Sorry if my audio is lower-quality than usual; my new computer doesn't agree with my old microphone. I'm currently upgrading and it should be ready in time for the next video.
You could run your audio through a tin can and I'd still watch your videos. This is probably the most accessible, visually pleasing and comprehensive introduction to Jewish history on TH-cam. Always appreciate the work you do - It will be a joy to watch this series come all the way to the Modern Day.
Hey could you leave the names of the guys up when they're pictured? When it's someone I've been exposed to very little, sometimes never before at all, it's hard to remember who is who when a bunch of guys are on extreme at the same time! Maybe you can slowly decrease the size of the text of their names maybe idk? Thank you for the videos so much Sam, and thanks if you respond to this/ decide to try to use this suggestion!
Same here, I was like "that portrait is familiar but then again many have the same style facial hair" and then bam, it's revealed he is Lenin. That amazed me.
This has become one of my favorite TH-cam series of all time… so robust, informative, and beautiful. I am both excited to reach the climax the story and disappointed to see the end in sight.
Ironically you can see as he gets closer to the present day, the time periods get shorter and shorter and seem to overlap each other. So no, I don't think the end is in sight... yet
I highly recommend Mike Duncan’s recently-concluded Revolutions podcast; his early episodes on the Russian Revolution speak about the Bund at length. Amazing video as always, they’re always the highlight of my day :)
The characterization of Lenin and Martov's positions is a bit off, they weren't really accelerationists or opposed to improving conditions for workers so much as opposed to what they saw as half measures - it wasn't "oh let's not do anything because that will delay revolution," it was more like "oh the people proposing these reforms aren't going far enough, we need to remain focused on the goal." Lenin also didn't think Russia could "establish Communism at any time," the divide between he and Martov was over who the primary allies of the Social Democrats would be in a "bourgeois-democratic revolution" against the monarchy, which both saw as a necessary precursor to the establishment of Socialism; Martov thought that the Bourgeoisie needed to be a central force in this Revolution, based on the precedence of the French Revolution, while Lenin thought that Russia lacked a Revolutionary Bourgeoisie due to the specifics of their economy, and that the workers and peasants (led by the Socialists) would thus need to overthrow the Tsar themselves. Lenin did not (at least at this stage) believe that Russia could transition to Communism by itself; as an orthodox Marxist, he held to the belief that the material conditions of Capitalism had to precede Communism. Instead, he believed that a "bourgeois-democratic" Revolution by the workers and peasants in Russia would provide motivation and support for Socialist revolutions in developed Capitalist countries like Germany and France.
it's funny that later on martov adopted lenin's position on a bourgeois-democratic revolution without the bourgeoisie while lenin abandoned the whole notion of a bourgeois-democratic revolution being necessary in russia.
Yet another great video! Speaking about the city of Vilna/Vilnius/Wilno etc., so important to the histories and cultures of several peoples, it just started the celebrations of its 700th birthday.
As a polish person, I find these videos very educational and entertaining - our people have a…strained relationship and it’s a real tragedy, Jewish people made great contributions to our arts and culture, among a myriad of other things. Can’t wait for more great videos, and all the best from Poland.
I'm an Israeli Jew and I visited Poland in 2014. Our history is indeed a tragedy, but when I visited the locals have treated me well, and even though I did witness a couple of cases of antisemitic rhetoric there (and I got my problems with a... certain political party in Poland) I was never directly harassed by a Polish person neither for being Israeli nor for being Jewish, including online. Not even one time. All my direct interactions with Polish people were either positive or at the very worst neutral. Also a friend of mine just landed back from a visit to Poland a couple hours ago, that was his second visit, and he only said positive things. Cheers 🇮🇱🇵🇱
We, the Polish and Jews, died together in WWII and many other times throughout history - sometimes with Germans. We are all similar, yet different. With shared histories of Cooperation and Conflict. And People often have greater conflict over small differences than large ones, and over shared history than over the suspicion of the stranger. It should be said, the Polish People have also had a profound impact on the Jewish People as well.
Regardless of the current relationship between Jews and Poles, the long history remains. Even with few Jews left in Poland today, the intertwining of Jewish and Polish history will continue to go on.
As an American, I find it jarring that Poles see Jewish people as other. Here a Jewish person is my fellow American, we are brothers defending our land shoulder to shoulder. I feel bad for Poland, they are missing out...
As someone from Michigan, it was really weird to hear that Bundism was extinct. My ancestors came here from the Sunrise colony, but left the farms for the automotive jobs in Saginaw. My grandfather was even engineer responsible for keeping the machinery working at the Nexteer factory and was a life long Bundist.
ปีที่แล้ว
Yeah, Bundists are not “extinct.” I know of groups now but they’re often attached relentlessly by Zionists
The Bund still does actively exist... just only in Melbourne, Australia - there's the last remaining branch of the youth movement SKIF (the Sotsyalistishe Kinder Farband) as well the Melbourne Jewish Labour Bund
Finally I make the connection to my Russian classes ! Where I learned that bolshe is greater and menshe is smaller but I never connected the dots before !!! What a lesson !!
Commenting for the algorithm. And because you delivered another excellent segment. Your work and effort are impressive. Oh, and the topic's interesting too.
11:03 That's kind of a bad-faith characterization of Martov's position, no? Neither he nor Lenin opposed workers organizing for better conditions, they simply stressed that it was a means to the end of cultivating revolutionary consciousness in the working class, rather than an end unto itself as the economists believed.
The videomaker has consistently shown himself to be strongly committed to a reformist perspective. This together with his often comedic formulations (which were already evident in videos on other topics) ends up resulting in this somewhat dismissive portrayal of revolutionary socialism.
