Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-05T02:26:48.777Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

From Communist Internationalism to Human Rights: Gender, Violence and International Law in the Women's International Democratic Federation Mission to North Korea, 1951

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

CELIA DONERT
CELIA DONERT*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Liverpool, 8–14 Abercromby Square, Liverpool L69 7WZ; [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In May 1951 the Women's International Democratic Federation – a communist-sponsored non-governmental organisation – sent an all-female international commission to investigate the war crimes and atrocities allegedly committed by United Nations forces against civilians during the military occupation of North Korea in late 1950. Communist internationalism has been relatively marginalised in the recent wave of scholarship on internationalism and international organisations. This article uses the Women's International Democratic Federation mission to Korea to analyse how the shifting relationship between communist internationalism, human rights and feminism played out in the ‘Third World’ during the early Cold War.

Type
Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 25 , Issue 2: Agents of Internationalism , May 2016 , pp. 313 - 333
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Korea: We Accuse! Report of the Commission of the Women's International Democratic Federation in Korea, May 16 to 27, 1951 (Berlin: Women's International Democratic Federation, 1951).

2 Laville, Helen, Cold War Women: The International Activities of American Women's Organisations (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 137–8Google Scholar.

3 Haan, Francisca de, ‘Continuing Cold War Paradigms in the Western Historiography of Transnational Women's Organisations: The Case of the Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF)’, Women's History Review, 19, 4 (2010), 547–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Rupprecht, Tobias, Soviet Internationalism after Stalin: Interaction and Exchange between Latin America and the Soviet Union during the Cold War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Slobodian, Quinn, ed., Comrades of Color. East Germany in the Cold War World (New York: Berghahn, 2015)Google Scholar; Kirasirova, Masha, ‘“Sons of Muslims” in Moscow: Soviet Central Asian Mediators to the Foreign East, 1955–1962’, Ab Imperio, 4 (2011), 106–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Hoffmann, Stefan-Ludwig, ‘Genealogies of Human Rights’, in ibid. ed., Human Rights in the Twentieth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 16–7Google Scholar.

6 Hong, Young-Sun, Cold War Germany, the Third World, and the Global Humanitarian Regime (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Rupp, Leila, Worlds of Women. The Making of an International Women's Movement (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

8 Haan, Francisca de, ‘Hoffnungen auf eine bessere Welt: Die frühen Jahre der Internationalen Demokratischen Frauenföderation (IDFF/WIDF) (1945æ1950)’, in Kämper, Gabriele, Othmer, Regine and Sachse, Carola, eds., Gebrochene Utopien. Feministische Studien, 27, 2 (2009), 241–57Google Scholar.

9 Mooney, Jadwiga Pieper, ‘Fighting Fascism and Forging New Political Activism: The Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF) in the Cold War’, in Mooney and Lanza, Fabio, eds., De-Centering Cold War History: Local and Global Change (London: Routledge, 2013), 52–72Google Scholar.

10 Francisca de Haan, ‘The Women's International Democratic Federation: History, Main Agenda, and Contributions, 1945–1991’, Women and Social Movements International, 1840 to the Present, www.alexanderstreet.com (last visited 10 Dec. 2015).

11 This is the figure cited in the WIDF report on Korea. See Korea: Wir klagen an! (Berlin: Internationale Demokratische Frauenförderation, 1951).

12 Johnston, Timothy, ‘Peace or Pacifism? The Soviet “Struggle for Peace in All the World”, 1948–54’, The Slavonic and East European Review, 86, 2 (2008), 259–82Google Scholar; for further context see, Johnston, Timothy, Being Soviet: Identity, Rumour and Everyday Life under Stalin 1939–1953 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Francisca de Haan, ‘Continuing Cold War Paradigms’.

