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Political Reaction and Revolutionary Careers: The Jewish Bundists in Defeat, 1907–10

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Henry J. Tobias  and
Charles E. Woodhouse
Henry J. Tobias
Affiliation:
The University of Oklahoma
Charles E. Woodhouse
Affiliation:
The University of New Mexico
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Extract

The greatest shocks suffered by revolutionary movements occur in the blossoming of revolution or in its defeat. The experience of the Russian Revolution of 1905–07 and of the period that followed, described by contemporary radical commentators as a “reaction,” is a case in point. In a half-dozen years the revolutionaries traveled the road that led from a promising, growing movement to actual revolution in which the parameters of their field of action expanded rapidly and then contracted to an environment of retrenchment and disillusionment. The effects of this experience upon individuals and organizations have not, however, received meaningful attention from historians or social scientists. An understanding of the experience of defeat is as significant as an understanding of the experience of success in the perception of revolutionary movements.

Type
Religion and Revolutionary Minorities
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , July 1977 , pp. 367 - 396
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1977

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References

1 The standard histories of the Jewish Bund reveal a marked reluctance to deal with the post-1905 period on its own terms. The most extensive historical sketch to appear in Yiddish before 1939 from the pen of a practicing Bundist devoted 67 pages to the “heroic” period of development, 1897–1906, and 14 pages to the post-1905 period ending in 1914. See Schulman, V., Bletlekh geshikhte fun der yidisher arbeter bevegung, Part I (Warsaw, 1929).Google Scholar A current full history of the Bund in Yiddish, of which four volumes have appeared, devotes 350 pages to 1905–06 and about 90 to the period 1907–14. See Hertz, J. S., et al., Di geshikhte fun Bund (New York, 1960– ).Google Scholar The two best known works in Russian reveal similar characteristics: M. Rafes, an ex-Bundist who remained with the Communists, covers the history of the Bund until the early 1920s, devoting one-half (163 pages) of the total text to the years 1897–1906, 18 pages to the reaction 1908–10, and 8 pages through World War I. Ocherkipo istorii Bunda (Moscow, 1923);Google Scholar N. A. Bukhbinder, a Russian-Jewish scholar who wrote extensively in the early twenties devoted 218 pages to years 1897–1905 and 16 pages to the years 1907–14, adding 5 more for World War I at which point the volume ends, Istoriia evreiskogo rabochego dvizheniia v Rossii (Leningrad, 1925).Google Scholar Neither the quantity and quality of extant materials nor the issues encountered during the period of the Reaction warrant such disparity of allotted space.

2 See for example Smelser, Neil J., Theory of Collective Behavior (New York, 1962)Google Scholar, passim; Oberschall, Anthony, Social Conflict and Social Movements (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1973)Google Scholar, esp. Ch. VII; Gamson, William A., Power and Discontent (Homewood, Illinois, 1968), esp. Chs. 6 and 8.Google Scholar

Some studies of movement outcomes have been concerned with the transformation of organizational goals after the original mission has failed or after the mission has been coopted. See Gusfield, Joseph R., “Social Structure and Moral Reform: A Study of the Women's Christian Temperance Union,” American Journal of Sociology, LXI (1955), 221–32;Google ScholarMessinger, Sheldon L., “Organizational Transformation: A Case Study of a Declining Social Movement,” American Sociological Review, 20 (1955), 3–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Other studies have focused on the subsequent ideological commitments, life styles and activities of participants in movements which have failed or been terminated, or of participants who leave a movement while it is still active. See Festinger, Leon, Riecken, Henry W. and Schacter, Stanley, When Prophecy Fails (Minneapolis, 1956);CrossRefGoogle ScholarAlmond, Gabriel, The Appeals of Communism (Princeton, 1954), pp. 297–369;CrossRefGoogle ScholarKorn-hauser, William, “Social Bases of Political Commitment: A Study of Liberals and Radicals,” in Rose, Arnold M., ed., Human Behavior and Social Processes (Boston, 1962), pp. 321–39;Google ScholarFendrich, James M. and Tarleau, Alison, “Marching to a Different Drummer: Occupational and Political Correlates of Former Student Activists,” Social Forces 52 (1973), 245–53;CrossRefGoogle ScholarDemerath, N. J. IIIMarwell, Gerald and Aiken, Michael T., Dynamics of Idealism (San Francisco, 1971), esp. Chs. 5 and 6.Google Scholar

3 Oberschall, , op. cit.Google Scholar

4 For information on the Zubatovshchina, police-supported labor activity among the Jewish workers, see Mendelsohn, Ezra, Class Struggle in the Pale (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 138–52Google Scholar, and Tobias, Henry J., The Jewish Bund in Russia: From Its Origins to 1905 (Stanford, 1972), pp. 120–29, 140–47.Google Scholar

5 Oberschall, , pp. 118–35.Google Scholar

6 The Pale of Settlement was an area legally defined as residential for the Jews of Russia. It stretched from the Black Sea to the Baltic coast, taking in the western provinces of Russia and Poland. Some Jews were allowed to live outside of it on the basis of wealth, education, occupation, and military service. The vast majority of the Russian Jews, however, lived within its boundaries until the Revolution of 1917.

