International Women’s Day: from socialist ideals to somber memories

Beata Bruggeman-Sekowska

Every year, International Women’s Day is celebrated worldwide, often seen as a positive day for women’s rights and equality. For me and many others born under communism, however, March 8 carries a very different, somber meaning: a day shaped by propaganda rather than genuine emancipation.

The origin of this day lies in the labor struggles of the early twentieth century. In 1908, 15,000 garment workers in New York went on strike against poor working conditions and low wages, leading to the first National Women’s Day in 1909, organized by the Socialist Party of America. In 1910, German feminist Clara Zetkin proposed at the Congress of the Socialist International in Copenhagen to establish an International Women’s Day. The first International Women’s Day took place on March 19, 1911, with demonstrations in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland demanding work, voting rights, and public office. In 1917, female textile workers in Petrograd protested for “Bread and Peace,” an event that contributed to the Russian Revolution. Lenin later made this date—February 23 in the Julian calendar, March 8 in the Gregorian calendar—a Soviet holiday.

Behind the Iron Curtain, under communism, life was stripped of freedom and democracy and reduced to propaganda. In Poland, women were given a single carnation or gerbera and a pack of pantyhose as a superficial token of appreciation. After this absurd ceremony, life returned to the gray, oppressed reality of fear, scarcity, and mistrust. The day, now celebrated so festively everywhere, reminded us precisely of what the regime denied us: real emancipation, protection of rights, and human dignity.

Enver Hoxha, the longest-ruling communist dictator in history, governed Albania for more than forty years with an iron fist. He isolated the country from the world, imposed strict ideological control, and plunged Albania into extreme poverty. In a country of three million, almost one in fifteen had a family member imprisoned or deported by the regime. Around 200,000 people were sent to labor camps comparable to Stalin’s Gulag. More than 100,000 people were killed or imprisoned, over 6,000 disappeared, and thousands vanished without a trace. Hoxha dismantled the pre-war civic elite and declared Albania the world’s first atheist state.

Albanian Maria Tuci, a young woman who wished to join a religious order, was sentenced to three years in prison and severely beaten. When she resisted the advances of a prison officer, she was subjected to prolonged torture. The officer told her: “I will reduce you to a state where even your family will no longer recognize you.” At one point, guards put her naked into a sack with a street cat and beat the sack until the animal attacked her. Her injuries led to blood poisoning. Despite her suffering, Maria refused to renounce her faith. She forgave her torturers and died on October 24, 1950, at age 22, in the prison hospital of Shkodër, with a rosary in her hand. Her last words were: “I thank God for giving me the strength to die free.” In 2016, Pope Francis recognized her martyrdom, and she was beatified in Shkodër.

After September 1939, Poland came under both Nazi and Soviet occupation, as agreed in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Janina Lewandowska, the only female officer in Katyn, was executed by the Soviets and buried in a mass grave during the Katyn massacre in 1940, in which over 20,000 Polish officers, policemen, and intellectuals were killed. Her younger sister, Agnieszka Dowbor-Muśnicka, was executed by the Nazis and also buried in an unmarked grave.

In 1945, Polish sisters Stanisława Falkus and Leopolda Ludwig of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Divine Savior were murdered in a chapel by Red Army soldiers after being raped, bayoneted, beaten, and finally shot. Their beatification process is ongoing.

“Doctor, will I live?” were the last words of Loreta Asanavičiūtė, a 23-year-old Lithuanian freedom defender who was run over by a Soviet tank on January 13, 1991, in Vilnius. Soviet armored vehicles drove through a peaceful crowd protecting the Vilnius TV tower, a symbol of Lithuanian independence. Fourteen people were killed, and more than 500 unarmed civilians were injured. Loreta was the only woman among the victims and died a few hours later in the hospital.

March 8 should be a day to reflect on the courage, suffering, and resilience of women like Maria Tuci, Janina Lewandowska, Agnieszka Dowbor-Muśnicka, the murdered Salvatorian sisters, Loreta Asanavičiūtė, and many others. It should not be an ideological or ceremonial gesture but a sincere moment of contemplation on equality and freedom.

Photo taken at a Grutas Park in Lithuania ©Beata Bruggeman-Sekowska