14 Bonfiglioli, Chiara, ‘Cold War Internationalisms, Nationalisms, and the Yugoslav-Soviet Split: The Union of Italian Women and the Antifascist Women's Front of Yugoslavia’, in de Haan, Francisca, et al., eds., Women's Activism: Global Perspectives from the 1890s to the Present (London: Routledge, 2013), 59–73Google Scholar; Popa, Raluca, ‘Translating Equality between Cold War Divides: Women Activists from Hungary and Romania and the Creation of International Women's Year’, in Massino, Jill and Penn, Shana, eds., Gender Politics and Everyday Life in State Socialist East and Central Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 59–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ghodsee, Kristen, ‘Rethinking State Socialist Mass Women's Organizations: The Committee of the Bulgarian Women's Movement and the United Nations Decade for Women, 1975–1985’, Journal of Women's History, 24, 2 (2012), 49–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 The debates can be followed in more detail in Nanette Funk, ‘A Very Tangled Knot. Official State Socialist Women's Organisations, Women's Agency and Feminism in Eastern European State Socialism’, European Journal of Women's Studies, 21, 4 (2014), 344–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ghodsee, Kristen, ‘Untangling the Knot: A Response to Funk’, in European Journal of Women's Studies, 22, 2 (2015), 248–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 On the intersection between interwar anti-fascism and anti-racism, see Pennybacker, Susan, From Scottsboro to Munich: Race and Political Culture in 1930s Britain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

17 Wieviorka, Annette, Maurice et Jeannette. Biographie du Couple Thorez (Paris: Fayard, 2010)Google Scholar; Durand, Dominique, Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier. Une Femme Engagée du PCF au Procès de Nuremberg (Paris: Balland, 2012)Google Scholar.

18 On the reinvention of the WILPF after the Second World War see Confortini, Catia Cecila, Intelligent Compassion: Feminist Critical Methodology in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Feinberg, Melissa, ‘Battling for Peace: The Transformation of the Women's Movement in Cold War Czechoslovakia and Eastern Europe’, in Regulska, Joanna and Smith, Bonnie, eds., Women and Gender in Postwar Europe (London: Routledge, 2013), 16–33Google Scholar; Necasova, Denisa, Buduj vlast – Posilis Mir! Zenske Hnuti v Ceskych Zemich, 1945–1955 (Brno: Matice Moravska, 2011)Google Scholar.

20 Tambor, Molly, The Lost Wave. Women and Democracy in Postwar Italy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Moro, Renato, ‘The Catholic Church, Italian Catholics and Peace Movements: The Cold War Years, 1947–1962’, Contemporary European History, 17, 3 (2008), 365–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Ziemann, Benjamin, Peace Movements in Western Europe, Japan and the USA during the Cold War (New York: Berg, 2007)Google Scholar.

22 Moyn, Samuel, ‘Personalism, Community and the Origins of Human Rights’, in Hoffmann, Human Rights in History, 85–106Google Scholar, Moyn, Samuel, Christian Human Rights (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015)Google Scholar.

23 Hirsch, Francine, ‘The Soviets at Nuremberg: International Law, Propaganda, and the Making of the Postwar Order’, American Historical Review, 113, 3 (2008),701–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Francine Hirsch, ‘The Soviets at Nuremberg’.

25 Pendaries, Yveline, Les Procès de Rastatt (1946–1954). Le Jugement des Crimes de Guerre en Zone Francaise d'Occupation en Allemagne (Bern: Peter Lang, 1995)Google Scholar.

26 Clifford, Rebecca, Commemorating the Holocaust: The Dilemmas of Remembrance in France and Italy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Ilic, Melanie, ‘Soviet Women, Cultural Exchange, and the Women's International Democratic Federation’, in Autio-Sarasmo, Sari, Miklossy, Katalin, eds., Reassessing Cold War Europe (London: Routledge, 2010), 163Google Scholar.

28 Armstrong, Elisabeth, ‘Before Bandung: The Anti-Imperialist Women's Movement in Asia and the Women's International Democratic Federation’, Signs, 41, 2 (2016), 305–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Ra, Jong-yil, ‘Governing North Korea. Some Thoughts on the Autumn of 1950’, Journal of Contemporary History, 40, 3 (2005), 521–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Conway-Lanz, Sahr, ‘Beyond No Gun Ri: Refugees and the United States Military in the Korean War’, Diplomatic History, 29, 1 (J2005), 49–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Conway-Lanz, Sahr, ‘Bombing Civilians after World War II: The Persistence of Norms against Targeting Civilians in the Korean War’, in Evangelista, Matthew and Shue, Henry, eds., The American Way of Bombing: Changing Ethical and Legal Norms, from Flying Fortresses to Drones (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014), 47–63Google Scholar.

