[* Ecclesiastes.]
Some time ago US scientist George R. Tamarin, who had lived for many years in Israel, conducted an experiment which yielded eloquent and significant results.
He compared the written replies to 1066 questionnaires on The Book of Joshua (which is taught in Israeli schools from forms four to eight) sent to him by 563 boys and 503 girls studying in various forms of various schools in Israel.
“You are well acquainted,” ran the questionnaire, “with the following passages of The Book of Joshua: ‘So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city. And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword. (VI, 20, 21.) And that day Joshua took Makkedah, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and the king thereof he utterly destroyed, them, and all the souls that were therein; he let none remain in it; but did unto the king of Makkedah as he did unto the king of Jericho. . . .’ (X, 28–30.)
“Please answer the following two questions:
“1. Do you think Joshua and the Israelites acted rightly or not? Explain why you think as you do.
“2. Suppose that the Israeli Army conquers an Arab village in battle. Do you think it would be good or bad to act towards the inhabitants as did Joshua towards the people of Jericho (and Makkedah)? Explain why. . . . .”
Further Tamarin wrote: “Joshua’s genocide is not the only one of its type mentioned in the Bible. We selected this particular example because of the special position The Book of Joshua has in the educational system. . . .” [1]
This questionnaire was circulated in schools in Tel Aviv, in a village near Ramle, in Sharon, in the kibbutz Meuchad, and other places.
Here are some of the answers. A schoolboy from Sharon wrote: “The objective of the wars was the conquest of the country for the Israelites. Therefore, the Israelites acted well in conquering the cities and killing the inhabitants. It is undesirable to have a foreign enclave in Israel: The people of the different religion could have influenced the Israelis. . . .” [2]
“Joshua acted well in killing the people of Jericho,” wrote a schoolgirl from the kibbutz Meuchad, “since he still had the whole country to conquer, and did not have time to spend on prisoners of war.” [3]
From 66 to 95 per cent of the answers, depending on the given school, kibbutz or town, were in the same vein.
Thirty per cent of the answers to the second question were categorically in favour of wiping out the inhabitants of a captured Arab village.
This is the sort of thing the children wrote: “I think it was good because we want our enemies to be conquered, and to widen our frontiers, and we would kill Arabs as Joshua and the Israelites did.” [4] (Form Seven.)
“In my opinion,” wrote an eight-form pupil, “the Israeli Army has to act in an Arab village as Joshua acted, since the Arabs are our enemy in their souls, and therefore, even if they would be in captivity they would look for any opportunity to kill their guards.” [5]
These are just some of the fruits of Zionist “education” and they did not grow on their own, but on the deeply rooted tree of Zionist ideology which we shall examine in this chapter.
“Can we possibly attribute to chance,” Lenin wrote in 1903, “the fact that it is the reactionary forces all over Europe, and especially in Russia, who oppose the assimilation of the Jews and try to perpetuate their isolation?” [6]
The way in which the question was posed indicated that Lenin did not consider it a coincidence.
The walls of the medieval ghettos which enabled the leaders of the Jewish communities to control the Jewish masses collapsed; Judaism, the spiritual ghetto, succumbed to the massive blows of the new times and the forces directly concerned with preserving at least a fraction of their influence and control, a part of their erstwhile hegemony, directed their efforts to bringing to life new spiritual and organisational forms of the ghetto that would be in keeping with the times and ensuring their efficacy.
One of the organisational forms was the Zionist concern in the form of the World Zionist Organisation and the Jewish Colonial Trust, while Zionist ideology became one of the new forms of the spiritual ghetto.
In the latter half of the 19th century 86.5 per cent of the Jews resided in Europe, [7] and in each European country there arose among Jews and non-Jews alike forces that in Lenin’s words favoured the undeniable progressive assimilation of the Jews with the surrounding population, and those opposing this process.
“There is no other country to which we would be devoted as we are to this country. What other homeland calls on us to defend it? We did not emigrate to Germany, but were born here. Thus, either we are Germans or we are homeless. There is only one consecration to nationality, and that is blood spilled in common struggle for the freedom of the land of one’s birth.” [8] Uttered at the close of the last century, these words were a challenge to Prussian anti-Semites and mirrored not only the sentiments of the overwhelming majority of the Jews, but also constituted their way of thinking.
“Gentile opponents of Jewish emancipation,” wrote historian Ben Halpern, “could not directly defend the religious discrimination that existed under the ancien régime. Hence, they developed an argument against granting citizenship to the Jews that could be defended in terms of liberal principles, contending that the Jews constituted . . . a separate nation from the majority in the countries where they lived” [9] (emphasis added—Y.I.).
It was this idea, the idea of the “Jewish nation,” which, as Lenin insisted, was absolutely false and reactionary in content, that directly or indirectly communicated to the Jewish working people a mood of hostility towards assimilation, a “ghetto” mood, [10] that became both the point of departure for anti-Semites and the mainstay of all Zionist ideological and theoretical edifices.
The concept of a “world Jewish nation,” which the Zionists have used and are still using today to impose their ideological and political control over people in different countries, should not be confused with the problem of the Israeli nation (examined in later chapters). These questions occupy totally different planes, and it would be quite wrong to seek to connect them in any way. Thus many English and Irish have long since become Australians or New Zealanders, just as many Ukrainians, Frenchmen, Jews and Russians have become Canadians, acquiring all the specific traits of the given nation.
Let us examine the more typical arguments advanced by Zionist ideologues* in support of the idea that irrespective of the country where they might be living people of Jewish origin are part of a “world Jewish nation.”**
[* NOTE: In this chapter we shall examine the views and concepts of the most prominent Zionist theoreticians, since these are being used by world Zionism in the form in which they were originally conceived.]
[** NOTE: Caring little for the truth and being more concerned with increasing the confusion over the question of the content of Zionism, bourgeois students of the so-called Zionist movement describe it as a sum total of diverse and even antagonistic trends which “appeared independently of one another.” They distinguish between the proponents of spiritual Zionism and political Zionism and talk about territorial Zionists, revisionist Zionists and so forth. Such classification, which is bound to be purely relative, can at best be of help only in studying Zionist tactics and the nature of the illusions entertained by deluded rank-and-file Zionists. Even with the best possible intentions this compartmentalisation can be established only upon ascertaining the content of Zionism as an integral phenomenon and revealing its major strategic objectives.]
The most touching point about those Hebrew prayers,” writes Moses Hess,* one of the early ideologues of Zionism, “is that they are really an expression of the collective Jewish spirit; they do not plead for the individual, but for the entire Jewish race. . . . The ‘new’ Jew, who denies the existence of the Jewish nationality, is not only a deserter in the religious sense, but is also a traitor to his people, his race, and even his family.” [11]
(* Born in Germany in 1812, Moses Hess was an ardent supporter of the assimilation of the Jews. He took part in the Revolution of 1848 and after its defeat fled to France where he soon radically changed his views. He is the author of Rom und Jerusalem (1862).)
Gradually, as if it were something that automatically follows, the former “revolutionary” Moses Hess evolves the concept of a “world Jewish nation” out of the “collective Jewish spirit” in particular and Judaism as a whole.
