A History of the Jewish Labor Movement in Russia
Naum Abramovich Bukhbinder
1931
Chapter I
During the nineteenth century the lives of Jews in Russia underwent enormous changes. In pre-reform times most Jews lived in villages and small towns. Most were engaged in trade and wholesale commerce: they would buy landowners’ and peasants’ grain and sell it to wholesale merchants, and deliver handicrafts to them. The wholesalers (there were not too many of them), in turn, would trade with foreign countries: they would transport grain and lumber to Danzig and Königsberg, and travel to Leipzig to attend fairs. Another sector of the Jewish population would obtain various state leases, work contracts, and supply contracts, the lease of taverns, inns, the postal service, etc. Internal commerce took place at fairs that were held at specific times in various cities. Peasants would bring their products to the fair and exchange them: sell them and purchase tools and other products they needed. The class of manufacturers among Jews was fairly small. Jews considered manual labor a lowly occupation that befit only the masses. They looked upon manual labor with contempt and loathing. In Jewish community life the bourgeoisie held power over the community, and they limited the rights of artisans and, in some cases, levied special high taxes upon them. They also handed them over to the authorities for military service and their children to serve as cantonists in a much higher ratio than the children of other segments of the Jewish population. In those days the number of Jewish religious functionaries—rabbis, ritual slaughterers, preachers, etc.—was quite high. Up until pre-reform times Jews lived under terrible conditions. Almost everyone lived in deep poverty.
The 1860s and the following years that brought about the rise and enormous growth of industrial capitalism also shook the old traditional Jewish way of life. With the abolition of serfdom and the intensive building of the railway system the Jewish population was pushed out of its previous way of life. Their earlier occupations were not compatible with the changes. The landowners, for whom the Jewish population of the small towns worked as middlemen and deliverers, no longer needed the services of Jews; they eliminated the intermediary and started selling and exporting their grains directly. The Jewish population of the villages and small towns began to migrate to the large cities. In a relatively short time quite a few large urban Jewish centers emerged. Having been expelled from their accustomed position, the Jewish population forgot about its previously held prejudices and took to manual labor in large numbers. Soon, a Jewish artisan class of considerable size came into being. By the end of the nineteenth century this class was already so large that it was doomed to face great competition. At the same time, a class of Jewish wage laborers also emerged, and thus a sizable Jewish manual-labor proletariat was created, and they were soon engaged in an organized economic and political struggle. [ . . . ]
On May 3, 1882, during the reign of Alexander III, the famous May Laws were passed, forbidding Jews to live in the villages of the Pale of Settlement and to buy land, lease farms, and manage real estate. In 1881, at the beginning of his reign, a number of pogroms took place, and in 1891 Jews were expelled from Moscow.
According to the data of the Algemeyner Folks-tsaytung, the occupational distribution of the Jewish population in Russia was as follows:
The participation of Jews in agricultural work in Russia was not extensive. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, in the eras of Alexander I and Nicholas I, the government wanted to attract Jews to farming. Jews were assigned specific plots of land and received various privileges. Above all, they were exempted from mandatory twenty-five-year military service. Thanks to these measures, a number of Jews took to farming. But in the second half of the nineteenth century the attitude of the Russian government toward Jewish farmers changed completely. Whereas earlier they had leaned toward supporting and encouraging agriculture among Jews, now they suddenly changed, and as a result of the so-called May Laws, as we mentioned earlier, Jews were forbidden to live in the villages of the Pale of Settlement, to buy land, lease farms, and manage real estate. Due to this law further growth of the Jewish peasantry stalled. [ . . . ]
[ . . . ] Artisanry was widespread among Jews. The correspondents of IK"A1 registered 500,986 Jewish artisans, constituting 13.2 percent of the entire Jewish population. In twenty-five provinces in western Russia, Jewish artisans constituted approximately 10 to 20 percent of the total Jewish population.
Jewish workshops were generally small; they had only one or just a few workers. The owner and his children used to work together, too.
Due to the strong competition and the low level of technology, the situation of the Jewish artisan was lamentable. Artisans opened their own workshops and strived to become independent even before they had a chance to learn the trade properly.
As a result of the capitalization of artisanal work, the simple and primitive way of manufacturing and selling products had to be replaced by a more complicated method. Alongside artisans who worked directly for the consumer, there began to appear artisans who produced goods for fairs. As a consequence, one began to notice mass-production for stores and for transporting to faraway corners of the country. In this case the artisan was already completely removed from any direct contact with the consumer, and most of the time he worked from raw material delivered to him by an entrepreneur. Now his situation was such that even though he was a small business owner, he was not very different from the wage-workers. [ . . . ]
Women and children were often employed in artisanry. [ . . . ] Regarding the participation of women in artisanal work we can read in Zamlbukh vegn der ekonomisher lage fun di yidn in Rusland [Collection about the Economic Situation of Jews in Russia] the following: “Not long ago there were few women among Jewish artisans. Jewish women worked mostly in commerce, at inns and taverns, guesthouses, and the like. Artisanal work was considered a lowly occupation that diminished the honor of ‘women of a fine lineage.’ Now, however, circumstances have changed radically: the demand for women’s work has been growing fast, and Jewish women are forgetting their prejudices and, pressured by necessity, are joining the lines of working women.” [ . . . ] In twenty-five provinces, 76,548 female workers were registered, which makes 15.3 percent of all Jewish artisans. Most were milliners, seamstresses, undergarment makers, hosiery makers, glove makers, tobacco workers, etc.