If anyone is interested in this particular time period then I would highly suggest the revolutions podcast covering the Russian revolution as it goes into very strong detail on all of the characters and factions mentioned especially in the earlier half of this video
I think what doomed the bund regardless of ww2 from becoming as widely accepted as zionism in the long run (even if they were at some points more popular) is that it was a purely Ashkenazi east European movement. Not that it didn't manage to find popularity elsewhere, but it was mostly among immigrants from there. With things like the prioritization of Yiddish over Hebrew, they somewhat severed ties with any Sephardic and Mizrahi allies they could have had. This kind of inter Jewish racism still persists today and cause friction between Ashkenazim and Sephardim with contrasting world views, as one sees the other as not taking their separate history into account
It has some truth Bundists never really considered non-Ashkenazi communities, but on the other hand they were influenced by their immediate surroundings. I doubt early Zionists thought of non-Ashkenazi communities either, but maybe I'm wrong. I would say that in the scope of Israeli society the Bundists that did immigrate to Israel (with emphasis on immigrated and not did aliyah) were not part of Israeli society really, they'd probably take the "mizrahi" side more than the "ashkenazi". something I can identify with even though I'm fully tsabar (Polish grandparents were discriminated because they didn't sign to the histadrut). I recommend watching the film "Bundaim" by Eran Torbiner, it's free on youtube.
I'm an Israeli 10th grader and just a week ago I had some school project about the bund's 4th congress, and so this might just be the fact that I'm more acquainted with this topic than with most of Jewish history, but this video feels a bit rushed, and slightly less "coherent" than the rest. I'm honestly quite impressed by the fact that you split the bund into several videos, and you mentioned basically everything that I was hoping you would mention within the bund, but it's not very obvious from this video how popular the bund was with jews in general, or what the bund's relationship was with the general outer world. Even with zionism, it's not very obvious for instance what zionists thought of the bund, especially with the mentions of people like borochov. Also I have never heard of bundism being a term used in the internet, and I would say I'm generally an internet person. I'm not going to judge you too soon because again you mentioned this isn't the last video on bundism, so I'll wait for the next video before I say anything.
Maybe it's more of an American-Jewish thing, but there's definitely a contingent of the highly-online Jewish community that identifies as Bundist. The Bund isn't something that I've seen people in real-life Jewish spaces identify with, only seen them on social media, but I can only speak from my experience.
@@robynblauberg9863 Do not let the American Reform-Liberal appropriation of Bundism confuse you, since unlike the Bundists who rejected Jewish nationalism a.k.a. Zionism only, these reject Jewish ethnic identity altogether.
Thank you for these amazing, well produced and in depth videos. Thank you for your hard work. I'm always looking forwards till your next video (and i've been following live since ypu covered the first temple) - every video you make is better then the last.
I love this channel. Not only does it extensively cover the European Jewish history in the 19th century, but also provides a vivid look into the world of the time in general. P.S. It's so nice to see and recognize Vilnius from an old map in a video like this
Okay, this is very funny, because I do hang out in "Jewish extremely online spaces" but I'm only familiar with Bundist used in a positive way, by people who feel pride in that history and want to carry it on through Yiddishkeit.
@Kelly Groen I got the inspiration for this so long ago that I no longer remembered who I was talking about. But it was almost certainly them. I used to know a guy who called them "Neturei Karta Bet."
In the last 2 years I’ve watched your stuff, I’m surprised you never touched upon the subject of Sephardic Jews who turned to piracy after the Alhambra Decree. Keep up the good work though
Your summary of why Lenin and Martov opposed "economism" is slightly wrong in an important way. They weren't accelerationists and didn't oppose economic reforms per se. (In fact, Martov spent a good deal of time arguing that socialists should be focused more on demonstrating socialism could improve the actual economic status of the workers, like you note.) What they opposed was advocating *purely* for economic reforms with no explicit political dimension. In their view, socialism couldn't be achieved through advocating for individual pro-worker policies without advocating for "socialism" as a whole idea. (If you want a modern analogy, many modern American socialists are critical of the AFL-CIO and other major trade unions, exactly because they're not explicitly socialist.) Of course this isn't helped by the fact that Lenin, in characteristic fashion, often used "economism" as a sort of vague pejorative towards any socialist he felt wasn't radical enough, or who was too populist (as opposed to his centralist brand of socialism), or for other relatively minor theoretical disagreements.
The Worker's Circle in the U.S. today holds a lot of the ethos and values of the Bund with regards to Yiddish language and secular Jewish culture and arts, democratic socialism, and doikayt.
Love this video. I define my beliefs as neo-bundism because I feel like Bundism even though their socialist aspect is always relevant the autonomist aspect is long gone, and it also fits me as a current Jewish resident of Poland. There are bund sympathizers still around but the most important is that the bund as a cultural movement still exists in Australia. It might be small but it carries the torch of yidishkayt and doykayt. but I guess we'll get to that later.
@@DavidDavid-sd2gd from my personal perception at least, I think that the modern Jewish community in Poland is not as zionist as the others. But it's a drop in the sea of course and I can't prove it really.
@@Dor150 I’ll trust you on Poland. I also remember speaking to a bundist lithuanian jew (that is, one of the few still living there) online. So I wouldn’t be too shocked if there was a similar thing there too. I probably shouldn’t make sweeping generalizations as I did
The description of Martov and Lenin's positions with regards to what they called economism is pretty bad. They were not opposed to trade unionism or improvements of working and living conditions. Their main thrust was against *restricting* the socialist movement's goals and activism to only these things. They were in no way accelerationists who opposed political activity to bring about social betterment, or even as that term implies, to endavour to make the workers' situation under capitalism worse. That's really disingenuous. It's really not a mistake one can come away with if one seriously examines their writings like 'What is to be done?'. Even beyond the RSDLP specifically, the position of the orthodox marxists of this time period was unmistakable not one that opposed social reforms. This is laid out in crystal clear language in Martov and Lenin's comrade and contemporary Rosa Luxemburg's 'Reform or revolution'.
To quote from 'What is to be done?' directly on this: "Revolutionary Social-Democracy has always included the struggle for reforms as part of its activities. But it utilises “economic” agitation for the purpose of presenting to the government, not only demands for all sorts of measures, but also (and primarily) the demand that it cease to be an autocratic government. Moreover, it considers it its duty to present this demand to the government on the basis, not of the economic struggle *alone*, but of all manifestations in general of public and political life. In a word, it subordinates the struggle for reforms, as the part to the whole, to the revolutionary struggle for freedom and for socialism. Martynov, however, resuscitates the theory of stages in a new form and strives to prescribe, as it were, an exclusively economic path of development for the political struggle. By advancing at this moment, when the revolutionary movement is on the upgrade, an alleged special “task” of struggling for reforms, he is dragging the Party backwards and is playing into the hands of both “Economist” and liberal opportunism."
