INTRODUCTION - Ber Borochov and Socialist ZionismBer Borochov - Biography
Borochov joined the Poalei Tziyon Party in November 1905, after the Sixth Zionist Congress, when the question of the "night refuge" in Uganda was raised. His opposition to Uganda or any other territory than Palestine being made the new Jewish homeland resulted in his famous essay "To the Question: Zion and Territory." At the Poltava conference (November 1905), Borochov helped to formulate the Poalei Tziyon program. On June 3, 1906, the Czarist government disbanded the Duma, and on the same night Borochov was arrested. He soon escaped from prison and settled for a time in Minsk. Constantly spied on by the police, Borochov was forced to leave Russia, and in the latter part of 1907 he left for Cracow and then to the Hague. In the summer of 1907, Borochov helped found the World Confederation of Poalei Tziyon. He became a member of its administration and for a time was also its secretary. He went to Vienna to edit the Party organ, Das Freie Wort (The Free Words), from 1907 to 1910. Borochov visited England, France, Belgium, Holland and Switzerland. He was a correspondent for a number of European and American Jewish papers. During this period he also attempted unsuccessfully to unite the Jewish socialist and labor parties. With the outbreak of the World War, Borochov was forced to leave Austria, and he came to the United States. He became one of the outstanding proponents of a democratically organized American and World Jewish Congress. He remained a Social Democrat and protested against sections of Poalei Tziyon who joined the Bolsheviks. In March of 1917, the Mensheviks came to power in Russia. Borochov returned to Europe en route to Russia. He stopped in Stockholm and helped to prepare the memorandum containing the Poalei Tsiyon demands before the Holland-Scandinavian Socialist Conference. From there he proceeded to Russia to attend the Third All-Russian Poalei Tsiyon Convention. In Russia, Borochov contracted pneumonia and died in Kiev on December 17, 1917 at the age of 36. In 1963, his remains were reinterred in the cemetery at Kibbutz Kinneret, alongside the other founders of Socialist Zionism. Ber Borochov - Ideology Borochov's ideological stands changed throughout his life. His signal achievement was to derive Socialist Zionism from classic Marxian theory, thereby providing an ideological framework for Zionist revolutionaries. The hallmark of his ideology was the belief that economic forces alone did not determine history and that each people was subject to unique national conditions, that were being ignored by Marxist historians. These questions are dealt with at length in "The National Question and the Class Struggle." Borochov also advanced a mechanistic "Borochovian" explanation of the Jewish problem, based on the fact that the Jews, being guests everywhere, were never fully integrated into the class structure of their society, and were restricted by law from following those occupations that were closest to the core of national economies. The Jewish class structure formed an "inverted pyramid" with fewer real proletarians and more professionals, intelligentsia and people engaged in non-essential consumer production, according to Borochov. As economies developed, native populations produced their own professionals and intelligentsia, and competition for jobs in all spheres intensified. This generated antisemitism, because native populations coveted the jobs and positions of Jews, and it forced Jews to migrate from country to country, in a "stychic process" that would inevitably bring them to their own country,. Palestine, when all other possibilities were exhausted. This mechanistic ("vulgar determinist') view gave way to an understanding of the spiritual and cultural roots of Zionism, and a more humanistic view in his last recorded speech. Borochov's views on the Arab question formed the basis of socialist Zionist ideology, and refute the charges that Zionists planned to expel the Arabs of Palestine. In his last recorded speech, Borochov said: Many point out the obstacles which we encounter in our colonization work. Some say that he Turkish law hinders our work, others contend that Palestine is insignificantly small, and still others charge us with the odious crime of wishing to oppress and expel the Arabs from Palestine... When the waste lands are prepared for colonization, when modern technique is introduced, and when the other obstacles are removed, there will be sufficient land to accommodate both the Jews and the Arabs. Normal relations between the Jews and Arabs will and must prevail. (Ber Borochov - Eretz Yisrael in our program and tactics Kiev September 1917) Borochov believed that Arab and Jewish proletariat would have similar class interests, and would develop