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78-547: The defendants were: Six out of the fourteen defendants were Jews. It was suggested in Bundist circles that this large proportion of Jews among the accused had been specially arranged to organize feeling against the Jewish Socialists. This was denied by Stalin. The defendants were accused of setting up the "All-Union Bureau of Mensheviks." Vladimir Groman gave a public testimony that he and Vladimir Bazarov (who

156-1218: A Bundist, David Petrovsky (Lipets). The 11th Bund conference was held in Minsk on March 16–22, 1919, with delegates from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Latvia and Lithuania. The conference was marked by a sharp division in the party, with a sector of the Bund being increasing in line with the Bolsheviks. There were 48 delegates with decisive voting rights and 19 with consultative vote. The delegates with decisive votes represented Minsk 5 delegates, Vilna 5, Gomel 5, Baranavichy 4, Bobruisk 2, Kiev 2, Yekaterinoslav 2, Kletsk 2, Nyasvizh 2 and one each from Kharkov, Riga, Moscow, Mohyliv , Konotop , Kurenets, Haradok , Shklow , Ufa / Samara , Smolensk , Rechytsa , Penza , Igumen , Mozyr , Pukhavichy , Ivianiec , Voronezh , Vitebsk and Dvinsk. The first local Bund organizations in Latvia had been established on 1900 in Daugavpils and on 1902 in Riga . In

234-480: A Jewish national language in its own right; to some extent, the promotion of Yiddish was part and parcel of the Bund's opposition to the Zionist movement and its project of reviving Hebrew . This preference for Yiddish over Hebrew also had an aspect of class struggle : Hebrew (prior to its successful revival ) was mostly spoken by educated Jewish men; Yiddish was a nearly universal language of Ashkenazi Jews . It

312-799: A conference held in Kaunas April 18–19, 1921 the Bund organization in Lithuania was declared dissolved and its members encouraged to join the Communist Party of Lithuania . The anti-Communist minority of the party in Lithuania abandoned Bundist politics altogether. Esther Frumkin and Aron Isaakovich (Rakhmiel) Vainsthein were the key leaders of the Communist Bund 1920–1921. Communist Bund organs, such as Der Veker , were published irregularly in Belarus. Bundism Bundism

390-541: A focus on local politics. The Jewish Labour Bund did not advocate ethnic or religious separatism, but focused on culture, not a state or a place, as the glue of Jewish nationhood, within the context of a world of multi-cultural and multi-ethnic countries. In this the Bundists borrowed extensively from the Austro-Marxist concept of national personal autonomy ; this approach alienated the Bolsheviks and Lenin, who

468-399: A general cultural assembly for the whole country. The assemblies would be given financial powers of their own: either each national group would be entitled to raise taxes on its members, or the state would allocate a proportion of its overall budget to each of them. Every citizen of the state would belong to one of the national groups, but the question of which national movement to join would be

546-898: A leading figure of the Bund in Ukraine, became the leader of the Ukrainian Kombund . The Communist Bund supported the Soviet side in the Russian Civil War . Other members of the Bund (representing the minority in the Bund in Ukraine) at the end of 1918 formed the Social Democratic Bund (Bund-SD). Leaders of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Bund – Sore Foks, A. Litvak (see Litvak ), David Petrovsky (Lipets) openly opposed

624-601: A matter of personal choice and no authority would have any control over his decision. The national movements would be subject to the general legislation of the state, but in their own areas of responsibility they would be autonomous and none of them would have the right to interfere in the affairs of the others". The Jewish Labour Bund, as an organization, was formed at the same time as the World Zionist Organization . The Bund eventually came to strongly oppose Zionism , arguing that immigration to Palestine

702-606: A new Central Committee of the Bund was formed, consisting of Goldman, Erlich, Medem, and Jeremiah Weinsthein. One Central Committee member, Medem, was in Poland at the time and could not travel to Saint Petersburg to meet with the rest of the committee. Four Bund bureaus were represented as such among the 60 delegates to the May 1918 Menshevik Party conference: Moscow (Abramovich), Northern ( Erlich ), Western (Goldshtein, Melamed), and Occupied Lands (Aizenshtadt). The political changes at