Dealing with the same question, L. Pinsker,* another Zionist ideologue, wrote in his Avtoemansipatsia (Autoemancipation) that although the Jews were not considered a nation, since they had lost its essential features, “the Jewish people . . . continued to exist spiritually as a nation. The world recognised in this people a sinister ghost roaming among the living. . . . If fear at the sight of a ghost is inherent in many and can, to a certain extent, be attributed to his psychic world, it is not surprising that it makes itself felt at the sight of this dead, but still living nation.” [12]
[* NOTE: L. Pinsker (1821–1891), a publicist in Russia, and a founder of Zionist ideology.]
Pinsker writes that although the Jews are not considered a nation, they nevertheless are a nation by virtue of their “collective spirit.” They are an exclusive, incomprehensible “spiritually specific nation” which arouses the apprehension of other peoples.
Ahad Ha’am, another prominent Zionist ideologue, refers to the purely biblical concept of “a chosen people” dispersed throughout the world, “entrusted by God” with a special mission.
Leon Simon believes that “it is rather the idea of Palestine that is the indispensable object of national attachment” [13] which makes the Jews a nation.
And finally, Martin Buber, a prominent Zionist philosopher, speaks about the extreme supernaturalness of the “world Jewish nation.” He is convinced that the Jews are the only nation in the world which took shape in times immemorial simultaneously as a nation and a religious community. Moreover, the Jewish community is, from his point of view, the “crown of creation,” while the “world Jewish nation” is merely natural subordinate phenomenon.
This assortment of Zionist concepts was drummed into the people from the pulpit. It was no accident that Theodor Herzl, one of the “Fathers” of Zionism, who was well aware of the utter scientific untenability of the Zionists’ theoretical baggage, indicated at the outset of his activity that to propagandise Zionist ideas there was no need to convene meetings with their inevitable empty talk. “This propaganda,” he continued, “will be an integral part of worship.” [14]
Confronted with the need to erect the walls of a new spiritual ghetto, the Zionists naturally had no intention of popularising Engels’s proposition that the “Jewish so-called Holy Scripture is nothing more than a record of the old-Arabian religious and tribal tradition . . .” [15] They were occupied with other matters. Incidentally, another reason for the creation of the myth of the antiquity of Zionism, one which we did not mention in the previous chapter, was the need of the Zionist ideologues of which (diehard pragmatists at heart) they were fully aware, to identify themselves with religion even if it had lost many of its positions and was turning primarily into Reform Judaism, since it still provided a direct link for communication with a considerable (although decreasing) number of people who held to their religion while no longer believing in the sanctity of Zion.
However false it might have appeared to Judaists, Zionism’s self-identification with Judaism pursued the major objective of subjugating Judaism, which was no longer able to fulfil the functions of a spiritual ghetto, and using it as an auxiliary instrument.
This intention was unequivocally indicated by the Zionists themselves. Speaking at a Zionist meeting in Cincinnati in 1914, the late Professor Solomon Schechter said: “We must have Zionism, if we want Judaism, orthodox or reform, to continue to exist. Judaism . . . is in a very weak condition, not only in America, but also in Europe.” [16] Needless to say, in characterising Zionism as an essential factor for preserving Judaism, the learned professor was not guided by love for the beauty of the synagogue service. He stated, plainly and simply, that the continued existence of the old form of the spiritual ghetto depends solely on the consolidation of its new form.
One of the first to warn of the possible collapse of the old forms of the spiritual ghetto and to indicate that they could be preserved only by devising new levers with which to influence people’s minds was Ahad Ha’am, who wrote: “It is not only Jews who have come out of the Ghetto: Judaism has come out, too. For Jews the exodus is confined to certain countries, and is due to toleration, but Judaism has come out (or is coming out) of its own accord wherever it has come into contact with modern culture. This contact with modern culture overturns the defences of Judaism from within, so that Judaism can no longer remain isolated and live a life apart.”
Apprehensive that Judaism would be unable to develop because of an all-embracing influence of the dominant national spirit in a particular country, he continued: “When it [Judaism—Y.I.] leaves the Ghetto walls it is in danger of losing its essential being or—at best—its national unity: it is in danger of being split up into as many kinds of Judaism, each with a different character and life, as there are countries of Jewish dispersion.” [17]
The theological excurses of Zionist theoreticians thus had a definite purpose. They were primarily an attempt to create something half way between Cecil Rhodes’ colonial “theory” and the rabbi’s ordinary sermon, using the former as a means of “re-orientating” the rabbis and the latter as a means of winning a following.
Although mostly educated people, familiar with the great scientific discoveries of the times, with Marx’s theory of surplus value and the works of Lenin, Zionists nonetheless unashamedly pursued their talmudic studies. They had to have a church, but only as an auxiliary instrument and not as an equal ally.
Therefore, we consider as groundless the assertions that Ahad Ha’am, Pérez Smolenskin, Martin Buber and others sought to “reconcile” Judaism with Zionism, as also the attempts to portray them as equivalent forces. They were simply playing safe. Reform Judaism’s citadel in the USA, one of the mightiest in the world, capitulated to Zionism as far back as the mid-1930s and not under the impact of emotional motives, but under the pressure of monopoly capital.
For people who are not to be duped by mysticism or religion, the Zionists are working out a special set of arguments in favour of the existence of a “world Jewish nation.” Paying tribute to the idea of the incomprehensible and supernatural nature of the “world Jewish nation,” Chaim Weizmann, Justice L. Brandeis, Nahum Sokolow, Ber Borochov and others placed direct emphasis on the “cultural community of the Jews,” their “specific historical past,” and their “peculiar way of thinking” which will persist even when the Jewish “religion has long ceased to be a living force.” [18] On top of that they seek to “prove” that the Jews are a “world Jewish nation” on the grounds of “the conviction of the outside world that it is a nation.” [19]
In the preceding chapter we briefly reviewed the destiny of the most diverse Jewish communities mainly by quoting scholars whom even the Zionists never listed as anti-Semites. Brief as it is, this review shows that except in the most remote times there are no grounds for speaking of a Jewish “common history.”
An excellent example of how futile it is to attempt to integrate the history of diverse Jewish communities is Cecil Roth’s A History of the Jews, one of many similar works. [20]
As regards a “common culture” of the Jews, Max Nordau wrote with Herzl-like candidness that “we shall retain the European culture which we have acquired during the last two thousand years. . . . We can smile at the suggestion that we should become . . . Asiatics. We should just as little become Asiatics in an anthropological and cultural sense, as the Anglo-Saxons in North America have become Red Indians. [Emphasis added—Y.I.] We should aim at doing in Asia Minor what the English have done in India. . . .” [21]
In response to the ruses of the Zionists unable to conceal their desire to gather citizens of the most diverse countries under the panoply of a “world nation,” Lenin polemicising with the Bund leadership which armed itself with a set of Zionist ideas, quotes Alfred Naquet as follows: “. . . Are the Jews a nation? Although they were one in the remote past, my reply is a categorical negative. The concept nation implies certain conditions which do not exist in this case. . . . And the Jews no longer have either a territory or a common language [this does not pertain to the Israeli nation, but to the so-called world Jewish nation—Y.I.]. . . . German and French Jews are quite unlike Polish and Russian Jews. The characteristic features of the Jews include nothing that bears the imprint (empreinte) of nationality. . . .”
