Founder of Rabotnitsa and organizer of Russia's first International Women's Day
On the eve of Rabotnitsa's first issue in February 1914, police raided the editorial office and arrested the entire board, Samoilova included. The publication permit had been a trap. But Anna Yelizarova, who arrived late and escaped the sweep, got the first issue out on 23 February — International Women's Day.
Daughter of an Irkutsk priest, she studied philosophy at the Bestuzhev Courses. In Paris in 1902 she met Lenin and joined Iskra, then spent a decade as an underground propagandist, arrested three times. As Pravda's editorial secretary, the letters from working women moved her to organize Russia's first International Women's Day in 1913. In 1914 she co-founded Rabotnitsa, the first Marxist newspaper for working women; she revived it after the February Revolution. She headed Zhenotdel in Ukraine, served on Kommunistka's board, and led the political department of the Volga agit-steamer Red Star before dying of cholera in Astrakhan in 1921.
Career Timeline
- 1896Enrolled at the Bestuzhev Courses in Petersburg, studied philosophy
- 1897–1901Active in the student movement; first arrest and expulsion in 1901
- 1902–03Studied in Paris; met Lenin and joined Iskra
- 1903–12Joined RSDLP; underground propagandist — arrested three times across Tver, Odessa, Rostov, Lugansk
- 1907Delegate to the 5th RSDLP Congress in London
- 1912–14Editorial secretary of Pravda
- 1913.02Organized Russia's first International Women's Day meeting; hundreds of working women attended
- 1914.02Launched Rabotnitsa with Inessa Armand — arrested on the eve of the first issue
- 1917Revived Rabotnitsa after the February Revolution; organized the First Conference of Women Workers
- 1918.01Co-organized the First All-Russian Congress of Working Women
- 1919–20Head of Zhenotdel for the CP(b)U in Ukraine; delegate to 8th Party Congress
- 1920–21Editorial board of Kommunistka; political commissar of the Volga agit-steamer Red Star
Related historical events
Rabotnitsa and the Organizing of Working Women
As editorial secretary of Pravda, Samoilova waded through stacks of letters from working women: accounts of harsh factory conditions, the double burden at home, and lives left untouched by political agitation. These letters convinced her that working women needed their own periodical. In February 1914, together with Inessa Armand, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and Anna Yelizarova, she prepared the first issue of Rabotnitsa. But the municipal permit proved a trap: on the eve of publication, police raided the editorial office and arrested the entire board, Samoilova included. Yelizarova, who had arrived late and escaped the sweep, saw the first issue to press on 23 February (8 March) 1914. Samoilova's vision for Rabotnitsa was never mere propaganda. She made it an editorial principle that working women would write for it themselves, analyze their own experience, and become agents of collective action. She drew a sharp line against bourgeois feminism, which she held separated the 'woman question' from the class question, and insisted that women's emancipation could be achieved only within the broader struggle for working-class liberation. After the February Revolution, Rabotnitsa resumed publication and became a central vehicle for rallying working women to the Bolsheviks in the months before October. Its momentum carried into the First Conference of Women Workers in November 1917 and the First All-Russian Congress of Working Women in January 1918, both organized by Samoilova. Taken together, this body of work earned her recognition as the figure who laid the practical and theoretical foundations of the Bolshevik women's movement in Russia.