Clara Zetkin

Clara Zetkin
Clara Zetkin (ca. 1920)
Born	Clara Josephine Eißner 5 July 1857 Wiederau, Saxony
Died	20 June 1933 (aged 75) Arkhangelskoye, near Moscow
Nationality	German
Occupation	Politician Peace activist Women's rights activist
Political party	SPD (till 1917) USPD (1917–1922) (Spartacus wing) KPD (1920–1933)
Partner(s)	(1850–1889)
Children	(1883–1965) (1885–1980)
Parent(s)	Gottfried Eißner Josephine Vitale/Eißner

Clara Zetkin (née Eissner; 5 July 1857 – 20 June 1933) was a German Marxist theorist, activist, and advocate for women's rights.

Until 1917, she was active in the Social Democratic Party of Germany, then she joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) and its far-left wing, the Spartacist League; this later became the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), which she represented in the Reichstag during the Weimar Republic from 1920 to 1933.

The eldest of three children, Clara Zetkin was born Clara Josephine Eissner in Wiederau, a peasant village in Saxony, now part of the municipality Königshain-Wiederau. Her father, Gottfried Eissner, was a schoolmaster and church organist who was a devout Protestant, while her mother, Josephine Vitale, had French roots, came from a middle-class family from Leipzig, and was highly educated. Having studied to become a teacher, Zetkin developed connections with the women's movement and the labour movement in Germany from 1874. In 1878 she joined the Socialist Workers' Party (Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei, SAP). This party had been founded in 1875 by merging two previous parties: the ADAV formed by Ferdinand Lassalle and the SDAP of August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht. In 1890 its name was changed to its modern version Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).