GREETINGS TO THE FIRST CONGRESS OF HIGHLAND WOMEN

Convey my fraternal greetings to the First Congress of Working Women of the Highland Republic.13 I deeply regret that I am unable to be present at the congress owing to ill health.
Comrade Highland Women, there has not been a single important movement for emancipation in the history of mankind in which women have not closely participated, for every step taken by an oppressed class along the road towards emancipation brings with it an improvement in the position of women. The movement for the emancipation of the slaves in ancient times, as well as the movement for the emancipation of the serfs in modern times, had in its ranks not only men, but also women—fighters and martyrs, who with their blood sealed their devotion to the cause of the toilers. Lastly, the present movement for the emancipation of the proletariat—the profoundest and mightiest of all the emancipation movements of mankind—has brought to the fore not only heroines and women martyrs, but also a mass socialist movement of millions of working women, who are fighting victoriously under the common proletarian banner.

Compared with this mighty working-women’s movement, the liberal movement of the bourgeois women intellectuals is a child’s game, invented as a pastime. I am convinced that the Congress of Highland Women will conduct its proceedings under the Red Flag. Stalin
June 17, 1921
Bulletin of the First Congress
of Eastern Working Women of the
Highland Soviet Socialist Republic
Vladikavkaz, 1921