Two contributions of a Jewish comrade written for The Toiler in the fall of 1920. Reisz contextualizes the anti-Jewish pogroms, often bathed in anti-Bolshevism, then burning through Civil War Russia, killing untold thousands, then writes on the appeal made by reactionary Zionist nationalism in its competition with Communist internationalism offering a way free from the incessant and deadly persecutions. Around the Socialist Labor Party and later the Communist movement, for several years Reisz authored theoretical articles on Marxism, tactics, and Jewish politics in the U.S. Marxist press before he falls from view in late 1920. Perhaps ‘Reisz’ was a party-name, or he, like so many others, was deported or voluntarily returned to Russia to participant in its reconstruction. If any comrades have ideas or leads on Reisz, it would be much appreciated.

‘Pogrom Agitation Directed Against Jewish Worker Revolutionists & Jewish Nationalism and the Labor Movement’ by David S. Reisz from The Toiler. Nos. 142 & 146. October 23 & November 20, 1920.

Jewish Nationalism and the Labor Movement

Are there any International Jewish Secret Societies aiming at world domination, as the British “Morning Post” claims, the “Literary Digest” of September 25th, quotes, and Henry Ford’s “Dearborn Independent also speaks of? How has the world found out that there are such Jewish international secret societies? Surely these are interesting questions?

For answers and the proofs of those answers the reader will have to go to those who claim that they know them. The writer limits himself to the relationship of the revolutionary members of the working-class of Jewish extraction to the Jewish international secret societies.

I have yet to find a Jewish active worker revolutionist who is also a member of a Jewish temple or synagogue or of a Jewish secret society. The so-called Zionist-Socialist or Territorialist-Socialist cannot be classified as a worker revolutionist, for he is much rather willing to give up his identity as a workingman than his identity as a Jew; the aim of these organizations being the establishment not so much of a socialist nation as rather the establishment of a Jewish nation–a Jewish capitalist nation, to begin with.

All Capitalists Alike To Workers.

Working-class revolutionists can only unite with other working-class revolutionists, be they Jewish or non-Jewish. The worker revolutionist, realizes the harmfulness of the capitalist system of exploitation–how it makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. He knows that in order to do away with the harmfulness of the capitalist system, he must take it impossible for exploitation to continue; he must dispossess all capitalist Jews as well as all capitalists of other or no denominations. The mere fact that the worker revolutionist happens to be of Jewish extraction, does not make him more sympathetic towards the Jewish capitalist exploiter than he happens to be to the non-Jewish capitalist exploiter. The worker revolutionist of Jewish extraction realizes that he has nothing in common with the capitalist Jew but racial descent. The interest of the working-class and the interests of the capitalist class being diametrically opposed the interests of the worker Jews and the interests of the capitalist Jews are diametrically opposed.

Samuel Jonson was speaking of his own time when he said that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel. At the present time it begins to seem as if the advocacy of pogroms of Jews is the last refuge of the capitalist class.

Let us assume that the capitalist class will have found that the advocacy of pogroms of the Jews will result in the dispossessing of all capitalist Jews; what then? The working-class will be no better off than before.

What The Workers Want

The worker revolutionists say to the capitalist class: “Abdicate from the ownership of the means of production and distribution. Restitute to the working-class what is rightfully theirs.” To this some capitalist source answers: “The Jews own Poland–The Jews own Hungary–The Jews own America–The Jews own the world.” More outspoken ones add the “moral:” “Kill off the Jews.”

The Jews, the capitalist Jews, may be dispossessed. Still the rich will continue to get richer and the poor to become poorer.

The advocacy of pogroms may be the last refuge of the capitalist class–what, when that will have run its course?

Knowing that there is also pogrom agitation directed especially against worker revolutionists of Jewish extraction, I shall treat of it in the next instalment of “Pogrom Agitation Directed Against Jewish Worker Revolutionists.”

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Pogrom Agitation Directed Against Jewish Worker Revolutionists

“If you don’t like it in this country, why don’t you go back to where you came from?” is an opinion often expressed by those considering themselves Americans. This question, this opinion, this command, if told to a foreign agitator, criticizing economic conditions, is but one of the learned-by-rote opinions of the average worker considering himself a fully privileged American.

