Borochov and Marxist Zionism

The ideology of Socialist-Zionism had a crucial part to play in the process of Zionist colonization of Palestine. It evolved into becoming one of the most persuasive and enduring ideas that influenced the Jewish community in Palestine (the Yishuv) before the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Socialist-Zionism has been a critical influence in the colonizing endeavors, in the creation of associations, organizations and processes from the time when the second Zionist wave of immigration (Aliya) to Palestine in 1904-05, took place and emerged as the dominant force in the process of nation-building in Israel.

The ideology of Socialist-Zionism virtually controlled Zionist immigration, augmented the nationalist programme, and dispersed the doctrines of an ‘egalitarian social system into the Yishuv in Palestine.’ This was realized by amassing the social, economic and military functions’ in two inclusive political, economic and social organizations, the Histadrut (the General Confederation of Labour) and the Hityashvut (the system of settlement). The ideology of Socialist-Zionism supported the organizational and institutional structures of the Socialist-Zionist colonists and thus spread among the Jewish community in Palestine. Despite resistance from non-socialist groups and individuals, this ideology persisted and was incorporated into social and economic institutions, behavior and procedures.

However, Socialist-Zionism was not a single, authoritarian, and uniform ideology. It was critical, it combined the passionate with the practical tendencies and incorporated multiple leanings, creeds, and interpretations of Socialism and Zionism. It comprised features of the Russian Social Democratic variant of Marxism, Bundism, the Austrian, elements of German Social Democracy, Russian Anarchism, Bolshevism as well as the idealistic variant of socialism that existed prior to Marxism. Its Zionist features originated both from the idealistic Zionism of Moses Hess and Theodor Herzel to the realistic variant of Sokolow and Weizmann. Socialist-Zionism had numerous predecessors, and theorists and ideologists. One such Socialist- Zionist ideologist was Dov Ber-Borochov, who sought to integrate Marxism and nationalism and to discover a Zionist-Marxist formulation.

Dov Ber Borochov (1881-1917), a Marxist Zionist, born in Zolotonoshi (Ukraine) is regarded as one of founders of the Labour Zionist movement. In Borochov’s opinion Marxists and Socialists had, on the whole, been unable to comprehend ‘the question of nationalism in general and the Jewish question in particular.’ If, according to Marx, communism was a possibility confronting Europe, for Borochov nationalism was a possibility lingering around socialism. It is contended that Ber Borochov’s principal conjectural accomplishment was an ‘attempted synthesis of nationalism and socialism’, that is, Marxism and Zionism.

Borochov had a very precise national problematic in mind—that of the Jews. He explicated nationalism as a whole, and Jewish Nationalism especially in terms of Marxist class struggle and dialectical materialism. A factor that has been primarily responsible for Borochov’s relative anonymity is the unavailability of his works in English. An additional significant cause of his obscurity is that he was a Zionist who attempted to blend socialism with a variant of nationalism that did not find approval with the mainstream Left movements.

Borochov’s efforts at a socialist-nationalist amalgamation was linked to the contingent problematic of Jewish nationalism and persecution. It was predominantly initiated in the environment of Russian Marxist and intellectual streams, Jewish politics, and a Jewish community that was facing a dilemma: of modernism in a regressive, transnational, exploitive Czarist empire. The Jews were restricted to living in what is known as the Pale of Settlement, an area in the western Russian empire (comprising parts of Poland). Their position was that of ‘Russian subjects of non-Russian birth,’ and they were denied the right to pursue many vocations, disallowed from living beyond the precincts of cities and towns, and not allowed to possess property in rural areas.

Furthermore, the Jewish community that had been predominantly a conservative one till the nineteenth century, was now under the influence of the Haskalah (enlightenment), whose advocates, the Maskilim endeavored to connect with the non-Jewish world and its culture. As a result, a section of the Jewish intelligentsia became progressively secularized while the rest continued as ‘enlightened’ yet confined to a ‘Jewish frame of reference.’ Then there were some, who anticipating a victory of liberal beliefs that would shake off the burden of incarceration they endured as Jews, endorsed ‘integrationist ideas.’ At this juncture, the pogroms of 1881-82 happened prompting the creation of the first organized Russian Zionist Union as well as initiating the first wave of immigration (Aliyah) to Palestine.

Borochov in his writings was predominantly concerned with the numerous facets of Jewish economic life, which he studied and interpreted. His first formulation what Theodor Herzl concurrently termed Judennot connoted Jewish misery which appeared to be a perpetual occurrence in Jewish existence, anti-Semitism and political subjugation. Borochov called it ‘the Permanent Jewish Anomaly.’ The central contention of this argument was that the Jews in the diaspora cannot be self-reliant, primarily due to the absence of ‘territorial concentration.’ Borochov as well as other Socialist-Zionists believed that the causal factor in the Jewish national movement was the desolation of the multitude. In his opinion, the national problematic was the outcome of the paradox between ‘the creative forces of the nation and the conditions of creation.’ Borochov’s interpretation facilitated the awareness among many Jewish and Zionist socialists that the socio-economic and nationalist questions were interconnected and inextricable.

Borochov was convinced that that the settlers in the land of Israel would experience the progressive stages demarcated by the Marxist theory; that the capitalization of the economy possibly will be carried out by the bourgeoisie only  and consequently would be controlled by it, however, the ensuing democratization of the social order must be realized/achieved by the proletariat. Then again Borochov’s theories were not restricted to the evolution of a new nation. He was likewise apprehensive about the difficulties of the Jewish proletariat in the diaspora, pointing to the ‘normalization of the galuth.’

Even though Borochov is regarded as one of the most influential founders of left Socialist-Zionism, his ideology has failed to exert a considerable influence on the Kibbutz movement. In effect, differing from Borochov’s projection, the bulk of Jews immigrated to America and not to Palestine. Jewish capitalists did not institute factories in Palestine where the Jewish workers could have attempted a class struggle out of which the new Jewish proletariat would emerge. Whereas he was convinced that from within the new class struggle the Jewish proletariat would emerge and facilitate the creation of the Zionist-Marxist state, the Socialist-Zionist movement in actuality moved towards industrial activity after a considerable period of consolidation in Palestine.

Borochov’s prescription did not succeed in the urban areas too as Jewish workers were structured along national instead of class lines. The Histadrut did not inspire or initiate the development of a class-conscious working class, on the other hand, it actually mobilized the industrial and urban proletariat for the state. An autonomous industrial union did not materialize. Rather, the proletariat structured by the Histadrut and the agricultural workers controlled by the Hityashvut developed into social- economic assets for the political and military authorities of the Jewish state; an enlightened settler nation, a proletariat intensely instilled with democratic principles, but distant from the Marxist-Zionist state imagined by Borochov.

Yet, Borochov was not simply an important exponent of Socialist Zionism, an advocate of political renaissance, the founder-leader of a political party, Poalei Zion (Workers of Zion) but interestingly also an expert and proponent of Yiddish language and culture, conversant in the literature and philosophy expressed in Yiddish, German and Russian. A far cry from the one language prescription of later Zionist Nationalism.

Priya

14th May 2018

References

Perlmutter, Amos. “Dov Ber-Borochov: A Marxist-Zionist Ideologist” Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Jan., 1969), pp. 32-43.

Cohen, Mitchell (Ed). Class Struggle and the Jewish Nation: Selected Essays in Marxist Zionism, New Jersey: Transaction Books, 1984.