My mum sent me a text yesterday, in which she gave me an executive summary of the origin of the International women’s day.

Roughly translated:

“Happy International Women’s Day[1]. In 1910 the German feminist and socialist, Clara Zetkin, is believed to have come up with the idea of an international day to recognise and celebrate working class women struggle for civil rights.

In 1977 it was decided that 8 March would become International Women’s Day.

Did you know this, dear son?”

I did not. But I started googling, and boy what I found.

Socialst and feminist in 1910. I don’t have to tell you about the headwinds that she would face after the fire in the German parlament, 23 years later.

After the Reichstagsbrandverordnung (Reichtag Fire Decree) in 1933, she finnaly knew she needed to get the fuck out of the banans republic of Adolf Hitler and co. And she fled to the only a place she thought she would be safe, Stalins Russia. She was no stranger to Moskow, in fact she use to have a private flat in Moskows most sought after neighbourhood — the Kremlin.

Unfortunately, she could not enjoy a long, and deserved, retirement in Moskow. That same year she passed away, at the age of 76.

And that is where Wikipedida finally blew my mind.

Her remains, her urn, is buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, with bunch of other famous dead communists. And fucking Joseph Stalin carried the urn to slot 44, where her remains still sit to this day.

Except her brain, which was surgically removed after her death to be researched in some russian brain-research institution, alongside other great communist brains, such as Lenins.

What a story.

Footnotes:

[1] The icelandic translation of the day is way fucking better, but hard to translate. The meaning of the icelandic name is something like “International day of Women struggle/battle/resistance.” I mean look at this women, she is not being celebrated, she is fucking fight for what is hers (and, assuming, based on the design, in the process, also for the end of capitalism. That is a different story).