780-567: A public stance of advocating for socialism and/or social justice . A staunchly secular party, the Jewish Labour Bund took part in kehillot elections in the Second Polish Republic . The Bundists reviled the religious Jews of the time; even going so far as to refer to Yeshiva students, who would live in poverty off charity and learn Torah instead of work, as "parasites." With the rise of Jewish secularism and

858-520: A revival in the ideas of the Bund (sometimes called "neo-Bundism"). As such some new social movements have adopted the aesthetics and ideology of the Bund; often adding decolonial thought as an adaptation of Doikayt. One example of this is the Berlin-based Jewish Antifascist Bund ( German : Jüdischer antifaschistischer Bund ); an organisation of left-wing German Jews and Israeli immigrants that seeks to redefine

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936-528: A separate Committee of Bund Organizations in Poland to run the party in Poland. Theoretically the Bundists in Poland and Russia were members of the same party, but in practice the Polish Bundists operated as a party of their own. In December 1917 the split was formalized, as the Polish Bundists held a clandestine meeting in Lublin and reconstituted themselves as a separate political party . The Bund

1014-556: A very low electoral result. Its publication, Lebns Fregyn, remained in publication until June 2014. It was one of the last surviving left-wing Yiddish-language publications. The organisation dissolved in 2019, with its assets being transferred to the Zionist-Yiddishist organisation Beit Shalom Aleichem. The 1955 Montreal 3rd World Conference of the International Jewish Labor Bund decided that

1092-512: Is and was central to the Bundist ideology, expressing its focus on solving the challenges confronting Jews in the country in which they lived, versus the "thereness" of the Zionist movement, which posited the necessity of an independent Jewish polity in its ancestral homeland, i.e., the Land of Israel , to secure Jewish life. Today this often manifests in the form of Non-Zionism or Anti-Zionism and

1170-618: The Austro-Marxist school, further alienating the Bolsheviks and Lenin. The Bund also promoted the use of Yiddish as a Jewish national language and to some extent opposed the Zionist project of reviving Hebrew . The Bund won converts mainly among Jewish artisans and workers, but also among the growing Jewish intelligentsia . It led a trade union movement of its own. It joined with the Poalei Zion (Labour Zionists) and other groups to form self-defense organisations to protect Jewish communities against pogroms and government troops. During

1248-647: The Congress for Jewish Culture in the early 2000s. The Melbourne-based Jewish Labour Bund (founded in 1929) is considered the largest and most active existent organisation of the Bund. It organises a mix of events highlighting left-wing ideals (especially in Australia ), concern for Jewish rights in Australia and abroad, and the preservation of Yiddish culture . It is the largest Non-Zionist Jewish organisation in Australia . The Melbourne Bund also maintains

1326-801: The German Imperial Army . During the March 24–25, 1918 session of the Rada, the Bund argued against declaring independence from Russia. Bund member Mojżesz Gutman became a Minister without portfolio in the government of the newly created republic and drafted its constitution. The Bund later left the government bodies of the Belarusian People's Republic. The remainder Bund in Russia its 12th conference on April 12–19, 1920 in Gomel , where

1404-593: The Jewish Labour Bund ( Yiddish : דער יידישער ארבעטער־בונד , romanized :  Der Yidisher Arbeter-Bund ), was a secular Jewish socialist party initially formed in the Russian Empire and active between 1897 and 1920. In 1917, the Bund organizations in Poland seceded from the Russian Bund and created a new Polish General Jewish Labour Bund which continued to operate in Poland in

1482-800: The Pale of Settlement , joined the RSDLP directly. At the RSDLP's second congress in Brussels and London in August 1903, the Bund's autonomous position within the RSDLP was rejected, with both the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks voting against, and the Bund's representatives left the Congress, the first of many splits in the Russian social democratic movement in the years to come. The five representatives of

