Organ of the Italian Communist Party for propaganda among women

1. - The Aims of a Communist Newspaper

The fortnightly newspaper Compagna was first published in Rome on March 5, 1922, on the occasion of “International Working Women’s Day.” It defined itself as “The Organ of the Communist Party of Italy for Propaganda Among Women,” openly positioning itself as a tool for spreading the communist program, the revolution, and the party.

It followed in the footsteps of the column “Tribuna delle donne” (Women’s Tribune), edited by Camilla Ravera in 1921 in L’Ordine Nuovo, and the column “Per le donne” (For Women) published in 1921 in Il Soviet.

The publication was decided upon at the First National Conference of Communist Women, in accordance with the guidelines of the Third International. “The party,” reads the “International News” column in Compagna No. 2, “has recognized as a vital necessity for the revolutionary movement to intensify propaganda among women.”

Its four pages present a cohesive and well-organized whole, a coordinated voice reflecting the multifaceted unfolding of the party’s activities and policies on women’s issues. This occurred during a particularly harsh period of attacks by fascist gangs against the working class and the party.

There is only one working class, which includes all genders. The specific oppression of women, however, unites proletarian women with those of the petty bourgeoisie. Thus, Compagna is a communist newspaper aimed at the female proletariat, but one that extends its call to revolt to women of the middle classes as well.

It does not aim to be something “simplified” or “easier” for women. It is simply aware, in the first quarter of the last century, of the difficulty women—especially proletarian women—faced in accessing knowledge: illiteracy was widespread, and proletarian women in particular were fortunate if they had had the chance to learn to read. Nevertheless, it set out to bring them closer to the party’s program and communist theory by addressing every topic—even complex ones—in clear and effective language, understandable to the women of the time, even if they were not intellectuals: factory workers, office workers, housewives, peasant women...

All editorial, administrative, printing, and distribution management, as evidenced by the detailed financial reports, was carried out by women comrades.

Compagna represents the party. It aims to be a point of reference for female activists; it expresses all the party’s positions and slogans and reports on events from its entire history, in Italy and within the International: conferences, meetings, social analyses, as well as initiatives and rallies. It addresses communist policy regarding women’s issues, certainly, but not only that. It therefore provides guidelines for action, particularly in the trade union sphere.

The newspaper thus reports both the resolutions of the International and the party’s Executive Committee regarding women’s issues and their implementation guidelines, as well as in-depth analyses of theory and history, on the nature of class society, the economic basis of capitalism, the role of the Communist Party, the reasons for the split from the reformists, the rise of fascism on the ruins of democracy, an assessment of the historical moment in 1922—by then in decline for the revolution—the united trade union front, and the Social Democratic sabotage of the August strike...

A regular column, “The Communist Women’s Movement in Italy,” reports on every organizational initiative and episode of social conflict in Italy; news of the communist women’s movement abroad—from Russia, France, and Germany—is also consistently covered.

Naturally, episodes from the daily lives of proletarian women are described, as well as those of intellectuals and women from the middle classes, along with critiques of their social conditions, highlighting the need for them to join the movement dedicated to the cause of communism.

The crucial aspect of children’s education is also addressed; reference is made to a small newspaper titled “Il fanciullo proletario.”

There is even a “third page” of fiction that publishes writings by communists.

Today, 100 years later, Compagna still seems fresh and relevant to us. The themes are ours, then as now; the language is the same—simple, coherent, and essential reasoning—reflecting both the clarity of the program and the immediate tactical directive, as well as the trade union approach.

Here we begin to publish some of the most significant excerpts from that newspaper of ours—an experiment, one might say, of short duration, but proof of what our movement, and tomorrow all genders, will once again be able to express in a liberated humanity.

* * *

A supporter writes in Issue 19, December 3, 1922
Proletarian Voices

The newspaper Compagna opens my mind to new horizons. It frames the women’s issue within the far broader context of proletarian emancipation and makes women aware of the rights they will be entitled to in the future society.

In Compagna No. 1, March 5, 1922, we read this introductory article about the new newspaper
Continuing...