"Revolutionary Yiddishland" is a very good book on this topic too. If I remember correctly, the Bolsheviks still maintained a massive amount of Jewish support, which Sam sort of glosses over or implies isn't the case in this video.
@@zach64038 Wait until 1905. Russian political parties become real mass movements by then and the whole scene changes (as does support and membership).
Lenin did whatever he could to maintain power. No one with any historical perspective can deny this. If Joe McCarthy came along promising it, he’d be fine with it. Why are ancient individuals analyzed honestly and modern ones lied about?
@@josephlehman1242 But then why would he have spent 30 years of his adult life devoted solely to being an underground agitator, and habitually imprisoned/in exile? The path to power lay in politics, something he could have gone into as a young lawyer. Radicalizing workers and intellectuals is not really how you gain power in a dictatorial monarchy, if anything it's a recipe to get yourself killed. If power was what motivated him, he sure went about it in a strange way, spending 30 years in the most miniscule and uninfluential groups, when the path to becoming a politician was right there in front of him. Really doesn't square with "doing whatever he could" for the sake of power.
Small details on the question of the socialist movement: Marx's ideas weren't totally opposed to nationalism as a whole, and especially not in 1848. He himself wrote a constitution idea for a pan-german state working on the basis of parliamentary democracy with socialist incentives to guarantee workers participation. And also, the division between social-democrats and communists came far later. Almost all marxist parties were, until 1917, called Social-Democratic parties. And all these parties had divisions between Reformist (or Revisionists as they were called) and Revolutionaries. And when the October Revolution happened, the bolcheviks proclaimed the failure of the Second Internationale as it embraced nationalism and participated in the Great War. They sent a list of points to examin to all social-democratic parties with the aim of creating a Third Internationale disciplined and organized to achieve the revolution. Some parties had pro-bolchevik majorities, some others prefered to stay in their idea of social-democracy (even if they didn't see themselves as reformists or pro-capitalists). This led to a large split between parties that would retain the name Social-Democratic and that would be left only with their reformist faction as the majority and new parties (or at least parties that changed their name) that embraced the bolchevik revolution (however they were critical of it) and became member of the Communist Internationale. That's basically the origin of the divide. It doesn't come from Marx but from later socialists.
From 1897 onwards, Crete was an international protectorate (and then semi-independent state) under only nominal Ottoman sovereignty. As such, it was administered by the four powers of Great Britain, France, Russia, and Italy. The map reflects that by using the colours of these four countries on the island.
Finland only had at most 2200 jews Iceland only had permanent community in the 1900s Jews were banned from Norway until after Norwegian independence Sweden had a similar policy although it was revoked in the 1800s Danmark Had a Jewish community only since the 1600s and most were in Schlesvig-Holstein
21:01 Oh my... That surprised me. I was wondering why that drawing looked like Lenin, cause he is Lenin! Dunno why I expected him to pop up a bit later.
Excellent video! I’m surprised you didn’t also include Lenin and Stalin’s responses to the Bund. Their attitudes on Jewish identity and peoplehood are arguably the foundation of most left-wing antisemitism and has worked its way into a lot of hardline antizionist rhetoric.
@@SomasAcademy That’s true, although a lot of it emerged at this conference in particular. They didn’t just reject the Bund’s claim to be the sole representative of the Jewish people- they rejected both the idea of autonomism and of Jewish peoplehood altogether.
@@ShnoogleMan Where did they explicitly do or say so in the congress? If I recall Martov himself even said outright that what the Bundists were demanding was that other organizations should refrain from accepting Jewish members in lieu of organizing them into the Bund. The transcripts of these meetings are openly available online, you know that right?
@@Christopher-gp9iv I studied Jewish history in university and I remember reading through Lenin and Stalin’s opinions on this. I’d have to search through them to find them again.
@@ShnoogleMan You studied this and yet you can't recall a singular instance of either men standing against Autonomism or "Jewish Peoplehood" (whatever that is supposed to imply lmao, Lenin and Stalin certainly acknowledged them as an ethnoreligious group)
I don't believe in Vanguardism, and I side with Martov over Lenin in that sense, but Martov sounds like a proto-Dengist in believing that 'Russia must become capitalist first'. It's not relevant now considering Russia has been capitalist for decades now, but it's still frustrating when people discuss things like modern-day PRC and claiming it to be anything other than state capitalism. I'm not blaming Martov for revisionism or something, but it's tragic how that tendency has lived on across the centuries. Also Marx was fine with "class traitors" if they were Bourgeois advocating for Proletarian interests. Engels was literally a factory owner, the pinnacle of a Bourgeois class traitor.
Hey could you leave the names of the guys up when they're pictured? When it's someone I've been exposed to very little, sometimes never before at all, it's hard to remember who is who when a bunch of guys are on extreme at the same time! Thank you for the videos so much, and thanks if you respond to this/ decide to try to use this suggestion!
I just did a rewatch of the Jewish History playlist (okay, SOME of it, but I went straight through on the last 20 or so videos), and this video wasn't on the playlist. Was that intentional?
Gee, can you tell Aronow is a SocDem? Anyway, though Sam's personal politics are starting to become more visible in the videos (as they inevitably would as we reach more contemporary matters and is entirely understandable, even if I'd prefer a less humorous formulation of his criticism of revolutionary socialists), the quality of the videos remains. Looking forward to the next one.
As a neobundist (I have my criticisms but consider myself in that intellectual tradition) studying their history, thanks so much for covering this! It feels like there's so little education about them in Jewish spaces. Super excited to watch. Edit: I'd critique the description of Bundism as nationalism, even diaspora nationalism- Jack Jacobs, one of their major historians, argues that while they were anti-assimilationist and focused on supporting jews and jewish culture, and even promoted autonomism, they rejected nationalism of any kind throughout their existence. It's up to you how much you think that distinction matters, though, I suppose. That said overall a very good video, and thank you again for making it. Can't wait for more going forward!
It depends on what you mean by "nationalism." Sometimes nationalism means acknowledging that nations-groups of people based on common culture, language, customs, geography, religion, law, and social structure-exist and should be able to continue to thrive. Other times, nationalism means a marriage of state and cultural power to enforce a national ethos onto the state. Obviously, international socialists oppose the latter, but many socialists acknowledge the former. The Bundists definitely acknowledged the Jewish nation as a group engaged in national liberation, and thus would be the former type of nationalists.
