Dancing at Two Weddings: The Russian Bund between Nationalism and Socialism in 1917

• In Event: Reading the Revolution: Jewish Responses to the Upheavals of 1917

Abstract

Using memoirs, newspapers, and the Bund’s internal records in Yiddish, Russian, French, and German, my research examines how the Bund navigated its relationship to political power following the fall of the Romanov regime in 1917. For the first time since its birth, the Bund had direct access to power through its relationship to other radical parties, especially the Mensheviks. While this provided the Bund suddenly with unprecedented influence, the movement's insistence on national particularism meant frequent disagreement with close allies. Despite the Bund's new role in effectively writing nationality policy for the Russian republic it was never able to reconcile nation-building with internationalism. These tensions continued to plague the party throughout Russia’s revolutionary period, hampering the Bund both in its relationship with the Mensheviks and the Jewish community. These issues would continue to haunt the Bund through the convulsions of 1917 and beyond later having a decisive impact on the Bund's fracturing - and eventual dissolution -- after the Bolshevik revolution.

Author

• Joshua Meyers, Stanford University