Thanks for posting this. It clarified a lot of the ambiguous formulations presented in the resolution, at least for me.

An interesting thing to note is that the Russian Bolshevik party had a roughly similar proportion of women members (according to Rabinowitch in his book, “Bolsheviks In Power”) as did the German communist party, roughly 10% or so.

One thing I noticed was what appears to be a gap of some sort in the closing paragraphs: “Had she lived five years longer [paragraph ends abruptly here] That would make it 1938. Didn’t the right turn occur a bit earlier, in 1934-35? , she would have witnessed the Communist International turn sharply to the right, embracing alliance with bourgeois forces in defence of capitalism, while Stalin organized the murder of almost all her friends and colleagues then living in the Soviet Union.” Maybe I’m just reading it wrong? It seems like something is missing.

Zetkin’s role in the German party was outstanding. This comes through both in Broue’s account of her role in the German revolution and just by reading her conversation with Lenin about work among women (http://www.marxists.org/archive/zetkin/1920/lenin/zetkin1.htm). She holds her own in her exchange with him and it’s clear he views her as his equal. It seems she was the go-between between Lenin and freshly expelled Levi. That exchange also gives us a sense of how warm and comradely Lenin was on a personal level.

Thank you, Bruce, for this very helpful reference to the English text of Zetkin’s workers’ government article, which I have integrated into the article. John Riddell