Jewish Disloyalty 1890 Russia Zimmerman

Poles, Jews, and the Politics of Nationality: The Bund and the Polish Socialist Party in Late Tsarist Russia, 1892–1914, by Joshua D. Zimmerman. 2003

Organized and Systematic Jewish Disloyalty to Polish National Aspirations in Tsarist Russia

This work provides considerable detail on the relationship between Jewish and Polish socialist parties. The Polish reader may be surprised at the extent to which Pilsudski shared Dmowski’s views on Jews, although Pilsudski pursued a very different policy towards Jews than did Dmowski.

ZYDOKOMUNA OPPOSED THE RESURRECTION OF ANY KIND OF POLISH STATE

Before Pilsudski rose to leadership of the PPS–the Polish Socialist Party, Rosa Luxemburg, one of the editors of its newspaper, had voiced her strong, even dogmatic (p. 55) opposition to Poland’s independence. (p. 33). This eventually caused a split in the organization, and Luxemburg formed a new organization, the Social Democrats (SDKP), which was recognizably internationalist, pro-Russian, and Marxist. (p. 34). In time, Luxemburg’s anti-Polish views were widely disseminated in Yiddish papers. (p. 113). Later, the pro-Russian, far-left (p. 255) SDKPiL would also oppose Poland’s independence.(p. 174).

ORGANIZED LITVAK AGITATION DRIVES JEWS AWAY EVEN FROM LEFTIST POLES

Meanwhile, a Jewish workers’ movement (Vilna Group) developed in Vilna (Wilno) which was culturally Russified (though it switched to Yiddish for purposes of agitation in 1893: p. 74), which became a pioneer of Jewish nationalism (p. 38), and which claimed to speak for all Jews in the Russian Empire. These Litvaks (Litwaks) soon spread their influences into not only the Pale, but also into the Kingdom, where they came into conflict with Jews in the preexisting PPS. (p. 74-on; 292). The Bund thus was born as an attempt to patch-over the differences between the two groups (p. 79), but there was no specific demand for Polish independence (p. 77), and the PPS Jews soon withdrew over this matter (p. 80). From then on, the Litvaks alone defined the Bund.

ORGANIZED ACROSS-THE-BOARD JEWISH HOSTILITY TO POLISH INDEPENDENCE EFFORTS

The Endek position on the Litvaks was hardly limited to Endeks! Pilsudski (p. 28, 89) himself, as well as the pro-Polish Jews in the PPS (p. 70, 141), namely Stanislaw Mendelson (p. 286), Kazimierz Rog (p. 90), and Feliks Sachs (p. 183), also recognized the Litvaks as sources of Russification, and hostility (when not active enmity) towards Polish national aspirations. These conclusions were based on concrete facts, not opinions. For instance, a Bund leaflet to Polish Jewish workers referred to even Congress Poland as Russia. (p. 90). Zimmerman adds: “Most abhorrent to Poles was the process by which Russified Litvaks had established a center in the Polish heartland and organized Polish Jewish workers under a banner that affirmed the unity of Russia, including the Polish lands.” (p. 87). Indeed!

LITVAKS PRO-RUSSIAN, AND AT POLISH EXPENSE

The Bund recognizably had an all-Russian orientation with neutrality on the Polish national question. (p. 4; see also p. 95, pp. 206-207). Zimmerman comments: “…the Russified Bundist leadership preserved the view that the breakup of Russia into national states would undermine the unity of the Jewish working class.” (p. 187). The reader should remember that nearly all Jews living in the Pale had descended from Jews whose ancestors Poland had given shelter in the face of persecution. Now, by being neutral at best, that is how they were showing their gratitude to Poland. Such, at least, was the Endek position. (pp. 216-217).

JEWS SEEK SPECIAL, SEPARATIST RIGHTS

Jews professedly objected to supporting the resurrection of Poland because there was no guarantee that their rights would be respected any more than they were in Russia. (p. 109). [Considering the fact that the events were taking place not in Israel but in Poland, albeit foreign-occupied Poland, should not Poles be the ones that call the shots? Should not, if anything, Poles be the ones setting preconditions? The Endeks certainly thought so. (pp. 216-217)]. Besides, Jewish calls for rights, as shown later during the brouhaha surrounding the Minorities Treaty and Poland, turned out to be demands for special privileges, such as virtual separate-nation status, complete with self-imposed apartheid, in Poland. In fact, long before the resurrection of Poland, Jews were already thinking in terms of such things as Yiddish-language middle schools and universities (pp. 111-112; 253), and Yiddish to be elevated to the same level as Russian in public life. (p. 116).

PHONY INDIGNATION ABOUT THE “INJUSTICES” THAT WOULD BE CREATED BY A NEWLY-RESURRECTED POLAND

Jews also were unwilling to support a resurrected Poland because [incorrectly] the original Poland had been created by force (p. 122), because there was no unanimity on the geographic extent of a new Poland (p. 122), because there would be irreconcilable territorial claims advanced by different nationalisms (e. g., Poles vs. Ukrainians: p. 114), and because a new Poland would only create new oppressed minorities. (p. 122). [However, apart from the gross oversimplification of the foregoing premises, essentially the same considerations apply to virtually all nations, and furthermore were applicable to the future State of Israel, yet this did not prevent Jews (at least Zionists) from supporting the resurrection of the State of Israel!] Complaints about Poles “oppressing minorities” are a bit rich in view of the fact that Russians generally oppressed minorities more than Poles, and surely the Jews knew that by now.

Nowadays, many of the same arguments, intended to delegitimize Poland, are invoked by LEWAKS, cultural Marxists, Euro-enthusiasts, and globalists. Some things never change.

ENDEK CONCERNS ABOUT THE JEWISH POPULATION EXPLOSION WERE BASED ON FACT

All this time, Jews had been overcrowding the Russian-ruled central Poland (Kingdom of Poland). In 1816, Jews constituted 7.6% of its population; by 1913, this had nearly doubled to 14.8%. (p. 13). Those “paranoid” and “anti-Semitic” Endeks had been right about Jews increasingly “taking over” Poland, if only in terms of demographics.

FOR FURTHER READING

One important work conspicuously omitted by Zimmerman is that of Julian Unszlicht, a pro-Polish Jew. See the Peczkis review of Unszlicht’s 1912 work, POGROMY…

For a “sequel” to Zimmerman, a book that analyzes the Bund in Poland after 1918, see the Peczkis review of Bundist Counterculture in Interwar Poland (Modern Jewish History).