Poale Zion
Poale Zion was a movement of Marxist–Zionist Jewish workers founded in various cities of Poland, Europe and the Russian Empire at about the turn of the 20th century after the Bund rejected Zionism in 1901.
Formation and early years
Ideology
The key features of the ideology of early Poale Zion were acceptance of the Marxist view of history with the addition of the role of nationalism, which theorist Ber Borochov, a leader of Poale Zion, believed could not be ignored as a factor in historical development. A Jewish proletariat would come into being in the Land of Israel, according to Poale Zion, and would then take part in the class struggle. These views were set out in Borochov's Our Platform, published in 1906.Early parties and organisations
Poale Zion parties and organisations were started across the Jewish diaspora in the early 20th century. A branch of Poale Zion came into existence in New York City in 1903. Branches were formed in London and Leeds in 1903/04 and 1905 respectively and on a national basis in 1906. An Austrian group was formed in 1904, and published a newspaper, Yidisher Arbeyter. In November 1905 the Poale Zion Party was founded in Palestine and a month later the Socialist Jewish Labour Party was formed in the United States and Canada. In March 1906, the Jewish Social Democratic Labour Party was founded in Russia under the leadership of Ber Borochov and Itzhak Ben-Zvi., and other groups were soon formed elsewhere in Europe. A French group was formed, under the leadership of Marc Jarblum, which was influential on the SFIO and its leader Leon Blum. By 1907, the party had 25,000 members in Russia.With the threat of pogroms, and meeting clandestinely, the Warsaw Poale Zion formed a commando unit with around sixty guns. They were used to "expropriate" funds from well-to-do citizens. In March 1906, the entire Warsaw leadership were amongst the 120 delegates arrested attending the Poale Zion conference in Poltava. Three months later eighteen gunmen raided Warsaw railway station, stealing cash and leaving "a receipt in the name of Warsaw's Poale Zion".
Global coordination
A World Union of Poale Zion was formed. The first World Congress took place in August 1907 in The Hague. Its second congress in 1909 in Kraków emphasised practical socialist projects in Palestine, further congresses followed in Vienna and Stockholm.Palestine
A conference in the name of the Jewish Social-Democratic Workers' Party in the Land of Israel was held in Jaffa between 4–6 October 1906. It was organised by Israel Shochat who over the previous two years had organised an underground group of around 25 Poale Zion followers. About 60 people attended the conference and it was chaired by newly arrived David Ben Gurion.As a result the following January they produced The Ramleh Program, a Hebrew version of the Communist Manifesto with the added declaration: 'the party aspires to political independence of the Jewish People in this country." After much debate they agreed that there should be segregation of Jewish and Arab economies. It was also agreed that all Poale Zion business should be conducted in Hebrew, though this was not the larger group's policy which held that proceedings should be in Yiddish or Ladino depending on the community. Hebrew was seen as the language of the bourgeoisie. At the time there were 550 active pioneers, Jews working on the land, in the country. In 1910–1911, it was decided that the organisation's journal would be published in Hebrew instead of Yiddish; it was named Achdut, meaning unity.
In Ottoman Palestine, Poale Zion founded the Hashomer guard organization that guarded settlements of the Yishuv, and took up the ideology of "conquest of labor" and "Hebrew labor". The first formal congress of the "Jewish Social Democratic Workers' Party in the Land of Israel–Poalei Tziyon" was held in early 1907. Poale Zion set up employment offices, kitchens and health services for members. These eventually evolved into the institutions of Labor Zionism in Israel.
UK during World War I
During World War I, Poale Zion was instrumental in recruiting members to the Jewish Legion. Poale Zion was active in Britain during the war, under the leadership of J. Pomeranz and Morris Meyer, and influential on the British labour movement, including on the drafting of the Labour Party's War Aims Memorandum, recognising the 'right of return' of Jews to Palestine, a document which preceded the Balfour Declaration by three months.Factions and activity after World War I
Factions, 1920 split and aftermath
Poale Zion was torn between left-wing and right-wing factions in 1919–1920; the organization formally split at the Poale Zion fifth world congress in Vienna in 1920, following a similar division that occurred in the Second International.The right wing was less Marxist and more nationalist, and favoured a more moderate socialist program and supported the International Working Union of Socialist Parties to continue the work of the Second International, essentially becoming a social democratic party. The left-wing faction did not consider the Second International radical enough, and some accused its members of betraying Borochov's revolutionary principles.
Poale Zion Left, which supported the Bolshevik revolution, continued to be sympathetic to Marxism and Communism, and attended the second and third congresses of the Communist International in a consultative capacity. They lobbied for membership, but their attempts were unsuccessful, as the internationalist communist movement under Lenin and Trotsky was opposed to Zionist nationalism. The Comintern advised individual members of Left Poale Zion to join their national Communist parties as individuals; at their 1922 Danzig conference, these terms were rejected by the party. The Comintern declared it an enemy of the workers' movement.
Poale Zion Left opposed the decision by Poale Zion to rejoin the World Zionist Organization, viewing it as essentially bourgeois in character, and viewed the Histadrut as reformist and non-socialist. Aside from differing attitudes towards Zionism and Stalinism, the two wings of Poale Zion parted ways over Yiddish and Yiddish culture. The Left was more supportive of the latter, similar to the members of the Jewish Bund, while the Right bloc identified strongly with the emerging modern Hebrew movement in the early 20th century.
Palestine
In Palestine, the major leaders of Poale Zion since their immigration in 1906 and 1907 had been David Ben-Gurion, who joined a local Poalei Tziyon group in 1904 whilst living in Warsaw, and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, a close friend of Borochov and an early member of the Poltava group. After the split the two Benim continued to control and direct Poale Zion Right in Palestine.The party in Palestine split into right and left wings at its February 1919 conference. In October 1919, a faction of the Left Poale Zion founded Mifleget Poalim Sozialistiim which became the Jewish Communist Party in 1921, split in 1922 over the Zionist issues, with one faction taking the name Palestine Communist Party and the more anti-Zionist faction becoming the Communist Party of Palestine. The former retained its links to Poale Zion Left. These two factions reunited as the Palestine Communist Party in 1923 and become an official section of the Communist International. Another faction of Poale Zion Left, aligned with the kibbutz movement Hashomer Hatzair, founded in Europe in 1919, became the Mapam party. Poale Zion Right, under Ben Gurion's leadership, formed Ahdut HaAvoda in March 1919. In January 1930 it merged with another party to become Mapai, predecessor of the modern Democrats.
The Poale Zion Left continued as a separate party and ran in the 1931 Assembly of Representatives election, led by 1931 Assembly of Representatives election and electing one member to the assembly. In the 1944 Assembly of Representatives election it ran as part of the Left Bloc with the Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party on a joint slate that elected 21 representatives.
In 1946 the Poale Zion Left merged with the Ahdut HaAvoda Movement to form the Ahdut HaAvoda Poale Zion Movement. Two years later the party merged with the Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party to form Mapam. Most senior Haganah commanders were Mapam members, including the head of the National Command Israel Galili who was one of Mapam's leaders. The Palmach was also dominated by Mapam with its commanding officer, Yigal Allon, and five brigade commanders being members. With the creation of Israel's national army this led to conflict with Ben Gurion. In 1953, after a series of confrontations, two of the four Area Command commanders and six of the twelve brigade commanders resigned. Those members of Mapam who remained, Yitzhak Rabin, Haim Bar-Lev and David Elazar, had to endure several years in staff or training post before resuming their careers.