Responding to Sean McMeekin's claim that the Bolshevik-Menshevik split was due to antisemitism

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Introduction

So you might be slightly confused with the title as you probably have not heard this claim before, and I hadn’t either until a year or so ago, a fairly popular Twitter thread claiming this made the rounds and I asked for their source as it was not a claim I had heard before and they provided me with one, and well I looked into it and well their evidence didn’t really stack up as I plan to show. I thought this could be an interesting video to show you can’t always trust someone just because they claim to have a source, and might help people understand how to verify information, and that we shouldn’t just dismiss things out of hand, too much of the left is too quick to just dismiss things that conflicts with our understanding of events. So lets take a look at this

The Source

So the source originates from Sean McMeekin an American Historian, in his book The Russian Revolution: A New History he puts forth the idea that the split in the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party was due to Lenin being antisemitic. "Contrary to the common belief, expounded in most history books, that the famous Bolshevik-Menshevik split of July 1903 occurred because Lenin’s advocacy of a professional cadre of elites (sometimes called vanguardism), outlined in his 1902 pamphlet What Is To Be Done?, was opposed by Mensheviks who wanted mass worker participation in the party, the real fireworks at the Brussels Congress surrounded the Jewish question. Party organization was not even discussed until the fourteenth plenary session. Lenin’s main goal in Brussels was to defeat the Bund—that is, Jewish—autonomy inside the party. His winning argument was that Jews were not really a nation, as they shared neither a common language nor a common national territory. Martov, the founder of the Bund, took great umbrage at this, and walked out in protest to form the new Menshevik (minority) faction. He was followed by nearly all Jewish Socialists, including, notably, Lev Bronstein (Trotsky), a young intellectual from Kherson, in southern Ukraine, who had studied at a German school in cosmopolitan Odessa, which helped prime him for the appeal of European Marxism. With Lenin all but mirroring the arguments of Russian anti-Semites, it is not hard to see why Martov, Trotsky, and other Jews joined the opposition."

Now I also take issue with his characterization of the other theory being that Lenin wanted "elites" vs "Menshevik worker participation", but that is not what this video is about I think ProSocialism did a good set of videos on the topic in both Bolshevik & Mensheviks: 1903-1904 and In Defence of Lenin’s What Is to be Done. I think the split was about the editorial board composition and how to define a party member.

So what does it get wrong?

Just from the start anyone with any familiarity with this congress should notice a pretty big mistake, The Mensheviks did not walk out with the Bund, I think maybe he is confusing the 1917 congress where Mensheviks did walk out, but they did no such this at this congress. On August 18th 6 Bundists and two Economists walked out from the congress[I. Getzler and P. Israel Getzler, Martov: A Political Biography of a Russian Social Democrat (Cambridge University Press, 1967). 79] that or maybe he assumed that all Jewish members of the congress of the bund which is actually probably more wrong. But I will get back to that, first I should probably explain some of the background of who exactly the Bund was. Now I wouldn’t exactly call Martov its founder, he was off in the middle of nowhere north of the arctic circle when it was founded, but his writings had influenced that partly prompted its creation so in that way I could see why some people have labeled him as a founder.

What was the Jewish Bund

The bund grew out of a labour movement in Vilnius in Lithuania then part of the Russian Empire, the city was known for having a large Jewish population and this got it the nickname of Little Jerusalem. The editors of two Yiddish newspapers helped found it the Workers’ Voice and the Jewish Worker, the Bund had to hold a congress in secret it was held in September of 1897 during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur as to avoid drawing attention of the Okhrana. [(missing reference)

It’s foundation was brought about because of the prospects of the formation of an all-Russian Social Democratic party, see at this time Social Democrats in Russia were highly split among lots of local parties all around the country, there had been on on going movement to attempt to create a national party, the first congress of this was held in March of 1898 in Minsk. The Congress agreed to the Bund request for autonomy and that it was the legitimate representative of the Jewish proletariat. The idea at the time was the Bund would be federated with the Russian workers organization. However in what shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone with a knowledge of Russian revolutionary movements at the time, but following the congress there was mass arrests of social democrats in Kiev, and Moscow and the Bund had its leadership devastated by the arrests. [Harold. Shukman, “The Relations between the Jewish Bund and the RSDRP, 1897-1903” (PhD thesis, University of Oxford, 1961). I-II]