1560-504: The Russian Empire into a united socialist party, and also to ally itself with the wider Russian social democratic movement to achieve a democratic and socialist Russia. The Russian Empire then included Lithuania , Latvia , Belarus , Ukraine and most of present-day Poland, areas where the majority of the world's Jews then lived. They hoped to see the Jews achieve a legal minority status in Russia. Of all Jewish political parties of

1638-711: The Russian Revolution of 1905 the Bund headed the revolutionary movement in the Jewish towns, particularly in Belarus and Ukraine . The Bund recognized the Yiddish language as a social identifier. To maintain its national-cultural autonomy , the Bund advocated for the Polish Jewish minority to use its own language and maintain its cultural institutions in areas where it was considered a sizable portion of

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1716-620: The social democratic movement in the Russian empire until the 1917 Russian Revolution ; the Bundists initially opposed the October Revolution , but ended up supporting it due to pogroms committed by the Volunteer Army of the anti-communist White movement during the Russian Civil War . Split along communist and social democratic lines throughout the Civil War, a faction supported the Soviet government and eventually

1794-596: The "New Yiddish Bund of Binghamton" in coordination with the Democratic Socialists of America in October 2023. The group published a manifesto in November of that year seeking to gain international support and cooperation, centreing Bundism as an alternative to Zionism within the modern Jewish diaspora. The group has drawn criticism from the aforementioned groups however, for its focus on Anti-Zionism and

1872-926: The "World Coordinating Council of the Jewish Labor Bund", was founded in New York, with affiliated groups in Argentina, Australia , Canada, France, Israel , Mexico, the United Kingdom , the United States , and other countries. Though extant after the war and undergoing a revival in the 21st century, according to David Kranzler, the movement and its relatives (e.g. the Gordonia youth movement ) were relatively unsuccessful in accomplishing their goals in Europe, though they were popular. While

1950-1160: The Bund at this Congress were Vladimir Kossowsky , Arkadi Kremer , Mikhail Liber , Vladimir Medem and Noah Portnoy . During this period two trade unions, the Union of Bristle-Makers ( Bersther-Bund ) and the Union of Tanners ( Garber-Bund ), were affiliated to the Bund. In its report to the 1903 Russian Social Democratic Labour Party congress, the Bund claimed to have district organizations in Vilna ( Sventiany , etc.), Kovno ( Ponevezh , Vilkomir , Shavli , Onikshty , Keydany , Yanovo , Shaty , Utena ...), Grodno ( Kartuz-Bereza , etc.), Białystok , Dvinsk ( Rezhitsa ...), Minsk ( Borisov , Pinsk , Mozyr , Bobruisk , Parichi ...), Vitebsk ( Beshankovichy , Liozna , Lyady ...), Warsaw , Łódź , Siedlce , Płock , Suwałki , Mariampol , Gomel (Dobryanyka, Vietka ...), Mogilev ( Shklow , Orsha , Bykhov , Kopys ...), Zhytomyr , Berdichev , Odessa , Nizhyn , Bila Tserkva , Podolian Governorate ( Vinnitsa , Bratslav , Tulchina , Nemirov ), Lutsk , Volhynian Governorate , as well as

2028-500: The Bund had remarkable success, gaining an estimated 30,000 members in 1903 and an estimated 40,000 supporters in 1906, making it the largest socialist group in the Russian Empire . Given the Bund's secular and socialist perspective, it opposed what it viewed as the reactionary nature of traditional Jewish life in Russia. Created before the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP), the Bund

2106-760: The Bund made an electoral agreement with the Lithuanian Labourers' Party ( Trudoviks ), which resulted in the election to the Duma of two (apparently non-Bundist) candidates supported by the Bund: Dr. Shmaryahu Levin for the Vilna province and Leon Bramson for the Kovno province. In total, there were twelve Jewish deputies in the Duma, falling to three in the Second Duma (February 1907 to June 1907), two in

2184-602: The Bund proposed that the Russian Provisional Government convene an all-Ukrainian territorial conference with representatives of both the Rada and non-Ukrainian forces, to establish an autonomous administration. The Bund was among the political parties that participated in the Rada (Council) of the Belarusian People's Republic , which declared independence in 1918 on territories occupied by