Sharing this view Lenin adds: “All that remains for the Bundists is to develop the theory of a separate Russian-Jewish nation, whose language is Yiddish and their territory the Pale of Settlement.” [22]
Prominent among the Zionist concepts of a “world Jewish nation” is Theodor Herzl’s tenet conceived to impress the public at large. “A nation,” he wrote, “is, in my mind, a historical group of men of a recognisable cohesion, held together by a common enemy. Then, if you add to that the word ‘Jewish,’ you would have what I understand to be the Jewish nation.” [23]
Herzl apparently did not attach any importance to the question of the distinguishing features of a nation, otherwise he would have considered it necessary to elaborate it in greater detail. As regards the “enemy,” Herzl repeatedly stressed that it had always been and would continue to be anti-Semitism.
According to Herzl’s reasoning, the “Jewish nation” will cease to exist only when anti-Semitism disappears. But Zionists predict that “anti-Semitism is eternal.”
So long as the “Jewish nation” owes its existence to the constant presence of its enemy (i.e., anti-Semitism) it follows that anti-Semitism is present among all peoples living side by side with the Jews. “Ah, but it’s not only present,” Zionists assert.
“The nations [emphasis added—Y.I.] among which the Jews live are, without exception, either overt or disguised anti-Semites.” [24]
What grounds are there for this assertion? L. Pinsker reiterates that anti-Semitism is an incurable mental disease. “Judophobia,” he wrote, “is a psychosis; as such it became hereditary and as a disease inherited by generations over millennia, became incurable.” Building a bridge to racialism, he says that “in general no nation favours aliens and since this phenomenon has ethnic roots, no nation can be censured for it.” [25]
Yet, Lucien Wolf, an English Jew, wrote that anti-Semitism was exclusively a question of European politics and its origin was “to be found, not in the long struggle between Europe and Asia, or between the Church and the Synagogue, which filled so much of ancient and medieval history, but in the social conditions resulting from the emancipation of the Jews in the middle of the 19th century.” [26]
Zionists, however, were not even satisfied with a sweeping presentation of the matter. For them recognition of anti-Semitism as a socially transient phenomenon would have been tantamount to testifying to the impotence of their arguments to substantiate the existence of a “world Jewish nation.” Therefore, Zionists endowed with high academic degrees (like Chaim Weizmann) maintained with a persistence worthy of a better cause that “the one fundamental cause of anti-Semitism . . . is that the Jew exists.” [27]
Enlarging on this idea, he claimed: “Anti-Semitism is a bacillus which every Gentile [emphasis added—Y.I.] carries with him (wherever he goes and however often he denies it).” [28]
That was how Zionist ideologues built up the second “basic” concept of the new spiritual ghetto, the concept of “eternal anti-Semitism.”
This malicious and thoroughly false concept was devised for no other reason than to blunt the class-consciousness of the Jewish working people, to make them believe that the Jewish moneybags was nearer to them in spirit and aspirations than a Russian or a German worker, to counter-pose Jews to all nations as being anti-Semitic, to sow mistrust and, whenever possible, to foment enmity towards the non-Jews, and to force the Jews to bend to the will of the brand-new Messiahs (i.e., Zionists). Moreover, the concept “eternal anti-Semitism” proved to be so universal that it soon became an instrument for all those who for one reason or another wanted to separate the Jewish working people from their fellows.
Exposing this arch-reactionary invention, Lenin countered the Bundist attempts to accuse the Russian proletariat of anti-Semitism as follows:
“If, instead of flying into a foolish and comical rage at the Ekaterinoslav Committee, the Bundists had pondered a bit over this question and had consulted, let us say, Kautsky’s pamphlet on the social revolution, a Yiddish edition of which they themselves published recently, they would have understood the link that undoubtedly exists between anti-Semitism and the interests of the bourgeois, and not of the working-class sections of the population. If they a given it a little more thought they might have realised that the social character of anti-Semitism today is not changed by the fact that dozens or even hundreds of unorganised workers, nine-tenths of whom are still quite ignorant, take part in a pogrom.
“The Ekaterinoslav Committee has risen up (and rightly so) against the Zionist fable about anti-Semitism being eternal; by making its angry comment the Bund has only confused the issue and planted in the minds of the Jewish workers ideas which tend to blunt their class-consciousness.” [29]
Zionists have always attached the greatest importance to implanting the idea that “anti-Semitism is eternal” in the minds of the Jewish working people. The senile Yahweh and his remiss messenger, evidently disinclined to make his appearance, could not in modern times fully live up to hopes placed in them (as we have seen, even Zionist leaders themselves admitted as much). This being the case they turned to anti-Semitism, the persecution of the Jews, making it their true god, their real hope for success and Zionism’s sole stake in life.
Even before the appearance of the World Zionist Organisation and the Jewish Colonial Trust, Herzl had already entertained the following thought: “It will hardly require much effort to activate the movement. The anti-Semites are taking care of that.” [30]
Testifying before the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration which sat in London in 1902, Herzl in reply to the question what could force the Jews to leave their countries and set up a Jewish state stated: “the Anti-Semites” (!) [31]
Not only did the Zionists’ reasoning create the impression that they regarded anti-Semitism as a boon: the Zionist leaders themselves unequivocally announced that anti-Semitism was useful, thus paving the way for a deal with the anti-Semites which has never been violated since the establishment of the Zionist international corporation.
“In Paris,” wrote Herzl in his diaries, “. . . I achieved a freer attitude toward anti-Semitism, which I now began to understand historically and to pardon.
“Above all, I recognised the emptiness and futility of trying to ‘combat’ anti-Semitism. . . . However, anti-Semitism, which is a strong if unconscious force among the masses, will do the Jews no harm, I hold it to be a movement useful for the development of Jewish character.” [32]
Herzl, who even in his dreams ruled out the possibility of the victory of socialism in any part of the world, frankly wrote about the usefulness and permanence of anti-Semitism unaware of the efforts which subsequently (after the October Revolution and particularly today) the Zionist propaganda machinery would have to exert to keep the stillborn canard about Zionism being “a reply of the Jewish toiling masses to anti-Semitism and pogroms” on the wing.
The builders of the new spiritual ghettos, however, were not content with merely proclaiming the Jews a “chosen people,” an “incomprehensible,” “awesome,” “world Jewish nation” and qualifying as anti-Semites all peoples among whom Jews live. The Zionists erected another fortress in the form of a thesis of the racial “purity” of the Jews and, exploiting the idea of Judaism, sought to percolate it into the minds of their audiences.
L. Pinsker pushed his idea about the “nobility” of the Jewish race. “Like the Negroes, like women” he wrote, “the Jews have still to be emancipated. And it is worse for them because in contrast to the Negroes they belong to a noble race.” [33]
Nahum Sokolow was even more blunt. “. . . Absolute purity does not exist“, he wrote, “but relatively the Jews are doubtless the purest race among civilised nations. . . .” (!) [34]
“Not only national, but even racial peculiarities are denied to the Jews by modern scientific investigators,” [35] Lenin emphasised. But the Zionists stubbornly ignored or misrepresented all that could impede their corruptive activity. As educated people they realised that to achieve their objectives they had to stake on ignorance (Church), fear (the “eternity” of anti-Semitism) and chauvinistic ambition (the “purest race among civilised nations”).
