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Michael Alan Dover, PhD's avatar

Thanks, good overview. I'll read Crabapple's book soon. But on this: "The Bund was an important precursor of the Russian revolution and its communist party. In this respect, the Jewish component of the European working class was a social vanguard of the broader movement." Well, I'm no expert but see this by Dan La Botz: https://links.org.au/goodbye-lenin-and-leninism, where he says: "With the congress decision to form one centralised party rather than adopt a federalist approach, Lenin’s supporter essentially excluded the Russian socialists of the General Jewish Labour Bund, an organisation they viewed as nationalist and separatist. The Bund’s exclusion meant that Lenin’s followers were now the majority, or Bolsheviks, while Julius Martov’s adherents were the minority, the Mensheviks. With the Bundists out of the way, Lenin presented his plan for party organisation, What Is To Be Done?, leading to the debate with Martov and his followers." I'm following up by ordering via interlibrary loan this book: Antisemitism and the Russian Revolution by Brendan McGeever.

Max B. Sawicky's avatar

The book goes into detail on how the Bolsheviks, including Lenin, abused the Bund. Still by my reading it was the Jewish component of the working class throughout Central Europe that was the most active, setting the stage later for the Bolsheviks.

Owen Paine's avatar

Hell the leninist

Elite was mostly jews

Jews that supported

National self determination

Conjecture

the bund was attacked for inside baseball reasons

Mary Heller's avatar

I heard Sam Seder interviewing Molly Crabapple on The Majority Report, then went out and bought the book. This is indispensable history for those who (like my daughters) seek to disentangle their Jewish heritage from what you, Max, might call Jabotinskyan Zionism.

Owen Paine's avatar

Jewish national self determinationation

Is really not zions in sheep's clothing

Zionism is a

Deeply unique movement

That sprung from early 19th century eastern Europe

When nationalism was as common as cabbages

And had more contradictory features then a drunken professor

Owen Paine's avatar

Super good

Revolutionary nationalism is stage 2 national liberation

Note must be on board the liberation movement from the launch pad