2262-463: The Bund's socialist universalism. The Bund avoided any automatic solidarity with Jews of the middle and upper classes and generally rejected political cooperation with Jewish groups that held religious, Zionist or conservative views. Even the anthem of the Bund, known as "the oath" ( Di Shvue in Yiddish), written in 1902 by S. Ansky , contained no explicit reference to Jews or Jewish suffering. At

2340-456: The Communist ideology and policy of confiscation of property, usurpation of political power, arrests and persecution of political opponents. The Bund also had elected officials at the local level. During the 1917 October Revolution and Russian Civil War , the mayor of the predominantly Jewish Ukrainian town of Berdychiv (53,728 inhabitants, 80% of whom were Jewish at the 1897 census) was

2418-443: The Jewish Labour Bund was a trade union as well as a political party, its initial purpose was the organisation of the Jewish proletariat in Belarus, Russia, Poland and Lithuania. It was criticised however by individuals like Julius Martov and Vladimir Lenin for " Economism "; a claim rejected by Bundist leaders like Arkadi Kremer and Vladimir Medem . Many modern iterations of the Bund have divested from explicit Marxism but retain

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2496-454: The Jewish national character of the party. No compromise could be reached, and no resolution was adopted on the national question. In February 1905, by a decision of the 6th Bund conference held in Dvinsk , a Polish District Committee ( Yiddish : פוילישן ראיאן-קאמיטעט ) was formed; gathering the local party branches in the areas of Congress Poland (covering 10 governorates, but not including

2574-561: The Latvia District Committee of the Bund began publishing the newspaper Undzer Tsayt ('Our Time'). As Latvia declared independence, the Bund held the position that Latvian independence should only be a temporary solution and that the area should eventually become part of a democratic socialist Russia. The Bund obtained two seats in the People's Council of Latvia , represented by A. Sherman and M. Papermeister. Moreover,

2652-524: The Party line directed toward the socialist attack (Bazarov, Gukhman) ... On the final day, the prisoners made confessions of their "crimes". "In the last minutes before my death", one of them was quoted saying, "I will think with disgust of the evil I have wrought; evil for which not we, but foreign Menshevists and the Second International must share responsibility." Nikolai Krylenko ,

2730-600: The Public Prosecutor, declared that Groman, Sher, Yakubovitch, Ginzburg, and Sukhanov were the principal leaders of the counter-revolutionary organization, and therefore, must suffer the death penalty. For the others he asked that they should be isolated "for long periods". At 9 March 1931, after deliberating for twenty-five hours, the court sentenced seven defendants to ten years' imprisonment. The seven other defendants were sentenced to different terms of imprisonment, ranging from five to eight years. Those who received

2808-480: The Third Duma (1907–1912) and again three in the fourth, elected in 1912, none of them being affiliated to the Bund. The Bund eventually came to strongly oppose Zionism , arguing that emigration to Palestine was a form of escapism . The Bund did not advocate separatism. Instead, it focused on culture, rather than a state or a place, as the glue of Jewish "nationalism" . In this they borrowed extensively from

2886-731: The UN. The 1948 New York Second World Conference of the International Jewish Labor Bund condemned the proclamation of the Zionist state. The conference was in favour of a two nations’ state built on the base of national equality and democratic federalism. A branch of the Jewish Labour Bund was created in Israel in 1951, the Arbeter-ring in Yisroel – Brith Haavoda , which even took part in the 1959 Knesset elections, with

2964-418: The autumn of 1904, the Riga Committee of the Latvian Social Democratic Workers Party and the Riga Committee of the Bund signed a co-operation agreement and founded the Riga Federative Committee. The main liaisons were the engineer Jānis Ozols ("Zars") and the railwayman Samuel Klevansky ("Maksim"). Bund was active during the 1905 Russian revolution, organizing demonstrations and fighting units. In December 1918

