E-text prepared by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images digitized by the Google Books Library Project (https://books.google.com) and generously made available by HathiTrust Digital Library (https://www.hathitrust.org/) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 57474-h.htm or 57474-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/57474/57474-h/57474-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/57474/57474-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through HathiTrust Digital Library. See https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31175035167884 Transcriber’s note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). _PRICE ONE PENNY._ SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY AND WOMAN SUFFRAGE. [Illustration] A Paper Read by CLARA ZETKIN To the Conference of Women belonging to the Social-Democratic Party held at Mannheim before the opening of the 1906 Annual Congress of the German Social-Democracy Twentieth Century Press, Limited (Trade Union and 48 hours), 37A, Clerkenwell Green, E.C. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY & WOMAN SUFFRAGE. A Paper Read by CLARA ZETKIN To the Conference of Women belonging to the Social-Democratic Party held at Mannheim, before the opening of the Annual Congress of the German Social-Democracy. Comrades,—The decision to discuss the question of Woman Suffrage at this Congress was not arrived at from any theoretical considerations, or from any wish to point out the advisability of such a measure. This desirability has long been acknowledged by Social-Democrats, and by the women who work with them for the attainment of their aims. We have been much more interested in the tactics and in the historical events about which I am now going to speak. There never was greater urgency than at the present time for making the question of Woman Suffrage one of the chief demands of our practical programme in politics. It is well for us, therefore, to be clear that we are on the right lines, and in what conditions and in what ways we should conduct the agitation, the action, the struggle for Woman Suffrage so as to bring it before the public as a question of intense practical activity for all. But we should not be what we are, we should not be working-class women agitators who base their demands on the ground of a Socialist demand, if we did not, when seeking on the right lines, with all our strength, for this right, at the same time show why we base our claim for this reform, and how we are totally separated from those who only agitate for this from the point of view of middle-class women. We take our stand from the point of view that the demand for Woman Suffrage is in the first place a direct consequence of the capitalist method of production. It may seem perhaps