Congratulations for this video. I completely overlooked that Ulyanov was Lenin, so this felt like a "Luke I am your father moment". I can't remembering this ever happening in a video. I assume this video was more about Jewish involvement in the Russian left and how the loss essentially lead to why all "communist" countries became dictatorships than bundism in itself and I didn't see that coming. In 99% of videos I don't get such a shock, but this video did it and thats incredible.
I would note that there are some groups who can directly trace their origins back to the bund still operating today. These include the Jewish Socialist Group in the UK and The Workers Circle in the US. However, these groups are not totally in line with their predecessors. Workers circle has become much more liberal, although many social, still involved in it, and while they definitely contain the emphasis on things, like trade unionism and Yiddish, they’re not really a group with the same political agenda. The Jewish socialist group in the UK might be a bit closer to the original Bund, but they don’t seem to emphasize Yiddish or national cultural autonomy, subordinating that to a broader anti-racist politics in like with the principle of Doikayt. The only group I’m aware of that still professes what you might call “true Bundism” is the Jewish Labour Bund in Australia.
My problem with your characterization of Leninism is that it ignores many realities of the time in the Russian Empire. For one thing, the VAST majority of people within the Russian Empire, industrial worker and peasant farmer alike, were illiterate. This alone would more than justify Vanguardism in my opinion, but even if society was literate, the fact is that much of the peasantry was Conservative as a result of the Russian Orthodox sermons they were hearing on a weekly basis since birth. The reason why the Revolution was carried out almost entirely by the industrial proletariat was that this was the most revolutionary class within society for many reasons. But this does not mean that peasantry didn't support the Revolution. The Bolshevik slogan of "Peace, Land, Bread" appealed greatly to even much of the Conservative peasantry, but especially the poorest among them. This alliance between the proletariat and peasantry is immortalized in the hammer and sickle iconography.
Can you do the video about some Jewish political figures in Serbia in 19s like Avram Ozerovic ,Rabi Yehuda Alkalay and in interwar period in Yugoslavia like David Albala ,Šime Spicer ,Alexandar Licht ,Bencion Buli .
13:50, Lenin is not a credible or neutral source for Plekhanov’s antisemitism, Lenin had strong personal political incentives to discredit Plekhanov at this time. I’m not saying Plekhanov wasn’t antisemitic, I just think Lenin isn’t a credible source here
Your statement that Austrian political parties were almost all divided along ethnic lines is pretty questionable. The Christian social parties, for example, were explicitly NOT ethnic and held many seats in parliament and the regional diets. Also, Peter Judson cites political actions in which Jewish leaders headed mostly non-Jewish coalitions. Otherwise, big fan.
Wasn't Roza Luxemburg a pro-assimilationist? She stars in the great book titled Assimilation and Its Discontents. I recall reading a harsh quote of hers rejecting any sympathies with fellow Jews.
Trotsky at this time was a very low-level, independent functionary. For most of the period covered in this video, he was exiled to Siberia, and for a good while he was blocked from joining the editorial board of _Isrkra_ due to opposition by Plekhanov.
Marking socialdemocracy of the kingdom of poland as democratic-socialist is incorrect. The party, unlike bund and pps, favoured revolutionary socialism and in 1918 merged with other party created communist party of poland.
Sorry if my audio is lower-quality than usual; my new computer doesn't agree with my old microphone. I'm currently upgrading and it should be ready in time for the next video.
You could run your audio through a tin can and I'd still watch your videos.
This is probably the most accessible, visually pleasing and comprehensive introduction to Jewish history on TH-cam.
Always appreciate the work you do - It will be a joy to watch this series come all the way to the Modern Day.
I didn't even notice
Ok sounds good...lol. I will watch this when I do my laundry and then I will comment. Be well. Glad you rested.
Hey could you leave the names of the guys up when they're pictured? When it's someone I've been exposed to very little, sometimes never before at all, it's hard to remember who is who when a bunch of guys are on extreme at the same time! Maybe you can slowly decrease the size of the text of their names maybe idk? Thank you for the videos so much Sam, and thanks if you respond to this/ decide to try to use this suggestion!
If you ever need help getting a good audio setup going, I'd be happy to help!
I thought it said Buddhism for a second
Wasn’t just you!
Same here, I thought “wow, this channel is taking an interesting turn” 😁
Same
Real whiplash turn for the account there
Me too!
I love this series so much. I jumped up in shock when realized Ulyanov was Lenin.
Same here, I was like "that portrait is familiar but then again many have the same style facial hair" and then bam, it's revealed he is Lenin. That amazed me.
This has become one of my favorite TH-cam series of all time… so robust, informative, and beautiful. I am both excited to reach the climax the story and disappointed to see the end in sight.
We have a long way to go :)
Ironically you can see as he gets closer to the present day, the time periods get shorter and shorter and seem to overlap each other. So no, I don't think the end is in sight... yet
I highly recommend Mike Duncan’s recently-concluded Revolutions podcast; his early episodes on the Russian Revolution speak about the Bund at length. Amazing video as always, they’re always the highlight of my day :)
Great series, listened to S10 in a marathon when I had COVID last September
The characterization of Lenin and Martov's positions is a bit off, they weren't really accelerationists or opposed to improving conditions for workers so much as opposed to what they saw as half measures - it wasn't "oh let's not do anything because that will delay revolution," it was more like "oh the people proposing these reforms aren't going far enough, we need to remain focused on the goal." Lenin also didn't think Russia could "establish Communism at any time," the divide between he and Martov was over who the primary allies of the Social Democrats would be in a "bourgeois-democratic revolution" against the monarchy, which both saw as a necessary precursor to the establishment of Socialism; Martov thought that the Bourgeoisie needed to be a central force in this Revolution, based on the precedence of the French Revolution, while Lenin thought that Russia lacked a Revolutionary Bourgeoisie due to the specifics of their economy, and that the workers and peasants (led by the Socialists) would thus need to overthrow the Tsar themselves. Lenin did not (at least at this stage) believe that Russia could transition to Communism by itself; as an orthodox Marxist, he held to the belief that the material conditions of Capitalism had to precede Communism. Instead, he believed that a "bourgeois-democratic" Revolution by the workers and peasants in Russia would provide motivation and support for Socialist revolutions in developed Capitalist countries like Germany and France.
