Ber Borochov

“ When the Zionist workingmen follow the leaders and think of the shekel, the National Fund and the Colonial Bank, the National Library in Jerusalem, the Polytechnic Institute in Haifa, and what not, as their own socialist (!) institutions, the most dangerous confusion arises in their class consciousness. The separation between capitalism and Poale Zionism disappears and the Poale Zionist learns to dance to the tune of the bourgeois Zionist. ”

“ The Social Democratic Poale Zionists are of the firm opinion that no socialism and no freedom movement are possible without class struggle. In this they concur with revolutionary socialists, anarchists, and syndicalists of all nations. They also recognize peaceful means as a tool of the Labor movement, namely parliamentary action and cooperative organization. But they absolutely insist that these peaceful means can, at best, facilitate the class struggle, serve an auxiliary function in the economic struggle, and direct political action. ”

“ Standing on its own feet, proletarian Zionism does will in the end draw to its ranks the great mass of organized Jewish workers and will then acquire sufficient strength to fulfill its own aims. Instead of the Socialists’ theory that Poale Zionism must, so to speak, "bring the social spirit into the General Zionist movement," the Social Democrats propound quite a different theory: The Poale Zionists must inculcate the national and socialist spirit into the Labor movement. We regard Poale Zionism as part and parcel not of the General Zionist movement but of the International Labor movement. ”

“ But exploitation itself, the struggle between capitalists and workers, will continue full blown in Eretz Israel as long as capitalism exists. It is dangerously Utopian to think that Eretz Israel alone will be an exceptional country and that only there will the kind of colonization occur which can be free of capitalist foundations. ”

“ The organizational weakness of Poale Zion in this country derives from its superficial approach to socialism more than any other factor. It is socialist, but its socialism is not tied to the class struggle. ”

“ The might of a nation has two aspects–being concentrated in the homeland, and the strength of its dispersal which carries it to all four corners of the world. If the Jewish people had a politically independent center in Eretz Israel and strong colonies throughout the world, it would become among the strongest and healthiest of nations.
In short, the Jewish question can be solved only by connecting healthy Galut life with a healthy center in the independent homeland. Zionism really solves only some Jewish questions. ”

“ Workers who suffered sweatshop slavery, strikes, and hired gangsters will not trust you so long as you maintain and demonstrate solidarity with the bourgeois Zionists. Bourgeois Zionism is necessary for our people, but leave it for the middle class. ”

“ Jewish labor bears a specific character, concentrated as it is in the weakest industries such as the needle trades, shoe production, the tobacco industry. This robs the Jewish worker of the ability to spread out and exploit his revolutionary energies. His class struggle is consequently limited and insufficiently productive. These anomalies will disappear in Eretz Israel, where the Jewish worker will penetrate into all the hitherto excluded branches of production. ”

“ Within the Zionist movement a serious class struggle transpires and will continue so long as the working class has not freed itself from the capitalist yoke through social revolution. In order to interpret this further we must explain how the Social Democrats conceive of Zionism and the Jewish question in general. ”

“ All peoples have their own homeland. Even the oppressed peoples have their own homes, though they may not be fully in charge there. But all peoples, upon leaving their own territories, have dispersed themselves throughout the world. ”

“ They want to destroy the Galut altogether and concentrate all Jewish questions. They want to destroy the Galut altogether and concentrate all Jewish life in Zion. The Socialist Poale Zionists are less resolute on that point but in general they tend toward the opinion that in Zion all the needs of the Jewish people will be met and their sufferings ended. The Social Democrats, on the other hand, regard Zionism as the answer to only one aspect of the Jewish question, namely the question of Jewish homelessness and uprootedness. ”

“ Social reformers such as these can be found everywhere and are by no means in need of a separate Poale Zion party. If there were no Poale Zion party or if they had no business at all with the Zionist Congress, the socialist spirit among the bourgeois Zionists would not be one whit less powerful than it is now. ”

“ Both theories virtually eliminate the need for the existence of a separate socialist Zionist party. If the working class alone can accomplish so little in Zionist colonization and if it must teach social justice to the capitalists, the simplest thing would be for the Poale Zionists to dissolve as a party and join bourgeois Zionism as a radical wing. ”

“ It is of course understood that to means one can never accord the same respect as to ends. No wonder then that while the Socialist Poale Zionists give generously of themselves for National Fund work, for cooperatives in Eretz Israel, etc., they treat matters and activities relating to the Galut as after-thoughts. ”

“ Jewish workers in Eretz Israel struck, struggled, and withstood stiff-necked lockouts on the part of the bosses, organized into professional unions and cooperatives, created their own social-democratic press, and, last but not least, erected the military organization of the settler-guardsmen, Hashomer. ”

“ If the National Fund and the Palestine Office take the demands of the workers into account, that has nothing at all to do with the Poale Zionists shouting hooray, and singing Hatikvah with the bosses. ”