Iskra

With Lenin and Martov returning from exile and the founding of Iskra, Martov focused on establishing an Iskra Network in Russia, and in the mean time the Bund had grown to be one of the main revolutionary groups. It began to spread into Jewish population centers within the Pale of Settlement, but this raised issues of how they should organize when there was already other Social Democratic organizations in those regions with Jewish members. The fourth congress of the Bund took the position to not found it where there are other social democrats organized locally already, they also decided that the bund should be part of a federated party covering all of Russia with different parties for each nationality. [Harold. Shukman, “The Relations between the Jewish Bund and the RSDRP, 1897-1903” (PhD thesis, University of Oxford, 1961). iv-vi]

The goal of Lenin and the rest of Iskra was the creation of a national party given legitimacy by local organizations, and to adopt a unified programme and for Lenin this meant a German SPD style programme based of Kautsky’s Erfurt programme. This is what Iskra was created to advocate for. [(missing reference) 108-115]

Second Congress

So this is what the second congress was supposed to establish a unified party with a programme, and to do this they had to answer questions like the definition of the party member, also what the programme is, and the parties official newspaper and editorial board, which was to be Iskra. It also had to answer questions of how to handle the relationship with organizations like the bund. The Iskraists wanted a unified party, not a federated party.

Did Martov and Trotsky leave due Lenin’s antisemtism?

Alright now you know some of the background information, now let us get into the meat of the question. Well we already know that Martov and Trotsky didn’t walk out as I established earlier.

But to start with let us take a look at Mr McMeekin’s source. Which is Harold Shukmans 1961 PhD thesis "The relations between the Jewish Bund and the RSDRP 1897-1903. and his citation is for page 237. Now thankfully and I would like to say how much i appreciate this being free to download as a PDF from the Oxford Archives website.

So looking at his source, it seems to not put forth the same argument or really any kind of evidence of what he claims his source offers none. In fact it argues the opposite on page 242 it even points out and I quote "Martov the manager of the Congress, the chief spokesman for Isrka, the Bund’s worst enemy." This even touches on something I will come back to, but his source mentions the Bund didn’t support Martov because Martov was pro-bund, but they figured they could widen the split in Iskra which would give them more room to argue for their position they felt.

So his own source disagrees, it says Martov was an enemy of the Bund, it makes no mention of Trotsky or Martov really being angry or upset about how Lenin spoke of the Jewish people. Well he has no real source for this, but lets investigate someone can still be correct with no source.

So what about Trotsky

Well maybe a place to start fpr trying to verify this claim is Trotsky’s My Life his autobiography

Well he says

"How did I come to be with the “softs” at the congress? Of the Iskra editors, my closest connections were with Martov, Zasulitch and Axelrod. Their influence over me was unquestionable. Before the congress there were various shades of opinion on the editorial board, but no sharp differences. I stood farthest from Plekhanov, who, after the first really trivial encounters, had taken an intense dislike to me. Lenin’s attitude toward me was unexceptionally kind. But now it was he who, in my eyes, was attacking the editorial board, a body which was, in my opinion, a single unit, and which bore the exciting name of Iskra. The idea of a split within the board seemed nothing short of sacrilegious to me."

He seems to argue his reasoning was mostly out of personal reasons connected to the editorial board, as he was closest to Martov, Zasulich, and Axelrol. Lenin argued and got passed at the congress a change to the editorial board to be made up of Plekhanov, Martov and Lenin. Trotsky also says later he also failed to fully realize how much centralism was going to be required of the party.

So no mention of anti-semitism. But, this was written in 1930 after Trotsky in 1917 had joined the Bolsheviks, and was in an argument within the Third International about the correct path,so he would have some motivation to not want to insult Lenin.

Hmm, but the good news is we have Trotsky’s response to the split when he was mad at Lenin, so surely if he had actually joined the Mensheviks out of Lenin being antisemitic he would have mentioned in that polemic he would have had no reason not to.

