The theory of Autonomism takes as its point of departure the historic fact that at all times, with the exception of a few brief and partial deflections, the Jewish Diaspora, taken as a whole, represented a national organism, in which the absence of political or territorial unity was made up by the stronger cohesion of its spiritual and cultural ties and the greater intensity of its social and autonomous life. For many centuries the entire culture of Judaism assumed a religious coloring and its communal autonomy was centered in the synagogue—which circumstance gave the modern champions of assimilation reason for thinking that the Jews were only a religious group scattered among various nations. It was a fatal error on the part of the Parisian Synhedrion convoked by Napoleon when, in its declaration of 1807, it proclaimed that "Jewry to-day does not constitute a nation," an error which during the nineteenth century became an article of faith with the Jews of Western Europe. The latest development of the national movement has shown that Jewry, though scattered among various political states, is a nation full of vitality, and that the Jewish religion is only one of its functions. The Jewish national idea, secularized to a certain degree, is based on the assumption that all sections of the Jewish people, though divided in their political allegiance, form one spiritual or historico-cultural nation, which, like all national minority groups in countries with a mixed population, are in duty bound to fight in their several lands at one and the same time not only for their civil equality, but also for their national rights—the autonomy of the Jewish community, school, and language. What Jewish orthodoxy has for centuries stood for and still stands for, under the guise of religious Judaism, progressive Jews should fight for under the banner of a national Jewish culture. The fate of universal Jewry ought not to be bound up with one single center. We should take into account the historic fact of a multiplicity of centers of which those that have the largest numbers and can boast of the most genuine development of a national Jewish life are entitled to the hegemony of the Jewish people. In those lands in which civil emancipation has been achieved the fight must go on for national emancipation, the recognition of the Jews as a nation which is entitled to a comprehensive communal and cultural autonomy. In Russia, the struggle must be carried on simultaneously for civil as well as national rights. Temporary set-backs in this struggle for a national existence ought not to discourage a nation which has endured the most terrible sufferings for centuries and has been able to preserve its spiritual freedom even in the midst of slavery.
A certain measure of relief from these sufferings might be found in the old-time remedy of Jewish history, in the emigration from the lands of bondage to countries enjoying a greater amount of freedom. If in one of the centers the Jews are subject to prolonged persecution, then their gradual transplantation, be it partial or complete, to another center offering more favorable opportunities in the struggle for existence ought to be attempted. Thus, during the last decades, the partial exodus of the Jews from Russia has helped to create an important Jewish center in North America and a smaller, yet spiritually valuable center, in Palestine. The latter may become a medium for the nationalization of the entire Diaspora, but only then when the Diaspora itself will be organized directly upon the foundations of a cultural autonomy. Zionism, when reduced to its concrete possibilities, can form only one plank in the universal platform of the Jewish nation. The Palestinian center may strengthen the national development of the Diaspora, but it does not constitute a conditio sine qua non for its autonomous existence.
Similar to Spiritual Zionism which had not succeeded in forming a special party, and yet acted as a lever in the general Zionist movement, Autonomism, too, failed to find its embodiment in a party organization, and yet became an integral part of the politico-national movements of Russian Jewry at the beginning of the present century. During the revolutionary struggle in Russia, in 1905 and 1906, the demand for a national-cultural autonomy was embodied in various degrees by nearly all Jewish parties and groups in their platforms, aside from, and in addition to, the demand for civil equality.[24]
4. The Jewish Socialistic Movement
On a parallel line with the nationalistic ideology, which formed a counterbalance to the assimilationist theory of Western Europe, the doctrine of Socialism came gradually to the fore, emphasizing the principle of the class struggle in a more or less intimate connection with the national idea. The Jewish labor movement was born at the end of the eighties in Lithuania—in Vilna, and other cities; its adherents were recruited from among the Jewish workingmen who were mainly engaged in handicrafts. In the nineties, the movement spread to the growing manufacturing centers of Lithuania and Poland—Bialystok, Smorgon, Warsaw, and Lodz. At first, the labor societies were established with a purely economic end in view—the organization of strikes for fewer working hours, increased wages, and the like. The leaders of these societies who were recruited from among the young Jewish intelligenzia, some of whom had received a university education abroad, endeavored to model the movement upon the pattern of the West-European Social-Democracy. The doctrine of Marxian Socialism was applied, sometimes rather hastily, to the primitive stage of capitalistic production in the Pale of Settlement where it was still very difficult to draw a line of demarcation between the poverty-stricken "petty bourgeoisie," forming the bulk of the Jewish population, and the labor proletariat.