Yet this same American worker will express his dislike also of foreigners in general. “Foreigners,” he will say, “are willing to work for lower wages and so reduce the standard of living of the American workingmen.”

It never occurs to the American workingman that if he objects to the immigrant who is willing to work for lower wages, then he ought to make common cause with the “Foreign agitator” who strives for higher wages, or even for more than higher wages: for the full value of his toil.

And conversely: If he objects to the immigrant agitator, he ought, to welcome those foreigners who give greater service in return for lesser reward.

The treatment usually accorded to Jewish worker revolutionists all over the world, is similar to that according to immigrant agitators in general in this country.

In Hungary, (the country attempting the resurrection of Capitalism) just now pogrom agitation is mainly directed against worker revolutionists that are of Jewish extraction. This movement, however, seems to be so all-inclusive, as to comprise not only communists of Jewish descent, but also Jews in general, for “is not every Jew a potential bolshevist?”

Whenever and wherever a pogrom agitation is carried on against Jewish worker revolutionists, the capitalist Jews will issue a declaration asserting their loyalty to the capitalist institutions, and at the same time disclaiming to have anything in common with the “renegade” revolutionary Jewish workers. Such declaration is only to be welcomed by the working class, for it tends to make the class issue clearer.

The advocacy of pogroms of capitalist Jews also helps to make the class issue clearer. The dispossessing of capitalist Jews of their property in decaying capitalist countries, such as the former Czaristic, now anti-Soviet Russia, Poland and Hungary, do not dishearten the worker revolutionist of Jewish extraction. The dispossessing of capitalist Jews of their property is a harbinger of the time when the worker will dispossess all capitalists, not because they happen to be Jewish capitalists but because they are CAPITALISTS.

In the previous article it has been stated that the interests of the worker Jews and of the capitalists Jews are diametrically opposed and that they have nothing in common but racial descent.

It will be well that this fact should be noted by the non-Jewish workers as well as the Jewish.

We cannot emphasize too often that the working-class of all races, be they of the white, yellow, black, or any other colored race; be they of the American, European, Asian, African or Australian continent; be they of Gentile, Jewish or any other descent; be they of Austrian, Polish, Bohemian, German, American, Persian, or any other disappearing “nationality;” have equal claim to the products of their labor. “

Pogrom agitation directed mainly against workers revolutionists of Jewish extraction, may be an attempt to make the non-Jewish workers believe that the paramount issue is race antagonism.

Those of us who know that pogrom agitation directed against Jewish worker revolutionists has a slightly different capitalistic motive from that directed against Jewish capitalists; those of us know that the paramount issue under capitalism is the Struggle for the Product.

When the struggle for the product–the struggle between those who produce and those who appropriate will be abolished; then pogrom agitation against Jews, against Negroes, as well as all other, national-religious and race-wars-to-the-finish, will also cease.

The Toiler was a significant regional, later national, newspaper of the early Communist movement published weekly between 1919 and 1921. It grew out of the Socialist Party’s ‘The Ohio Socialist’, leading paper of the Party’s left wing and northern Ohio’s militant IWW base and became the national voice of the forces that would become The Communist Labor Party. The Toiler was first published in Cleveland, Ohio, its volume number continuing on from The Ohio Socialist, in the fall of 1919 as the paper of the Communist Labor Party of Ohio. The Toiler moved to New York City in early 1920 and with its union focus served as the labor paper of the CLP and the legal Workers Party of America. Editors included Elmer Allison and James P Cannon. The original English language and/or US publication of key texts of the international revolutionary movement are prominent features of the Toiler. In January 1922, The Toiler merged with The Workers Council to form The Worker, becoming the Communist Party’s main paper continuing as The Daily Worker in January, 1924.

PDF of full issue 1: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/thetoiler/142-oct-23-1920-Toiler-LOC.pdf

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/thetoiler/n146-nov-20-1920-Toil-nyplmf.pdf