3042-419: The contrary, the Bund argued that it was a party for action inside the Russian empire. The Bundist groups abroad were not included into the party structures. In 1902, a United Organization of Workers' Associations and Support Groups to the Bund Abroad was founded. The groups affiliated to the United Organization played an important role in raising funds for the party. Between 1901 and 1903, the Foreign Committee

3120-405: The control figures and into the surveys of current business planning ideas and deliberately distorted appraisals antagonistic to the general Party line (lowering the rates of expansion of socialist construction, distorting the class approach, exaggerating the difficulties), stressing the signs of an impending catastrophe (Groman) or, what is close to this, assigning a negligible chance of success to

3198-600: The country – three delegates each from Vitebsk , Minsk , Mohilev , Kiev , Kharkov , Petrograd (including Max Weinreich ), Moscow (including Aleksandr Zolotarev ), Yekaterinoslav , two delegates each from Odessa , Berdichev , Gomel , Kremenchuk , Nizhny Novgorod and one delegate each from Slutsk , Bobruisk , Gorodok, Nevel , Polotsk , Smolensk , Zhitomir , Mariupol , Bakhmut , Alexandrovsk, Simferopol , Rostov-on-Don , Kazan , Tambov , Samara , Baku , Tomsk / Novonikolayevsk , Saratov , Ufa , Novomoskovsk , Bogorodsk , Voronezh , and Rivne . In May 1917,

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3276-401: The creation of the Jewish state was an important event in Jewish history that might play a positive role in Jewish life, but felt that a few necessary changes were needed. The conference participants demanded that: The World Coordinating Council of the Jewish Labour Bund was quietly disbanded by a number of Bundists and representatives of related organizations, including The Workers Circle and

3354-409: The debate around Antisemitism in Germany away from support for Israel and posits that Antisemitism is "firmly anchored in the centre of German society". The organisation regularly takes part in Nakba Day demonstrations and positions itself as Anti-Zionist. In addition, as a result of their protests against the Israel-Hamas War a group of Jewish Students based out of Binghamton University formed

3432-607: The districts of the Union of Bristle-Makers; Nevel , Kreslavka , Vilkovyshki , Kalvaria, Vladislavovo, Verzhbolovo , Vystinets, Mezhdurechye  [ ru ] , Trostyan , Knyszyn , and the districts of the Union of Tanners; Smorgon , Oshmyany , Krynki , Zabludovo , Shishlovichi  [ ru ] , etc. Per Vladimir Akimov's account of the history of social democracy 1897–1903, there were 14 local committees of Bund – Warsaw , Łódź , Belostok , Grodno , Vilna , Dvisnk , Kovno , Vitebsk , Minsk , Gomel , Mogilev , Berdichev , Zhitomir , Riga . Per Akimov's account

3510-521: The early stages of the first Russian Revolution, the armed groups of the "Bund" were likely the strongest revolutionary force in Western Russia. During the following years, the Bund went into a period of decay. The party tried to concentrate on labour activism around 1909–1910 and led strikes in ten cities. The strikes resulted in a deepened backlash for the party, and as of 1910 there were legal Bundist trade unions in only four cities, Białystok , Vilnius , Riga and Łódź . Total membership in Bundist unions

3588-409: The heart of the vision of the future of the Bund was the idea that there is no contradiction between the national aspect on the one hand and the socialist aspect on the other, as a strictly secular organization, the Bund renounced the Holy Land and the sacred language (Hebrew) and chose to speak Yiddish. After Kremer and Kossovsky were arrested, a new party leadership emerged. A new central committee

3666-406: The language. The Bund was the first political party to publish a Yiddish paper – Der yidisher arbeyter – in tsarist Russia in 1896. Less than a year after the founding of the party, its Foreign Committee was set up in Geneva . Also within the same timespan, Bundist groups began to constitute themselves internationally. However, the Bund did not construct any world party (as did Poalei Zion ). On