The Jewish bourgeoisie created Zionist ideology for the purpose of breeding base feelings and instincts. In a public statement in 1897 Max Nordau characterised the Jews as “more industrious and more able than the average European, not to speak at all of the inert Asiatic and African. . . .” [36]
“. . . We might boast of some good qualities which do not pertain to any other nation to the same extent.” [37] This is a Zionist statement of the 1899 type. It will be recalled that the nazi ideologues formulated something similar at the beginning of the 1930s.
The “purest race“, the “exclusive world Jewish nation” “created by God” and “doomed to eternal anti-Semitism” was to hear a great deal more from Zionist leaders. “In vain are we loyal and sometimes even over-zealous patriots“, wrote Herzl; “in vain we offer the same sacrifices in blood and property as do our compatriots; in vain we are endeavouring to glorify our respective countries in arts and science and to augment their riches by commerce and exchange.” [38]
Herzl is clearly proposing that citizens of Jewish origin residing in different countries should drop their patriotism and further the Zionist cause by acting according to the anti-Semitic thesis that Jews are an “alien element” in every state.
This blunt suggestion caused a certain amount of apprehension among Herzl’s adherents. Nahum Sokolow hastily advanced a thesis of what might be called the “dual position of the Jews.” “We Jews are true citizens of the States to which we belong. All interests of the country are also ours. We have no single interest which is opposed to any interest whatsoever of our country” (This, on the one hand, while on the other. . . .) “The Jewish national idea is not merely a historical tradition, it is a programme for outward as well as inward use. Outwardly it manifests itself in an energetic struggle for its own existence . . . ; inwardly as a union of the Jews of all countries, rites, grades of culture and political parties on all questions which affect Jews and Judaism.” [39]
However, Herzl’s successor Chaim Weizmann ignored Sokolow’s dualist thesis preferring to leave no doubt as to the Zionists’ actual stand on this issue. Recalling his conversation with Lord Balfour during their discussion of the complaint by Richard Wagner’s widow that “the Jews of Germany had captured the German stage, press, commerce and universities” Weizmann wrote: “I went on to say that I might be in agreement with Frau Wagner as to the facts, but I was in entire disagreement as to the conclusions to be drawn from them. . . . The crux of the Jewish tragedy was that those Jews who were giving their energy and their brains to the Germans. . . were enriching Germany, and not Jewry. . . .” [40]
Incidentally, Weizmann headed the Zionist organisation in the years when it maintained close ties with the nazis, and later, in his memoirs, scoffed at the Jews who despite the nazi terror still considered Germany their homeland.
All Zionist architects erecting the new walls of a spiritual ghetto emphasised in one way or another that citizens of Jewish origin living in various countries were “in exile,” that their emancipation was impossible and their equality with other nations unattainable.
The emancipation of the Jews among other nations is unrealistic, Moses Hess asserted in his Rom und Jerusalem. “The Jew,” declared Pinsker, “is a separate element. . . . Jews among the people with whom they live are an alien element. . . .” [41]
“. . . Even in England, where anti-Semitism is practically unknown, there is none the less a Jewish problem, because the Synagogues are empty, and the younger generation does not seem to be so Jewish as its parents, and there is a great deal of drift into assimilation and intermarriage,” (!) [42] lamented Leon Simon.
So what did the Zionists offer the intimidated and the credulous? Social emancipation? Joint struggle with other peoples for a just and equal society? Such recommendations could hardly be forthcoming from the champions of “racial purity,” or to be absolutely precise, from the shareholders of the Jewish Colonial Trust.
In his letter to Baron de Hirsch in June 1895, Herzl wrote: “But the petty solutions—your 20,000 Argentinians or the conversion of the Jews to Socialism—I will not accept.” [43]
With his usual bluntness (now the object of great concern to his adherents) Zionist No.1 disclosed the objectives of “all reactionary forces in Europe,” as Lenin indicated, in their efforts to “consolidate the isolation of Jewry.” “All our young people,” Herzl wrote, “who are now between 20 and 30 will sway away from their obscure socialist trends and come to me.” [44]
Here, according to the rules of logic, we have all the links in the chain of Zionist views: Judaist mysticism, the preaching of enmity to one and all, the appeal to reject patriotism, glorification of “exclusiveness” and “racial purity,” anti-internationalism and anti-communism.
* * *
What then was the solution, the way “out” offered by the Zionists for the “world Jewish nation” which they themselves (and the anti-Semites) proclaimed? Did they suggest the establishment of a “Jewish state,” the State of Israel? No, they did not.
Bearing in mind who it was who first advanced the idea of colonising one or other area of the world by using Jews as a “manpower,” we should also recall that organisationally Zionism took shape as the World Zionist Organisation and the Jewish Colonial Trust, in other words, as a capitalist enterprise. It had as its main political objective (along with counterposing the Jews to other peoples, attempts to split the revolutionary movement, establishment of a base for the activity of imperialist agents and all other ensuing consequences) the isolation of Jewry and re-establishment of control over Jewry, thus capitalising both on colonisation (once the Jewish Colonial Trust was founded) and on Jewish particularism. Reactionary forces all over Europe, and especially in Russia, were no less concerned with isolating the Jews than the Zionists were.
Zionists have always regarded the “Jewish state” merely as a means to their major ends, which they intended to achieve not by concentrating all or the majority of Jews in that state, for in that case the undertaking would no longer serve the purpose it was designed to serve by the Zionists and their patrons, who were intent on building up reserves of “blacklegs” of the revolutionary movement and other imperialist agents in various countries. The Zionists intended to set up a “centre” through which they would be able to influence the “periphery,” and until the outbreak of revolutionary events in Russia, they attached no fundamental importance to exactly where this centre should be formed.
Now for a few examples of the plans for a “centre” and a periphery.
L. Pinsker considered that the migration of Jews to a “national Jewish centre” should be limited: “The number of Jews in each country should decrease only to the extent required by the economic conditions of the native population.” He made the point that “a universal resettlement of the people was, of course, absolutely out of the question.” [45]
According to Ahad Ha’am, the “Jewish state” was essential merely as a moral factor. He asserted that the national ego of the Jews required a spiritual and cultural centre which would be a link between the scattered communities of the Jewish people and by its spiritual influence would stimulate their efforts to build a new national life. Moreover, he believed that there should be no hurry to establish a state but that it was essential to set up an ideological centre. “Then from this centre,” he wrote, “the spirit of Judaism will go forth to the great circumference, to all the communities of the Diaspora, and will breathe new life into them and preserve their unity. . . .” [46]
In this connection Nahum Sokolow observed: Zionism strives solely for the recognition of the national character of the Jews, since they are an ethnic, historical and cultural community in the Diaspora and also in view of their common aim of bringing about a full-scale revival of national life in the land of their fathers. [47]
To this day all attempts to veil and conceal the auxiliary role of the idea of a “Jewish state” have been confined to allegations that Herzl, the principal “originator” of the “Jewish state” teaching, had never mentioned the things so clearly intimated by Pinsker and Ahad Ha’am. Having “synthesised the aspirations of all Jews“, Herzl allegedly called for a “complete exodus of all Jews from the countries of their exile” and their settlement in one centre.
