We often witness women who have been fighting for centuries to make the world fair and equal; Adelhedid Popp being a historical example.
As with every other aspect of their lives, women are seen as a second-class workforce everywhere and in every field of work, and they work in very poor conditions. Those who resist in history have prepared the foundations of better conditions for us. The life and resistance of worker and leader of the women’s movement, Adelheid Popp, is worth reading.
Adelheid opened her eyes to the world in 1869 as a child to a family with five children in Inzersdorf, Vienna; in late 19th century, a period when the world was deeply underdeveloped. Her life is a very meaningful example of the struggles of the working class and the most extraordinary achievements that can arise.
With a drunken and irritable father, who constantly beats his wife and an unhappy mother, working in bad conditions to sustain life day-to-day; Adelheid’s comments of her childhood and youth are that:
“a lot of people who grow up under normal conditions, remember the happy and carefree youthful days of their lives. When they have suffered severe blows and grieving, with gratitude they say ’I wish everything could be as before’. I remember my childhood with other emotions. I do not remember a bright spot, a sunshine, or a peaceful home full of love and compassion in my childhood.”
At the age of six her father dies of cancer. In 1879, she and her mother move to Vienna. With a document stating that she had been accepted 4th grade in her hand, now, it was the time to work. Adelheid and her four brothers begin to work in order to support the mother’s struggle for survival. She begins her life of labour at 10 years of age.
IT WAS TIME TO BE A WORKING WOMAN
First, she works as a maid, then as a tailor, and later as a factory worker. Under heavy operating conditions for 12 hours per day, her health is often impaired and she has to change jobs. Her greatest pleasure was reading books. “I read everything I could borrow in exchange for two Kreuzer (then the currency) that I had cut from my throat”, she says in her memoirs.
At the age of 13, she began to work in a copper factory. She is happy to work in a factory where many other little girls are working; and also because copper factories are warmer than sewing and button workshops.
The 13-year-old worker’s body cannot tolerate more severe conditions, and after a while her health deteriorates. She sees a doctor who tells her she cannot recover, she must quit, but her health problems will continue much after.
Since the reason of her common unconsciousness cannot be determined, she is hospitalized in a psychiatry clinic. Her days of being in the hospital reminds her of the tragic story of a life unlived.
After being discharged from hospital, she begins searching for a job and is later employed in a glass sanding factory. She is only 15 years old when she is harassed by an aged manager. When she sees the man behaving in the same way with all of the girls, she quits. Although the mother and brother know the situation, they blame her for being lazy. But she has a stand against life, her own truth.
MEETING STRUGGLE
After her troubles in her previous job, she finds a job in a big factory. Here, she receives the first social democratic newspaper from a fellow worker, who is also a friend of her older brother. Soon she subscribes to the newspaper.
“I could not understand the theoretical papers. But I understand the suffering of the working class. In the light of these, I learned to evaluate myself, everything that I endured was not a destiny of God, but on the contrary the inequalities in the social order.”
She attracts a lot attention as she is a very good worker, but nobody is able to do anything to her. One day she reads an article about the issue of women in her newspaper and she is very impressed.
In the socialist movement, she wants to do something as a woman, but socialist politics are usually seen as men’s work. In her first meeting in 1889, she realized that the speakers only addressed men and did not address women. In the subsequent meetings, the situation does not change, no one talks about the problems of women workers. As someone who has been working for years and knows closely the burning conditions of female workers, this disturbs her.
STRUGGLE WITHIN STRUGGLE
In 1891, in a meeting with very few women, she talked about the problems of women workers and asked the socialist workers to listen to the voices of women and educate them. This attracts a lot of attention, after which she makes speeches that discuss the problems of women workers repeatedly at various meetings.
In the meantime, it doesn’t take long before the police become interested in her:
“I became a general interest. I talk about my speeches in newspapers; the police were calling me to the police station to take my statement on the charges I had made on the basis of the examples of my work, on the exploitation of workers and the exposure of the servants to violence. They wanted me to give proof of such happenings. I became a general focus of interest regarding Socialist propaganda generally, but mostly regarding the status of women workers. Because I have the opportunity to explain my experiences and knowledge in this area.”
It is a struggle in itself, being the voice of all the working women, based on one’s own experiences. She reflects this situation in her diary:
“The truth in my words was felt in a more burning way because I was conducting my work under such difficult conditions. My own lack of oversight was perceived by my words. When I called others to mobilize all obstacles, this would not be an empty discourse. Because I was in a constant struggle against the same obstacles, material deprivation, and the mental suffering of my mother”.
A LIFE FULL OF HOPE
Unaware of her daughter’s position within the Austrian Socialist Movement, her mother insisted that she gets married and has a child. Adelheid’s greatest wish is that her mother understands her struggle, but it becomes very difficult to convince the elderly woman Friedrich Engels, A.
Bebel members visit her home to tell her mother about her place in the socialist movement. The result is unchanged. Meanwhile, Adelheid is the editor of Women Workers’ newspaper, which the leaders of the leaders of the socialist movement regards as crucial to the revolution.
In 1894 she married Julius Popp, a 20-year-old man among the people who looked after the party’s finances and published the newspaper. Julius is a good match in supporting Adelheid’s efforts.
When Adelheid attends speeches within the framework of party activities, she says to her husband, “im sorry I’m leaving the child”, but her husband gives her the same answer every time: “ I don’t want you to stay with me for personal reasons or for the child, I don’t want any obstacle, as your comrade, to prevent you from fulfilling your responsibilities.”
In 1902, when she was pregnant with her second child, Julius Popp dies. Throughout their marriage, Adelheid has great affection and respect for her husband, who experiences great sorrow with his death, but owes responsibility to her own case: “I’ve been trying to find strength from the idea that there is no flawless happiness for anyone. And socialism has given me so much, it has given my life such a great meaning that I can find the power to survive without falling into pessimism. I serve a passion for a great cause, it gives such great peace, it makes life so big, it is possible to endure anything. I learned this from my own experience.”
After the death of her husband, Adelheid’s material condition deteriorates, and during the First World War, her two sons die in an influenza epidemic. In 1919, she is the first woman to have entered parliament as a parliamentarian. She leads all the women’s policy of her political groups. These include marriage reforms, equal pay for equal work and review of the abortion law. Adelheid Popp, who withdrew from political activities in 1933 due to age, dies in 1939 as a result of a brain hemorrhage.
