worker defendants; field representative, Communistf
controlled United Federal Workers; greets Soviet women, Mar. 8, 1942;
member of original committee of Communist-front American Peace
Mobilization.
Registered Communist voter, Los Angeles County, November 1938.
Wife of Peter Zemaitis, former organizer, Lithuanian unit. Communist
Party, U. S. A., Detroit.
MARGARET UNDJUS KRUMBEIN
Alias Margaret Cowl
LEADING EXPONENT OF THE PARTY LINE
Margaret Kj-umbein, alias Margaret Cowl, was a delegate of the
Congress of American Women to the meeting of the Women's Inter-
national Democratic Federation held in Budapest in December 1948.
She was the wife of Charles Krumbein, now deceased, former treasm^er
of the Communist Party, U. S. A, and head of its powerful review board
or disciplinary body. She has held high posts in the Communist
Party, U. S. A, in her own right. As a member of its central committee,
1936-39, head of its women's commission and national women's
director, she reported on this activity at Communist Party conven-
tions. She was also editor of the Working Woman, a Communist
publication. Her views as published in the Worker of August 8,
1948, are therefore highly authoritative.
Under capitalism, she declares, women "are kept in a doubly
economic position of servitude." Husbands insist "that the house-
wife stay at home," and "not go out to fight back the ravages upon
the home and family by monopoly capitalism." She inveighs against
a system under which the husband "places upon the shoulders of the
housewife the responsibility for the secm-ity of the marriage relation-
ship which this monopoly capitalism is attempting to wreck in a
thousand ways." The source of the "male superiority" doctrine,
according to Mrs. ICrumbein, is "the ideology of the ruling class which
today is decadent, immoral, ignoble, and dangerously drunk with
ideas of world domination, fascism, and war." In other words,
according to this Communist spokeswoman, society is torn by two
gigantic schisms — the class struggle between the capitalists and the
proletariat on the one hand, and the struggle between the sexes for
superiority on the other — the solution of which will come only after
capitalism is destroyed and communism is established.
Mrs. Krumbein complains that "even in the Communist Party the
voice of a man is heard demanding that the wife stay at home to
administer to his needs." On June 17, 1948, for example, J. Gerard
had the temerity to espouse the doctrine of "male superiority" in
the Worker, official Communist organ. One would suppose that the
party ranks were immune from such insidious influences, but Mrs.
Krumbein complains that "ideas of male superiority are rampant
in * * * the party."
In the Party Organizer for February 1936 she stressed the impor-
tance of International Woman's Day:
To celebrate International Women's Day on March 8, and then forget about
work among women until the following year, is not carrying out the suggestions
of Comrade Dimitroff [at that time head of the Communist International].
With obvious reference to the United States, she quotes Lenm in
the Communist of September 1940 to the effect that —
86
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 87
Bourgeois democracy is democracy of pompous phrases, solemn words, ex-
uberant promises and the high-sounding slogans of freedom and equality. But in
fact, it screens the subjection and inferiority of women * * *
She describes how the Communist Party organized day nurseries in
Brooklyn to enable housewdves to attend daytime classes on com-
munism and to give them time to organize "Women for Wallace Com-
mittees." In some cases party branches even provided baby sitters
for their women comrades.
On the other hand, she claims that only socialism as it exists in the
Soviet Union "guarantees this freedom and happy family life for the
masses of women."
The views of Margaret Krumbein are reflected in those of her
Communist associates in the WIDF. Jeannette Vermeersch, out-
standing spokesman for the Women's International Democratic Fed-
eration and the wife of Maurice Thorez, leader of the Communist
Party of France, and a leading French Communist in her own right,
in an article appearing in the Worker for July 11, 1948, charged that
non-Communist coim tries "want to put across a conception of the
family, based on the fear of God, on the fear of the father, fear of the
devil, resignation before God, before the father, and above all before
the capitalist masters." This is a good sample of the type of propa-
ganda peddled by the Women's International Democratic Federation
and its American affiliate. She leveled her unmitigated scorn toward
those who believe "women's fimction is to make love, have children,
do the cooking, the housework, and wait on her lord and master."
Confronted as we are with the threat of Russia's relentless march
toward world conquest, Communist women propagate treason in a
covert yet persuasive language. Leading Communist Elizabeth
Gurley Flynn, a vice president of the Congress of American Women,
in calling for a big turn-out of women for May Day in 1948 proposed
the following slogans direpted primarily to the United States, not to
the Soviet Union:
Butter instead of guns! Schools versus atom bombs! Life, not death for our
sons! Bread, not bullets! Build, not destroy the world! Cost of living goes up
with the Marshall plan! We didn't raise our sons to atom bomb the globe!
She calls upon women to answer the "loyalty" parade arranged by
loyal American organizations.
Miss Flynn's attitude toward the United States has matched the
Communist Party line in all its gyrations.
In February 1940, during the period of the Stalin-Hitler Pact, she
wrote a pamphlet entitled "I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be a Soldier —
for W^U Street" (Workers Library Pubhshers, Inc.). This booklet
was timed to be ready for International Women's Day on March 8,
and contained the following inflammatory pacifist passages:
Who Wants To Be a Gold Star Mother? Do you want it to be your son? Or
your husband? American women, the time to say NO is now. Before it is too
late. Is there one among us who craves to be a "Gold Star Mother"? Can a
gilded pin mend a broken heart? * * *
Act now for peace; for staying out of war. Pass resolutions in your organiza-
tions. Send them to your Senators and Congressmen * * *. Let us women
take the right road; let us join with the workingmen and all others in organizing
"The Yanks Are Not Coming Committees." * * * We must all be emphatic —
tell President Roosevelt, tell Congress, tell the newspapers, tell everybody:
Keep America Out of War and this time we mean it.
S8 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
Despite this assurance she suddenly became an ardent militarist
when the party line changed. In her pamphlet, "Women in the
War," published in November 1942, while Stalin was oiu* ally, she
declared:
We American women, like the Chinese, British, and Soviet women, will work
till we drop and fight till we die to defend our beautiful country and our democratic
liberties from brutish idealogy of the Nazis. We are not called upon to engage
in actual military action. But in mortal crisis, as the heroic Soviet girl, Luidmila
Pavilchenko, became a crack sniper * * * go will we take arms, if necessary,
in the spirit of our Molly Pitcher and Harriet Tubman.
In honor of International Women's Day on March 8, 1947, when
the Soviet Union was no longer our ally. Miss Flynn again exercised
her talent for pamphleteering, this time under the title, "Woman's
Place — In the Fight for a Better World," in which she insisted that
America render itself defenseless in the face of Soviet aggression.
She demanded that "All existing stock piles [of atomic bombs] in
our country must be destroyed." No similar demand was made of
the Soviet Union. She denounced the so-called American "Get
Tough" policy of "atomic diplomacy" toward "our brave fighting
ally, the Soviet Union." While still admitting that "Our country
is beautiful," she bewailed its fate, claiming that "its vast resources
and its people are exploited by a handful of greedy capitalists."
It is easily understandable why Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, a disci-
plined member of the national board of the Communist Party, USA,
should take the position described. It is difficult, however, to under-
stand why a few weU-educated, non-Communist women should follow
in her footsteps.
