The Challenges of Researching the History of Communist Women

Women leaders from all over the Global South came together in China in 1949 to strategize about building an anti-imperialist, anti-colonial women’s movement at The Revolutionary Feminist Conference. The conference worked to overcome the fact that imperialists and colonialists were sharing materials, ideas, and plans among themselves, while working to prevent the people’s movements leaders from communicating. 

While the event has long been little known, historian Dr. Lisa Armstrong spent years tracking down documentation and talking to attendees all over the world. Here’s what she found.

Brian is joined by Prof. Armstrong, a professor and department chair of the study of women and gender at Smith College and an author, most recently of the book “Bury the Corpse of Colonialism: The Revolutionary Feminist Conference of 1949,” which you can find here: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520390911/bury-the-corpse-of-colonialism. 

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