Marie-Sophie Nielsen
Marie Nielsen ( born December 23, 1875 in Nørre Herlev ( North Zealand ), † April 4, 1951 in Copenhagen) was a Danish communist and women's rights activist.
Life
Her parents were the small farmer Peder Nielsen (1836-1910) and his wife Anne -Marie, born Tygesen ( 1839-1921 ). Marie Nielsen was a teacher since 1908 and an active member of the Danish Social Democrats and their youth organization. In 1912, she made her teacher's exam with a thesis on the German Social Democracy. At the party congress in 1915, she was elected as a deputy for Herman Trier in the executive of the party. She participated in the third meeting of Zimmerwaldists conference in Stockholm in 1917 and was in close contact with the Swedish left socialists like Zeth Höglund.
Inspired by the Russian Revolution, she resigned from the Danish Social Democrats and founded in 1918 the Communist Socialistisk Arbejderparti (SAP), which became a member of the Comintern. Nielsen took over the position of editor in chief of the party member. Because of their revolutionary products she was convicted in the autumn of 1918 to 18 months in prison. After an appeal hearing before the Supreme Court of Denmark, the politically motivated sentence was reduced to six months in prison, who had just expired at the date of the judgment. The Socialistisk Arbejderparti was dissolved again in 1919. Marie Nielsen joined together with Martin Andersen Nexø in the Venstresocialistisk Parti, 1920 the recently founded Danmarks Kommunistiske Parti ( DKP) joined and became one of the most important representatives of the DKP in the 1920s.
In 1920 she was sent as a representative of the Communist teacher clubs to 2nd Congress of the Comintern in Petrograd. In the following years it belonged to the Left Opposition within the Communist world movement.
In 1925 she founded together with Inger Gamburg the Arbejderkvindernes Oplysningsforening which occurred as the first women's organization in Denmark for the release of abortions.
Because they did not want to distance themselves from Leon Trotsky, it was excluded in 1928 from the DKP. But in the following years, she was one of the speakers at the central events for International Women's Day in Denmark.