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY
International Women's Day, March 8, has long been an inter-
national Commimist holiday. According to an article by Elizabeth
Gurley Flynn in Political Affairs for March 1947, the idea was first
proposed in 1910 by Clara Zetkin, who was later the foremost woman
in the Communist International. It was enthusiastically endorsed
by Lenin and Alexandra Kollontay, who was later Soviet ambassador
to Mexico and Sweden. Lenin's wife, Nadyezhda Krupskaya, in-
variably "spoke at mass meetings, particularly on such important
days as International Women's Day." ^^^
As early as 1932, the executive committee of the Communist Inter-
national (E. C. C. I.) sent a directive to the central committee of the
Communist Party, U. S. A., concerning tasks to be performed on Inter-
national Women's Day, which was reprinted in part in the Party
Organizer, an official publication of the central committee of the
Communist Party, U. S. A.:
"The Polit Secretariat of the E. C. C. I. makes the central committee responsible
for the carrying through of the campaign on a large scale. March 8 must be
observed in all capitalist countries as an international demonstration and fighting
day. Its keynote is the struggle against the capitalist offensive and against the
threatening war danger, especially the danger of intervention against the Soviet
Union and against the Fascist reaction.
"We lay stress on the tasks set down by the Eleve ith Plenum of the E. C. C. I.
of 'utilization of the slightest signs of protest of the working class against the
exploitation and Fascist reaction for work among women.' We emphasize that
March 8th campaign is the task of the whole -party."
The party organizer further states, in reference to International
Women's Day:
The tasks confronting the party in connection with I. W. D. campaign is to
develop, broaden out and dramatize the struggles among the masses of
women * * * for developing the campaign of I. W. D.
In all activities the party must consciously direct the work * * * and
make every effort to gain members for the party to better the composition of the
party. We must throughout the campaign arouse the working women to the
reality of imperialist war and the war of intervention against the Soviet Union
and Soviet China; to counteract the dangerous pacifist and the patriotic influences
among the working class women * * *_ [Italics supplied.] "*
The Communist Party line on International Women's Day changed
briefly between 1941 and 1945 — -just long enough to fight World War
II, when the U. S. S. R. and the U. S. A. were alUed. Since 1945 the
official line has returned to the stand taken in the Party Organizer in
1932. By their endorsement of Maurice Thorez' appeal for support
of the Red Army, WIDF leaders Jeannette Vermeersch, Anna Pauker,
and others have demonstrated that fact.
International Women's Day is a banner day for the Women's
International Democratic Federation and the Congress of American
Women.
"» Lenin and Krupskaya, by C. Bobrovskaya; Workers Library Publishers, March 1940, p. 44,
»• Party Organizer, February 1932, pp. 29-30.
89
90 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
The Congress of American Women was officially launched on
International Women's Day, March 8, 1946. Muriel Draper, a
featured speaker, who had the day before presided over a meeting
of the Women's Committee of the National Council of American-
Soviet Friendship at the Russian Consulate in New York in com-
memoration of International Women's Day, when greetings were
sent to the women of the Soviet Union.
Another speaker at the Russian consulate was Lillian Hellman, also
active in the CAW. The message of greeting was accepted by Mrs.
Mikhail Goussev, wife of the president of the Amtorg Trading Corp.,
which acts as the purchasing agent for the Soviet Government.
Similar courtesies were extended to no other government by this
women's group.
In honor of International Women's Day, EHzabeth Gurley Flynn
wrote that:
Millions of women, under the banner of the Women's International Democratic
Federation * * * ^j-g pledged to root out fascism. * * * -pj^g "Qqi
Tough" policy with friendly nations, especially our brave fighting ally, the Soviet
Union, is atomic diplomacy * * *_ j^q^ ^g salute the magnificient women
of the Soviet Union, in the spirit of International Women's Day."^
Then she added: "I am writing this pamphlet * * * as a
Communist."
Writing in Political Affairs, an official Communist journal, Miss
Flynn described large gatherings on International Women's Day in
1947 and 1948, jointly sponsored by the Congress of American
Women and the Women's Committee of the National Council of
American-Soviet Friendship."*
The Congress of American Women advertised in the Daily Worker
in March 1947 that they would hold a meeting which would be of
interest to those who "Don't like United States policy in Greece"
and those who "Don't hke United States dollars for Turkey." A
week later they sponsored a delegation of 300 women who boarded
a train to Washington "to protest President Truman's plan to send
military aid to the Fascist governments of Greece and Turkey."
They paraded up Constitution Avenue to the White House carrying
banners which read "What did Turkey do to win the war?"; "Peace;
Churchill-Truman — A Century of Fear"; "Peace for Greece — No
Arms but Eats." They visited the State Department and various
Congressmen, demanding that relief to Greece be administered by
the UN but not by the United States.^^^
International Women's Day in 1948 was observed by the Congress
of American Women when they sponsored a large meeting at a New
York hotel, where resolutions were passed "condemning the deporta-
tion drive and the Government's attack on civil liberties, particularly
as they affect American women." At that time the United States had
instituted deportation proceedings against Claudia Jones, an alien
Communist. However, she was free on bail and appeared at the
meeting. "She was greeted with prolonged applause." Another
avowed Communist present at this meeting was Mother Bloor,
"7 "Women's Place in the Fight for a Better World" by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Century Publishers,
March 1947, p. 6.
H8 Political Affairs; March 1947, p. 217; March 1948, p. 262.
119 Daily Worker, March 30, 1947, p. 12.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 91
veteran Communist, who received a standing ovation when she was
brought to the platform. The resolution calling for dismissal of
deportation charges also referred to the case of Charlotte Stern, a
member of the CAW Advisory Council. Mrs. Carol King, attorney
in many Communist deportation cases, attacked the United States'
action in the deportation cases as an attempt at terrorization in "an
effort to interfere with the free thought of all persons in the United
States." Mme. Frangoise Leclerc, Communist leader of the Union
des Femmes Frangaises and an alternate member of the Executive
Committee of the Women's International Democratic Federation,
also spoke. The meeting passed another resolution attacking the
Marshall plan and pledged support "to the women of other lands
struggling for freedom." — that is, struggling for communism. Five
hundred women were present at this meeting. ^^°
On that same day Communist women all over the world were voicing
identical criticisms of the United States. In Paris the Union des
Femmes Frangaises, the Communist French women's organization,
affiliate of the Women's International Democratic Federation, staged
a shrieking protest directed primarily against the United States. Six
thousand women paraded in celebration of International Women's
Day, demanding rejection of the Marshall plan and interim aid.^^^
In Russia, International Women's Day is an officially recognized
occasion for agitation among women. The official organ of the Infor-
mation Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties (Cominform),
"For a Lasting Peace, for a People's Democracy!" devoted one of its six
pages to descriptions of plans for the celebrations in various countries.
Nina Popova, vice president and commissar of the WIDF and chair-
man of the Soviet Women's Anti-Fascist Committee, outlined the
year's activities as follows:
This year all working women will celebrate International Women's Day,
March 8, in conditions of intense struggle for peace and against imperialist aggres-
sion. On this day, millions of women will express their firm determination to
strengthen international solidarity, to unite more closely in the ranks of the demo-
cratic camp headed by the land of socialism — the Soviet Union — * * *_ y/jg
women of the Soviet Union, active builders of communism, are marching at the head
of the powerful democratic movement of the women of the world.^^^ [Italics supplied.]
This theme was to be repeated faithfully and monotonously by the
Communists and then dupes in every country where International
Women's Day was observed, including the United States.
In Greece the Government took note of the commotion and advised
Greek women:
Some time ago the brigand radio devoted whole broadcasts to the women's
movement, the Pan-Hellenic Women's Organization. This is worth noticing, for
it shows a new turn in the Greek Communist Party * * *_ xhe old tactics of
mass organizations for serving its purposes is again the order of the day * * *
Greek public opinion still remembers how the Communist Party camouflaged
itself behind mass organizations to conceal its real identity. But Greek women
wiU not be fooled by this new Trojan horse of the Communist Party. '^s
An editorial appearing in Pravda, a Moscow newspaper, said that
the Soviet Union was inspiring women of the world to consolidate in
120 Daily Worker, March 10, 1948, p. 5.
121 New York Times, March 8, 1948, p. 3.
122 For a Lasting Peace, For a People's Democracy, March 1, 1949, p. 4.
i2» Larissa, Second Army Corps broadcasting station, in Greek to Greece, March 7, 1949, 1:66 p. m., e. s. t.
