V. I.

Lenin

No.105 of Posledniye Izvestia (January 28/15, 1903), published
by the Foreign Committee of the General Jewish Workers’ Union of
Lithuania, Poland, and Russia, carries a brief article entitled
“Concerning a Certain Manifesto” (viz., the manifesto issued
by the Ekaterinoslav Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour
Party) containing the following statement, which is as extraordinary as it
is significant and indeed “fraught with consequences”:
“The Jewish proletariat has formed itself ( sic! ) into an
independent ( sic! ) political party, the Bund.”

Wedid not know this before. This is something new.

Hithertothe Bund has been a constituent part of the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party, and in No. 106 of Posledniye Izvestia we still (still!) find a statement of the Central Committee
of the Bund, bearing the heading “Russian Social-Democratic Labour
Party.” It is true that at its latest congress, the Fourth, the Bund
decided to change its name (without stipulating that it would like to hear
the Russian comrades’ opinion on the name a section of the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party should bear) and to “introduce”
new federal relations into the Rules of the Russian Party. The
Bund’s Foreign Committee has even “introduced” these relations, if that word can be used to describe the fact that it has
withdrawn from the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad and has
concluded a federal agreement with the latter.

Onthe other hand, when Iskra polemised with the decisions of the
Bund’s Fourth Congress, the Bund itself stated very definitely that it
only wanted to secure the acceptance of its wishes and decisions by the R.S.D.L.P.; in other
words, it flatly and categorically acknowledged ·that until the
R.S.D.L.P. adopted new Rules and settled new forms of its attitude towards
the Bund, the latter would remain a section of the R.S.D.L.P.

Butnow, suddenly, we are told that the Jewish proletariat has already
formed itself into an independent political party! We repeat—this is something new.

Equallynew is the furious and foolish onslaught of the Bund’s Foreign
Committee upon the Ekaterinoslav

Commit tee.

We have at last ( though unfortunately after much delay ) received
a copy of this manifesto, and we do not hesitate to say that in
attacking a manifesto like this the Bund has undoubtedly taken a serious political step. [1]

This step fully accords with the Bund’s proclamation as an independent
political party and throws much light on the physiognomy and behaviour of
this new party.

Weregret that lack of space prevents us from reprinting the Ekaterinoslav
manifesto in full (it would take up about two columns in

Iskra [2]

),

and shall confine ourselves to remarking that this admirable manifesto
excellently explains to the Jewish workers of the city of Ekaterinoslav (we shall presently explain why we have emphasised
these words) the Social-Democratic attitude towards Zionism and
anti-Semitism. Moreover, the manifesto treats the sentiments, moods, and
desires of the Jewish workers so considerately, with such comradely
consideration, that it specially refers to and emphasises the necessity of
fighting under the banner of the R.S.D.L.P. “even for the preservation and further development of your [the manifesto addresses
the Jewish workers] national culture,” “even from the standpoint of purely national interests” (underlined and italicised in the
manifesto itself).

Nevertheless,the Bund’s Foreign Committee (we almost said the new party’s
Central Committee) has fallen upon the manifesto for making no mention of the Bund. That is the
manifesto’s only crime, but one that is terrible and unpardonable. It is
for this that the Ekaterinoslav Committee is accused of lacking in
“political sense.” The Ekaterinoslav comrades are chastised for not
“yet having digested the idea of the necessity for a separate
organisation [a profound and significant idea!] of the forces [!!] of the
Jewish proletariat,” for “still harbouring the absurd hope of
somehow getting rid of it” (the Bund), for spreading the “no
less dangerous fable” (no less dangerous than the Zionist fable)
that anti-Semitism is connected with the bourgeois strata and with their
interests, and not with those of the working class. That is why the
Ekaterinoslav Committee is advised to “abandon the harmful habit of
keeping silent about the independent Jewish working-class movement”
and to “reconcile itself to the fact that the Bund exists.”

Now,let us consider whether the Ekaterinoslav Committee is actually
guilty of a crime, and whether it really should have mentioned the Bund
without fail. Both questions can be answered only in the negative, for the
simple reason that the manifesto is not addressed to the “Jewish
workers” in general (as the Bund’s Foreign Committee quite wrongly
stated), but to “the Jewish workers of the city of Ekaterinoslav” (the Bund’s Foreign Committee forgot to quote
these last words!). The Bund has no organisation in
Ekaterinoslav. (And, in general, regarding the south of Russia the Fourth
Congress of the Bund passed a resolution not to organise separate committees of the Bund in cities where the Jewish organisations are
included in the Party committees and where their needs can be fully
satisfied without separation from the committees.) Since the Jewish
workers in Ekaterinoslav are not organised in a separate committee, it
follows that their movement (inseparably from the entire working-class
movement in that area) is wholly guided by the Ekaterinoslav Committee,
which subordinates them directly to the R.S.D.L.P., which
must call upon them to work for the whole Party , and not
for its individual sections. It is clear that under these circumstances
the Ekaterinoslav Committee was not obliged to mention the Bund; on the
contrary, if it had presumed to advocate “the necessity for a
separate organisation of the forces [it would rather and more probably
have been an organisation of impotence [3]

]

of the Jewish proletariat” (which is what the Bundists want), It
would have made a very grave error and committed a direct breach, not only
of the Party Rules, but of the unity of the proletarian class struggle.

