To mark International Women's Day 2010, Links International Journal of Socilalist Renewal reproduces Alexandra Kollontai's classic history and explanation of this important anniversary. Thanks to the Marxist Internet Archive (MIA) for making this and other writings by Kollontai available. Notes by MIA.

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By Alexandra Kollontai

Mezhdunarodnyi den' rabotnitz, Moscow 1920 -- Women's Day or Working Women's Day is a day of international solidarity, and a day for reviewing the strength and organisation of proletarian women.

40,000 students march in Vienna on October 30, 2009. Photo: Press TV.

By the international press working group, Occupied University of Vienna

November 3, 2009 -- Throughout the last few years, studying conditions at Austrian universities have dramatically declined. The introduction of tuition fees, a massive cutback of democratic structures and lack of course availability are only some examples. Reasons can be found in the huge decline in university funding on the one hand and the introduction of the three-level "Bologna" system on the othe, resulting in the implementation of admission reductions and limits.

On October 22, students' dissatisfaction turned into savage protest. At noon several hundred students from the Academy of Fine Arts (which was occupied the day before) and the University of Vienna gathered to make known their desperate situation. In a spontanious action they squatted in Austria's largest auditorium in the main university building. The news of the occupation spread rapidly and soon students from several other departments joined.