Once again, however, this is just not true. While posing as a new Moses calling for a “general exodus from Egypt,” in his private diary Herzl admitted that what he proposed was “no more than the regulation of the Jewish problem, and not in any sense the emigration of all the Jews.” [48]
Since the idea of the “Jewish state” was merely instrumental, auxiliary in character, the question of where the “centre of influence” would be established was, we repeat, a matter of slight importance for the Zionists. “We do not necessarily have to settle where our state life was once crushed and destroyed,” wrote L. Pinsker. “. . . We need nothing more than that a strip of land should become our property. . . . To it we shall transfer our holy of holies, which was saved when our old homeland was destroyed: the idea of God and the Bible, because it was they, and they alone, not the Jordan or Jerusalem, that made our homeland a Holy Land.” [49]
“If the powers agree to grant the Jewish people sovereign rights in a neutral country, the society [World Zionist Organisation—Y.I.] would commence negotiations concerning the country to be chosen.” [50]
The imperialist powers, whose interest lay in the acquisition of some particular colonial bridgehead or other, adopted a far more serious approach to this question.
At the beginning of the 19th century some sections of the English bourgeoisie were for stepping up the colonisation of Uganda, which then included part of present-day Kenya. And once again it was none other than Herzl who, dwelling on the issue at the Sixth Zionist Congress, declared: “. . . I have no doubt that the Congress, as representative of the Jewish masses, will accept this proposal with warm gratitude. The proposal is to set up an autonomous Jewish colony in East Africa with Jewish administration, a local Jewish government headed by a Jewish high official; all this needless to say under suzerain British supervision.” [51]
Taking up the question of a site for a “Jewish state,” Chaim Weizmann wrote that the areas offered had either a very cold or very hot climate and that their development would have required decades of work and incredible expense. [52] In other words, the projects were just not a good business proposition.
It should be noted that the leadership of the Zionist association included groups representing the interests of various imperialist powers. Zionist leader Dr. Alfred Nossig, for example, defended the interests of German imperialism which left no stone unturned in its efforts to win influence in the Ottoman Empire. According to Dr. Moshe Sneh, an Israeli political leader, Dr. Nossig with the backing of Kaiser Wilhelm II founded an independent colonial company for settling Jews in the Ottoman Empire, outside of Palestine. [53]
Two main factors influenced the eventual choice of a site for a “Jewish state.” The first was the struggle (and its outcome) between various groups of Zionist leaders representing the interests of the British, French and German imperialists.
How acute this struggle was, even over what appeared to be secondary issues, had been described by Chaim Weizmann.
Shortly before the First World War, Vysotsky, Russia’s tea magnate, built a technical college for young Jews in Haifa. Immediately upon its completion there arose question: whose influence, British or German, would be predominant in the college built by a Russian magnate, and, accordingly, in what language should teaching be conducted? “To understand the significance of this struggle,” wrote Weizmann, “we must recall that those were the days of the ‘capitulations’ in Turkish territory. Every foreign institution in the corrupt and feeble Turkish Empire placed itself under the protection of a foreign country, and the European Powers vied with each other for influence and prestige within Turkish territory. The Jews in particular were used as cat’s-paws in this game of intrigue. . . . There was one system of Jewish schools supported by the Alliance Israélite Universelle of Paris, where the language of instruction was naturally French. The Germans used the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden with its system of schools as their instrument of intrigue in the Near East. The language of instruction was German. England [here we observe Weizmann’s personal interest in the matter, since he was as closely linked up with British imperialism as Nossig was with German imperialism—Y.I.] was very much behind in the general competition. . . .” Weizmann further notes that the Haifa Technical College was placed under the protection of Dr. Zimmerman, a “Kaiser Jew” (as German Jews were called by the Zionists of British orientation); German became the language of instruction and during the voting Weizmann found himself “in a minority of one.” [54]
In the long run the struggle of Zionist leaders was won by the pro-British group headed by Weizmann. This happened after a group which had long had its eye on Palestine came to the fore in British ruling circles. *
[* NOTE: As we have already seen, at the beginning of the 20th century, certain British imperialist circles insisted on the colonisation of Uganda, in which they were fully supported by pro-British Zionists.
Accordingly, when the Seventh Zionist Congress (1905) had decided in favour of Palestine, Israel Zangwill, a pro-British Zionist, split the World Zionist Organisation and formed a parallel organisation to implement the East Africa proposal, or to set up an autonomous Jewish area elsewhere.
Following a change in orientation within British ruling circles it was none other than Zangwill who supported the colonisation of Palestine. The Jewish Territorial Organisation (the organisation he formed after the split—Y.I.), he declared, must not oppose any practical project; this would be not only a betrayal of the Jewish people, but of our own programme, too.
The split in the Zionist ranks was over.]
But there was another factor, another reason why the scales tipped in favour of Canaan.
In June 1905 Lenin wrote: “An uprising and armed barricade fighting in Lodz, a bloody affray in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, general strikes and shootings at workers in Warsaw and Odessa, the ignominious end of the Zemstvo deputation farce—such are the major political events of the past week. . . .
“The proletariat has been in a constant state of unrest, especially since the Ninth of January, never giving the enemy a moment’s respite. It is keeping up its offensive mainly in the form of strikes, while avoiding direct clashes with the armed forces of tsarism and preparing its forces for the great and decisive battle.” [55]
Revolutionary forces were rapidly gathering momentum in Germany and Eastern Europe, where the overwhelming majority of Europe’s 8,500,000 Jews were living. Russia’s multinational proletariat, as Lenin wrote, was preparing for a “great and decisive battle.” Jewish workers were fighting side by side with the Polish workers on the barricades at Lodz. In defiance of the separatist, nationalistic position of the Bundist leaders, Jewish working people in Russia increasingly gravitated towards the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party headed by Lenin, and more and more of them joined Russian, Ukrainian, Byelorussian and Polish workers in their revolutionary activity. It is likewise common knowledge that in their struggle against the revolutionary movement of the people, the reactionary forces in Eastern Europe, and particularly in tsarist Russia, staked heavily on fanning national enmity and incited clashes between workers of different nationalities. Jewish pogroms were an element in this counter-revolutionary activity of the forces of reaction.
In these conditions Zionist leaders and their allies decided that the Palestinian alternative was more acceptable for them in view of Palestine’s symbolic religious appeal. They believed, as did Nahum Sokolow and Rabbi Mohilewer, that the “colonisation of Palestine was recommended as a religious duty” and that religion “should therefore be a leading factor. . .” [56] But they had a rather peculiar understanding of this factor. They calculated that the anti-Semitism of the counter-revolution, which Herzl said was “useful for the development of the Jewish character,” would force a part of the Jewish population to flee Eastern Europe. And the Zionists, who staked exclusively on counter-revolution, hoped that by exploiting the religious symbol of Palestine they would be able to direct the flow of pogrom victims to the area of the Suez Canal.