There is nothing “new” about the intention to publish a newspaper of communist women’s propaganda. That is to say: what is new is a paper, four pages, a title. For our daily and weekly papers have already dealt with—and continue to deal with—communist issues in relation to the specific interests of working women. We are continuing and synthesizing that propaganda work, which was fragmentary and discontinuous and which we wish to make more systematic. By publishing a paper “for working women,” we aim to engage them with their own issues and to bind them ever more closely to the cause of all workers. Our program is that of the Communist Party of Italy, which synthesizes the aspirations of the revolutionary proletariat of the country in which we live. Our aim is to bring the female proletariat closer to the Communist Party (...)

The revolutionary era we are living in urges the working classes to action. Issues of preparation and reconstruction are piling up and demand to be resolved. We have the task of selecting the most urgent and immediate ones. We are fortunate to have a wonderful experimental field, which provides us with many solutions to the problems of tomorrow. The Russian Revolution! Such solutions, in the realm of the economic and moral emancipation of working women, are valuable study material for us. But above all, we must instill class consciousness in female workers and peasant women: bring them into the unions and the Party. We are haunted by the problem of revolutionary preparation.

In this newspaper for working women, we continue the work that our comrades carry out in the party press, emphasizing and deepening the examination of the issues that most concern working women.

The Italian economic crisis will have even bloodier aspects than those that last year—and even now—were and are the symptoms of the regime’s collapse.

In this distressing situation, it is our duty to prepare the means of defense and offense, and to accelerate the work of winning over as large a portion of the proletariat as possible (...)

Through the struggle for economic interests, not only female workers and peasant women, but also housewives of the petty bourgeoisie must be drawn into the orbit of the Party and the communist proletariat, of our principles; not because these are “good” or “just”—such qualifications being subjective—but because they represent the interpretation of inevitable social and political phenomena, for whose establishment our propaganda prepares the material conditions.

Against the facile rhetoric of the bourgeoisie, a healthy language distinguishes a communist newspaper, as stated in Issue 5, May 1922
Against the Pitfalls of the Bourgeois Press

The newspaper is a sincere expression of the soul, thought, and will of the proletariat: it truthfully places daily events within the broader framework of collective life, naturally revealing their origins and effects; through a continuous effort at clarification, it gives the proletariat a precise sense of how its struggle proceeds and what it aims for; and, without dangerous illusions, without false promises, without hypocritical recriminations, shows the proletariat its path, which is hard, harsh, and painful, but which alone can save the proletariat from evils far worse than those suffered so far and humanity from a return to the bleakest barbarism.”

Also in Issue 2 of March 19, 1922
To our female contributors

The articles sent to us for publication must be brief.

We need contributions on issues of the utmost interest to working women. We do not accept useless rhetorical flights of fancy or long, cloying laments.

We want writings by female workers and peasant women on real problems that arise every day in the social life of proletarian women. Our intellectual comrades should seek to address topics that capture the interest of female workers, peasant women, and office workers.

We have received many articles; but few of these fit the “tone” we intend to give this publication. We cannot write individually to the comrades whose writings are not published to explain the reasons for their non-publication. Let this serve as a reminder to all: brevity, simplicity of presentation, and the need to express “concepts”—even in a straightforward manner—regarding the myriad problems that the lives of working-class women present, while avoiding poetic and sentimental motifs that are often not even in good taste and which, in any case, we do not believe should find a place in this publication.

Finally, we reproduce in full this article, which appeared in Issue No. 5 of May 1922, and which clearly expresses the purpose of our publication, then as now
Our Principles

Compagna is the title of our modest newspaper, which aims to reach out to female workers, domestic proletarians, and all our class sisters—including those who are still unaware or not fully aware of their enslavement and their rights: to the female workers, to the proletarian housewives who were led to consider the existing social order for the first time by the horrors of war; who subsequently realized, albeit vaguely, the injustice of which they are victims, and vaguely recognized for themselves and their comrades the right to free themselves from it; who welcomed, though without fully understanding it, the Russian Revolution as the beginning of something new and better created in their interest; who today perhaps feel their faith waver a little simply because it had not been and is not nourished by any precise knowledge; and whom we wish to reach and enlighten in order to transform them into true and steadfast comrades in faith and struggle.