Thank you for saying this. Sam's reformist tendencies obviously informed his presentation of these events, lol.
it's funny that later on martov adopted lenin's position on a bourgeois-democratic revolution without the bourgeoisie while lenin abandoned the whole notion of a bourgeois-democratic revolution being necessary in russia.
New insight into the Bolshevik Menshevik controversy. Thank you
Yet another great video!
Speaking about the city of Vilna/Vilnius/Wilno etc., so important to the histories and cultures of several peoples, it just started the celebrations of its 700th birthday.
I keep finding you...
@@DogDogGodFog Yes, I'm everywhere. 😉
As a polish person, I find these videos very educational and entertaining - our people have a…strained relationship and it’s a real tragedy, Jewish people made great contributions to our arts and culture, among a myriad of other things. Can’t wait for more great videos, and all the best from Poland.
I'm an Israeli Jew and I visited Poland in 2014. Our history is indeed a tragedy, but when I visited the locals have treated me well, and even though I did witness a couple of cases of antisemitic rhetoric there (and I got my problems with a... certain political party in Poland) I was never directly harassed by a Polish person neither for being Israeli nor for being Jewish, including online. Not even one time. All my direct interactions with Polish people were either positive or at the very worst neutral.
Also a friend of mine just landed back from a visit to Poland a couple hours ago, that was his second visit, and he only said positive things.
Cheers 🇮🇱🇵🇱
We, the Polish and Jews, died together in WWII and many other times throughout history - sometimes with Germans. We are all similar, yet different. With shared histories of Cooperation and Conflict. And People often have greater conflict over small differences than large ones, and over shared history than over the suspicion of the stranger.
It should be said, the Polish People have also had a profound impact on the Jewish People as well.
@@royxeph_arcanex that’s good to hear - hope you enjoyed your visit!
Regardless of the current relationship between Jews and Poles, the long history remains. Even with few Jews left in Poland today, the intertwining of Jewish and Polish history will continue to go on.
As an American, I find it jarring that Poles see Jewish people as other. Here a Jewish person is my fellow American, we are brothers defending our land shoulder to shoulder. I feel bad for Poland, they are missing out...
I really hope you one day get into Jewish contributions to Anarchism, especially with Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and Murray Bookchin.
Oh that would be super rad
Absolutely need this
Edit: Bookchin is like, the opposite of an anarchist but I think it would be good to cover communalism from a Jewish perspective.
As someone from Michigan, it was really weird to hear that Bundism was extinct. My ancestors came here from the Sunrise colony, but left the farms for the automotive jobs in Saginaw. My grandfather was even engineer responsible for keeping the machinery working at the Nexteer factory and was a life long Bundist.
Yeah, Bundists are not “extinct.” I know of groups now but they’re often attached relentlessly by Zionists
I talked to someone who is associated with a smaller sect of the Bundist movement. Although they are rabidly anti zionist.
The Bund still does actively exist... just only in Melbourne, Australia - there's the last remaining branch of the youth movement SKIF (the Sotsyalistishe Kinder Farband) as well the Melbourne Jewish Labour Bund
I was scanning the comments hoping someone would note this!
Finally I make the connection to my Russian classes ! Where I learned that bolshe is greater and menshe is smaller but I never connected the dots before !!! What a lesson !!
Really appreciate your coverage of the different political streams! כל הכבוד!
The reactions you have for your self-portaits are amazing!
Bundism sounds kind of awesome actually
watching the new video every other Friday or so really brightens my bus ride home thanks sam
Commenting for the algorithm. And because you delivered another excellent segment. Your work and effort are impressive. Oh, and the topic's interesting too.
11:03 That's kind of a bad-faith characterization of Martov's position, no?
Neither he nor Lenin opposed workers organizing for better conditions, they simply stressed that it was a means to the end of cultivating revolutionary consciousness in the working class, rather than an end unto itself as the economists believed.
The videomaker has consistently shown himself to be strongly committed to a reformist perspective. This together with his often comedic formulations (which were already evident in videos on other topics) ends up resulting in this somewhat dismissive portrayal of revolutionary socialism.
We’re Jews, not socialists
Gotta love that flash of Stalin at about 10:13 in.
If anyone is interested in this particular time period then I would highly suggest the revolutions podcast covering the Russian revolution as it goes into very strong detail on all of the characters and factions mentioned especially in the earlier half of this video
Finally, a new upload for my favourite series in the entirety of TH-cam
I've just been linked to this video and channel. A good video! Really interesting information that I've not heard before
I think what doomed the bund regardless of ww2 from becoming as widely accepted as zionism in the long run (even if they were at some points more popular) is that it was a purely Ashkenazi east European movement. Not that it didn't manage to find popularity elsewhere, but it was mostly among immigrants from there. With things like the prioritization of Yiddish over Hebrew, they somewhat severed ties with any Sephardic and Mizrahi allies they could have had.
This kind of inter Jewish racism still persists today and cause friction between Ashkenazim and Sephardim with contrasting world views, as one sees the other as not taking their separate history into account
Wait until we get to the Bund in Greece.
@@SamAronow TIL the Bund operated in Greece... can't wait.
It has some truth Bundists never really considered non-Ashkenazi communities, but on the other hand they were influenced by their immediate surroundings. I doubt early Zionists thought of non-Ashkenazi communities either, but maybe I'm wrong.
I would say that in the scope of Israeli society the Bundists that did immigrate to Israel (with emphasis on immigrated and not did aliyah) were not part of Israeli society really, they'd probably take the "mizrahi" side more than the "ashkenazi". something I can identify with even though I'm fully tsabar (Polish grandparents were discriminated because they didn't sign to the histadrut).
I recommend watching the film "Bundaim" by Eran Torbiner, it's free on youtube.