In the second half of the nineties, the Jewish Socialistic societies were drawn into the maelstrom of the Russian revolutionary movement. In 1897, all these societies were consolidated in the "League of the Jewish Workingmen of Lithuania, Poland, and Russia," known under its abbreviated name as Der Bund ("The League"). The first secret convention of the "League" took place in Vilna in the month of September, just one month after the first Zionist Congress at Basle. Various party centers were organized in Russia—clandestinely, of course; the party organ, published in the language of the Jewish masses, in Yiddish, appeared abroad under the name of Die Arbeiter Stimme. It is worthy of note that the formation of the Jewish "Bund" gave a year later the stimulus to the organization of the "Russian Social-Democratic Party," which united the formerly existing Russian labor societies. The "Bund" now joined the ranks of Russian Social Democracy as a separate autonomous group, although a number of Jewish Social Democrats who had adopted the viewpoint of assimilation or cosmopolitanism occupied a conspicuous place in the leadership of the Russian party at large.
At subsequent conventions the "Bund" endeavored to formulate its national program. At first, the tendency prevailed to limit the national element in the party platform to the use of the popular Jewish vernacular as a propaganda medium among the masses. At the third convention of the "Bund," which took place in Kovno in 1899, the proposal to demand national equality for the Jews was voted down on the ground that the attention of the workingmen should be concentrated upon their class interests and ought not to be diverted in the direction of national aspirations. The fourth convention of the party, held in 1901, similarly declared "that it was premature, under the present circumstances, to put forward the demand for a national autonomy for the Jews," although it realized at the same time that "the concept of nationality is also applicable to the Jewish people." Only after prolonged debates in the party press, and after a violent struggle with the centralizing tendencies of the Russian Social-Democratic Party, the convention of the "Bund," held in 1905, adopted a resolution, demanding "national-cultural autonomy" in the domain of popular education as well as public rights for the language spoken by the Jews.
In this wise, the national element gradually permeated even the doctrine of Socialism which, in its essence, had always been opposed to it and had placed in its stead the principle of internationalism and class interests. On the other hand, an attempt was made to inject the Socialistic element into Zionism. Beginning with 1901, the Poale-Zion ("The Zionist Workingmen") began to organize themselves in separate societies which proclaimed the territorial principle of Zionism as the only means of solving the Jewish social-economic question, proceeding from the assumption that in the lands of the Diaspora the Jewish masses would always be barred from the domain of big industry.
5. The Revival of Jewish Letters
This national revival of Russian Jewry found its expression also in Jewish literature. The periodical press, particularly in the Hebrew language, exhibited new life and vigor, and in other domains of literary productivity various big talents made their appearance. As early as the end of the eighties, the two weekly Hebrew organs, the ha-Melitz in St. Petersburg, and the ha-Tzefirah in Warsaw, were transformed into dailies. The Hebrew annuals pursuing purely literary and scientific aims, such as the ha-Asif ("The Harvest"), Keneset Israel ("The Community of Israel"), Pardes ("The Garden"), and others, made way for the more energetic ha-Shiloah, a monthly publication which reacted more rapidly on the questions of the day.[25] This review, which is the equal of the leading periodicals of Europe, exercised considerable influence upon the views of the nationalist Jewish youth during the period of transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century.