Poale Zion (also spelled Poalei Tziyon or
Poaley Syjon, meaning "Workers of Zion") was
a movement of Marxist–Zionist Jewish workers
founded in various cities of Poland, Europe
and the Russian Empire in about the turn of
the 20th century after the Bund rejected Zionism
in 1901.
== Formation and early years ==
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 (Workers of
Zion) Party was founded in Palestine and a
month later the Socialist Jewish Labour Party
(Poale Zion) was formed in the United States
and Canada.
In March 1906 the Jewish Social Democratic
Labour Party (Poale Zion) was created in Russia.
In 1906 a formal Poale Zion party was formed
in Poltava, Ukraine, 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.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 Borochov 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.
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 (1911
and 1920) and Stockholm (1919).
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" (Kibbush Ha'avoda) and
Avoda Ivrit ("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.By 1907, the party
had 25,000 members in Russia.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
(by Sidney Webb and Arthur Henderson) 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.
Poale Zion in Britain formally affiliated
to the British Labour Party in 1920.
The American party was led by veteran socialist
Zionist thinker Nachman Syrkin.
Whilst the Bund was forcibly disbanded in
1921, Poale Zion and Hechalutz were allowed
to operate freely in the Soviet Union until
1928.
== Split ==
Poale Zion was torn between Left and Right
factions in 1919-1920, which 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 (although Borochov
had begun to modify his ideology as early
as 1914, and publicly identified as a social
democrat the year before his death).
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 and 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.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 as a student at the University of Warsaw,
and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, a close friend of Borochov's
and early member of the Poltava group.
After the split the two Benim ("the Bens")
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
(Socialist Workers Party) 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
Israeli Labor Party.
In Russia, the Poale Zion Left participated
in the Bolshevik Revolution and organized
a brigade of Poale Zion activists nicknamed
the "Borochov Brigade" to fight in the Red
Army.
The party remained legal until 1928 when it
was liquidated by the NKVD.
Most other Zionist organizations had been
closed down in 1919, but Poale Zion Left remained
untouched because it was recognized as a Communist
party.
In 1919, the Communists of Poale Zion Left
split to form the Jewish Communist Party which
ultimately joined the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union, leading to a sharp loss of membership
in Russia.
In Poland, for a brief period following the
war, both factions of Poale Zion were reported
as legal and functioning political parties.
The Polish Left party was the largest Left
Poale Zion party in the world.
It worked closely with the Bund in developing
Yiddish schools in Poland and supporting secular
Yiddish culture, although they had political
differences (e.g. the Bund was more supportive
of the Polish Socialist Party than LPZ).
As part of the large-scale ban on Jewish political
parties in post-war Poland by the Communist
leadership, both Poale Zion groups were disbanded
in February 1950.
In Austria, the left faction was led by Michael
Kohn-Eber, who joined the Austrian Communist
Party in 1938.
The right faction also remained active until
1938.In America, the right faction was dominant,
and initiated the National Labor Committee
for Palestine, raising money for Histadrut.Globally,
Poale Zion, under the leadership of Shlomo
Kaplansky was involved in the 1921 formation
of the centrist International Working Union
of Socialist Parties, then between 1923 and
1930 the World Union of Poalei Zion (i.e.
the PZ right) joined the Labour and Socialist
International (as its Palestine section).
As of 1928, it claimed to have 22,500 members
in branches around the world; 5,000 in Poland
and the United States, 4,000 in Palestine,
3,000 in Russia, 1,000 in Lithuania, Romania,
Argentina and the United Kingdom, 500 in Latvia
and another 1,000 scattered across countries
such as Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia,
Belgium, France and Brazil.
The general secretary of the World Union of
Poalei Zion at the time was Berl Locker.
The World Union had a women's wing, the Women's
Organization for the Pioneer Women in Palestine.
== Ihud Olami ==
In 1932, Poale Zion's world federation merged
with Hitahdut Olamit, the World Union of Hapoel
Hatzair and Zeirei Zion (which had been formed
in 1920), to create Ihud Olami, the World
Union of Zionists-Socialists.
In this period, several well-known Zionist
leaders and politicians were active in Poale
Zion, including Ben-Gurion, Ben-Zvi, kibbutz
movement leader Yitzhak Tabenkin, Jewish Agency
Executive member Shlomo Kaplansky, and future
Israeli politicians Moshe Sharett and Dov
Hoz.
== The Holocaust ==
The Holocaust-era Jewish resistance group
ŻOB was formed from a coalition including
Hashomer Hatzair, Dror, Bnei Akiva, the Jewish
Bund, various Jewish Communist groups, and
both factions of Poale Zion.
Poale Zion was also active in the Anti-Fascist
Bloc.
Several notable Jewish resistance fighters
during the Holocaust, particularly those involved
in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, were members
of Poale Zion.
They include:
Adolf Berman, Warsaw ŻOB fighter; Secretary
of Zegota.
(Poale Zion Left)
Hersz Berlinski, member of Warsaw ŻOB Command
(Poale Zion Left)
Yochanan Morgenstern, member of Warsaw ŻOB
Command (Poale Zion Right)
Emanuel Ringelblum, member of Warsaw ŻOB;
chronicler of the Warsaw Ghetto.
(Poale Zion Left)
== Poale Zion's legacy ==
After World War I, David Ben-Gurion integrated
most of Poale Zion Right in Palestine into
his Ahdut HaAvoda party, which became Mapai
by the 1930s.
The Poale Zion Left merged with the kibbutz-based
Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party of Palestine
and the urban-based Socialist League of Palestine
to form Mapam in 1948, which in the 1990s
merged with two smaller parties, Ratz and
Shinui, to form Meretz.
In 1946, a split in Mapai led to the creation
of another small party, Ahdut HaAvoda - Zion
Workers, which united with Mapam in 1948.
In 1954, a small group of Mapam dissidents
left the party, again assuming the Ahdut HaAvoda
- Zion Workers name.
That party eventually became part of the Alignment
in a 1965 merger with Mapai (and later included
Rafi and Mapam).
In 1992, the Alignment became the Israeli
Labour Party.
Several youth movements have emerged out of
Poale Zion: the Marxist Hashomer Hatzair (the
largest, with 70,000 members on the eve of
the Holocaust), the socialist Habonim Dror,
the Left Poale Zion's Yugent, and Zeire Zion.In
North America, Poale Zion founded the HeHalutz
movement, the Farband and Habonim Dror, and
later the Labor Zionist Organization of America,
which merged with other groups into the Labor
Zionist Alliance, which rebranded itself in
2007 as Ameinu.
US Poale Zion published a Yiddish newspaper,
the Yidisher Kempfer, and an English journal,
Jewish Frontier, edited by Hayim Greenberg
and Marie Syrkin.In Britain, Poale Zion rebranded
itself in 2004 as the Jewish Labour Movement.
Internationally, the Poale Zion right is represented
within the World Zionist Organization by the
World Labour Zionist Movement; the group "to
the left" of the WLZM within the WZO is Mapam's
successor, the World Union of Meretz.
Meretz and Mapam are both members of the Socialist
International and, since 2013, the Progressive
Alliance.
== See also ==
Jewish Communist Labour Party (Poalei Zion)
Jewish Communist Party (Poalei Zion)
Jewish Communist Union (Poalei Zion)
Poalei Agudat Yisrael
Mifleget Poale Zion VeHaHugim HaMarksistim
beEretz Yisrael
Labour Zionism
Gordonia
Farband
Jewish left