Loved the audio. Great job 👏🏼
Ulyanov is stressed on the second syllable
Good thing he changed it, because I'll never have to worry about getting it wrong again.
please continue the series, im trying to find more content about Bund to study, but it is really hard because both communists and zionists "erased" it
I'm an Israeli 10th grader and just a week ago I had some school project about the bund's 4th congress, and so this might just be the fact that I'm more acquainted with this topic than with most of Jewish history, but this video feels a bit rushed, and slightly less "coherent" than the rest. I'm honestly quite impressed by the fact that you split the bund into several videos, and you mentioned basically everything that I was hoping you would mention within the bund, but it's not very obvious from this video how popular the bund was with jews in general, or what the bund's relationship was with the general outer world. Even with zionism, it's not very obvious for instance what zionists thought of the bund, especially with the mentions of people like borochov. Also I have never heard of bundism being a term used in the internet, and I would say I'm generally an internet person. I'm not going to judge you too soon because again you mentioned this isn't the last video on bundism, so I'll wait for the next video before I say anything.
Maybe it's more of an American-Jewish thing, but there's definitely a contingent of the highly-online Jewish community that identifies as Bundist. The Bund isn't something that I've seen people in real-life Jewish spaces identify with, only seen them on social media, but I can only speak from my experience.
@@robynblauberg9863 Do not let the American Reform-Liberal appropriation of Bundism confuse you, since unlike the Bundists who rejected Jewish nationalism a.k.a. Zionism only, these reject Jewish ethnic identity altogether.
Thank you for these amazing, well produced and in depth videos. Thank you for your hard work. I'm always looking forwards till your next video (and i've been following live since ypu covered the first temple) - every video you make is better then the last.
I love this channel. Not only does it extensively cover the European Jewish history in the 19th century, but also provides a vivid look into the world of the time in general.
P.S. It's so nice to see and recognize Vilnius from an old map in a video like this
Okay, this is very funny, because I do hang out in "Jewish extremely online spaces" but I'm only familiar with Bundist used in a positive way, by people who feel pride in that history and want to carry it on through Yiddishkeit.
The If Not Now set has taken to labeling themselves Bundists. They really aren't but I think that is what Sam is getting at.
@Kelly Groen I got the inspiration for this so long ago that I no longer remembered who I was talking about. But it was almost certainly them. I used to know a guy who called them "Neturei Karta Bet."
The best channel for obscure subcultural history.
In the last 2 years I’ve watched your stuff, I’m surprised you never touched upon the subject of Sephardic Jews who turned to piracy after the Alhambra Decree. Keep up the good work though
Very well explained, thanks.
Please do a video on the Caucasus; Georgian Jews, Mountain Jews, etc. I am a Georgian Jew and there isn’t much info about my history anywhere.
Your summary of why Lenin and Martov opposed "economism" is slightly wrong in an important way.
They weren't accelerationists and didn't oppose economic reforms per se. (In fact, Martov spent a good deal of time arguing that socialists should be focused more on demonstrating socialism could improve the actual economic status of the workers, like you note.) What they opposed was advocating *purely* for economic reforms with no explicit political dimension. In their view, socialism couldn't be achieved through advocating for individual pro-worker policies without advocating for "socialism" as a whole idea.
(If you want a modern analogy, many modern American socialists are critical of the AFL-CIO and other major trade unions, exactly because they're not explicitly socialist.)
Of course this isn't helped by the fact that Lenin, in characteristic fashion, often used "economism" as a sort of vague pejorative towards any socialist he felt wasn't radical enough, or who was too populist (as opposed to his centralist brand of socialism), or for other relatively minor theoretical disagreements.
The Worker's Circle in the U.S. today holds a lot of the ethos and values of the Bund with regards to Yiddish language and secular Jewish culture and arts, democratic socialism, and doikayt.
Love this video. I define my beliefs as neo-bundism because I feel like Bundism even though their socialist aspect is always relevant the autonomist aspect is long gone, and it also fits me as a current Jewish resident of Poland.
There are bund sympathizers still around but the most important is that the bund as a cultural movement still exists in Australia. It might be small but it carries the torch of yidishkayt and doykayt. but I guess we'll get to that later.
It does; but as an Australian Jew, I feel it might be worth clarifying that the vast vast majority of Australian Jews are zionist.
@@DavidDavid-sd2gd Yes, IIRC most of the bundist came to Australia after the war, so I guess zionism had a stronger hold on the Jewish population
@@Dor150 I’ll be quite frank, I don’t think there’s a single diaspora population which isn’t majority zionist, (not including non-zionist haredim)
@@DavidDavid-sd2gd from my personal perception at least, I think that the modern Jewish community in Poland is not as zionist as the others. But it's a drop in the sea of course and I can't prove it really.
@@Dor150 I’ll trust you on Poland. I also remember speaking to a bundist lithuanian jew (that is, one of the few still living there) online. So I wouldn’t be too shocked if there was a similar thing there too. I probably shouldn’t make sweeping generalizations as I did
videos like this are so important
The description of Martov and Lenin's positions with regards to what they called economism is pretty bad. They were not opposed to trade unionism or improvements of working and living conditions. Their main thrust was against *restricting* the socialist movement's goals and activism to only these things. They were in no way accelerationists who opposed political activity to bring about social betterment, or even as that term implies, to endavour to make the workers' situation under capitalism worse. That's really disingenuous. It's really not a mistake one can come away with if one seriously examines their writings like 'What is to be done?'.
Even beyond the RSDLP specifically, the position of the orthodox marxists of this time period was unmistakable not one that opposed social reforms. This is laid out in crystal clear language in Martov and Lenin's comrade and contemporary Rosa Luxemburg's 'Reform or revolution'.
To quote from 'What is to be done?' directly on this:
"Revolutionary Social-Democracy has always included the struggle for reforms as part of its activities. But it utilises “economic” agitation for the purpose of presenting to the government, not only demands for all sorts of measures, but also (and primarily) the demand that it cease to be an autocratic government. Moreover, it considers it its duty to present this demand to the government on the basis, not of the economic struggle *alone*, but of all manifestations in general of public and political life. In a word, it subordinates the struggle for reforms, as the part to the whole, to the revolutionary struggle for freedom and for socialism. Martynov, however, resuscitates the theory of stages in a new form and strives to prescribe, as it were, an exclusively economic path of development for the political struggle. By advancing at this moment, when the revolutionary movement is on the upgrade, an alleged special “task” of struggling for reforms, he is dragging the Party backwards and is playing into the hands of both “Economist” and liberal opportunism."
"Revolutionary Yiddishland" is a very good book on this topic too. If I remember correctly, the Bolsheviks still maintained a massive amount of Jewish support, which Sam sort of glosses over or implies isn't the case in this video.