3744-519: The local committees had six types of councils; trade councils ( fakhoye skhodki ), revolutionary groups, propaganda councils, councils for intellectuals, discussion groups for intellectuals and agitators' councils. The Bristle-Makers Union and Tanners Union had committee status. Bund had organizations that weren't full-fledged committees in Pinsk , Sedlice, Petrokov , Płock , Brest-Litovsk , Vilkomir , Priluki , Rezhitsa , Kiev , Odessa , Bobruisk , and many smaller townships. The 4th Bund conference

3822-450: The local population. As a Germanic language, Yiddish also helped maintain the Bund's European identity. This can be compared to the anti-Yiddish campaign taking place in Palestine during the early twentieth century, where Yiddish newspapers were banned and physical attacks took place against Yiddish speakers. The Bund had a major role in maintaining and developing Yiddish, including Yiddish literature and other secular cultural uses of

3900-442: The majority adopted a Communist position and the anti Bolshevik minority reconstituted themselves as separate party (the Bund (S.D.) ). The fourteen point of the resolution "On the Present Situation and the Tasks of Our Party" of the Gomel conference stated that Summing up the experience of the last year, the Twelfth Conference of the Bund finds: The resolution on organisational questions stated that The logical consequence of

3978-479: The only existing wing of the Bundist SKIF Youth Organisation. The Australian Bund today has ties to both the Australian Labor Party and Australian Greens , and has campaigned in favour of progressive social issues such as the rights of migrants, and in favour of a "Yes" vote in the Voice Referendum . It does not consider itself Anti-Zionist, and has not participated in either pro-Israel or pro-Palestine rallies in Australia. The early 21st-century has witnessed

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4056-475: The other conference delegates. The 3rd conference affirmed that the Bund only struggled for civil, not national, rights. In 1901, the word "Lithuania" was added to the name of the party. The Bund's membership grew to 900 in Łódź and 1,200 in Warsaw in the fall of 1904. During the period of 1903–1904, the Bund was harshly affected by Czarist state repression. Between June 1903 and July 1904, 4,467 Bundists were arrested and jailed. In its early years,

4134-431: The party obtained four seats in the provisional city council of Riga . In 1919, a separate Latvian Bund party was formed. After the issuing of the First Universal of the Central Rada (Council) of Ukraine , the Southern Bureau of the Bund issued a statement rejecting the declaration of Ukrainian autonomy. The Bund feared that minorities, such as the Jews, would suffer if a centralized Ukrainian state emerged. Rather

4212-426: The political stand adopted by the Bund is the latter's entry into the [Russian Communist Party] on the same basis as the Bund's membership of the R.S.D.L.P.. The conference authorised the C.C. of the Bund to see to it, as an essential condition, that the Bund preserve within the R.C.P. the status of an autonomous organisation of the Jewish proletariat. In Lithuania, the majority of the Bund had become Communists and at

4290-444: The proceedings, representing the major city branches of the party and the Foreign Committee. Two issues dominated the debates; the upcoming congress of the RSDLP and the national question. During the discussions, there was a division between the older guard of the Foreign Committee (Kossovsky, Kremer and John (Yosef) Mill ) and the younger generation represented by Medem, Liber and Raphael Abramovitch . The younger group wanted to stress

4368-420: The reduced political authority of religious institutions over Jewish life, some modern Bundist organizations do not consider this a primary focus. The Jewish Labour Bund, while not initially interested in Yiddish per se as anything more than a vehicle to exhort the masses of Jewish workers in Eastern Europe , soon saw the language and the larger Yiddish culture as valuable and promoted the use of Yiddish as

4446-448: The support of the Mensheviks , but the RSDLP remained fractured along ideological and ethnic lines. The Bund generally sided with the party's Menshevik faction led by Julius Martov and against the Bolshevik faction led by Vladimir Lenin during the factional struggles in the run-up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 . The 7th Bund conference was held in Lemberg ( Galicia ) August 28 – September 8, 1906. The main topic for debate

4524-432: The ten years' sentence were Groman, Sher, Sukhanov, Ginzburg, Jakobovich, Petunina, and Finn-Enotaevsky. Rafail Abramovich , a prominent Menshevik in exile in Berlin , helped to mobilise Western socialist and labour support for the persecuted economists. At a rally in Berlin, organised by the SPD , he denied there was an underground Menshevik organisation that existed in the Soviet Union . Leon Trotsky also commented on

