Chair: Comrade Pak-Kieng.

CHAIRMAN. I declare the session open. The first speech will be by Comrade Wong.

WONG. I am to give my report today on the condition of Chinese women, but as my time is limited, I cannot deal with the question in detail, so I will touch only on the most important points.

There is an old Chinese proverb that says that a woman must focus her attention on men and must do what men want. From early on in China, women are taught that every desire of men is right and must be respected. This has had a profound effect and a great influence on the psychology of women.

There is no equality of rights in Chinese society today. We could also say that the whole of society consists of men alone, that all rights belong only to men.

Not to all men, of course, but to a handful of officials, bureaucrats, capitalists, and imperialists. They are all closely allied in order to hide their crimes and commit new ones. In this society, they enjoy the exclusive right of domination, preventing not only women but also male workers from coming to power. This is not possible in modern Chinese society. Women cannot rise to public office because they have been excluded from it. The only reason is that men do not allow them to.

For a long time, men have deprived women of their individuality, and they have succeeded so thoroughly that there are now women who think they are completely ignorant and believe they have no chance of contributing to the management of public affairs. However, this conception is wrong.

Is there any economic equality in the position of Chinese women today? First of all, a woman cannot inherit property and cannot seek employment. Formally, women are not allowed in factories, so women have been forced to rely solely on men. This has gradually strengthened the dominance of men and definitively reduced women to a state of slavery.

Women have never held important political positions in Chinese history. Palace revolutions or the existence of an empress on the throne have been rare exceptions; thus, in general, women have not exercised any influence or played any role in politics.

But today, in modern China, women have partly succeeded, after a long struggle for emancipation and the vote, in obtaining their electoral rights, and there are now two women members of the Parliament of South China. Recent events that have brought China and Europe closer together have prompted many Chinese women to go abroad to receive a European education and learn about women’s issues, to break free from their prejudices, and in doing so, the view that is spreading is that the current state of the family is not what it should be, that there is a need for more freedom, and that reforms must be made.

However, all these reforms and hopes for changing family relationships do not yet give us the key to solving the issue of women. Women returning from Europe finally see the terrible oppression they suffer at the hands of men, which they had not noticed before. I believe there are very few women in China now who do not feel oppressed. Chinese women are beginning to desire to be free from this yoke, to work in the social field, to lead the masses toward emancipation, to participate in the movement to gain liberty.

So far, they have had little success. The women of the aristocracy who have had the opportunity to visit Europe, the aristocratic Chinese women continue to have a respectful attitude toward their husbands, flatter them, dress exquisitely, in short, maintain the old customs and traditions despite the fact that many of them have experienced European conditions. Why is this happening? Because in the current situation of family relations in China, which have existed since time immemorial, women can only retain their husbands by such methods.

Remember that polygamy is still in vogue in China, so that an unattractive wife is in danger of being rejected forever by her husband. In their environment, Chinese aristocratic women behave proudly, presumptuously, and continue with eternal intrigues.

They are envious, jealous, and constantly quarrelsome. They like to dress well and eat well.

Another reason for their lack of inclination toward public activity is the fact that they are representatives of the aristocracy, which has done very little for the people and shudders at the mere word “proletariat.” The women of the Chinese aristocracy not only ignore the situation of the proletariat, but they also have no interest in issues such as the education of children and adolescents from non-proletarian classes.

While proletarian women are interested in these issues, I mean female workers, peasants, and servants, they are completely uneducated, are not respected in society, and are never talked about, as if they did not exist. So when the call of communism reached us in China, we, the oppressed women, received it as a sinking ship recognizes the sound of the siren of another ship rushing to rescue it.

The situation of our women is an incentive for us to work towards the unification of our proletariat with that of the whole world, with the aim of waging a united struggle against our common enemy. Our tasks are the same as yours, and our goals are yours: the destruction of capitalism. Our goal is to create a society in China based on rights for all, for men and women.

We cannot yet talk about the methods of propaganda that can be applied, but we can discuss some of them here. Firstly, we must strive for universal education and training. We must attract the proletarian masses to the cooperative movement in industries and workshops. This will lead to a change in the psychology of the proletarian masses in general, and of women in particular. This will give them an opportunity to play a role in social activity.

Due to the lack of organized women, in my opinion, a group of women propagandists should be formed in China. It is also essential to carry out extensive propaganda in connection with the mass movements of women and the proletariat, through the press, the publication of pamphlets, posters, and leaflets, etc.

ToTo achieve this quickly and successfully, we need energy, active female workers, and a good knowledge of feminist propaganda. Only in this way can we hope to achieve success for our great movement.

(Applause)