@@zach64038 Wait until 1905. Russian political parties become real mass movements by then and the whole scene changes (as does support and membership).
Lenin did whatever he could to maintain power. No one with any historical perspective can deny this. If Joe McCarthy came along promising it, he’d be fine with it. Why are ancient individuals analyzed honestly and modern ones lied about?
@@josephlehman1242 But then why would he have spent 30 years of his adult life devoted solely to being an underground agitator, and habitually imprisoned/in exile? The path to power lay in politics, something he could have gone into as a young lawyer. Radicalizing workers and intellectuals is not really how you gain power in a dictatorial monarchy, if anything it's a recipe to get yourself killed. If power was what motivated him, he sure went about it in a strange way, spending 30 years in the most miniscule and uninfluential groups, when the path to becoming a politician was right there in front of him. Really doesn't square with "doing whatever he could" for the sake of power.
Small details on the question of the socialist movement:
Marx's ideas weren't totally opposed to nationalism as a whole, and especially not in 1848. He himself wrote a constitution idea for a pan-german state working on the basis of parliamentary democracy with socialist incentives to guarantee workers participation. And also, the division between social-democrats and communists came far later. Almost all marxist parties were, until 1917, called Social-Democratic parties. And all these parties had divisions between Reformist (or Revisionists as they were called) and Revolutionaries. And when the October Revolution happened, the bolcheviks proclaimed the failure of the Second Internationale as it embraced nationalism and participated in the Great War. They sent a list of points to examin to all social-democratic parties with the aim of creating a Third Internationale disciplined and organized to achieve the revolution. Some parties had pro-bolchevik majorities, some others prefered to stay in their idea of social-democracy (even if they didn't see themselves as reformists or pro-capitalists). This led to a large split between parties that would retain the name Social-Democratic and that would be left only with their reformist faction as the majority and new parties (or at least parties that changed their name) that embraced the bolchevik revolution (however they were critical of it) and became member of the Communist Internationale.
That's basically the origin of the divide. It doesn't come from Marx but from later socialists.
I like when buddy gets real close to the camera. Then you know shit's about to get real.
the Bundists had the best analysis of "the National Question" of anyone on the left
Thank you for continuing to put out videos, I've found them very informative.
Fascinating video. I hope to see more videos on the Bund soon!
11:41
*It still does.*
18:32 Sweet mother of mercy WHAT is happening to Crete at this point in time
From 1897 onwards, Crete was an international protectorate (and then semi-independent state) under only nominal Ottoman sovereignty. As such, it was administered by the four powers of Great Britain, France, Russia, and Italy. The map reflects that by using the colours of these four countries on the island.
Thank you for another great video.
been waiting for this.
Hey, Hey, Daloy Politsey!
Daloy Samedverszhavets V'Rasey!
Ah but which version? Geoff Burner or Isabel Frey?
@@GratefulZah Zalmen Mlotek but Berner is a close second!
Best Channel!
9:26 this is basically all of the cities in belarus
Not to be confused with the organization of the same name plus the prefix "German American"
I had no idea that Ulanyov was actually Vladimir Lenin the former leader of the Soviet Union before Joseph Stalin.
Looking forward to the video I hope you will do about the Jewish Autonomous Oblast.
Great Video so glad for the 20th century
Very much appreciated! Too bad not a lot of people know about Yuli Martov and the majority of the topics covered in this video.
0:54 too beautiful for this world, too pure
It would be nice with videos about Finnish Icelandic and Scandinavian Jews .
Finland only had at most 2200 jews
Iceland only had permanent community in the 1900s
Jews were banned from Norway until after Norwegian independence
Sweden had a similar policy although it was revoked in the 1800s
Danmark Had a Jewish community only since the 1600s and most were in Schlesvig-Holstein
That Ulyanov geezer looks familiar. Where have I seen his mug before, Guv'nor?
LENIN! I knew it! 🤣
Get Sam some sponsors. Let’s make this man rich 😅
loved that small flash of stalin in 10:12
21:01
Oh my...
That surprised me. I was wondering why that drawing looked like Lenin, cause he is Lenin!
Dunno why I expected him to pop up a bit later.
Great video!
Excellent video!
I’m surprised you didn’t also include Lenin and Stalin’s responses to the Bund. Their attitudes on Jewish identity and peoplehood are arguably the foundation of most left-wing antisemitism and has worked its way into a lot of hardline antizionist rhetoric.
He's still really early in the timeline, and blinked an image of Stalin at one point for foreshadowing, so I'm sure he'll get to it.
@@SomasAcademy That’s true, although a lot of it emerged at this conference in particular. They didn’t just reject the Bund’s claim to be the sole representative of the Jewish people- they rejected both the idea of autonomism and of Jewish peoplehood altogether.
@@ShnoogleMan Where did they explicitly do or say so in the congress? If I recall Martov himself even said outright that what the Bundists were demanding was that other organizations should refrain from accepting Jewish members in lieu of organizing them into the Bund. The transcripts of these meetings are openly available online, you know that right?
@@Christopher-gp9iv I studied Jewish history in university and I remember reading through Lenin and Stalin’s opinions on this. I’d have to search through them to find them again.
@@ShnoogleMan You studied this and yet you can't recall a singular instance of either men standing against Autonomism or "Jewish Peoplehood" (whatever that is supposed to imply lmao, Lenin and Stalin certainly acknowledged them as an ethnoreligious group)
10:12 good chuckle there.
I'm sure allying with Bismarck worked out real well for them
I don't believe in Vanguardism, and I side with Martov over Lenin in that sense, but Martov sounds like a proto-Dengist in believing that 'Russia must become capitalist first'. It's not relevant now considering Russia has been capitalist for decades now, but it's still frustrating when people discuss things like modern-day PRC and claiming it to be anything other than state capitalism. I'm not blaming Martov for revisionism or something, but it's tragic how that tendency has lived on across the centuries.
Also Marx was fine with "class traitors" if they were Bourgeois advocating for Proletarian interests. Engels was literally a factory owner, the pinnacle of a Bourgeois class traitor.
Episode 6 of Fall of Eagles dramatizes the rivalry between Lenin and Martov-and the Bund!
In a completely inaccurate manner, yes.
@@Christopher-gp9iv I’m sure it was, but how exactly?