The number of Jewish workers in factories and plants was very low. According to reports of the IK"A correspondents, 33,933 people were employed in such work places, 20,081 of them men, 6,586 women, and, of the children, 2,407 boys and 2,841 girls.
Jews generally worked in Jewish-owned factories. In Poland, the number of Jews working in non-Jewish factories was minimal. [ . . . ]
Finally, we must talk about the circumstances of the Jewish proletariat. [ . . . ] We have to note that the situation of the Jewish worker was much worse than the situation of the Russian worker. The latter had at least a factory inspector whose task it was to ensure that the factory complied with labor laws. These inspectors were able to limit exploitation to some degree. The working conditions of Jewish workers, most of whom were employed as small artisans, were unsupervised, and the boss could exploit them as his heart desired: they had to work as much as the boss demanded. [ . . . ] In Gomel, for instance, in the 1890s, the workday began at 8:00 A.M. and lasted until midnight, and on Thursday until dawn. Thus, the workday was sixteen to seventeen hours long. [ . . . ]
Wages were very low. [ . . . ]
Jewish workers lived in overcrowded, dirty apartments with no air or light. Tuberculosis and other diseases often struck, killing or debilitating people quickly. [ . . . ] The famous Jewish economist Jacob Lestchinsky described the situation of the Jewish proletariat very accurately: “Pauperism—poverty and misery, hunger and destitution in the full sense of the word, sweatshop system, sunken chests, dried-out eyes, pale faces, hollow cheeks, sick, tubercular lungs—this is the image of the Jewish street, these are the circumstances of the Jewish factory-proletariat from which he is to fight for social reforms, for the ideal of the future. Whoever can escapes the Jewish street; whoever has the physical ability and the material means leaves the Jewish street, looks for a better life in any corner of the world.”
Chapter II
The revolutionary movement of Jews in Russia began in the 1870s. The powerful stream of “going to the people” swept away sensitive Jewish youth. The center of revolutionary propaganda in those days was the rabbinical seminary in Vilna. It was not a mere coincidence that the seminary became the source whence revolutionary ideas were spread: the students here were all children of poor parents or were orphans. In the atmosphere of the seminary students broke with old traditions; to some extent they stood on the margins of Jewish society, the masses who lived with the old, stale prejudices; they were an excellent audience for revolutionary propaganda: they absorbed new ideas quickly and easily.
The first to start spreading revolutionary propaganda was a student at the rabbinical seminary in Vilna, Yankl-Aba Finkelstein. Unfortunately, very little material is available concerning this person who, no doubt, deserves our attention.
He was born in 1851 and was a resident of the city of Vladislavov, Suvalk [Suwalki, today in Poland] province.
At the rabbinical seminary Finkelstein distinguished himself with his independent character. The director disliked him because Finkelstein caused him much anguish: he was impertinent, stubbornly refused to attend morning prayers, and often went into the city by himself without permission. [ . . . ]
In 1872 Finkelstein created a library of illegal socialist books at the rabbinical seminary. He would lend the books to students of the rabbinical seminary and some other private persons for a fee of fifty kopecks to a rouble, but, more often than not, for free. He maintained the library partially at the rabbinical seminary and partially at the apartment of his uncle. [ . . . ]
In 1872 Finkelstein’s activities came to the school director’s attention—he was denounced, as it turned out. The Ministry of Education expelled him from the rabbinical seminary and denied him the right to study at any military or civil educational institution. Then the governor general of Vilna banished him from Vilna province and sent him home to Suvalk province under police observation. [ . . . ]
II
After Finkelstein was expelled, revolutionary activity among students of the rabbinical seminary of Vilna ceased temporarily, but was soon renewed.
It was now led by a student of the seminary, Aron Zundelevitsh, who later became a respected populist.
In 1872, he gathered a group of fifteen people, mostly students at the rabbinical seminary and some students at the gymnasium and the Realgymnasium. [ . . . ] Members of the circle were A. Lieberman, who later became the editor of the first Hebrew socialist paper, Ha-Emet [The Truth], A. Zundelevitsh, Lev Semen, Veyner, Yokhelson, Leyb Davidovitsh, and others. The membership changed constantly. [ . . . ]
The circle would usually meet in the home of A. Zundelevitsh; they would read and discuss illegal literature which they received from St. Petersburg. Thanks to Anna Mikhailovna Epstein they were able to connect with revolutionary activists in St. Petersburg. [ . . . ]
Members of the circle dreamt of working with the broad Jewish masses. “Back then we thought”—recounted A. Zundelevitsh—“that it would be easiest to infiltrate the masses of working people if we ourselves become workers. Thus, we thought it was very important to learn a trade. We hired a Jewish shoemaker who would come to my house or to the house of V. I. Yokhelson every day for two to three hours and teach us and two or three other friends.” [ . . . ]
The circle failed because of the following circumstances: someone informed the director of the Vilna Teachers’ Seminary that his students were distributing illegal literature. On the night of June 30, 1875, members of the pedagogical council of the Vilna Teachers’ Seminary [ . . . ] conducted an investigation among the students. They checked students’ belongings, looked through their books and notebooks. [ . . . ]
Everyone in whose possession illegal literature was found was punished. [ . . . ]
According to A. Zundelevitsh “the task of the circle was to go to the people,” meaning to work among Russian peasants. As for working with the Jewish people—this was not considered a special task of the circle, and none of the members had plans to expand work among Jews. The only exception was Lieberman, whose viewpoint, in the words of Zundelevitsh, “did not resonate with any member of the circle at the time.” Lieberman regarded working among Jews not just as a way of recruiting additional forces to the Russian revolutionary army, but also as a means to raise the national consciousness of Jewry, whose national cultural characteristics he appreciated highly as a program and factor in the development of humanity in general.