30 Casey, Steven, Selling the Korean War: Propaganda, Politics, and Public Opinion in the United States, 1950–1953 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier, WIDF Secretariat, to A. Hodinová-Spurná, 28 Mar. 1951, and report by Komunistická Strana Československa, Sekretariát Ústředního Výboru: Vyšetřující komise MFDŽ pro Koreu‘ v Praze dne 10. Dubna 1951, KSČ ÚV AML, f. 22: Ústřední komise žen, Národní Archiv (NA) Prague.

32 Hong, Cold War Germany, 53.

33 Korea: Wir Klagen An! Bericht der Kommission der Internationalen Demokratischen Frauen-Föderation in Korea vom 16. bis 27. Mai 1951 (Berlin: IDFF, 1951).

34 Cherifati-Merabtine, Doria, ‘Algeria at a Crossroads: National Liberation, Islamization and Women’, in Moghadam, Valentine, ed., Gender and National Identity: Women and Politics in Muslim Societies (London: Zed Books, 1994), 45Google Scholar.

35 Slobodian, Quinn, ‘The Uses of Disorientation: Socialist Cosmopolitanism in an Unfinished DEFA-China Documentary’, in Slobodian, ed., Comrades of Color. East Germany in the Cold War World (New York: Berghahn, 2015)Google Scholar.

36 Hartewig, Karin, Zurückgekehrt: Die Geschichte der Jüdischen Kommunisten in der DDR (Köln: Böhlau, 2000), 112Google Scholar.

37 Felton, Monica, cited in Russell, Dora, The Tamarisk Tree, vol. 3: Challenge to the Cold War (London: Virago, 1985), 144Google Scholar.

38 Balch, Emily Greene, ed., Occupied Haiti (New York: The Writers Publishing Company, 1927)Google Scholar; Plastas, Melinda, A Band of Noble Women: Racial Politics in the Women's Peace Movement (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2011)Google Scholar.

39 On the Report of the Commission of the Women's International Democratic Federation to Korea: Letter to U.N. by the Executive Committee of the WIDF, Dora Russell Papers, inv. 389, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam.

40 Kim, Suzy, Everyday Life in the North Korean Revolution, 1945–1950 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013), 175Google Scholar.

41 Barraclough, Ruth, ‘Red Love and Betrayal in the Making of North Korea: Comrade Hŏ Jŏng-suk’, History Workshop Journal, 77, 1 (2014), 86–102CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 Korea: Wir Klagen An. (Berlin: IDFF, 1951), 13.

43 Lemke, Michael, ‘Wahrnehmungen und Wirkung des Koreakrieges im geteilten Deutschland’, in Kleßmann, Christoph and Stöver, Bernd, eds., Der Koreakrieg: Wahrnehmung, Wirkung, Erinnerung (Köln: Böhlau, 2008), 74–96Google Scholar.

44 Heineman, Elizabeth D., Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones: From the Ancient World to the Era of Human Rights (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 1Google Scholar.

45 Atina Grossmann, ‘The “Big Rape”: Sex and Sexual Violence, War, and Occupation in Post-World War II Memory and Imagination’, in Heineman, Sexual Violence.

46 Kim, Suzy, Everyday Life in the North Korean revolution; Armstrong, Charles K., The North Korean Revolution, 1945–1950 (Cornell University Press, 2004), 71–106Google Scholar.

47 Carruthers, Susan, Cold War Captives: Imprisonment, Escape, and Brainwashing (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

48 Terretta, Meredith, Petitioning for Our Rights, Fighting for Our Nation. The History of the Democratic Union of Cameroonian Women, 1949–1960 (Langaa: RPCIG, 2013), 105–8Google Scholar.