(radio broadcast).
65891—50-
92 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
"tense fighting against the aggressive policy of Anglo-United States
imperialists" and that the WIDF was one of the most powerful
forces in the struggle against the "warmongers." ^^^
In Hungary the women were assured of the backing of the "in-
vincible" Soviet armies and were urged to evince willingness to fight
against the "imperialist plotters" and their "bloodthirsty Fascist
agents, * * * always following the glorious example of the
women of the U. S. S. R." ^25
Anna Pauker, WIDF leader, spoke in Rumania on International
Women's Day, saying "* * * the warmest thoughts, hopes, and
loves of the working people throughout the world are turned toward
the U. S. S. R." and to the liberating Soviet Army, as women "unite
themselves around the mighty U. S, S. R." ^^®
In Czechoslovakia women were told that the ruling circles of the
United States and Great Britain were following a policy of unleashing
a new war, in which Czech women must support the "peace policy"
of the Soviet Union even if it was necessary to fight for it, since they
owed everything to the Soviet Union. ^^^
This attitude was not confined to the Soviet Union and its recog-
nized satellites. Newspapers in the Soviet zone of Germany attacked
the western occupation powers as "enemies of peace" who stayed in
Germany to split and disrupt it as part of their warmongering program
against Russia. International Women's Day celebrants were in-
structed to follow the militant tradition of the now-deceased Com-
munist leader, Clara Zetkin.^^^
The Progressive Federation of Women of the Netherlands demon-
strated under the slogan "For Peace and Bread, Against the American
Instigators of War," according to a statement issued by the central
committee of the Netherlands Communist Party. ^^^
The French Communist, Jeannette Vermeersch, participated in
demonstrations organized by the Union of French Women, and de-
clared "it would not be advisable for the war mongers to rub up against
the Soviet Union." ^^°
In Korea, a speech by Mrs. Lee Kum Sun swelled the chorus. She
praised the Soviet's efforts against the "war mongers" and praised
the WIDF. She told of the grim living conditions suffered in the
southern (U. S. -occupied) half of Korea while in the northern
(Communist) half International Women's Day was being cele-
brated in the "midst of brilliant democratic achievements," and she
called for a drive to throw out the Americans and the United Nations
Commission. '^^
In the United States, the Communist Party, the National Council
of American-Soviet Friendship and the Congress of American Women
operated in close harmony on the question of International Women's
Day. The Communist Party, through the National Women's
Commission, issued a special bulletin for International Women's
Day, giving the history of the day, and carrying a section on the
is< Moscow, Soviet Home Service, March 8, 1949, 12:01 a. m., e. s. t. (radio broadcast).
1" Budapest, Hungarian Home Service, March 7, 1949, 2:35 p. m., e. s. t. (radio broadcast).
128 Bucharest, Rumanian Home Service, March 8, 1949, 10:30 a. m., e. s. t. (radio broadcast).
127 Prague, Czechoslovak Home Service, in Czech, March 7, 1949, 1 p. m., e. s. t (radio broadcast).
128 Berlin— U.S. 8. R.-controlled, in German to Germany, March 8, 1949, 2:05 a. m., e.s.t. (radiobroadcast).
i2» Moscowr, Soviet Home Service, March 7, 1949, 12:45 a. m., e. s. t. (radio broadcast).
'30 Paris, in French to Indochina, March 7, 1949, 8:43 a. m., e. s. t. (radio broadcast).
"1 Phyongyang, in Korean to Korea, March 7, 1949, 5:20 a. m., e. s. t. (radio broadcast).
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 93
Women's International Democratic Federation. Muriel Draper,
Elinor S. Gimbel, Sidonie M. Gruenberg, Eslanda Goode Robeson,
Rose Russell, Maude Slye, and Mary Van Kleeck, all members of the
CAW, signed a statement of greetings to the women of the Soviet
Union, issued by the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship.
The program of the CAW for International Women's Day in 1949
was elaborate and extensive, and, furthermore, lasted for over a month.
The main project of the day was a "peace petition"— to consist of
50,000 signatures — which has since been presented to the United
Nations. Among the speakers featured at CAW International
Women's Day meetings were the following members of the Com-
munist Party: Pearl Lawes, Margaret Krumbein, and Elizabeth
Gurley Flynn. These meetings were held all over the country and
under the auspices of other front organizations as well as the CAW.
The American Slav Congress and the International Workers Order
cooperated actively. This program was supplemented by the Con-
gress of American Women in a radio broadcast on Station WLIB in
New York.
94
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
Red Greek Guerilla Fighters.
— Delegates to Second Congress of the Women's International Democratic
Federation.
Third from left is Rula Kukulu, member of the executive committee of the WIDF.
— Soviet Woman, No. 2, 1949, page 14.
THE PEACE OFFENSIVE
Just as France was rendered helpless before the Nazis in 1940 by
paralyzing pacifist propaganda, so the Russians hope to paralyze the
democracies with their present "peace" offensive.
The most ambitious project in this campaign was the so-called
"World Peace Congress" held in Paris on April 20, 21, 22, and 23,
1949, shortly after International Women's Day. This meeting was
a sequel to the Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace
held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City, which Secretary
of State Dean Acheson called "a sounding board for Communist
propaganda." The Women's International Democratic Federation,
together with the International Liaison Committee of Intellectuals
for Peace, issued the call for this congress. The Women's Interna-
tional Democratic Federation's prominence in the Congress w^as pre-
saged by its own Second Congress, which wound up its proceedings
with a long "Peace" Manifesto.
Eugenie Cotton, president of the WIDF, said:
The Congress of Budapest was really carried on in the spirit of women's desire
for peace. It ended with the writing of a Manifesto expressing this desire.
Tow^ard this end it adopted a "militant" program. The organiza-
tion declared it would follow the lead of the Soviet Union, "the only
country truly working for peace," against the "vile actions" of the
"imperialist warmongers." The Manifesto identified the "warmon-
gers" as the United States and Great Britain:
The real rulers of the United States and Great Britain, in military, industrial
and financial circles, are preparing a new conflict * * *_
Despite the fact that the Soviet Union has a record of over 30
vetoes of United Nations proposals seeking to establish a basis of
international understanding, the WIDF Peace Manifesto claimed
that the United States and Great Britain
oppose, in the United Nations, every proposal of the Soviet Union * * * to
consolidate the peace, reduce armaments, and outlaw the atomic bomb.
Although the United States demanded and accepted no inch of
territory following World War II ; although instead of reparations the
United States laid a tremendous tax burden upon its own people in
an effort to assist the whole of Europe to achieve economic stability,
in contrast with the Soviet Union which is pauperizing its satellites,
the WlDF "Peace" Manifesto declared that "American monopolists
seek to dominate the world."
With the aid of the Marshall plan, they (the United States) deprive nations of
their sovereignty, turning the people into servants of the American warmakers.
The women of the whole world must know that the Marshall plan is not a European
aid program, but a plan of economic and political servitude for the people, and
thus a step toward the preparation of a new war * * * The governments
of these countries * * * grant military bases to American imperialists. The
Marshall plan means the restoration of German imperialism; the Marshall plan
means poverty, reaction and war * * *
95
96 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
The WIDF "peace" manifesto reiterated the stand taken by Maur-
ice Thorez, leader of the Communist Party of France, who declared
"The people of France will never make war on the Soviet Union.":
Women!
It is our task to prevent our husbands, sons and brothers from being dragged
into a new war where they will become cannon fodder in the interest of adventurers
and the owners of the atomic bomb.