The great mass of proletarian women who rose up alongside all the oppressed—who after the war boldly demanded a new social order—did not know precisely against whom or against what they were rising, in the name of what program they were fighting, or what specific promises were represented by the red flag that rallied the entire revolutionary proletariat around it.

The truly conscious and enlightened workers, faced with the difficulties of the struggle, did not lose their faith; they formed solid nuclei of revolutionaries in every country: the Communist parties; they united into a powerful world organization, the Communist International, which represents the conscious and organized vanguard of the international proletariat. And this vanguard, which knows precisely the path the proletariat must follow and the battles it will have to wage, seeks to rally around itself the great army of proletarian men and women to whom it wishes to impart its knowledge and faith, and whom it proposes to guide and lead in the decisive struggle.

With this modest newspaper of ours, we wish to appeal to proletarian women; and not with generic and vague words that have become, through the use men and parties have made and continue to make of them, empty clichés: justice, brotherhood, humanity, equality; grand words that women have heard fall, to no effect, from the pulpit, the altar, and the mouths of scholars and rulers, and which have now lost their real meaning.

We wish to appeal to proletarian women not merely with sentimental pleas, but in the name of our principles and our program, which we intend to explain to them clearly and precisely. Communism is a science; its fundamental principles can and must be explained and disseminated even among the backward masses, even among proletarian women; and our newspaper, like all workers’ newspapers, must undertake this task of popularizing and spreading communist knowledge and culture among the masses to whom it is addressed.

We are convinced that male and female workers desire—indeed, demand—this educational and enlightening work from their newspapers: when workers—men and women—begin to gain their first awareness of their revolutionary tasks, they regard these tasks with great seriousness; and they do not seek in the newspapers of their class and their party mere entertainment, but rather means of expression, defense, and struggle for the working class, as well as means of education and learning. The worker who labors all day in the factory and devotes his hours of rest and leisure to reading his newspaper—making this reading both a pleasure and a duty—wants to find in his newspaper the news and information that keep him informed about the progress of his struggle, the progress of his revolution in his country and throughout the world, the new problems arising from this development, and the means and methods of struggle he must master; if such topics did not interest him, he would read any other newspaper indifferently.

The female workers among whom our newspaper is beginning to penetrate and spread—and who, amidst their endless, ceaseless tasks, will seek an hour to devote to reading it—undoubtedly expect to have the promises of communism laid out and clarified for them.

Our newspaper must therefore be simple, clear, and accessible to proletarian women who are not very skilled at reading—precisely because they are always forced to work too hard—but it must also respond to their desire to “know” precisely what the social revolution to which the proletarian army is called consists of and what it aims for. It would be highly desirable for our newspaper to offer proletarian women—perpetually oppressed by a toil that degrades and spiritually kills them a little each day—not only knowledge but also a measure of delight and simple, clear beauty, through illustrations, stories, and that section which should, in addition to guiding, express the great and healthy proletarian soul, its la- [one line missing here] the newspaper might truly become useful and at the same time appealing and friendly to its readers. Our newspaper will not always be able to meet all these needs; but it earnestly strives toward these goals; and, above all, in keeping with the program contained in its very title, it aims to speak to its class sisters in the name of communism.

For this reason, we propose to set forth, through a series of brief and simple articles, the fundamental principles of communism; to clarify certain phrases that working women hear repeated constantly but do not fully understand; to outline in general terms the current situation of the Italian and international proletariat; the steps taken by the world revolution, the path that lies ahead, and the goal toward which it strives; we aim to explain to the women workers the precise meaning of the two terms: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the relationship between the classes and the state, and between the proletariat and the communists; to explain what capital is; how it is produced and how it accumulates, how the exploitation of man by man occurs, and how imperialism is determined and develops; against which we wish to clearly set the communist regime before the workers, demonstrating how it is achieved through the workers’ revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, which has already been realized with the glorious Russian Revolution and which the Communist International aims to realize throughout the world.

Camilla Ravera