III
[ . . . ] Two police agents—the Jews Mordechai Globus and Avrom Disler—managed to get close to some members of the Vilna circle and even joined it. Consequently, the police knew exactly who the circle’s members were and the kind of activities they carried out. [ . . . ]
V
One of the pioneers of the revolutionary movement among Jews in Russia was Aron Lieberman. As we mentioned before, he was a member of the Vilna circle. In opposition to his friends in the circle, Lieberman introduced the idea of working among the Jewish population. Later, when he was abroad, he tried to realize this idea among the broad masses. In 1876, Lieberman organized Jewish workers in London in a “Hebrew Socialist Union.” It held several large meetings, lectures, and discussions, and had a professional union. It did not become very popular among the Jewish immigrants and a year later it fell apart completely. Shortly before that, due to intrigues and discord with other members, Lieberman bolted the union and left London for Vienna.
In his memoirs V. Tsherkezov describes one of Lieberman’s very interesting character traits. “I met Lieberman”—he writes—“in 1876 in London, in the editorial office of Vpered [Forward]. [ . . . ] But his whole self was permeated with one idea and one aim. The idea was the fraternity and solidarity of the nations based on social justice; and the aim was to propagate this idea among the Jewish people in their own language.” [ . . . ]
In May 1877 Lieberman published the first issue of the Jewish socialist journal Ha-Emet:
“It was not the love of our nation”—says the prospectus—“that motivated us to publish this journal. We cannot place our nation above other nations. No nation should be considered more prominent than any other nation, just as no individual should be considered more prominent than any other. It is universal human love, the love of our nation’s children as human beings, as well as their endless suffering that compels us to tell them, in their own language, the ‘truth.’ Because if we, who know how they live and how they suffer, are not for them, who, then, is?”
Only three issues of Ha-Emet were published. [ . . . ] After the third issue, the publication was stopped because the Russian censor prohibited its circulation within Russia. Soon after that Lieberman was arrested by the Austrian authorities. He was accused of having ties with foreign revolutionaries and conducting anti-state propaganda. [ . . . ]
There were no more attempts to publish revolutionary literature in Hebrew. In 1880, a group of Jewish socialists issued a call to the Jewish intelligentsia, voicing their disapproval of “the Jewish socialists’ distancing themselves from the Jewish masses” and calling upon them to work among “the masses of Jewish workers” in “jargon,” that is, in Yiddish. They concluded by announcing that they had decided to establish “a free Yiddish printing press” in Geneva.
It turns out that this call had been published at the initiative of M. P. Dragomanov. This highly respected Ukrainian intellectual, political activist, and publicist treated the question of socialist propaganda among Jews with utter seriousness. [ . . . ] Having thoroughly considered the situation of Jews in Ukraine in the late 1870s, Dragomanov stopped thinking of Jews “as a people of only exploiters and parasites, as a people of solely unproductive social elements.” [ . . . ] Dragomanov organized a small group of Jewish socialists to conduct socialist propaganda among the Jewish population of Ukraine and Galicia.
The group realized that in order to carry out their work successfully, they first needed to set up a Yiddish printing press abroad. The rest of the émigrés, however, were strongly opposed to this idea. At an émigré gathering where the group of Jewish socialists tried to present arguments in favor of their program, “the reaction was such that even the most energetic people had to throw up their hands.” [ . . . ] The activities of Jewish socialists did not extend beyond publishing the above-mentioned call. They were unable to establish a Yiddish printing press. They could not find either the means or the people to carry out such a “narrow nationalist” undertaking. [ . . . ]
In 1881 the Populists tried to implement Dragomanov’s idea of conducting socialist propaganda among the Jewish population of Russia in Yiddish. Someone—it is not clear who—published the first issue of the hectographed organ Arbeter-tsaytung [Workers’ Newspaper], which reprinted two articles from the [Russian] Rabochaia Gazeta [Workers’ Newspaper], edited by Zheliabov, in almost literal [Yiddish] translation. Apparently, the Yiddish Arbeter-tsaytung did not become widely popular. [ . . . ]
Notes
[Idisher Kolonizatsie; Jewish Colonization Association.—Eds.]
Credits
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 8.
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