4602-408: The time of the Russian revolution resulted in splits in the Bund. In Ukraine, Bund branches in cities like Bobruisk , Ekaterinoburg and Odessa had formed 'leftwing Bund groups' in late 1918. In February 1919, these groups (representing the majority in the Bund in Ukraine) adopted the name Communist Bund ( Kombund ), re-constituting themselves as an independent party. Moisei Rafes , who had been

4680-403: The time, the Bund was the most progressive regarding gender equality , with women making up more than one-third of all members. The Bund actively campaigned against antisemitism. It defended Jewish civil and cultural rights and rejected assimilation. However, the close promotion of Jewish sectional interests and support for the concept of Jewish national unity ( klal yisrael ) was prevented by

4758-735: The trial, condemning both Stalin and the Mensheviks. However, Trotsky would later publicly regret his mistake and for his belief in the initial charges due to the previous obstruction from Groman to the proposed five-year plan and industrialisation. General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia The General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia ( Yiddish : אַלגעמײנער ייִדישער אַרבעטער־בונד אין ליטע, פּױלן און רוסלאַנד , romanized :  Algemeyner Yidisher Arbeter-bund in Lite, Poyln un Rusland ), generally called The Bund ( Yiddish : דער בונד , romanized :  Der Bund , cognate to German : Bund , lit.   ' federation ' or ' union ' ) or

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4836-413: The two main centres of Bundist activity in Poland: the cities of Warsaw and Łódz ). In the Polish areas of the Russian empire, the Bund was a leading force in the 1905 Revolution . At that time, the organization probably reached the height of its influence. It called for an improvement in living standards, a more democratic political system and the introduction of equal rights for Jews. At least in

4914-464: The years between the two world wars. The majority faction of the Russian Bund was dissolved in 1921 and incorporated into the Communist Party. Other remnants of the Bund endured in various countries. A member of the Bund was called a Bundist . The "General Jewish Labour Bund in Russia and Poland" was founded in Vilna on October 7, 1897. The name was inspired by the General German Workers' Association . The Bund sought to unite all Jewish workers in

4992-402: Was Mikhail Liber , who was to be roundly denounced by Lenin. With the Russian Civil War and the increase in anti-Semitic pogroms by nationalists and Whites , the Bund was obliged to recognise the Soviet government and its militants fought in the Red Army in large numbers. At the time of the 1917 upheavals, Mikhail Liber was elected president of the Bund. The 10th conference of the Bund

5070-413: Was a form of escapism . After the 1936 Warsaw kehilla elections, Henryk Ehrlich accused Zionist leaders Yitzhak Gruenbaum and Ze'ev Jabotinsky of being responsible for recent anti-Semitic agitation in Poland by their campaign urging Jewish emigration. The Bund was against the UNGA vote on the partition of Palestine and reaffirmed its support for a country under the control of superpowers and

5148-423: Was a founding collective member at the RSDLP's first congress in Minsk in March 1898. Three out of nine delegates at the Minsk congress were from the Bund, and one of three members of the first RSDLP Central Committee was a Bundist. For the next 5 years, the Bund was recognized as the sole representative of the Jewish workers in the RSDLP, although many Russian socialists of Jewish descent, especially outside of

5226-426: Was a secular Jewish socialist movement whose first organizational manifestation was the General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, and Russia ( Yiddish : אַלגעמײנער ייִדישער אַרבעטער־בונד אין ליטע, פוילין און רוסלאַנד , romanized :  Algemeyner yidisher arbeter-bund in Lite, Poyln un Rusland ), founded in the Russian Empire in 1897. The Jewish Labour Bund was an important component of

5304-440: Was absorbed by the Communist Party . Bundist movement continued to exist as a political party in independent Poland in the interwar period as the General Jewish Labour Bund in Poland , becoming a major political force within Polish-Jewish communities. Bundists were active in the anti-Nazi struggle , and many of its members were murdered during the Holocaust . After the war, the International Jewish Labor Bund , more properly