49 On Monica Felton see Buchanan, Tom, East Wind. China and the British Left, 1925–1976 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Clapson, Mark, ‘The Rise and Fall of Monica Felton, British Town Planner and Peace Activist, 1930s to 1950s’, Planning Perspectives, 30, 2 (2014), 211–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 Lilly Waechter, RG 466 HICOG, Entry A1-64, Court of Appeals Files, Box 303, Folder 1, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); see also trial records in DFD archives: Verhaftung und Verurteilung Lilly Wächters am 25. Sept. 1951: Prozessprotokoll, DY31/1240, bl. 26., SAPMO-BArch.

51 Wildenthal, Lora, The Language of Human Rights in West Germany (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012)Google Scholar; Grunvald, Henning, Courtroom to Revolutionary Stage. Performance and Ideology in Weimar Political Trials (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52 Heineman, Elizabeth D., Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones: From the Ancient World to the Era of Human Rights (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013)Google Scholar.

53 United States Court of Appeals of the Allied High Commission for Germany: Office of the United States High Commissioner for Germany vs Lilly Wächter. Case no. 51–340; Opinion no. 755 (28 Mar. 1952), Nachlass Friedrich Karl Kaul, NY4238, sg. 113: SAPMO-BArch, Berlin.

54 United States Court of Appeals (28 Mar. 1952), Nachlass Friedrich Karl Kaul, NY4328, sg. 113, SAPMO-BArch, Berlin.

55 Stoehr, Irene, ‘Cold War Communities: Women's Peace Politics in Postwar West Germany, 1945–52’, in Hagemann, Karen and Schüler-Springorum, Stefanie, Home/Front: The Military, War and Gender in Twentieth-Century Germany (Oxford: Berg, 2002)Google Scholar.

56 Stoehr, Irene, ‘Friedensklärchens Feindinnen: Klara-Marie Fassbinder and das antikommunistische Frauennetzwerk’, in Paulus, Julia, Silies, Eva-Maria and Wolff, Kerstin, eds., Zeitgeschichte als Geschlechtergeschichte: Neue Perspektiven auf die Bundesrepublik (Frankfurt: Campus, 2012), 69–91Google Scholar.

57 Wächter, Lilly, geb. Schuster, Landesamt für die Wiedergutmachung: Außenstelle Freiburg, F 196/2 Nr. 1178, Staatsarchiv Freiburg.

58 Weber, Hermann and Weber, Gerda, Leben nach dem Prinzip Links. Erinnerungen aus fünf Jahrzehnten (Berlin: Links, 2006)Google Scholar.

59 Letter from Lilly Wächter to Hilde Cahn, 4 Aug. 1951, DY31/1240, bl. 128, BArch SAPMO.

60 Letter from Lilly Wächter to Internationale Demokratische Frauenföderation (IDFF/WIDF), 12 Sept. 1951, DY 30/1240, bl. 163, BArch SAPMO.

61 Letter from Lilly Wächter to Internationale Demokratische Frauenföderation (IDFF/WIDF), 12 Sept. 1951, DY 30/1240, bl. 163, BArch SAPMO.

62 Lilly Wächter to Elli Schmidt, 7 Oct. 1951, DY30/1240, bl. 228, BArch-SAPMO.

63 Dr. Marcel Frenkel to Hilde Neumann, International Association of Democratic Laywers, 13 Oct. 1951, DY 30/IV 2/13/571, BArch SAPMO. For background see Rigoll, Dominik, Staatsschutz in Westdeutschland. Von der Entnazifizierung zur Extremistenabwehr (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2013), 56Google Scholar.

64 Rosskopf, Annette, Friedrich Karl Kaul: Anwalt im geteilten Deutschland (1906–1981) (Berlin: Arno Spitz/Nomos, 2002)Google Scholar.

65 Guest Lecture given by D. N. Pritt at Humboldt University in Berlin (‘Aus den Erfahrungen eines Verteidigers in politischen Prozessen’), 17 Nov. 1960, D. N. Pritt Papers 1/39, LSE Archives.

