Nearly all Zionist organizations claiming a working class base and perspective, even an internationalism, never seriously allowed for those professions to interfere with their commanding, unapologetically nationalist object of creating a Jewish-ethno-state. A project allied and reliant on British imperialism’s rarely reluctant recourse to violence in the dispossession Arab Palestine. The most Marxist-influenced, left-wing Zionist, class-based organization was Paole Zion (sometimes Poale Zion), which operated both in the U.S and internationally. During the Russian Civil War and under pressure from the wave of anti-Jewish pogroms, the majority of the largest Jewish Socialist organization in Europe, the non-Zionist Bund in April, 1920, the majority voted to join the Communist International. Within Pole Zion pro-Communist tendencies again emerged around Austrian Michael Kohn-Eber, representing the Left Poale Zion in discussions with the Comintern. In August, 1921, the Comintern made explicit its demand that Poale Zion abandon Palestinian colonization before relations could develop. After the majority of Poale Zion rejected that demand the following year, the Comintern broke all relations (through some PZ dissidents joining the C.P.). However, the following years saw the many unhappy experiences of Jewish colonizers, growing violence between Arab and Jew, economic crisis, unemployment and repression, a noticeable leftward move among international working class, and most importantly–the Arab Revolt of 1929 against the decade-long land theft and Jewish colonization–created a reevaluation among Paole Zion leftist leading to a further split and this appeal to remaining members to abandon Zionism and join in the Communist movement.

‘Jewish Workers Make Plea to Proletarian to Leave Poale Zion’ from The Daily Worker. Vol. 7 No. 133. June 3, 1930.

Appealing to Jewish Toilers Everywhere, They Show Reactionary Nature of “Poale Zion’’ Declare That Soviet Takes Correct Nationalist Steps; Zionists Turn to Imperialism

MOSCOW. A group of Jewish workers, former members of the Jewish Workers’ Party “Poale Zion,” have addressed a letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union expressing the opinion that the continued existence of the Poale Zion either in the Soviet Union or abroad is not in accordance with the interests of the proletarian revolution, and requesting to be accepted as members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which is described as the only workers’ party of all nationalities in the Soviet Union.

The declaration appeals to all proletarian members of the Poale Zion, both in the Soviet Union and abroad, to follow the example of the signatories. It points out that the nationality policy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the tremendous economic constructive policy of the Soviet Government represent an unparalleled support for backward peoples and the only speedy and sure solution of national problems.

The systematic work carried on by the Soviet authorities for the raising of the economic and cultural level of the Jewish working masses, and the great plan for Jewish colonies in Birobidshan, were proofs that the Soviet Government was pursuing a healthy national policy.

The aim of the Paole Zion to set up a territorial Jewish center in Palestine inevitably brought it into line with national reformist and social fascism and worked in the last resort in the interest of the Zionist bourgeoisie and British imperialism, as seen in the recent events in Palestine.

The erroneous idea of the national interests of the Jewish proletariat which guides the Paole Zion caused the latter organization to fail to understand the real nature of the Arabian insurrection in Palestine, which the reactionary feudalists and religionists strived to deflect into an anti-Jewish pogrom. The essential nature of the insurrection was that of a Pan-Arabian anti-imperialist movement, a peasant movement.

Instead of making common cause with the Arabian toiling masses and assisting them to free themselves from the reactionary influences of the feudalists and mullahs, it joined in the imperialist campaign against the anti-imperialist revolutionary movement of the Arabian peasant masses.

The united forces of the imperialist soldiery of the MacDonald government, the Zionist bourgeoisie and the fascist troops of Shahptinski succeeded in crushing the Arabian peasant anti-imperialist revolutionary movement. These are the facts.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924. National and City (New York and environs) editions exist.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v06-n258-NY-jan-03-1930-DW-LOC.pdf