5382-616: Was also promoted in opposition to the Russification policies of the Russian Empire ; once again with a class element as upwardly-mobile, middle class Jews adopted Russian as their main language. With the decline of Yiddish as a spoken language , many Bundists now support the revitalisation of Yiddish as an explicit project (e.g., Bundist organisations in Australia sponsoring non-political Yiddish cultural centres for this purpose). The concept of Doikayt ( Yiddish : דאָיִקייט , lit.   'hereness', from דאָ do 'here' plus ־יק -ik adjectival suffix plus ־קייט -kayt '-ness' suffix),

5460-403: Was around 1,500. At the time of the eighth party conference only nine local branches were represented (Riga, Vilnius, Białystok , Łódź, Bobruisk , Pinsk , Warsaw , Grodno and Dvinsk ) with a combined membership of 609 (out of whom 404 were active). The Bund formally rejoined the RSDLP when all of its faction reunited at the Fourth (Unification) Congress in Stockholm in April 1906, with

5538-399: Was based in London. The United Organization, the Foreign Committee as well as the Union of Russian Social Democrats Abroad were all dissolved at the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917 . When Poland fell under German occupation in 1914, contact between the Bundists in Poland and the party centre in St. Petersburg became difficult. In November 1914 the Bund Central Committee appointed

5616-475: Was derisive of and politically opposed to Bundism. In a 1904 text, Social democracy and the national question , Vladimir Medem exposed his version of this concept: "Let us consider the case of a country composed of several national groups, e.g. Poles, Lithuanians and Jews. Each national group would create a separate movement. All citizens belonging to a given national group would join a special organisation that would hold cultural assemblies in each region and

5694-621: Was held in Białystok in April 1901. The main topic of debate of the 4th Bund conference was the expansion of the Bund into Ukraine and building alliances with existing Jewish labour groups there. The 4th conference reversed the line of the 3rd conference and adopted a line of demanding Jewish national autonomy. The fifth conference of the Bund met in Zürich in June 1903. Thirty delegates took part in

5772-609: Was held in Petrograd April 14–17, 1917. It was the first Bund conference to be held openly inside Russia. 63 delegates had decisive voting rights at the conference, 20 had consultative votes. Isaiah Eisenstadt (Yudin), Arn Vaynshteyn (Rakhmiel), Mark Liber , Henrik Erlich and Moisei Rafes were the delegates of the Central Committee at the conference. The Brushworkers' Union had two delegates. The other delegates with decisive votes represented 37 cities across

5850-632: Was not on trial) headed a counterrevolutionary group in Gosplan , purportedly organized in 1923, which attempted at "influencing the economic policy of the Soviet authorities so as to hold the position of 1923–25." Groman, being a member of the Presidium of the Gosplan the star figure among the accused, damned himself and his colleagues with testimony that at Gosplan they had spent their time Putting into

5928-633: Was set up under the leadership of Dovid Kats (Taras). Other key figures in the new party leadership were Leon Goldman, Pavel (Piney) Rozental and Zeldov (Nemansky). The 2nd Bund conference was held in September 1898. The 3rd Bund conference was held in Kovno in December 1899. John Mill had returned from exile to attend the conference, at which he argued that the Bund should advocate for Jewish national rights. However, Mill's line did not win support from

6006-675: Was the only Jewish party that worked within the soviets . Like other socialist parties in Russia, the Bund welcomed the February Revolution of 1917, but it did not support the October Revolution in which the Bolsheviks seized power. Like Mensheviks and other non-Bolshevik parties, the Bund called for the convening of the Russian Constituent Assembly long demanded by all Social Democratic factions. The Bund's key leader in Petrograd during these months

6084-659: Was the relation with the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. At the time, the Bund had 33,890 members and 274 functioning local organizations. After the RSDLP finally split in 1912, the Bund became a federated part of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Menshevik) (by this time the Mensheviks had accepted the idea of a federated party organization). At the 1906 First Duma elections ,

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