Title: FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS AGAINST PROSTITUTION

Author: LENIN VLADIMIR ILYCH Subject: SOCIALISM & RELATED SYSTEMS Source: Download book: Words Statistics: words statistics

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V.I. Lenin Fifth International Congress Against Prostitution Written: Rabochaya Pravda, July 13, 1913 Published: Women and Communism, Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1950 Transcribed and HTML Markup: Sally Ryan Recently the fifth international congress for combating the white slave traffic was held in London. Duchesses, countesses, bishops, parsons, rabbis, police officials and all sorts of bourgeois philanthropists displayed themselves at this congress. There was no end of ceremonial banquets and sumptuous official receptions. There was no end of solemn speeches on the harm and shame of prostitution. But what were the means of struggle which the elegant bourgeois delegates demanded at the congress The main two means were: religion and the police. These, they said, were the surest and safest means against prostitution. According to a report by the London correspondent of the Leipziger Volkszeitung, an English delegate boasted of the fact that he had introduced in Parliament a Bill providing for corporal punishment for pandering. There he is, the modern "civilised" champion of the fight against prostitution! A certain Canadian lady expressed her enthusiasm for the police and for the women police surveillance over "fallen" women; as for raising wages, however, she remarked that working women do not deserve better pay. A German parson fulminated against modern materialism which, he said, was spreading among the people to an ever greater extent and contributing to the spread of free love. When the Austrian delegate Gertner ventured to mention the social causes of prostitution, the want and misery of working-class families, the exploitation of child labour, the unbearable housing conditions, etc., the speaker was silenced by hostile shouts. On the other hand, instructive and solemn stories were told among the delegates concerning various high personages. For instance, that when the German empress is about to visit a lying-in hospital in Berlin the mothers of "illegitimate" children have rings put on their fingers, so as to spare the high personage the shocking sight of unwedded mothers. From this one can judge what disgusting bourgeois hypocrisy reigns at these aristocratic-bourgeois congresses. The mountebanks of charity and the police protectors of mockery at want and misery foregather to "fight against prostitution", which is maintained precisely by the aristocrats and the bourgeoisie.... ...

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