This work is ‘Our Political Tasks’ written as a response to Lenin about the split, and in part What is To be Done?.

and well, not a single mention of Jews, or the Bund.

Other Responses

Both Kautsky and Luxemburg wrote response on the Russian split and neither of them made any mention of it actually being because Lenin was antisemitic, so if this split was actually because of that no one told the people involved.

Lenin, Trotsky, and Martov on the Bund

So lets talk about the actual positions of Lenin, Trotsky and Martov on the Bund because they actually really didn’t disagree on this.

Martov

In August of 1901 Martov launched Isrka’s first main assault on the Bund, he attacked it for developing Jewish Nationalism which he considered a major political mistake, as well he attacked them for the demand for Jewish autonomy, he considered the main issue in the Russian empire to be that Jews were separated by the policy of the tsarists government. He said that the Bund’s nationalism and demand for federalism weakened the organizational ties between Jewish and Russian workers. The goal is not territory for Jews, but to be free to spread and settle all over Russia. The bunds function in his view was it should engage in special agitation among Jewish workers on the basis of their oppression, but not take on nation tasks. [I. Getzler and P. Israel Getzler, Martov: A Political Biography of a Russian Social Democrat (Cambridge University Press, 1967). 56]

Martov would also release two lengthy articles in March and June of 1903 attacking the bund, he argued similar to above that Jewish Socialists needed to join an organization of the whole of the Russian proletariat, and that the nationalism within the bund had to be fought. That their idea of an independent national party separated the Jewish workers from Polish and Russian Workers. [I. Getzler and P. Israel Getzler, Martov: A Political Biography of a Russian Social Democrat (Cambridge University Press, 1967). 58-59]

Now actually at the congress as Harold Shukmans wrote, Martov was the main enemy of the Bund, Israel Getzler in his biography says something very similar

"Martov was the main speaker for the coalition against the Bund at the Second Congress and moved the resolution which rejected Bundist federalism and in effect drove the Bund out of the party"

Trotsky

So we talked about earlier that Trotsky was not bothered by Lenin’s position. Trotsky was much in the same position as Martov, as is noted by Isaac Deutscher, and I think very clear from the minutes of the congress, it was very much intentional on the part of Lenin and the Iskra supporters to have Martov and Trotsky lead the attack on the Bund, they wanted the attacks on the Bund to come from Jewish members of the congress. When Martov brought up his motion against the Bund only Jewish delegates signed it, Trotsky in his attacks on the Bund was accused by the Bund of offending Jews. Trotsky was in the same opinion as Martov, Axelrod and other Jewish Socialists, in opposition to the idea of a separate Jewish Nation, Trotsky said while the Bund was opposed to Zionism they had absorbed the nationalism from them. Trotsky would repeat this attack in articles after the congress attacking Zionism. [I. Deutscher, The Prophet Armed: Trotsky, 1879-1921 (Verso, 2003). 72-75]

Lenin

So while we know Lenin hung back what exactly were his positions on the Bund. Well they were not exactly any different from Isrka on the whole other then maybe he was more willing to see them leave then Martov was. But in the end Martov’s resolution was the one that drove the Bund out of the party. A another position Lenin took in opposition to the Bund was Lenin’s position that the Jewish people ceased to be a nation as they had no territory or single language, but this was not an exclusive position to Lenin, this was the position of Karl Kautsky who Lenin referenced in some of his writings on the subject. This was the same that Martov and Trotsky took as well, so I am not quite sure how they could have been bothered by it and how it could have been the source of the split.[T. Krausz, B. Bethlenfalvy, and M.D. Fenyo, Reconstructing Lenin: An Intellectual Biography (Monthly Review Press, 2015). 257-260]

Now a question I have avoided is what Lenin said actually antisemitic, and I don’t think that actually matters within the context of is the historians claims correct or not, because the question is if it caused the split and Trotsky, Martov certainly didn’t think it was antisemitic and it is certainly not why they were part of the Mensheviks, neither Luxemburg or Kautsky seemed to have thought it was an issue either.