Hey could you leave the names of the guys up when they're pictured? When it's someone I've been exposed to very little, sometimes never before at all, it's hard to remember who is who when a bunch of guys are on extreme at the same time! Thank you for the videos so much, and thanks if you respond to this/ decide to try to use this suggestion!
If I like bunda is that bundism?
My grandfather was a Bundist. He smoked cigars.
I just did a rewatch of the Jewish History playlist (okay, SOME of it, but I went straight through on the last 20 or so videos), and this video wasn't on the playlist. Was that intentional?
No; thank you for alerting me!
Gee, can you tell Aronow is a SocDem?
Anyway, though Sam's personal politics are starting to become more visible in the videos (as they inevitably would as we reach more contemporary matters and is entirely understandable, even if I'd prefer a less humorous formulation of his criticism of revolutionary socialists), the quality of the videos remains. Looking forward to the next one.
As a neobundist (I have my criticisms but consider myself in that intellectual tradition) studying their history, thanks so much for covering this! It feels like there's so little education about them in Jewish spaces. Super excited to watch.
Edit: I'd critique the description of Bundism as nationalism, even diaspora nationalism- Jack Jacobs, one of their major historians, argues that while they were anti-assimilationist and focused on supporting jews and jewish culture, and even promoted autonomism, they rejected nationalism of any kind throughout their existence. It's up to you how much you think that distinction matters, though, I suppose. That said overall a very good video, and thank you again for making it. Can't wait for more going forward!
It depends on what you mean by "nationalism." Sometimes nationalism means acknowledging that nations-groups of people based on common culture, language, customs, geography, religion, law, and social structure-exist and should be able to continue to thrive. Other times, nationalism means a marriage of state and cultural power to enforce a national ethos onto the state. Obviously, international socialists oppose the latter, but many socialists acknowledge the former. The Bundists definitely acknowledged the Jewish nation as a group engaged in national liberation, and thus would be the former type of nationalists.
Congratulations for this video. I completely overlooked that Ulyanov was Lenin, so this felt like a "Luke I am your father moment". I can't remembering this ever happening in a video.
I assume this video was more about Jewish involvement in the Russian left and how the loss essentially lead to why all "communist" countries became dictatorships than bundism in itself and I didn't see that coming. In 99% of videos I don't get such a shock, but this video did it and thats incredible.
The single frame of stalin at 10:13 💀
Dang, Borochov looks just like I imagined him to, only with better hair.
Can someone write me, whats the name of the song in the Intro? 😅
I would note that there are some groups who can directly trace their origins back to the bund still operating today. These include the Jewish Socialist Group in the UK and The Workers Circle in the US. However, these groups are not totally in line with their predecessors. Workers circle has become much more liberal, although many social, still involved in it, and while they definitely contain the emphasis on things, like trade unionism and Yiddish, they’re not really a group with the same political agenda. The Jewish socialist group in the UK might be a bit closer to the original Bund, but they don’t seem to emphasize Yiddish or national cultural autonomy, subordinating that to a broader anti-racist politics in like with the principle of Doikayt.
The only group I’m aware of that still professes what you might call “true Bundism” is the Jewish Labour Bund in Australia.
Is arkady kremer a descended of Eliyahu crämer (the vilna gaon)?
My grandfather was instrumental in the polish bund,,so the polish govt asked him to leave.
Good Stuff
Will you make a video to talk about Salonica?
The Bund still exists in countries other than Israel (US, France, UK, etc), it's just the Israeli branch that ceased to exist in 2019.
Oh boy how I would have loved to live in XIXth century eastern Europe.
My problem with your characterization of Leninism is that it ignores many realities of the time in the Russian Empire. For one thing, the VAST majority of people within the Russian Empire, industrial worker and peasant farmer alike, were illiterate. This alone would more than justify Vanguardism in my opinion, but even if society was literate, the fact is that much of the peasantry was Conservative as a result of the Russian Orthodox sermons they were hearing on a weekly basis since birth. The reason why the Revolution was carried out almost entirely by the industrial proletariat was that this was the most revolutionary class within society for many reasons. But this does not mean that peasantry didn't support the Revolution. The Bolshevik slogan of "Peace, Land, Bread" appealed greatly to even much of the Conservative peasantry, but especially the poorest among them. This alliance between the proletariat and peasantry is immortalized in the hammer and sickle iconography.
Ah, trying to trick us up by referring to Lenin by his birth name, very clever.
Great. Grand
Can you do the video about some Jewish political figures in Serbia in 19s like Avram Ozerovic ,Rabi Yehuda Alkalay and in interwar period in Yugoslavia like David Albala ,Šime Spicer ,Alexandar Licht ,Bencion Buli .
13:50, Lenin is not a credible or neutral source for Plekhanov’s antisemitism, Lenin had strong personal political incentives to discredit Plekhanov at this time. I’m not saying Plekhanov wasn’t antisemitic, I just think Lenin isn’t a credible source here
Your statement that Austrian political parties were almost all divided along ethnic lines is pretty questionable. The Christian social parties, for example, were explicitly NOT ethnic and held many seats in parliament and the regional diets. Also, Peter Judson cites political actions in which Jewish leaders headed mostly non-Jewish coalitions.
Otherwise, big fan.
I love buddhism
Dang ! I came here for Al Bundy's wisdom !
No ma'am!
Wasn't Roza Luxemburg a pro-assimilationist? She stars in the great book titled Assimilation and Its Discontents. I recall reading a harsh quote of hers rejecting any sympathies with fellow Jews.
Yes, but she also wanted federal autonomy for Poland and Lithuania.
Does anyone know where Sam is from? I'm trying to pin down his accent.
California I am pretty sure
Was Arkadi Kremer a descendent of the Vilna Gaon ? Same Last name and same City.
Maybe a distant nephew, because all of the Gaon's children had the surname _Vilner._
Where’s Trotsky?
Trotsky at this time was a very low-level, independent functionary. For most of the period covered in this video, he was exiled to Siberia, and for a good while he was blocked from joining the editorial board of _Isrkra_ due to opposition by Plekhanov.
Marking socialdemocracy of the kingdom of poland as democratic-socialist is incorrect. The party, unlike bund and pps, favoured revolutionary socialism and in 1918 merged with other party created communist party of poland.
תודה לך על וידיו על בונדיזם!