But the great expectations of the leaders of the Jewish Colonial Trust came true only to an insignificant degree. Their colossal outlays on hectoring the Jews into emigrating to Palestine produced but slight results.
Refugees from the counter-revolution began to pour not into the Middle East but into the USA, where the number of Jews increased from 986,000 in 1897 to 4,500,000 by the mid-1920s. In the same period the number of Jews in Asia increased by a mere 200,000, from 400,000 to 600,000.
How did the Zionists portray the projected “Jewish state” to the Jewish working people? “. . . ‘There’ everything should be organised as here, if possible,” declared Theodor Herzl. He had no intention of creating illusions concerning the nature of the state conceived by the Zionists for the Jewish masses. “Rich Jews who are now forced to hide their treasures and revel behind drawn curtains,” Herzl maintained, “would be able freely to enjoy life there.” [57]
L. Pinsker was equally forthright. “The initiative in furthering the cause of national revival should belong to the congress of the most esteemed Jewish citizens,” he wrote. “Our best forces are the financiers, scientists and practical people. . . .” He also made the following point: “And only this directorate with the company of capitalists, as the founders of a joint-stock society to be formed later, must buy a strip of land. . . .”
* * *
A most striking feature of the Zionist theoretical heritage, and one that is made extensive use of by present-day Zionist leaders, is its malleability.
They have always pursued only two basic objectives: re-establishment of control over Jewry and profiteering. These are the constants, so to speak, of their world outlook. As for ideological or moral and ethical principles, their stand on this matter has always been purely one of ensuring for themselves the greatest variety of “versions” of these “principles” which could be unscrupulously applied as best suits any contingency in a changing world. “Maximum Brazenness and Minimum Logic.” This formula of Lenin’s referring to the Bund is even more applicable to the Zionist leaders.
In his Autoemancipation L. Pinsker writes: “The only correct and realistic way out of the situation would be the creation of a Jewish nation—a people living on its own territory—i.e., the auto emancipation of the Jews; their emancipation as a nation among nations through the establishment of their own national home.” [58]
Ahad Ha’am stressed that after the spirit of Judaism has developed to the highest degree of perfection in the national centre “it will produce men in the country who will be able, on a favourable opportunity, to establish a State. . . .”
The “Father of Zionism” Theodor Herzl wrote a book, The Jewish State, to prove that it was essential to create a state, as the sole solution to all problems of the “world Jewish nation.”
At the same time Nahum Sokolow categorically stated: “It has been said, and is still being obstinately repeated by anti-Zionists again and again, that Zionism aims at the creation of an independent ‘Jewish State.’ But this is wholly fallacious. The ‘Jewish State’ was never a part of the Zionist programme.” [59]
Hess, Pinsker, Herzl and Weizmann, as we have seen, proceeded from the concept of the “eternity of anti-Semitism” from the circumstance, as Weizmann insisted, that the “fundamental cause of anti-Semitism . . . is that the Jew exists.”
Simultaneously (just in case, God forbid, anti-Semitism should disappear!) another stand was worked out. Ahad Ha’am speaks of the Jewish question as having a different content in East and West and says that in the West it “is a product of anti-Semitism, and is dependent on anti-Semitism for its existence . . . ,” while in the East it “is a natural product of a real link with a culture of thousands of years, which will retain its hold even if the troubles of the Jews all over the world come to an end, together with anti-Semitism [emphasis added—Y.I.], and all the Jews in every land have comfortable positions, are on the best possible terms with their neighbours, and are allowed by them to take part in every sphere of social and political life on terms of absolute equality.” [60]
We have already noted that alongside demands to cast off any and all allegiance to their countries, to throw patriotism overboard, the Zionists elaborated a concept of “dual patriotism.” Some of them maintained that the Jews were a “world nation” whatever the view of the people they lived among, others declared grimly that on the strength of public opinion the Jews were a “world nation” and so forth. “A time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to love and a time to hate.“* In keeping with this biblical logic the ideologues of Zionism are devising a series of controversial conceptions enabling them in all circumstances to put a good face on any matter.
[* NOTE: Ecclesiastes.]
The birth of Zionist ideology was also the beginning of its crisis. This ideology became bankrupt long before the formation of the State of Israel, whose existence only serves as a fuller and more forceful demonstration of the poverty of Zionist theoretical pretensions.
Zionist ideas reflected nothing more than the desire of the Jewish bourgeoisie to regain control over the disintegrated Jewish communities. These ideas did not rest on the objective laws of development of class society of which the Jewish communities formed an intrinsic part, but on the subjective intention of the reactionary forces to retard the fusion of the Jewish working masses with the working people of other nationalities. Consequently, Zionist ideology was bound right from the outset to become an outlook based purely on practical requirements.*
[* NOTE: See Marx’s characterisation of Judaism.]
As we have already remarked, Herzl was up in arms at the mere mention of socialism. His disciple Max Nordau regarded socialism as a symptom of decay of the same order as Nihilism and anti-Semitism. [61] But just a few years after the establishment of the World Zionist Organisation, when the process of “modernisation” of biblical testaments was at its height, the Zionist corporation made an effort to appear before the Jewish working people, particularly those of Eastern Europe, in a “revolutionary,” “socialist” garb.
“The Jewish State must be a Socialist State if it is to be realised. Zionism must fuse with Socialism in order to become the ideal of the entire Jewish people: of the proletariat, of the middle class, of the intellectuals, as well as of the idealists [i.e., capitalist idealists—Y.I.],” writes S. Levenberg. “Fusing with Socialism, Zionism can be raised to a great national passion. The hope for a Messiah, always the basic sentiment of the Diaspora Jew, will be converted into a political fact.” [62]
Such an unnatural turn, above all from the viewpoint of the founders of Zionism, was dictated by practical necessity. “Because of the structure of Jewish economic life,” wrote H. M. Sachar about the first decade of the 20th century, “. . . the socialism of the cities [and this is not surprising—Y.I.], proved to be the principal magnet for politically minded Jews.” [63]
The revolutionary movement in 1905, wrote Maurice Edelman, the author of Ben-Gurion’s political biography, was a movement of protest against the way the people were denied elementary human rights. The principles of this movement also embraced Jewry. [64]
These statements were indirect recognition of the patently obvious fact that the mounting tide of the revolutionary movement in Central and Eastern Europe was sweeping up increasing numbers of Jewish working people, while the Zionist Ark and its not too numerous dwellers were left high and dry on the rocks. It was these circumstances that forced the Zionists to hasten the elaboration of “theories” of Zionist “socialism” or “socialist” Zionism. And one of the first to try his hand in this field was our “old friend” Nahum Sokolow.
