Clara Zetkin (; ; née Eißner ; 5 July 1857 – 20 June 1933) was a German Marxist theorist, communist activist, and advocate for women's rights. Until 1917, she was active in the Social Democratic Party of Germany. She then joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) and its far-left wing, the Spartacist League. This later became the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), which she represented in the Reichstag during the Weimar Republic from 1920 to 1933. Biography Background and education Clara Josephine Eißner (Eissner) was born the eldest of three children in , a peasant village in Saxony, now part of the municipality Königshain-Wiederau. Her father, Gottfried Eissner, was a schoolmaster, church organist and a devout Protestant, while her mother, Josephine Vitale, had French roots, came from a middle-class family from Leipzig and was highly educated. In 1872, her family moved to Leipzig, where she was educated at the Leipzig Teachers’ College for Women. While in school she established contacts with the infant Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD; Social Democratic Party). Because of the ban placed on socialist activity in Germany by Bismarck in 1878, Zetkin left for Zurich in 1882 then went into exile in Paris, where she studied to be a journalist and a translator. During her time in Paris she played an important role in the foundation of the Socialist International group. She also adopted the name of her lover, the Russian-Jewish , a devoted Marxist, with whom she had two sons, Maxim and Konstantin (known as Kostja). Ossip Zetkin became severely ill in early 1889 and died in June of that year. Following the loss of her lover, Zetkin moved to Stuttgart with her children. She was married to artist Georg Friedrich Zundel, who was eighteen years her junior, from 1899 to 1928. Early engagement in the Social Democratic Party Her political career began after being introduced to Ossip Zetkin, whom she later married. Within a few months of attending and taking part in socialist meetings, Zetkin became entirely committed to the party, offering a Marxist approach to the demand for women's liberation. Around the time of 1880, due to the political climate in Germany, Zetkin went into exile in Switzerland and later in France. Upon her return to Germany, nearly a decade later, she became the editor of the Social Democratic Party of Germany's newspaper for women, Die Gleichheit (Equality), a post she