7 Oberschall, , p. 119.Google Scholar

8 Ibid.

9 Di geshikhte fun Bund, Hertz, J. S., ed., II, 373.Google Scholar

10 Berikhtfun der VIII Konferents fun Bund. 1910, pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., p. 13.

12 Ibid.; In his memoirs, Raphael Abramovich, who was elected to the Central Committee in 1906, refers briefly to organizational changes which took place in 1908. With the onset of the Reaction the Committee at first divided itself into regions, and after the failure of this strategy, in order not to lose cadres, some members became legal, one part moving to Warsaw, the other to Vilna, . In tsvai revolutsies: Di geshikhte fun a dor, I (New York, 1944), pp. 317–18.Google Scholar

13 VIII Konferents, pp. 14–19.Google Scholar

14 Ibid., pp. 21–22.

15 Di geshikhtefun Bund, II, 361.Google Scholar

16 VIII Konferents, p. 3.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., pp. 7–8.

18 Blekman, Laib, Bleterfun mainyugent: Zikhroines fun a Bundist (New York, 1959), pp. 216–23, 234–84.Google Scholar

19 VIII Konferents, p. 7.Google Scholar

20 Untererdishe kemfer (New York, 1946), p. 320.Google Scholar

21 Cited in Di geshikhte fun Bund, II, 554–55.Google Scholar

22 Litvak, A., “Oifn feld fun kultur,” Vos geven: Etiudn un zikhroines (Vilna, 1925), p. 149.Google Scholar

23 Di geshikhte fun Bund, II, 557.Google Scholar

24 Abramovich, , I, 315, 318–19.Google Scholar

25 Oberschall, , pp. 157–72.Google Scholar

26 The biographies gathered here are drawn from memoirs, commemorative biographical miscellanies, and biographical encyclopedias. They deal with persons who gained some lasting reputation in the movement. It is rare to find extensive materials on persons who left the movement after brief contact, and one of the major source collections excludes Bundists who were considered defectors from the organization in spirit. Other sources concentrate on persons who achieved some reputation as writers. The latter works offset some of the gaps that occur in the purely commemorative volumes. Thus, the intellectual and half-intellectual groups receive the overwhelming amount of attention. Less coverage is available on the secondary ranks of underground workers, agitators, and the anonymous rank and file. There can be little doubt that this affects the nature of our coverage when the Bund is considered as a whole, but the data comprise more than a sample; virtually the entire leadership cohort is covered. Hertz, J. S., ed., Doires Bundisten, 3 volumes (New York, 1956–1968);Google ScholarNiger, Samuel and Shatski, Jacob, Leksikon fun der naier yidisher literatur, 5 volumes (New York, 1956– );Google ScholarRaizen, Zalman, ed., Leksikon fun der yidisher literatur, prese, unfilologie, 4 volumes (Vilna, 1928–1929).Google Scholar

27 Epstein, Melech, Jewish Labor in U.S.A. (New York, 1950), I, 348–19. The peak year for Jewish emigration was 1906, with 125,234 persons departing from Russia, as compared with 92,388 in 1905, 114,937 in 1907 and 71,978 in 1908.Google Scholar

28 The Bund legal daily press began to appear in late 1905. It remained in existence until October 1907, although it had to alter its name because the police twice closed it down. The papers appeared successively under the names Der Veker, Di Folkstsaitung, and Di Hofnung.

29 Medem, Vladimir, Fun main leben (New York, 1923), II, 216–217.Google Scholar

30 In 1915 Baruch Vladeck became an American citizen and in 1917 was elected to the Board of Aldermen of New York. He was reelected in 1918 and 1921. Kursky, Franz, “Der alter Vladeck,” Gezamlte shriftn (New York, 1952), pp. 346–47.Google Scholar

31 Epstein, I, 304–06, 314. The Workmen's Circle grew from 469 members in 1900 to 38,866 in 1910. The number of Bundist immigrants who joined was high See Zaks, A. S., Di geshikhtefun Arbaiter Ring, (n.p., 1925), II, 808–09.Google ScholarEpstein, Sh., “Gedanken fun a griner,” Der Arbaiter Ring zamelbukh (New York, 1910), pp. 208–14.Google Scholar

32 For an example of this type of experience, see Aronson, G., “Der romantiker fun 'Bund,'” B. Kahan-Virgili: Zamlbukh tsu zain biografie un kharakteristik (Vilna, 1938), pp. 76–82.Google Scholar A related dimension of experience in disappointment rests in the postrevolutionary phenomenon termed “Saninism.” Based on the hero of Michael Petrovich Artzybasheff's novel, Sanin, the title became a synonym for those persons who ridiculed the personal dedication and discipline of the revolutionaries and who, by contrast, justified a life based on animal appetite. Bertram Wolfe depicts the general mood of the Saninist in his Three Who Made A Revolution (New York, 1948), p. 497.Google Scholar Raphael Abramovich applied it to the Bundists in the spring of 1908, portraying the phenomenon as an extreme psychological break with the revolutionary era, In tsvai revolutsies, I, 314–15. Without denying Abramovich's accuracy, our data present a different perspective. Our sources describe steadfast activists who joined the movement before 1905 and whose pre-Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary careers are compared. Abramovich's impressions appear to be based on the attitudes of students who joined the movement during the height of the Revolution when the Bund's doors opened wide and who left soon after the Revolution. Little data appear on transient figures who departed into private life after a short career in the Bund.Google Scholar

33 Pati, , “Zikhroines vegn Arkadin,” Arkady: Zamlbukh tsum andenkfun grinder fun “Bund” (New York, 1942), pp. 62–63.Google Scholar

34 Doires Bundisten. I, 212–14.Google Scholar

35 Ibid., 328–32.

36 For a more comprehensive discussion of this problem, see Woodhouse, Charles E. and Tobias, Henry J., “Primordial Ties and Political Process in Pre-Revolutionary Russia: The Case of the Jewish Bund,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, VIII (04, 1966), pp. 331–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In that study, based on a larger sample of Bund members and covering the period from 1897 to 1917, we found that regardless of the type of party work done, members with traditional religious education were less likely to leave the party during this period than were persons with higher education (ibid., p. 348).