bund

n.

1. An association, especially a political association.
2. often Bund A pro-Nazi German-American organization of the 1930s.
3. often Bund A European Jewish socialist movement founded in Russia in 1897.

[German, from Middle High German bunt.]

bundist bund'ist n.

(Yid. Yidisher Arbeter-Bund in Russland, Lite un Poiln---League of Jewish Workers in Russia, Lithuania, and Poland). Jewish socialist organization. Founded in Vilna, Lithuania (then part of Russia), in 1897, the Bund advocated Jewish autonomy in Eastern Europe, secular Yiddish culture, and socialist ideals. It became active in the Jewish labor movement and the revolutionary events of 1905. Though cooperating with the Zionist Socialists in organizing strikes and demonstrations and Jewish self-defense, it was vehemently opposed to Zionism and the revival of the Hebrew language and Hebrew culture. Thousands of members were arrested in the early years of its existence but after 1905 it received semilegal status. However, seriously weakened following the failure of the 1905 Revolution, it now concentrated less on politics and trade union activity and more on culture. By the mid-1920s the organization had been all but liquidated by the Soviet authorities.

In Poland the Bund operated as an independent body from its foundation in 1914 and flourished there between the World Wars. Deriving much of its support from the Jewish trade unions, it continued to wage political war against Zionism and religious Orthodoxy (Agudat Israel), fighting for control of community councils and for representation on municipal councils. It also sponsored a rival network of Yiddish-language schools (the CYSHO) which reached an enrollment of 24,000 children in 1929. The organization was active in the Jewish resistance in World War II but was closed down by the Communist regime in 1948.

As the International Jewish Labor Bund the organization continues to exist with branches in the United States, Israel, and other countries. It is affiliated with the Socialist International and does not recognize the centrality of the State of Israel in Jewish life, insisting on the primacy of World Jewry and maintaining an attitude of neutrality in the Arab-Israel conflict.

Like its rivals the Zionists, the Bund sought in its own way a solution to the question of Jewish identity and the future of the Jewish people, reacting against Assimilation and Anti-Semitism as well as religious Orthodoxy. In this sense, it participated fully in the ideological struggle for the Jewish soul that was waged in Eastern Europe up to the eve of the Holocaust.

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(Yidisher Arbeter-Bund in Russland, Lite un Poiln; League of Jewish Workers in Russia, Lithuania, and Poland), Jewish Socialist party founded in Vilna in 1897.

Originally, the Bund aimed to organize Jewish workers and encourage their involvement in the Russian Socialist movement. However, after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the Bund disintegrated in the Soviet Union when most of its members joined the Communist party. The Bund flourished in Poland after World War I and became an important force among Poland's Jews. Small branches were also active in Lithuania, Romania, Belgium, France, and the United States.

The Bund completely opposed Zionism and Hebrew culture and language; it viewed Yiddish as the national language of Eastern European Jewry. It called for equal rights for Jews within a Socialist framework in which Jews would be given cultural freedom.

Prior to World War II, the Bund fought Antisemitism in Poland, and even empowered its self-defense units to respond aggressively against attacks on Jews. Bund members also extended their influence by joining Polish city councils.

When World War II broke out most of the Bund's leaders fled Poland. Many members were arrested, exiled, or murdered. In Warsaw, the party elders refused to join forces with any Zionist parties or movements in creating a united Jewish fighting alliance, claiming they had ties with the underground outside the Ghetto. Younger leaders did support an umbrella organization. However, only after the major Deportations from Warsaw in October 1942 did the young members join the Jewish Fighting Organization. A similar thing happened in Vilna, when the younger members defied the party elders by joining the United Partisan Organization. Four Bund squads also joined the fighting in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in April 1943.

Samuel Zygelbojm, a Bund leader who had fled to the US, was appointed to the Polish National Committee in London in 1942. After receiving reports of the mass murder of Polish Jewry, Zygelbojm desperately tried to enlist the help of international and Jewish organizations. After failing to garner support, however, Zygelbojm committed suicide in 1943. (see also Jewish Fighting Organization, Warsaw and United Partisan Organization, Vilna.)

The term Bund is an abbreviation of der algemeyner yidisher arbeter bund in rusland un poyln and refers to the General Jewish Labor Union in Russia and Poland (after 1901 the name added Lithuania to Poland and Russia). Founded in Vilna in 1897 by a group of Jewish Social Democrats, it was one of the forces behind the establishment of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party (RSDWP) in Minsk in 1898. The Bund was an integral part of the RSDWP in the Russian Empire until it split from the party in 1903, rejoining it in 1906. The Bund pioneered Jewish political activism in the Russian Empire, while making important contributions to the development of a modern, secular Jewish culture in eastern Europe.