Further,the Ekaterinoslav Committee is accused of lack of
“orientation” in the question of anti-Semitism. The Bund’s
Foreign Committee betrays truly infantile views on important social
movements. The Ekaterinoslav Committee speaks of the international anti-Semitic movement of the last decades
and remarks that “from Germany this movement spread to other
countries and everywhere found adherents among the bourgeois, and not
among the working-class sections of the population.” “This is a no
less dangerous fable” (than the Zionist fables), cries the
thoroughly aroused Bund’s Foreign Committee. Anti-Semitism “has
struck roots in the mass of the workers,” and to prove this the
“well-oriented” Bund cites two facts: 1) workers’ participation in a pogrom in Częstochowa and 2) the behaviour of 12
( twelve! ) Christian workers in Zhitomir, who scabbed on the
strikers and threatened to “kill off all the Yids.” Very weighty
proofs indeed, especially the latter! The editors of Posledniye Izvestia are so accustomed to dealing with big strikes involving five
or ten workers that the behaviour of twelve ignorant Zhitomir workers is
dragged out as evidence of the link between international anti-Semitism
and one “section” or another “of the population.” This is, indeed, magnificent! 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, [4] 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 had 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.

Fromthe viewpoint of the struggle for political liberty and for socialism
being waged by the whole working class of Russia, the Bund’s attack on the
Ekaterinoslav Committee is the height of folly. From the viewpoint of the
Bund as “an independent political party,” this attack becomes
understandable: don’t dare anywhere organise “Jewish” workers
together with, and inseparably from, “Christian” workers! If
you would address the Jewish workers in the name of the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party or its committees, don’t dare do so
directly, over our heads, ignoring the Bund or making no mention of it I

Andthis profoundly regrettable fact is not accidental. Having once
demanded “federation” instead of autonomy in matters concerning the Jewish proletariat, you were compelled to proclaim
the Bund an “independent political party” in order to carry
out this principle of federation at all costs . However, your
declaring the Bund an independent political party is just that reduction
to an absurdity of your fundamental error in the national question which
will inescapably and inevitably be the starting-point of a change in the
views of the Jewish proletariat and of the Jewish Social-Democrats in
general. “Autonomy” under the Rules adopted in 1898 provides
the Jewish working-class movement with all it needs: propaganda and
agitation in Yiddish, its own literature and congresses, the right to
advance separate demands to supplement a single general Social-Democratic
programme and to satisfy local needs and requirements arising out of the
special features of Jewish life. In everything else there must be complete
fusion with the Russian proletariat, in the interests of the struggle waged by the entire proletariat of Russia. As for the fear
of being “steam-rollered” in the event of such fusion, the
very nature of the case makes it groundless, since it is autonomy that is
a guarantee against all “steam-rollering” in matters pertaining specifically to the Jewish movement, while in matters
pertaining to the struggle against the autocracy, the struggle against the
bourgeoisie of Russia as a whole, we must act as a single and centralised
militant organisation, have behind us the whole of the proletariat,
without distinction of language or nationality, a proletariat whose unity
is cemented by the continual joint solution of problems of theory and
practice, of tactics and organisation; and we must not set up
organisations that would march separately, each along its own track; we
must not weaken the force of our offensive by breaking up into numerous
independent political parties; we must not introduce estrangement and
isolation and then have to heal an artificially implanted disease with the
aid of these notorious “federation” plasters.

---
Notes:
[1]
That is, of course, if the Bund’s Foreign Committee expresses the views of
the Bund as a whole on this question.
— Lenin

[2]
We intend to reprint in full the manifesto and the attack of the Bund’s
Foreign Committee in a pamphlet which we are preparing for the press.
— Lenin

[3]
It is this task of “organising impotence” that the Bund serves
when, for example, it uses such a phrase as “our comrades of the
’Christian working-class organisation.’" The phrase is as preposterous as
is the whole attack on the Ekaterinoslav Committee. We have no knowledge
of any “Christian” working-class organisations. Organisations
belonging to the R.S.D.L.P. have never distinguished their members
according to religion, never asked them about their religion and never
will—even when the Bund will in actual fact “have formed itself into an independent political party.”
— Lenin

[4]
The reference is to a Yiddish translation of Karl
Kautsky’s pamphlet, Social Revolution.