The Legacy of the October Revolution

The initial euphoria of the Russian Zionists on reaching the Land of Israel was replaced by their astonishment at the pro-Soviet approach of Hapoel Hatzair in Palestine. Their own experience in GPU prisons had been profoundly different from the experience of those who had emigrated during the early days of the October Revolution. They had remained long enough in Soviet Russia to make a distinction between the dream and the reality. Little information about the fate of the Zionists had seeped out, and the leadership of the Yishuv seemed to have more pressing problems. Those who were able to leave had also borne witness to the zeal of the Yevsektsia to uproot Zionism from Soviet soil. They subsequently formed an opposition group within Hapoel Hatzair in Palestine and within the Histadrut called Kvutzot Ha-Amlanim (Trudoviki).

This dissident labour group began to find common ground with the supporters of Jabotinsky. One of those leaders of Tserei Tsion who was tried and sentenced in Kiev, Moshe Lurie, called for the merging of the Amlanim with the pro-Revisionist group of Yaakov Weinshal,2 who had attended the founding meeting of the Revisionist movement in Paris. While there was no formal merger, there was certainly a meeting of minds.

The Amlanim strongly opposed the visit of Levi Shkolnik (Eshkol), a member of Hapoel Hatzair, to the Moscow conference of the Communist Cooperative Movement in 1925 while Zionists were still sitting in Soviet prisons. Yet Tserei Tsion representatives met Shkolnik when he visited Moscow.

In July 1925 Hapoel Hatzair demanded the dissolution of the Amlanim, who responded by publishing a letter in Davar, the newly founded daily of the Histadrut. It accused Hapoel of deserting its labour roots to become a socialist party. It was signed by Arieh Altman, Baruch Weinstein and others who had been victimised in Russia. Moreover, the Amlanim accused Hapoel Hatzair in Palestine of suppressing freedom of expression within the party. They established the Histadrut ha-tsiyonim ha-Amlanim in early 1926, which mirrored many Revisionist principles but argued for Palestine to be built on labour pioneering principles. It rejected the Marxist approach regarding the relationship between labour and capital.