a common front in the class struggle. This ideology did not fit the reality of Palestine before WW I, where Arabs were competing with Jews for jobs. However, subsequently, the Zionist workers movements tried to establish joint organizations with Palestinian Arabs. Borochovian ideology was a cornerstone of the Poalei Tziyon movement, and in particular of Hashomer Hatzair (later MAPAM - the United Workers Party of Israel), which opted for a binational state solution until this proved to be impractical. In "The Economic Development of the Jewish People," Borochov expounds a central thesis of Socialist and Labor Zionism, which is that Jewish economic development is abnormal and "unhealthy." Because they are prevented from owning land and in engaging in normal pursuits, Borochov argued, Jews tended to congregate in non-essential, peripheral occupations. These occupations, such as commerce, the professions, consumer goods manufacturing and finance were considered by classical Marxists to be non-essential and "nonproductive" as opposed to agriculture and basic and heavy industry. This understanding of the Jewish condition was not confined to socialist Zionists and was a commonplace of Jewish folktales and humor. The Jew made his living from "air" ("luft" in Yiddish) engaging in "luftgescheft" (air business) and was therefore a "luftmensch" - a person who lived from air, as a farmer is a "man of the soil." Of course, Borochov and his contemporaries could not foresee the rise of the service economy, information technology and other hallmarks of the postindustrial state. See Also: 1905: Ber Borochov - The National Question and the Class Struggle Ber Borochov - Eretz Yisrael in our program and tactics History of Zionism and the Creation of Israel General Resources on the History of Israel, Zionism and the Jews This document is part of the historical documents collection at the Zionism and Israel Information Center Copyright This introduction is copyright © 2005 by Ami Isseroff and Zionism-Israel Information Center. The source document below is in the public domain. The Economic Development of the Jewish People
|
Level of Production |
In The Russian Pale |
In Galicia |
||
Jews |
Per Cent |
Jews |
Per Cent |
|
1. PRIMARY LEVEL OF INDUSTRY | ||||
Agricultural, Gardening, Cattle-raising, etc |
35,822 |
0.6 |
47,996 |
1.5 |
2. THE LEVEL OF BASIC INDUSTRY | ||||
Mountaineering & Mining |
1,006 |
1.8 |
1,053 |
8.3 |
Quarrying |
5,187 |
12.5 |
696 |
10.6 |
Forestry |
3,200 |
12.4 |
928 |
10.6 |
TOTAL |
9,393 |
7.7 |
2677 |
9.5 |
3. SECONDARY MIDDLE LEVEL | ||||
Metal Industry |
40,082 |
21.2 |
4,410 |
15.9 |
Textile Industry |
33,200 |
19.0 |
1,421 |
14.7 |
Building Industry |
37,135 |
18.9 |
3,110 |
13.0 |
TOTAL |
110,418 |
19.7 |
8,941 |
14.5 |
4. TERTIARY MIDDLE LEVEL | ||||
Lumber Industry |
41,359 |
27.2 |
4,229 |
18.1 |
Chemical Industry |
6,514 |
34.1 |
1,430 |
37.9 |
Leather & Paper |
20,446 |
43.9 |
1,938 |
39.2 |
TOTAL |
68,319 |
31.3 |
7,597 |
23.7 |
5. FINAL LEVEL OF PRODUCTION | ||||
Foods |
44,797 |
34.8 |
11,036 |
48.9 |
Liquors & Tobaccos |
23,548 |
38.3 |
22,981 |
70.8 |
Clothing & Hygienics |
244,534 |
48.1 |
20,298 |
35.2 |
Printing, etc |
18,996 |
53.9 |
450 |
21.4 |
Jewelry |
5,420 |
66.5 |
………. |
………. |
TOTAL |
337,115 |
45.4 |
54,765 |
47.7 |
TABLE II.
Comparison of Occupational Distribution of
One Hundred Jews and One Hundred Non-Jews
Branches of Occupations |
Italy |
Germany |
Austria |
Russian Pale 1897 |
United States 1900 |
|||||
Jews |
Non-Jews |
Jews |
Non-Jews |
Jews |
Non-Jews |
Jews |
Non-Jews |
Jews |
Non-Jews |
|
Agriculture | 0.3 | 53.3 | 1.3 | 33.1 | 12.8 | 58.1 | 2.5 | 53.0 | 10.0 | 35.7 |
Industry | 8.7 | 22.4 | 21.9 | 37.4 | 27.5 | 22.3 | 36.2 | 14.6 | 48.4 | 24.4 |
Commerce & Transport | 50.3 | 8.3 | 50.5 | 11.1 | 34.4 | 5.1 | 34.6 | 7.4 | 28.2 | 16.4 |
Servants | 0.3 | 1.4 | 0.5 | 1.6 | 5.2 | 2.2 | 11.9 | 11.8 | 11.2 | 19.2 |
Professional, Social and Government | 18.7 | 6.4 | 6.5 | 5.1 | 8.3 | 4.5 | 7.2 | 8.2 | 2.2 | 4.3 |
Unclassified | 21.7 | 8.2 | 19.3 | 11.1 | 11.8 | 7.8 | 7.6 | 5.0 | ---- | ---- |
Total........... | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
Source
This text is an adaptation, modernization and correction of the text that appears at http://www.angelfire.com/il2/borochov/eco.html with the following note:
(This article was first published in 1916 as a series of articles in the Poale Zion Yiddish weekly, Der Yiddisher Kaempfer in New York. The English translation is taken from Nationalism and the Class Struggle: A Marxian Approach to the Jewish Problem published in 1937. Footnotes are by Moshe Cohen, the book’s editor.)
The original notes were moved to the body of the text along with additional notes and adaptations of the originals by this editor.
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