Back to the Stove? Female Communist Press and Criticism of Austerity Measures in Public Administration (1932-1933)

The study focuses on the Great Depression era, when the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) attempted to attract new groups of voters. The study follows the Rozsevačka magazine, a party press journal for women sympathizing with the communist ideals, which paid considerable attention to the issue of austerity measures for women in the Czechoslovak civil service. The austerity measures had a big impact on the lives of women employees in the civil service, and the KSČ attempted to interest them as well as other groups of potential voters. Such a policy was a result of the decline of KSČ supporters, which followed the bolshevization of the KSČ, and lasted until 1933, when the Comintern declared new tasks for the communist parties (intensification of the fight against fascism and "social-fascism").
In connection with the austerity measures for women in the Czechoslovak civil service, the Rozsevačka magazine mostly used the rhetoric of agitation. The editors attempted to approach large masses of the public and emphasized the need for cooperation between blue-collar and white-collar workers. Members of the Czechoslovak Intelligentsia usually found a career as civil service employees and were mostly voters of the coalition government parties. As a result of the government policy of austerity measures for women, the Communists campaigned in an effort to recruit them to the party ranks.
In accordance with the party ideology, Rozsevačka magazine promoted cooperation between both genders on the common class conflict. However, it did not offer any explicit solution for the women disadvantaged by the austerity measures. From 1933 the magazine was radicalized and the previous attention to the interests of the public service employees was eclipsed by the government proposals to restrict communist activities, as well as the by the intensified course against fascism, capitalism and the capitalist (i.e. government) parties, particularly the Social Democratic Party.