66 See Rabinbach, Anson, ‘Staging Antifascism: The Brown Book of the Reichstag Fire and Hitler Terror’, New German Critique, 103 (2008), 97–126CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 Pennybacker, Susan, From Scottsboro to Munich: Race and Political Culture in 1930s Britain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 210–3Google Scholar.

68 For an account of the Kenyatta trial see Anderson, David, Histories of the Hanged. Britain's Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2005), 66–7Google Scholar.

69 Guest Lecture given by D. N. Pritt at Humboldt University in Berlin (‘Aus den Erfahrungen eines Verteidigers in politischen Prozessen’), 17 Nov. 1960, D. N. Pritt Papers 1/39, LSE Archives.

70 Lilly Waechter, RG 466 HICOG, Entry A1-64, Court of Appeals Files, Box 303, Folder 1, 19, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

71 Lilly Waechter, RG 466 HICOG, Entry A1-64, Court of Appeals Files, Box 303, Folder 1, 23, NARA.

72 Kaul, Friedrich Karl, Ich sagte die Wahrheit: Lilly Wächter. Ein Vorbild der deutschen Frauen im Kampf um den Frieden (Berlin: Deutscher Frauenverlag, 1952)Google Scholar.

73 ‘Hausfrau entlarvt den Ami-Kadi’ Märkische Volkstimme, 27 Nov.1951, DY31/1262, bl. 104, BArch-SAPMO.

74 ‘Lilly Waechter vs Office of the US HICOG: Appeal from the Fourth Judicial Area, Brief for Appellee’, 5 Dec. 1951, RG 466 HICOG, Entry A1-64, Court of Appeals Files, Box 303, Lilly Wächter, Folder 2, 11, NARA.

75 Grunvald, Courtroom, 1Google Scholar.

76 Friedman, Max Paul, ‘The Cold War Politics of Exile, Return, and the Search for a Usable Past’, in Karl Kaul, Friedrich, Es Wird Zeit, Dass Du Nach Hause Kommst’, German Life and Letters, 58, 3 (2005)Google Scholar; see also the memoirs of lawyers such as Kraschutzki, Heinz, ed., Staatsgefährdung? Ein dokumentarischer Prozessbericht (Hannover: Fritz Küster, 1961)Google Scholar; Posser, Diether, Anwalt im Kalten Krieg: Ein Stück deutscher Geschichte in politischen Prozessen, 1951–1968 (München: Bertelsmann, 1991)Google Scholar; Hannover, Heinrich, Die Republik vor Gericht, 1975–1995: Erinnerungen eines unbequemen Rechtsanwalts (Berlin: Aufbau, 1999)Google Scholar.

77 On Kaul's role in the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial see Pendas, Devin O., The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial, 1963–1965: Genocide, History, and the Limits of the Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 123–30Google Scholar.

78 Correspondence with Stadtmuseum Rastatt; see www.rastatt.de/index.php?id=397 (last visited 31 Jan. 2016).

79 Hong, Cold War Germany, Armstrong, Charles, ‘“Fraternal Socialism”: The International Reconstruction of North Korea, 1953–62’, Cold War History, 5, 2 (2005), 161–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

80 Gorsuch, Anne and Koenker, Diane, eds., The Socialist Sixties. Crossing Borders in the Second World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013)Google Scholar; Slobodian, Quinn, ed., Comrades of Color (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2015)Google Scholar

81 For a first-hand account of the UN debates see the description by Dora Russell, who attended the ECOSOC session as WIDF representative, in Russell, Tamarisk, 151–69.

82 Letter from Andrea Andreen to Dora Russell, 27 Nov. 1956, Dora Russell Papers, inv. 270, IISH.

83 Wu, Judy Tzu-Chun, Radicals on the Road: Internationalism, Orientalism, and Feminism during the Vietnam Era (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013)Google Scholar; Mooney, Jadwiga Pieper, ‘Fighting Fascism and Forging New Political Activism: The Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF) in the Cold War’, in Mooney and Lanza, De-Centering Cold War History, 52–72Google Scholar.

84 Klinghoffer, Arthur and Klinghoffer, Judith, International Citizens' Tribunals. Mobilizing Public Opinion to Advance Human Rights (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002)Google Scholar.