BUND Der Algemeyner Yidisher Arbeter Bund in Lite, Poyln, un Rusland

Bund Vilna, 1897 Marxism influenced 1912 joined Mensheviks thousand members, 400 branches 1921 joined the Communist Party Bund in Poland – Remains independent – 1939 – almost 100 thousand members

3rd Party Convention complete national emancipation, e.g. FREEDOM TO USE THEIR OWN LANGUAGE – Little support for the national rights – demand EQUAL CIVIL RIGHTS

4th Party Convention Withdrew from the Russian Social Democratic Worker´s party Bund against Zionism Crypto-Zionists for the Russian Social Democratic Worker´s party

6th Party Convention After 1905 – focuses on CULTURAL ISSUES – advocates YIDDISH CULTURE

BUND New Jewish working class + young Jewish intelligentsia attracted by socialism 1890´s: focused on the amelioration of the human condition of a worker, not specifically on Jewish- oriented goals

Kishniev April 6 & 7, 1903 Pogrom publicly denounced by 317 Russian writers and artists (incl. Tolstoy) Bund and Poalei Zion organize groups of self- defense боевые отряды Beilis Trial, 1913

Bund View of founders Not specifically Jewish movement Want to integrate into Russian socialist movement View of Lenin& Stalin A national Jewish party developing independent political tendencies

Lenin Assimilation= only progressive solution of the Jewish question Antisemitism is reactionary Nationalism is bourgeois and must be fought against Zionism= rabbis Bund is not marxist but nationalist

Stalin Marxism and the National Question , 1st commissar of the nationality of the USSR – Tacitly recognized Jews as a nationality – Fostered yiddish culture, administrative institutions and agricultural settlements Late 1930´s – purges – yiddish schools and insitutions systematically liquidated untill WWII Support if the Jewish State in Palestine against UK – extreme hostility : – Jews = Zionists, US spies

BUND By 1905 the largest and best-organized Jewish party in EE 1917 – Feb – Pale of Settlement suppressed – Nov – Lenin and Stalin abolished all national and religious priviledges of Jews

Yevsektsiya 1918 – Jewish section in the Communist party aimed on DESTROYING THE ZIONIST INSTITUTIONS and the Jewish religious culture After destruction of all non-communist Jewish social life dissolved in 1930

Birobidzhan Jewish autonomous region Collective farming Yiddish Institutions Failed – Only supported by communists – Harsh conditions – Zion is not Birobidzhan – Stalin purges affected intellingetsia

Bund in Poland guardians of secular yiddish culture TRADE UNIONS EDUCATION CULTURAL ACTIVITY SOCIAL SUPPORT YOUTH- Tsukunft SPORTS SCHOOL NETWORKS – secular, socialist SANATORIUM for children with TBC NEWSPAPER – Folks-Tsaytung – Głos Bundu WOMEN – Yiddishe Arbeiter- Frey Organizatsye, YAF Network of day- care centers for children

Bund after 1939 Contact with the Polish underground and the exile government 1942 – report on the Jewish genocide smuggled to London 1941 New York – main center 1949 organization wiped out by the Stalinist line