Overlooking the Soviet Union's interference in the affairs of all the
so-called "People's Democracies"; in Greece, Korea, and China, and
paving the way for Soviet aggression, this "peace" manifesto exhorted
"Women of the United States, Great Britain, France, Holland!":
You must remember that a country which oppresses another cannot live in
freedom. Urge your governments to withdraw their troops from Greece, China,
Viet-Nam, Indonesia, Malaya, Burma and South Korea, and halt all forms of
interference in the domestic affairs of other nations.
The "peace" manifesto called on the women of the Soviet Union
to lead the women of the world:
Women of the Soviet Union!
Reinforce the strength of your motherland, stronghold of peace, remembering
that the stronger your country grows, the more firm is the unity for peace.
The "peace" manifesto also laid down a plan of action for organizing
mass pressure on the democracies:
Women throughout the world!
Let all of us stand together to save the peace!
Organize ma!?s rallies, demonstrations, petitions, exposing the criminal plans of
the aggressors and proclaiming loudly our demand for peace.
The Congress of American Women planned a program which was
extended for a period of more than a month. Two main projects were
the CAW's first radio broadcast — Women and Peace, and a Peace
Petition. In May 1949, this Peace Petition was presented, over the
heads of the official American delegation, to the United Nations as the
first act of the reconstituted Congress of American Women. At a
"founding" convention the CAW adopted a constitution which stated
m its preamble that "81,000,000 women are pledged to peace today."
WIDF PART IN THE WORLD PEACE CONGRESS
The call to the World Peace Congress was signed by the followmg
members of the Women's International Democratic Federation:
Eliane Brault, France
Eugenie Cotton, France
Frangoise Leclercq, France (Communist)
Nora Wooster, England
Maria Maddalena Rossi, Italy (Communist)
Ada Jackson, United States
Gene Weltfish, United States
Nina Popova, Soviet Union (Communist)
Mimi Sverdrup Lunden, Norway
Andrea Andi^een, Sweden
Anezka Hodinova-Spurna, Czechoslovakia (Communist)
Tsai Tchang, China (Communist)
All of these women except Ada Jackson are members of the Executive
Committee of the WIDF.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 97
The WIDF helped to initiate this Congress as a follow-up of its
own "peace" manifesto, and this action was approved by the Com-
munist Information Bureau (Cominform) in its official organ, For a
Lasting Peace, For a People's Democracy, as follows:
The aggressive plans of Anglo-American ruling circles expressing the interests
of American finance and industrial magnates who are trying to hurl mankind into
a new war, have aroused the indignation and opposition of millions of women
throughout the world.
Naturally, in these circumstances, the World Federation of Democratic Women
centers its activity around the struggle for peace, drawing into this struggle
millions of women who are not yet members of the Federation. '^^
The manifesto of the World Peace Congress played adroitly upon
women's universal longing for peace in order to serve the interests of
Soviet designs for aggression:
The women, the mothers who bring hope to the world should know that we
consider it our sacred duty to defend the lives of their children and the security
of their homes.
The call to the World Peace Congress evoked a prompt response
from national affiliates of the WIDF, including the Union des Femmes
Frangaises, the Soviet Women's Anti-Fascist Oommiittee, the National
Union of Viet-Nam Women, the Women's League in Poland, the
Union of Italian Women, the All-China Women's Congress, the Union
of Belgian Women, the women of the People's (Communist) Republic
in Mongolia, the Communist League of Austrian Democratic Women,
the women of Ulan Bator, Outer Mongolian (Communist) Republic,
the Democratic Women's League of Germany, the Bulgarian National
Women's Union, the Pan-Hellenic Union of Women (of Communist
Greece), and the Congress of American Women. The Union of
French Women sent word that it was collecting signatures in peace
notebooks; the fourth national congress of the Union of Italian
Women addressed a letter to President Truman "repudiating the
Atlantic Pact and denouncing the treachery of the Italian Government
to its people"; the All-China Women's Congress pedged support to
the World Peace Congress and "denomiced the North Atlantic Pact
as a menace to all peace-living peoples"; the Union of Belgian Women
said it was "preparing a peace petition which will be sent to UNO." "*
Eugenie Cotton, Thai Thi Lien of Viet-Nam, and Tsola Dragoich-
eva, it was declared,
voiced the will of millions when they urged that all supporters of peace must unite
in order to frustrate the crafty schemes of the Churchills.*"
The Call to the World Congress for Peace issued by the American
Sponsoring Committee included the following officials of the WIDF:
Eugenie Cotton, Eugenia Pragierowa, Anezka Hodinova-Spurna.
The CAW was represented among the sponsors by:
Charlotte Hawkins Brown, Muriel Draper, Ada B. Jackson,
Mary Van Kleeck, Rose Russell, Gene Weltfish, and Ella Winter.
Other sponsors and delegates to the World Peace Congress included
the following members and supporters of the WIDF:
Elinor Gimbel, of the United States; Kitty Hookham, of Great
Britain; Nym Wales, of the United States; Florica Mezincescu.
"' For a Lasting Peace, for a People's Democracy! March 1, 1949, p. 4.
•33 For a Lasting Peace, for a People's Democracy!, April 15, 1949, p. 3.
"♦ For a Lasting Peace, for a People's Democracy!, May 1, 1949, p. 2.
98 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
of Rumania; Frau Stark- Wintersig, of Germany, Lii Tsui, of
China; Wu Ching, of China, and MineoLa Ingersoll of the United
States, who acted as the CAW representative to the World Peace
Congress.
Eugenie Cotton was "among the notables" on the platform at the
World Peace Congress; she addressed the Congress in behalf of the
WIDF.
Ella Winter was listed among the officers of the World Peace
Congress and at the close of the congress Gene Weltfish was elected
to the permanent committee of the Fight for Peace.
At the first World Peace Congress plans were laid to continue
these Communist-controlled gatherings in various regional confer-
ences, in connection with which|the importance of the participation
of women was emphasized.
According to a radio broadcast from Latin America on August
18, 1949, the police of Rio de Janeiro discovered a Communist plot
calling —
for women and children to be strategically planted outside and around the so-
called congresses of the Partisans of Peace, thus making it more difficult for the
police to break up the meetings, while at the same time peace and order would
be disrupted.
This plan came to light when Rio de Janeiro police broke up a
meeting of a Communist session known as the absolute tribunal, where
they seized a manifesto giving instructions for steps to be taken at
the outbreak of a revolutionary movement. This manifesto included
a —
scheme to establish feminine brigades, to be composed of well-trained women.
The task assigned to these women would be to spearhead the assault. ''^
I3S ZYC9 Rio de Janeiro, in Portuguese to Brazil, August 18, 1949, 8:30 p. m., e. s. t. radio broadcast.
BEHIND A "SUFFRAGE" CAMOUFLAGE
The Congress of American Women has persistently tried, through
varied approaches, to convince women who might not otherwise be
drawn into its toils that the Congress of American Women can be
identified with and is the successor to the nineteenth century Women's
Rights Movement, which was so highly respected and influential in
its da}'^ as to culminate in the nineteenth amendment to the Constitu-
tion of the United States, granting women suffrage.