He began in a very un-Zionist way by making a class analysis and recognising the role played by the working people. He also advanced the theory that the Jewish working people may be divided into two categories, one nationally indifferent category with which class interest alone carries weight and another which could be classified as nationally firm. The latter occupies a very distinctly noticeable separate position although it holds together with other workmen in the struggle for higher wages and general improvement of living conditions. [65]
Calling upon the Zionists to consolidate their positions among the workmen of the “second category” and through it infiltrate the first, Sokolow wrote: “The workmen if they became Zionist would, so to say, constitute the solid effective force which could be relied upon at any moment.” [66] Continuing, he asserts: “The Jewish workmen are the natural allies of Zionism, but they will become the actual and co-operating allies only through independent [Zionist—Y.I.] workmen organisations.” [67] Conceding, even if indirectly, that Zionism is alien to the working people, he laid special emphasis on the need to work unceasingly to split the working class. “Although it is not out of love for Zionism that the Jewish workmen . . . feel nationally,” he wrote, “they may yet in time become national even in a Zionist sense. And that through the natural community of interests, passing from the unconscious to the conscious. . . .” [68]
In other words, Sokolow was trying to say that it was no use waiting for things to drop into your lap and was summoning the Zionists to work with the utmost persistence to split the ranks of the Jewish workmen, thus isolating them from the general army of workers fighting for their emancipation as a class. “To the principle of evolution Zionist Judaism also holds fast . . . ,” he added. [69]
Another well-known theoretician of Zionist “socialism” was Ber Borochov who wrote: “Mankind is divided into nations and classes. Nations existed before they were split into classes. Nations remain while classes change. The nations underwent cultural modifications, but in essence they remained the same. . . .” [70] Step by step Borochov leads the reader into believing that the Jews even though dispersed throughout the world, are nevertheless a single nation.
Hence it is clear that the Trojan horse of “socialist” Zionism did not roam for long on virgin soil. The last link in the chain was being forged. “For hundreds of years the Jewish masses have blindly searched for a way that will return them to the soil. At last we have found it. Zionism is the way. . . .” [71] Drawing on Ahad Ha’am, the “socialist” Borochov anticipated the conclusions of the mystic Martin Buber. “. . . Nation—from days immemorial. . . .”
“He [the worker—Y.I.] sees the colonisation of the country [Palestine—Y.I.], and the growth of the working class as mutually interdependent,” Borochov’s followers assert. “His class consciousness is not fed by narrow egoistic interests which are alien to and incompatible with the interest of the nation as a whole. . . .” [72] In other words, there are “our” workers and “alien” workers, the latter being class egoists while the former are complaisant people, and, as Jews, should understand the community between them and other Jews who happen to be capitalists.
It should be noted that “socialist” Zionists are by no means original. They are simply touching up the barely perceptible rose tinge of Herzl, the monarchist, who wrote: “In the ghetto we were gradually transformed into a kind of middle class, which subsequently became a formidable rival of the Christians of the same middle class. Thus, after the emancipation we found ourselves among the bourgeoisie. . ” The Christian bourgeoisie, of course, would have gladly delivered us over to socialism. But it would have gained very little by so doing. . . . As a matter of fact, nothing effective can be undertaken against us. There was a time when the Jews were relieved of their jewels. But how can they be deprived of their movable property today when it consists of pieces of paper kept in all parts of the world, perhaps even in Christian safes. . . . At the bottom we are becoming proletarianised and are providing all the subversive parties with non-commissioned officers, while our redoubtable financial strength is increasing up at the top. We are an historical group which is easily recognisable in its cohesion. . . .” [73]
No, it was certainly no accident that “reactionary forces all over Europe, and especially in Russia,” including all those taking part in the Zionist masquerade, from “Zionist talmudists” to “socialist Zionists,” worked so stubbornly to isolate the Jews in an era when it was a question of who would be on one side of the revolutionary barricades and who on the other.
Despite the smokescreen created by the Zionists and their ideological brethren the crux of the matter was whether the Zionists and other Jewish nationalists would succeed (with the help of the anti-Semites) in turning the Jewish workmen in all countries where Jews resided into an element “conscious of being alien and isolated,” into a reserve of the bourgeoisie, a source of agents for imperialism, or whether the revolutionary movement and the international class solidarity of the working people in their struggle against the common enemy, the exploiter class, would rise as an insurmountable obstacle to such efforts. In other words, in each country the issue turned upon the outcome of the struggle between the revolutionary and counter-revolutionary forces. Zionism represented and continues to represent an active force of counter-revolution.
It was only natural that the initiators of the Jewish Colonial Trust should have found themselves in the counter-revolutionary camp. The socialist revolution, the very idea of which was hateful to Theodor Herzl, the first President of the World Zionist Organisation, who openly defamed socialism, became a symbol of imminent catastrophe for his followers who had witnessed the portentous events of 1905. Hence the haste with which Zionists transferred their ideological booby traps from small town marketplaces and synagogues to workshops, railway depots, and factories.
More than 60 years after the first attempts of the Zionists to gain control over Jewish workers, and particularly over Jewish workers in Russia, and fifty years after the Great October Socialist Revolution, which turned to dust all the so-called theories of “socialist Zionism,” on September 4, 1967 Kol-Israel, the overseas Radio Israel service, endeavouring to whitewash Zionist theoreticians and politicians, broadcast the following:
“Not only does the national principle of Zionism not clash with socialist ideology, but, on the contrary, Zionism seeks to fuse the ideas of the national emancipation of the Jews and the ideas of social emancipation of the exploited masses into a single movement. It was a combination of socialism with the Zionist national liberation movement that served as a foundation for the programme of the Zionist workers’ party Poalei Zion approved at the first All-Russia Congress of the party held in Poltava, in 1906. This programme was drawn up by Ber Borochov. . . . The essence of the main thesis of socialist Zionism was that neither a normal, fully socialist, nor a national-autonomous development of the masses was possible for the Jews living in the countries of the Diaspora, whatever regimes might be established in them” (emphasis added—Y.I.).
It only remains to be asked: on what incredibly, phenomenally gullible audience could the authors of such candid self-exposing assertions be counting?
Kol-Israel in its own words outlined the programme of the Minsk Committee of Poalei Zion which stated: “The Russian Revolution has no relation to the struggle for our future since it will not resolve the Jewish question even for the Jews residing in Russia and will not bring us closer to Zionism.” [74] In this connection Zubatov, head of the Moscow division of the tsarist secret political police, wrote to the Police Department: “We should support Zionism, and, in general, turn nationalistic aspirations to our advantage.” [75]
Defining the activity of Poalei Zion which the Zionists, on the basis of Borochov’s ideas, had turned into an international organisation, the Executive Committee of the Communist International pointed out: “The theme of Palestine, the attempt to divert the Jewish working masses from the class struggle by propaganda in favour of large-scale Jewish settlement in Palestine, is not only nationalist and petty-bourgeois but counter-revolutionary in its effect. . . .” [76]
On Mayday 1895, Martov (real name Y. O. Tsederbaum), a future Menshevik leader, without professing to be either a Zionist or a Palestinophile propounded the following ideas in his address: “In the first years of our movement we expected everything from the movement of the Russian working class and regarded ourselves merely as an appendage to the general Russian movement Having placed the mass movement at the centre of our programme, we should have adjusted our propaganda and class agitation accordingly, i.e., we should have made them more Jewish. . . .” Continuing, Martov emphasised that “the Jewish working class is a sufficiently tight-knit mass which, when organised, will come to represent a formidable force. . . . We must bear in mind that in its class development the Russian working class will encounter such obstacles that each step forward will require tremendous effort. This being the case, it is clear that when the Russian proletariat will have to sacrifice some of its demands in order to attain a particular objective, it will prefer to sacrifice those demands which pertain exclusively to the Jews. . . .” On the basis of his own inventions, Martov arrives at the following conclusion: “That is why we must resolutely admit that our objective, the objective pursued by the Social-Democrats operating in a Jewish environment, is to create a special Jewish workers’ organisation. . . .” [77]
The leadership of the Bund, which was founded in 1897, zealously disputed Martov’s priority in promoting separatist ideas, ideas of isolating the Jewish working people, by referring to earlier examples.