The movement originated among russified Jewish intellectuals, the Vilna Group, who were well-grounded in the theories of social democracy circulating in the Russian Empire - including Poland - in the 1890s. As convinced and enthusiastic cosmopolitans, they did not seek to create a specifically Jewish movement. Nor were the masses of Jewish artisans seen as a suitable substitute for an industrial proletariat. Nonetheless, on the Russian model, a few activists founded circles that sought to provide a general and political education for artisans, and to transform them into revolutionary activists. In 1894 the publication of two influential pamphlets, Shmuel Gozhansky's Letter to Agitators and Arkady Kremer's On Agitation, marked a major change in strategy, a move to mass agitation and the pursuit of specific economic goals. Given that the vernacular language of 97 percent of Jews in the Russian Empire was Yiddish, the move to mass agitation also marked a permanent commitment to the use and development of that language. The movement proved successful at attracting members by engaging in practical work, such as the creation of strike funds and self-help bodies, and publication of a Yiddish-language press and agitational materials. Over time the Bund ideology developed an emphasis on the importance of Yiddish as a central element in Jewish secular culture.

The Bund was formed in 1897 to unite scattered Jewish Social Democratic groups throughout the Pale of Settlement. It combined a central political organization led by professional revolutionaries and a mass movement directed to economic and political change. The organization produced a number of outstanding revolutionary leaders such as John Mill, Vladimir Medem, and Yuli Martov. In 1898 Bund members were major participants in the foundation of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party. At this meeting the Bund was granted full autonomy as to the geographical area of its activities, and a free hand to deal with the unique problems of the Jewish working class. This autonomy was ostensibly the cause of the split of the Bund from the RSDWP in 1903; in fact, criticism of the Bund's position was only a tactical maneuver on the part of Vladimir Ilich Lenin, in his effort to impose his ideological agenda upon the RSDWP. There was thus no serious obstacle to the readmission of the Bund to the party in 1906.

One of the most successful elements of the Social Democratic movement in the Russian Empire (in terms of numbers and organizational abilities), the Bund was active in the creation of self-defense groups to resist pogroms. Its commitment to Yiddish did much to foster the development of Yiddish language, literature, and culture. The Bund developed a program that called for Jewish cultural autonomy in a democratic Russian Empire. After 1905 the Bund had to compete with a broad variety of Jewish political activities, including various forms of Zionism, which it sharply opposed. In October 1917 the Bund joined other moderate socialists to oppose the Bolshevik seizure of power, but the out-break of pogroms in 1918 led many Bundists to welcome the protective role of the Red Army in the Pale. Bundists were a principle source of personnel recruited to the task of bringing the revolution to the Jewish street, through work in the Jewish Sections of the party and the state. The Bund was formally merged with the Russian Communist Party in 1921, while remaining a significant political force outside the Soviet Union, particularly in interwar Poland and the United States.

Bibliography

Frankel, Jonathan. (1981). Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews, 1862 - 1917. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Jacobs, Jack, ed. (2001). Jewish Politics in Eastern Europe: The Bund at 100. New York: New York University Press.

Mendelsohn, Ezra. (1970). Class Struggle in the Pale: The Formative Years of the Jewish Workers' Movement in Tsarist Russia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Tobias, Henry J. (1972). The Jewish Bund in Russia: From Its Origins to 1905. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

—JOHN D. KLIER

Jewish socialist workers' association.

The Bund (full name in Yiddish: Algemeyner Yidisher Arbeiter-Bund in Rusland und Poylen, translated as "General association of Jewish workers in Russia and Poland") was founded in Vilna (now Vilnius, Lithuania) in 1897. It was opposed to the emigration of Jews from Eastern Europe and asserted that the survival and development of Jewish life was dependent, instead, on Jews joining the struggle for social change and social justice in their respective countries of origin. It was staunchly opposed to Zionism as well as to the Zionist emphasis on Hebrew as the Jewish national language. It promoted the value of Yiddish. It was originally neutral on the notion of a collective Jewish national identity, but in 1901 it endorsed the ethnicity of Russia's Jews, and in October 1905 it adopted the notion Jewish cultural autonomy.

After the Bolshevik Revolution (1917), government repression led to the Bund's demise in the Soviet Union. The Bund continued to play an influential role in Poland until the Nazi invasion in 1939 and the beginning of World War II. After the war, the remnants of the Bund in Europe and the United States continued to oppose vigorously the establishment of a Jewish state.

Bibliography

Jacobs, Jack. On Socialists and the Jewish Question After Marx. New York: New York University Press, 1993.

Jacobs, Jack, ed. Jewish Politics in Eastern Europe: The Bund at100. New York: New York University Press, 2001.

Tobias, Henry J. The Jewish Bund in Russia: From Its Origins to 1905. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1972.

— CHAIM I. WAXMAN