At the time of its organization the Congress of American Women
was proclaimed a "mass political organization unmatched since the
suffrage movement." The Daily People's W^orld, west coast organ
of the Coinmunist Party, U. S. A., claimed "the Congress of American
Women is carrying on in the best tradition of the noble and farseeing
women who began the Women's Rights Movement." '^®
An action letter instructed CAW members that —
We have a splendid opportunity coming up, in International Women's Day on
March 8, to take public action which will focus attention on CAW and help us
build our organization. The origins of International Women's Day go back
exactly 100 years in American histiory, to the first Women's Rights Convention
at Seneca Falls, N. Y., in 1848, which raised the first demand for women's suffrage,
finally won in 1929 (sic). * * * March 8 has been given a new signifi-
cance by * * * the existence of the 81,000,000-strong Women's Interna-
tional Demiocratic Federation, of which CAW is the American arm.'^^
A member of the CAW, Claudia Jones, who is also a leader in the
Communist Party, U. S. A., pointed out that March 8, 1948, was the
one hundredth anniversary not only of the Women's Suffrage Move-
ment, but of "the great scientific and political movement called
Marxism." She said that International Women's Day is "the anni-
versary which, in a sense, compounds the significance of the other
two anniversaries." ^^'
The CAW also tries to give the impression that it is being unjustly
maligned by reactionaries for its militancy and seeks to draw a parallel
between such criticism and that directed against militant suffragists
in the nineteenth century.
In its official organ the CAW formulated the theory that —
Those early women were attacked just as vociferously for advocating elementary
rights which we all accept today, as women in 1949 are attacked * * * 139
A CAW program presented on International Women's Day used as
its keynote the theme that "we've been dangerous in this country for
just 100 years — ever since we first organized in 1848, to wm the vote
* * * " [Italics supplied.]
The names of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony,
venerated as leaders of the nineteenth century Women's Rights
Movement, are constantly exploited by the Congress of American
Women. There is even an Elizabeth Cady S,. mton branch of the
'38 Daily People's World, June 7, 1948, p. 3.
137 CAW Action Letter No. 11, February 5, 1948,
13S The Worker, March 7, 1948, p. 3.
i3» CAW Souvenir Journal, 1949.
99
100 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
CAW in the Bronx. The CAW tries to extract every ounce of
political capital from the fact that two descendants of these women
are active in the CAW.
SUSAN B. ANTHONY TI
Susan Anthony McAvoy, one of the original members of the CAW,
a vice president of the organization and the first chairman of its
Commission on the Status of Women, is a grandniece of the great
suffrage leader. She loses no opportunity to exploit this relationship
to the fullest, and always calls herself "Susan B. Anthony II." In
the early days of the CAW, she wrote an article for the Daily Worker,
official organ of the Communist Party, in which she tried to show that
all women's organizations which have been active since the Women's
Rights Movement have suppressed woman's natural talents through
"reactionary propaganda" and have "succeeded in keeping women
ineffectual politically." She claimed that women should not have
been "diverted" from the labor movement. She declared that the
Congress of American Women offered the first opportunity since the
Woman's Rights Movement for a successful program of political action :
For the first 72 years of American history, from 1776 until 1848, women had no
vote and made no organized move to win it. During the next 72 years of our
history, women organized, fought for the vote, and won it, in the longest legisla-
tive battle in history. The 72-year struggle ended in the nineteenth amendment
to the Constitution.
After winning the suffrage in 1920, the American women's movement went into
a decline. Instead of allying with their natural allies, the labor movement,
women were diverted by reactionary propaganda and misguided women leaders
into study groups, women's clubs, and other groups which succeeded in keeping
women ineffectual politically. Until recently, "nice" women just didn't mingle
much with party politics. * * * 'pj^g Congress of American Women [pledged
it] would launch its own year-round political-action program, and bring pressure
on political parties to institute year-round programs for women. ^^o
A week later the CAW Bulletin reported that —
A March-on- Washington Demonstration was decided upon for August 20, the
twenty-sixth anniversary of the passing of the woman's suffrage amendment.
Plans were made to lay a wreath on the statue of Susan B. Anthony. * * *
The demonstration will be accompanied by suitable publicity effects. * * * '"
Susan B. Anthony II is a sponsor of the Communist-front Com-
mittee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy. She was a member of
the Writers for Wallace Committee and was prominent at the Com-
munist-supported Progressive Party convention in Philadelphia where
Wallace was nominated as a Presidential candidate. She is the vice
chairman of the Voice of Freedom Committee, which has been active
in support and defense of pro-Communist radio commentators. She
sponsored Mother Bloor's eighty-fifth birthday banquet. Mother
Bloor is a former member of the Central Committee of the Com-
munist Party, U. S. A., and a veteran Communist leader. Miss
Anthony also appeared as a member of a delegation defending Robert
Thompson, one of the Communist leaders on trial in New York
charged with advocating the overthrow of the United States Govern-
ment by force and violence.
1" Daily Worker, July 14, 1946, p. 1.
"> CAW BuUetin, July 28, 1946, p. 7.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
101
Susan B. Anthony II
—CAW Souvenir Journal.
102 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
On April 26, 1941, during the Stalin-Hitler pact, she spoke at a
luncheon of the Women's Committee of the Washington Peace
Mobilization at the Rumanian Inn. She spoke against the United
States furnishing convoys to Great Britain. She pleaded for support
of the A.merican Peace Mobilization, a Communist front which shortly
thereafter established a picket line around the White House.
She has been a delegate from the Women's International Demo-
cratic Federation to the United Nations.
Miss Anthony appeared at a meeting of the Congress of American
Women on March 8, 1948, at the Hotel Capitol in New York City, to
speak in behalf of Communist deportation cases.
The Committee on Un-American Activities is in possession of four
affidavits which show that in 1937 and 1938 Susan B. Anthony deco-
rated the walls of her apartment at 1742 P Street NW., Washington,
D. C, with hammers and sickles. These affidavits are signed by the
landlady, the house manager, and a neighbor. She was at that time
employed by the National Youth Administration. Incidentally she
is now the wife of Clifford T. McAvoy, who has a long record of defense
of Communists and affiliation with their front organizations.
NORA STANTON BARNEY
When Nora Stanton Barney, a granddaughter of Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, joined the Congress of American Women, an announcement
was arranged to coincide with an anniversary celebration of the
woman's suffrage movement. According to the Daily Worker, official
organ of the Communist Party:
The granddaughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton placed a large floral wreath on
the grave of her famous grandmother for the Congress of American Women
* * * at a centennial commemorative ceremony * * * Nora Stanton
Barney * * * ^^g jug^, joined the Congress. * * * Present also at the
services was the nephew of Frederick Douglass. * * * j^ -y^^ag Frederick
Douglass who seconded Elizabeth Cady Stanton's first resolution in 1848 declar-
ing it was the duty of all women to secure the franchise. Susan B. Anthony II,
grandniece of Susan B. Anthony, a pioneer along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton
* * * [was] present at the ceremonies. * * * [a] message * * *
[was] received from Alice Stone Blackwell, daughter of Lucy Stone * * * '"
Four short months after joining the Congress of American Women,
Nora Barney was selected as one of 35 delegates to represent the Con-
gress at the Women's International Democratic Federation convention
in Budapest. On her return to this country she was enthusiastic
about the Communist regime in Hungary, claiming that non-Com-
munists there have more freedom than Communists in this country.
Nora Barney was featured on a CAW radio program on March 8, 1949,
as Elizabeth Cady Stanton's granddaughter. The CAW has lost no
opportunity to cash in on Nora Stanton Barney's famous name, and
in less than a year she rose to prominence in the CAW.
She has also supported the National Council of American-Soviet
Friendship, an organization which has been cited as subversive and
Communist by Attorney General Tom Clark. She participated in
the Communist-inspired Paul Robeson concert at Peekskill, N. Y. ,
on September 4, 1949.
i« Daily Worker, July 20, 1948.
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN 103
On the strength of these two women's membership in the CAW, the
organization alleges that —
It is the CAW which today continues the struggle in the great traditions of
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. In the past, the fight for
women's rights was part of the fight against slavery, and against economic exploi-
tation, today it is also part of the fight for peace and security everywhere. CAW
is in the front line of that 6ght."^
Actually it is clear that the dominant Communist group in the
Congress of American Women has no interest in or devotion to Ameri-
can democracy and that the suffrage issue is being raised to give
respectability to the CAW and to serve as bait for the unwary.