As regards the Zionists, they were in general unable to countenance any rivalry with calm and had their views voiced by one of their prominent leaders Vladimir Jabotinsky: “The preparatory class in a model header of Zionism, to continue our pedagogical parallel, is the objective historical role of the Bund in the Jewish working-class movement. The Bund and Zionism are not two sprouts from the same root; they are a big trunk and one of its shoots. . . . When a future scholar writes a coherent history of the Zionist movement, there will be a chapter in his work which will perhaps attract the particular attention of the readers. . . . It will begin with a repetition of Pinsker’s thoughts and end with the first proclamation of Poalei Zion. This chapter will describe an episode in Zionism and it will be headed ‘The Bund.'” [78]
Pointing to the danger of the attempts being made with increasing frequency to isolate the Jewish working people, Lenin addressed the following words to Jewish workers in 1905: “The conditions under which the class-conscious proletariat of the whole world lives tend to create the closest bonds and increasing unity in the systematic Social-Democratic struggle of the workers of the various nationalities. . . .
“In Russia, the workers of all nationalities, especially those of non-Russian nationality, endure an economic and political oppression such as obtains in no other country. . . . The heavier this yoke, the greater the need for the closest possible unity among the proletarians of the different nationalities; for without such unity a victorious struggle against the general oppression is impossible.” [79]
Lenin’s idea that the Jews suffered and struggled equally with other oppressed national groups, nationalities and nations was not calculated to suit the Zionists who used the “principle” of exclusiveness as the foundation for their ideological-theoretical structures, beginning with the divine origin of the “world Jewish nation” and ending with assertions about the need to build “our own” socialism.
Thus, by the beginning of the 20th century, the Zionists already had all the colours lined up on their ideological palette. Hiding their favourite gamut of dark hues under their cloaks in anticipation of the great revolutionary developments, the Zionists franticly daubed the façade of the Jewish Colonial Trust with red paint. But they were short of both paint and spirit, and anyway time moved too swiftly for them. It was already 1917.
References
1. New Outlook, Tel Aviv, January 1966, pp. 49–58.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Lenin, V. I., Collected Works, Vol. 7, p. 101.
7. Ben Halpern, The Idea of the Jewish State, p. 6.
8. Sachar, H. M., The Course of Modern Jewish History, p. 105 (retranslated from the Russian).
9. Ben Halpern, The Idea of the Jewish State, p. 9.
10. Lenin, V. I., Collected Works, Vol. 7, pp. 99–102.
11. Levenberg, S., The Jews and Palestine, London, 1945, p. 134.
12. [Cyrillic text].
13. Simon, L., Studies in Jewish Nationalism, London, 1920, p. 31.
14. [Cyrillic text].
15. K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Correspondence, Moscow, 1965, p. 79.
16. Sokolow, N., History of Zionism, Vol. II, p. lxi.
17. Ahad Ha’am, Nationalism and the Jewish Ethics, N.Y., p. 77.
18. Sokolow, N., History of Zionism, Vol. I, p. 189.
19. Ibid.
20. Roth, C., History of the Jews.
21. Max Nordau to His People, p. 163.
22. Lenin, V. I., Collected Works, Vol. 7, pp. 99–100.
23. Stein, L., Zionism, p. 77.
24. [Cyrillic text].
25. [Cyrillic text].
26. Dark, S., The Jew To-day, London, 1933, pp. 25–26.
27. The Jewish Agency for Palestine, Jerusalem, 1947, p. 7.
28. Crossman, R., A Nation Reborn, London, 1959, p. 21.
29. Lenin, V. I., Collected Works, Vol. 6, pp. 333–34.
30. [Cyrillic text].
31. Stein, L., Zionism, p. 75.
32. The Diaries of Theodor Herzl, translated and edited by M. Lewenthal, N.Y., pp. 6, 10.
33. [Cyrillic text].
34. Sokolow, N., History of Zionism, Vol. I, p. 189.
35. Lenin, V. I., Collected Works, Vol. 7, p. 100.
36. Max Nordau to His People, p. 73.
37. Ibid., p. 92.
38. [Cyrillic text].
39. Sokolow, N., History of Zionism, Vol. I, pp. xxi, 193.
40. Weizmann, Ch., Trial and Error, London, 1949, p. 196.
41. [Cyrillic text].
42. Simon, L., Studies in Jewish Nationalism, p. 43.
43. The Diaries of Theodor Herzl, p. 26.
44. [Cyrillic text].
45. [Cyrillic text].
46. Ahad Ha’am, Nationalism and the Jewish Ethics, pp. 78, 79.
47. Sokolow, N., History of Zionism, Vol. I, pp. xx, xxi.
48. The Diaries of Theodor Herzl, p. 100.
49. [Cyrillic text].
50. [Cyrillic text].
51. [Cyrillic text].
52. Weizmann, Ch., Trial and Error, p. 14.
53. Sneh, M., Conclusion on the National Question in the Light of Marxism-Leninism, Tel Aviv, 1954, p. 98.
54. Weizmann, Ch., Trial and Error, p. 184.
55. Lenin, V. I., Collected Works, Vol. 8, p. 537.
56. Sokolow, N., History of Zionism, Vol. II, p. XLII.
57. [Cyrillic text].
56. [Cyrillic text].
59. Ahad Ha’am, Nationalism and the Jewish Ethics, pp. 76–77 (retranslated from the Russian).
60. Sokolow, N., History of Zionism, Vol. I, pp. xxiv–xxv.
61. Max Nordau to His People, p. 24.
62. Levenberg, S., The Jews and Palestine, p. 138.
63. Sachar, H. M., The Course of Modern Jewish History, p. 288.
64. Edelman, M., A Political Biography of Ben-Gurion, p. 32 (retranslated from the Russian).
65. Sokolow, N., History of Zionism, Vol. II, pp. 364–65.
66. Ibid., p. 366.
67. Ibid., p. 365.
68. Ibid., p. 366.
69. Ibid.
70. Levenberg, S., The Jews and Palestine, p. 11.
71. Ibid., p. 17.
72. Ibid., p. 55.
73. [Cyrillic text].
74. [Cyrillic text].
75. Ibid.
76. The Communist International. 1919–1943, Documents, Vol. I, London, 1956, p. 366.
77. [Cyrillic text].
78. [Cyrillic text].
79. Lenin, V. I., Collected Works, Vol. 8, p. 495.
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