Reviews from Other Historians

When I saw someone citing this book I remembered I had heard about it before from a historian I have quite a lot of respect for Sheila Fitzpatrick, in an article titled "What’s Left?"

"McMeekin, the youngest of the authors here, set out to write a ‘new history’, by which he means an anti-Marxist one. Following Pipes, but with his own twist, he includes an extensive bibliography of works ‘cited or profitably consulted’ that omits all social histories except Figes. This includes Smith’s and Steinberg’s earlier books, as well as my own Russian Revolution (though it is cited on p.xii as an example of Marxist, Soviet-influenced work). It could be argued that McMeekin doesn’t need to read the social histories since his focus in The Russian Revolution, as in his earlier work, is on the political, diplomatic, military and international economic aspects. He draws on a multinational archival source base, and the book is quite interesting in detail, particularly the economic parts. But there’s a whiff of right-wing nuttiness in his idea that ‘Marxist-style maximalist socialism’ is a real current threat in Western capitalist countries. He doesn’t quite call the whole revolution, from Lenin’s sealed train in April 1917 to the Rapallo Treaty in 1922, a German conspiracy, but that’s more or less what his narrative suggests."

This can be a good way to help identify possible issues with sources is to look up reviews from historians. Though unfortunately some other reviews of this work I tried to find are behind paywalls and I couldn’t get access to them.

Conclusion

So really to conclude regardless of if anyone listening to this considers Lenin’s position to constitute antisemitism I see no evidence for the claim that this somehow was the driving reason for the split given the broad agreement between Lenin, Martov and Trotsky on this. It was an issue for the Bund, but not the Mensheviks. Now I also want to say something I talked about this a bit on Twitter and someone pointed out that they had Sean McMeekin as a teacher and he was a nice guy. So don’t mean this to be an attack on him, though I do think his position in his work is wrong on this. This is also only a comment on this section of his work, not it on the whole I have not read much of anything else put out by him so I can’t comment on it.

Anyway hope you enjoyed this shorter video please check out my other videos and subscribe, if you want to check my sources for this the script is on my website, which I have been considering doing a video about how it is setup let me know if you would find that interesting, otherwise my next video is doing to deal with the butchering of animals during the 30s famine, and a review of a WW2 Red Army Reproduction ration.

1. Getzler, I., and P. Israel Getzler. Martov: A Political Biography of a Russian Social Democrat. Cambridge University Press, 1967.

   @book{getzler1967martov,
     title = {Martov: A Political Biography of a Russian Social Democrat},
     author = {Getzler, I. and Israel Getzler, P.},
     isbn = {9780521050739},
     lccn = {67103767},
     year = {1967},
     publisher = {Cambridge University Press}
   }
   

2. Shukman, Harold. “The Relations between the Jewish Bund and the RSDRP, 1897-1903.” PhD thesis, University of Oxford, 1961.

   @phdthesis{shukman1961a,
     year = {1961},
     edition = {},
     number = {},
     journal = {},
     pages = {},
     publisher = {University of Oxford},
     school = {University of Oxford},
     title = {The relations between the Jewish Bund and the RSDRP, 1897-1903},
     volume = {},
     author = {Shukman, Harold.},
     editor = {},
     series = {}
   }
   

3. Deutscher, I. The Prophet Armed: Trotsky, 1879-1921. Verso, 2003.

   @book{deutscher2003prophetarmed,
     title = {The Prophet Armed: Trotsky, 1879-1921},
     author = {Deutscher, I.},
     isbn = {9781859844410},
     lccn = {20558057},
     year = {2003},
     publisher = {Verso}
   }
   

4. Krausz, T., B. Bethlenfalvy, and M.D. Fenyo. Reconstructing Lenin: An Intellectual Biography. Monthly Review Press, 2015.

   @book{krausz2015reconstructing,
     title = {Reconstructing Lenin: An Intellectual Biography},
     author = {Krausz, T. and Bethlenfalvy, B. and Fenyo, M.D.},
     isbn = {9781583674499},
     lccn = {2014047250},
     year = {2015},
     publisher = {Monthly Review Press}
   }