'" CAW Souvenir Journal, 1949.
104
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
Tea on International Women's Day, March 8, 1946, given by the National Council
of American-Soviet Friendship in honor of Soviet women, at the Soviet Consulate
in New York.
Left to right: Mrs. Arthur Segal; Muriel Draper, chairman; Henrietta Buck-
master; Mme. Mikhail Goussev, wife of the president of Amtorg, Soviet purchas-
ing agency; Evelyn Stefansson; Lillian Hellman; Sidonie M. Gruenberg; Thelma
Dale.
—Daily Worker, March 9, 1946.
COOPERATION WITH COMMUNIST FRONTS
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF AMERICAN-SOVIET FRIENDSHIP
A remarkably close kinship has been maintained between the
Congress of American Women and the National Council of American-
Soviet Friendship — which is so ardently pro-Soviet and so frantically
anti-American that it has been repudiated by several of its most
influential original sponsors, including Harold L. Ickes, Raymond
Massey, Dr. Karl T. Compton, and others.'^ Attorney General
Tom C. Clark cited the National Council of American-Soviet Friend-
ship as subversive on June 1 and September 21, 1948. It has since
its inception been the foremost apologist and defender of Soviet
foreign and domestic pohcy and it retains close ties with the Soviet
Embassy.
The National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, which
originally was the chief United States organization interested in the
WIDF, was instrimiental in founding the Congress of American
Women. The two organizations cooperate closely on projects con-
cerning women, especially in connection with International Women's
Day. Ehzabeth Gurley Flynn, writing in an official Communist
organ, Political Affairs, comments favorably on the "broad gather-
ings" planned by the two organizations in joint celebration of this
Communist banner day.'*^
The following individuals have supported both the Congress of
American Women and the National Council of American-Soviet
Friendship: Nora Stanton Barney, Clara Bodian, Zelma Corning
Brandt, Charlotte Hawkins Brown, Henrietta Buckmaster, Thelm^a
Dale, Bella V, Dodd, Dorothy Douglas, Muriel Draper, Katherine
Earnshaw, Mrs. R. Engelbourg, Virginia W. Epstein, Dr. Mildred
Fairchild, Elinor S. Gimbel, Minnie Golden, Sidonie M. Gruenberg,
LiUian HelLman, Ada B. Jackson, Gertrude Lane, Clara Savage
Littledale, Mary Jane Melish, Eslanda Goode Robeson, Rose V.
Russell, Maude Slye, Charlotte Stern, Amia Louise Strong, Josephine
Timms, Jeanette Turner, Mary Van lOeeck, Anne Wharton, Ella
Winter, Mrs. Stephen S. Wise, and Ruth Young.
A Congress of American Women letterhead lists 40 officers; 16 of
these, or 40 percent, are in one way or another affiliated with the
National Council of American-Soviet Friendship. Three officers of
the Congress of American Women, Muriel Draper, Elinor Gimbel,
and Dorothy Douglas, are officers in the National Council of American-
Soviet Friendship.
OTHER COMMUNIST FRONTS
As a rule, Communist fronts collaborate closely in furthering mutual
enterprises, which are oftentimes sponsored by an almost identical
list of professional sponsors. This is a good acid test of a Communist
front.
1" New York World- Telegram, March 24, 1947.
i« Political Affairs, March 1947, p. 217- March 1948, p. 262.
105
106 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
Organizations actually affiliated with the Congress of American
Women include sections of such notorious Communist fronts as the
Americiin Labor Party, the American Slav Congress, the Interna-
tional Workers Order, and the National Council of American-Soviet
Friendship. A large section of the CAW membership is made up of
groups from unions which have been found to have Communist
leadership strongly entrenched. These include sections of the United
Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, CIO; the Ameri-
can Communications Association, CIO; the United Public Workers,
CIO (its local No. 555, the Teachers Union, which is affiliated with the
CAW, was originally expelled from the American Federation of Labor
because of Communist leanings); the Food, Tobacco, and Agricul-
tural and Allied Workers, CIO (formerly the United Cannery, Agri-
cultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America, CIO); the United
Office and Professional Workers of America, CIO; the United Shoe
Workers of America, CIO; the Joint Board of Fur Dressers and Dyers
Union, CIO (of the International Fur and Leather Workers Union,
CIO); the Painters Union, district council 9, AFL, which was then
led by Louis Weinstock, an avowed Communist.
The Congress of American Women has either supported or cooper-
ated with the following recognized Communist-front organizations:
National Federation for Constitutional Liberties (pamphlet recom-
mended, February 20, 1947); People's Radio Foundation, Civil Rights
Congress, American Youth for Democracy (New York World-Tele-
gram, April 24, 1947, pp. 1, 4). The following organizations were
represented in a Congress of American Women delegation to President
Truman protesting against the loan to Greece and Turkey: American
Committee for Greek Democracy, American Labor Party, American
Youth for Democracy, Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern
Policy, National Negro Congress, International Workers Order, to-
gether with the following Communist-controlled unions of that period:
Joint Board of the Furriers and Dyers LTnion, Greek Fur Workers
Union, and the National Maritime Union (CAW release, March 25,
1947). The latter union is now under control of anti-Communist
leaders.
The CAW has joined forces wath the National Citizens Political
Action Committee and the Independent Citizens Committee of the
Arts, Sciences, and Professions (Daily Worker, June 23, 1946, p. 11);
Win-the-Peace Conference (CAW Bull., July 28, 1946); Jefferson
School of Social Science (Daily Worker, March 10, 1946); and the
National Lawyers Guild (CAW Bull., July 28, 1946). It has eagerly
assisted campaigns for the election of such Communist-supported
candidates as Eugene P. Connolly, for Congress; Charles Collins, for
the New York State Senate; and Ada B. Jackson, for the New York
State Assembly, and has urged the Federal Communications Com-
mission to grant a license to the People's Radio Foundation, sponsored
by leading Communists (CAW Bull., July 28, 1946).
In conjunction with the American Russian Institute, a Communist-
front organization, the Congress of American Women sponsored a
meeting in Los Angeles in February 1948 for the purpose of hearing
two Soviet women leaders, Evdokia I. Uralova, Minister of Education
in Soviet Byelorussia and member of the Supreme Soviet of th§
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
107
U. S. S. R., and Elizabeth Popova, Soviet judge and vice chairman of
the United Nations Committee on the Status of Women. "^
In December 1948 the Congress of American Women's delegation
to the Second Congress of the Women's International Democratic
Federation included a contingent from the American Slav Congress
(Daily Worker, December 27, 1948, p. 4). The trial of the 12 Com-
munist leaders who have been indicted for advocating the overthrow
of the United States Government by force and violence brought forth
another delegation organized by the Congress of American Women
which included members of the United Harlem Tenants and Con-
sumers Council; the Emma Lazarus Division of the Jewish People's
Fraternal Order (International Workers Order), the American Slav
Congress, the New York State Communist Party, and the Communist
Party, U. S. A.
The officers and those most prominently mentioned in connection
with the Congress of American Women are affiliated w^ith a total of
more than a hundred organizations and publications which have been
cited as Communist or Communist-front organizations by official
Government agencies, as foUows :
Allied Labor News Service
American Committee for Democracy
and Intellectual Freedom
American Committee for Protection of
the Foreign Born
American Committee for Yugoslav
Relief
American Committee to Save Refugees
American Council for a Democratic
Greece
American Council on Soviet Relations
American Friends of Spanish Democracy
American Labor Party
American League Against War and
Fascism
American League for Peace and Democ-
racy
American Peace Mobilization
American Relief Ship for Spain
American Russian Institute
American Slav Congress
American Youth Congress
American Youth for Democracy
Artists Front to Win the War
Black and White
Book Find Club
California Labor School
Chicago Star
China Aid Council
Citizens Committee on Academic Free-
dom
Citizens Committee to Free Earl
Browder (Communist)
Civil Rights Congress
Committee for a Democratic Far
Eastern Policy
Committee for Support of Simon W.
Gerson (Communist)
Committee for the First Amendment
Committee of One Thousand
1" Daily People's World, Peb. 9, 1948, p. 3.
Committee of Professional Groups for
Browder and Foster (Communists)
Conference on Constitutional Liberties
in America
Congress of American Revolutionary
Writers
Consumers Union
Contemporary Theatre
Council on African Affairs
Cultural and Scientific Conference for
World Peace
Daily People's World
Daily Worker
Defense Committee for Claudia Jones
(Communist)
Federated Press
Fight
Friends of the Chinese People
Friends of the Soviet Union
George Washington Carver School
Hollywood Anti-Nazi League
Hollywood League for Democratic
Action
Independent Citizens Committee of the
Arts, Sciences, and Professions
International Labor Defense
International Workers Order
Jefferson School of Social Science
John Reed Club
Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee
League of American Writers
League of Professional Groups for Foster
and Ford (Communists)
League of Women Shoppers
L'Unita del Popolo
Masses and Mainstream
Medical Bureau and North American
Committee to Aid Spanish Democ-
racy
Motion Picture Artists Committee
108
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
National Council of American-Soviet
Friendship, Inc.
National Council of the Arts, Sciences,
and Professions
National Council of Croatian Women
National Federation for Constitutional
Liberties
National Negro Congress
Negro Labor Victory Committee
New Currents
New Masses
New Pioneer
New Theatre League
North American Committee to Aid
Spanish Democracy
Open Letter for Closer Cooperation
With the Soviet Union
Open Letter on Harry Bridges
Open Letter to American Liberals
People's Institute of Applied Religion
People's Radio Foundation
Political Affairs
Progressive Citizens of America
The Protestant
Readers Scope
Schappes (Communist) Defense Com-
mittee
School for Democracy
School of Jewish Studies
Science and Society
Southern Conference for Human Wel-
fare
Southern Negro Youth Congress
Soviet Russia Today
Spanish Refugee Relief Campaign
United American Spanish Aid Com-
mittee
United Committee of South Slavic
Americans
United May Day Committee
United Negro and Allied Veterans of
America
Veterans Against Discrimination
Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln
Brigade
Washington Book Shop
Washington CIO Committee to Re-
instate Helen Miller
Washington Committee for Aid to
China
Washington Committee for Democratic
Action
Washington Tom Mooney Committee
Win-the-Peace Conference
Woman Today
Working Woman
Workers Bookshops
Workers Monthly
World Peace Congress
Young Communist League
Young Progressive Citizens of America
ATTITUDE TOWARD OTHER WOMEN'S ORGANIZATIONS
The Congress of American Women has been characterized not
only by its isolation and lack of support from the recognized and
representative women's organizations of the country but also by the
hostility of its own supporters and sympathizers, and by supporters
of the Women's International Democratic Federation, to any sub-
stantial efforts of other organizations to operate for the furtherance
of the interests of women.
On October 21, 1946, an International Assembly of Women was
held at Kortright, N. Y., apparently arranged at the initiative of a
group of v/ell-lvnown American non-Communist women. The Rus-
sians were invited to send a delegation but gave no answer. Prelimi-
nary meetings were held at the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Library,
45 East Sixty-fifth Street, New York City, beginning on October 10,
1947. Fifty-sLx nations were represented by 150 foreign delegates
and 50 Americans. Following the traditional "boring from within"
tactics, foreign Communist women delegates participated, as well as
outstanding pro-Soviet Americans. Present, for example, was Tsola
N. Dragoicheva, one of the Communist dictators of Bulgaria (who
served simultaneously as a delegate to the American Slav Congress),
and Mme. Madeleine Braun, French Communist deputy. Pro-
Communist Mmc. Eugenie Cotton, of France, was refused a visa by
the American Government.
Among the Americans who participated was Mrs. Vera Micheles
Dean, research director of the Foreign Policy Association, who arrived
in this country from her native Russia in 1919. Her activities are
described in Plain Talk for November 1946 as follows:
Behind the perfect front afforded by the esteemed F. P. A., Mrs. Dean has
been sending forth an unending stream of propaganda, intermingled with genuine
information, that is calculated to strengthen the position of the Soviet Union in
pursuing all its aims, regardless of their nature and their effect upon the interests
of world peace and the United States.
Mrs. Dean called upon the assembled women to "whittle away their
conceptions of national sovereignty" and called upon them to pull
themselves out of the "ancient grooves of nationalism." ^"
Mrs. Edward C. Carter, wife of the director of Russian War Relief
and sponsor of the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship,
supported this doctrine, declaring that "we are not here to fight for
our different national governments."
Mme. Braun utilized the occasion to ridicule the idea that "direct
orders from Moscow are fed to any Communist Party." She de-
nounced also the "legend" that there is no personal liberty in a
Communist state.
Innocently enough, certain delegates proposed a central bureau to
facilitate the interchange of international information among women.
The pro-Communist bloc, led by Mme. Braun, fought this proposal
'" New York Times, Oct. 14, 1946, p. 26.
109
110 REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
tooth and nail and demanded that the group use the facilities of the
Women's International Democratic Federation. Forty representa-
tives of 23 nations finally decided to establish such a service on a
purely voluntary basis, without official organization approval.
Mrs. Edward C. Carter, who "chaired" the steering committee,
announced that there would be no continuing committee. The possi-
bility of the International Assembly of Women maturing into a rival
to the Communist-controlled Women's International Democratic
Federation had been successfully blocked.
From September 28 to October 1, 1947, there was a meeting in
Paris of the World Union for Peace, which represented some of the
outstanding women leaders of the world. Among them were: Mme.
Auriol, honorary president, wife of the then president of France;
Mme. Bidault, president, wife of the former Foreign Minister of
France; the Duchess of Atholl; and Mme. Tsaldaris, of Greece. In a
statement published in the WIDF Information Bulletin for November
1947, Jeannette Vermeersch, member of the executive committee of
the Women's International Democratic Federation and member of
the Central Committee of the French Communist Partj^-, denounced
this meeting as representing those who supported "a policy set by
American reactionaries, enemies of democracy and peace." She de-
clared that "by its program and its composition the 'World Union' is
only a 'Western Union' serving Mr. Truman."
Conclusion
The activities of the Congress of American Women bring to the fore
the dangerous potentialities of this aggressive, weU-organized group.
They emphasize the vital need of a public education in women's clubs
and similar organizations as to the nature of this organization. They
raise anew the question of interference in our affairs by groups opera-
ting under foreign direction and discipline, such as the Women's Inter-
national Democratic Federation, the World Federation of Trade
Unions, the World Federation of Democratic Youth, and the World
Peace Congress. It must be recognized that when under attack such
organizations will invariably claim that such attacks are "persecu-
tion," and attempt to becloud the real issues involved. Thus, when
the Congress of American Women was cited by the Attorney General
of the United States as a subversive. Communist organization, the
Daily People's World, official west coast organ of the Communist
Party, U. S. A., declared that Mr. Clark denounced the organization
"for demanding the right to vote, equal pay, the right to own property
and other rights." ^*^
The Congress of American Women is composed primarily of a hard
core of Communist Party members and a circle of close sjrmpathizers,
and although it numbers but a few thousand members all told, it has
been highly articulate and energetic in its anti-American, pro-Soviet
propaganda. Hence it is all the more necessary that American women
be alerted to its true character and aims.
1" Daily People's World, June 7, 1948, p. 3.
APPENDIX
The policy to be followed by the Communists in organizing catch-all
movements among women in order to fm-tlier Communist designs
has been clearly outlined by Lenin, the leading theoretician of the
international Communist movement, in his conversations with Clara
Zetkin, outstanding German Communist, as early as 1920. It is
the line which is being followed to the letter in the Women's Inter-
national Democratic Federation and its affiliate, the Congress of
American Women. We quote Lenin's directives and the comments
of Clara Zetkin:
Lenin- — Zetkin Conversations ^*^
Need of a powerful international women's movement
Lenin. We must create a powerful international women's movement, on a
clear theoretical basis. (P. 3.)
Lenin. But even with all that, we still have no international Communist
women's movement, and that we must have. We must start at once to create it.
Without that the work of our International and of its parties is not complete
work, can never be complete. (P. 4.)
Lenin. The thesis must clearly point out that real freedom for women is
possible only through communism. (P. 14.)
Special agencies needed
Lenin. Nevertheless, we must not close our eyes to the fact that the party
must have bodies, working groups, commissions, committees, bureaus, or whatever
you like, whose particular duty it is to arouse the masses of women workers, to
bring them into contact with the party, and to keep them under its influence.
That, of course, involves systematic work among them. We must train those
whom we arouse and \\'in, and equip them for the proletarian class struggle under
the leadership of the Communist Party. We need appropriate bodies to carry
on work amongst them, special methods of agitation, and forms of organization.
That is not feminism; that is practical, revolutionary^ expediency. (P. 15.)
Women and seizure of power
Lenin. Must I again swear to you, or let you swear, that the struggles for our
demands for women must be bound up with the object of seizing power, of estab-
lishing the proletarian dictatorship? That is our alpha and omega at the present
time. (P. 18.)
Women in the class struggle
Lenin. Soviet Russia puts our demands for women in a new light. Under
the proletarian dictatorship those demands are not objects of struggle between
the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. They are part of the structure of Communist
society. That indicates to women in other countries the decisive importance of
the winning of power by the proletariat. The difference must be sharply em-
phasized, so as to get the women into the revolutionary class struggle of the
proletariat. (P. 18.)
Need of an international women's congress
Zetkin. Your big nonparty women's conferences and congresses gave me the
main idea. We are going to transfer that idea from the national to the inter-
national plane. We must arrange a nonparty international women's congress.
(P. 22.)
i« Lenin on the Woman Question, by Clara Zetkin (International Publishers, Inc., 1934).
Ill
112
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
International mechanism
Zetkin. The first thing was to form a committee of women comrades from
various countries in constant and close contact with our national sections, to
prepare, arrange, and call the congress. Whether that committee should begin
to work at once officially and publicly was a question of expediency still to be
considered. In any case, the first task of its members would be to get in touch
with women leaders of women workers organized in trade unions, of the political
working class women's movement of bourgeois women's organizations of every
sort, including women doctors, teachers, journalists, etc., and to set up in the
various countries a national nonparty arrangements committee. The inter-
national committee was to be formed from members of the national committees,
wliich would arrange and convene the international congress and decide its agenda,
and time and place of meeting. (P. 23.)
Zetkin. * * * the campaign would be of particular importance in appeal-
ing to the largest possible masses of women, in inducing them to deal seriously
witli the problems to be discussed and in directing their attention to communism
and the parties of the Communist International. (P. 23.)
Communist women the driving force
Zetkin. Of course. Communist women must be not only the driving, but also
the leading force in the preparatory work. They must be accorded energetic
support by our sections. All this, of course, applies also to the work of the
international committee, the work of the congress itself, and the utilizatiT'n of
that work. Communist theses and resolutions on all items of the agenda must
be submitted to the congress, unambiguous in principle and objectively and
scientifically based on prevailing social conditions. These theses should be
discussed and approved by the executive of the international. Communist
slogans and Communist proposals must be tlie center of the work of the congress,
of public attention. (P. 24.)
Officers of the Congress of American Women
Exhibit No. 1
[Letterhead, April 15, 1946]
Congress of American Women
affiliated with women's international democratic federation
Hotel Capitol: Eighth Avenue at Fiftv-first Street, New York 19, N. Y. Phone
Circle 6-3700, Room 638
continuing committee
Chairman: Elinor S. Gimbel
Vice-Chairman: Dr. Gene Weltfish *
Secretary: Susan B. Anthony II
Treasurer: Dr. Beryl Parker '
Mrs. Grace Allen Bangs
Clara Bodian
Ann Bradford '
Dorothy Dunbar Bromley
Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown *
Henrietta Buckmaster ^
Thelma Dale '
Frances Damon
Dr. Bella V. Dodd
Muriel Draper ^
Katherine Earnshaw
Thyra Edwards
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn '
Dorothy Gottlieb
Sidonie M. Gruenberg
Mrs. Fredric March i
Vivian Carter Mason '
Helen Phillips
Mrs. Giflford Pinchot '
Anna Center Schneiderman
Jeanette Stern Turner i
Mary Van Kleeck
Eleanor T. Vaughan '
Mrs. Stephen S. Wise
Ruth Young
• Attended the Women's International Congress at Paris, France, November 26-December 1, 1945
report on congress of american women 113
Exhibit No. 2
[Letterhead, March 25, 1947]
Brookltn Chapter of the Congress of American Women
AFFILIATED WITH THE WOMEn's INTERNATIONAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION
NATIONAL OFFICERS
Dr. Gene Weltfish, president
Muriel Draper, executive vice-president
Thyra Edwards, executive secretary
Josephine Timms, recording secretary'
Helen Phillips, treasurer
BROOKLYN OFFICERS
Chairman: Mrs. William H. Melish, 126 Pierrepont Street, Main 4-2912
Executive secretary: Ann Wharton
Vice president: Ida Bloomgarden
Arrangements chairman: Rae Kandel
Treasurer: Mrs. Walter Truslow
Pubhcity: Terri Pollack
CONTINUATIONS COMMITTEE
Rose Engelbourg Rae Harris
Deborah Flynn Helen Kogut
Alice Oilman Mary Levy
Rae Glauber Constance Rose
Ida Halpern Yetta Rosenbhim
Edith Hamerschlag Mary Tener
(Partial list)
Exhibit No. 3
[Letterhead, February 25, 1949]
Congress of American Women
AFFILIATED WITH THE WOMEN's INTERNATIONAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION (CON-
SULTANT TO THE UNITED NATIONS)
2 East Twenty-third Street, New York 10, N. Y.; phone: Gramercy 7-5919
NATIONAL OFFICERS
Dr. Gene Weltfish, president
Muriel Draper, executive vice president
Helen Phillips, treasurer
Stella B. Allen, executive secretary
Vice Presidents
Susan B. Anthony Vivian Carter Mason
Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown Jean Muir
Henrietta Buckmaster Anna Center Schneiderman
Thelma Dale Jeanette Stern Turner
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Eleanor T. Vaughan
Elinor S. Gimbel Ruth Young
Advisory Council
Mrs. Zlatko Balokovic Clara Savage Littledale
Prof. Dorothy Douglas Gertrude Lane
Naomi Finkelstein Rose Russell
June Gordon Faye Stephenson
Sidonie Gruenberg Charlotte Stern
Mary Van Kleek
114
REPORT ON CONGRESS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
Chapter Presidents
Chicago — Rheua Pearce
Detroit — Edith Linderman
North Stelton — Betty Cross
Brooklyn — Mary Jane Melish
Bronx — Lillian Mankoff
Manhattan — Ann Wharton
Manhattan No. 1 — Mrs. Louise Pitner
Los Angeles — Ann Rosen
Milwaukee — Ann Jones
Western Pennsylvania — Genevieve Katz
Cleveland — Joan Leib
Seattle — Hazel Johnson
o
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