A report on the conference of the Bund held in January, 1905 and called to work out policy and organization to meet the unfolding Revolution against Czarist despotism.

‘Bund Conference: Russian Jewish Socialists at Work’ from The Worker (New York). Vol. 15 No. 3. April 15, 1905.

Important Meeting Held in Russian City and Measures Taken to Fight Labor’s Battle More Effectively.

Immediately after the events of January, the Central Committee of the General Jewish Labor Union of Russia, Poland, and Lithuania–commonly known as the Bund–called a conference to consider the situation and provide for increasing the efficiency of the organization. The conference met secretly in a Russian city, with twenty-five delegates present, and sat for seven days. The agenda, which was first discussed in the local groups, was as follows:

I. Reports of local groups and committees.

II. Preparation for the revolutionary outbreaks of huge masses of the population; 1. Extension of the Bund’s influence; 2. Encouragement of the independent spirit of the masses; 3. Fitness of present form of organization for the initiation of revolutionary outbursts; 4. Work in large towns and small; 5. Literature.

III. The Bund’s work among the non-Jewish proletarians.

IV. Forms of revolutionary outbursts; 1. The general strike; 2. Armed demonstrations; 3. Armed risings; 4. Form of organization during open revolutionary outbreaks.

V. Agreement with other revolutionary bodies.

VI. Work among the soldiers.

The reports showed that the Jewish working people had participated in large numbers and in a most creditable manner in the January movement, but they also showed certain weaknesses in the methods used by the Bund. The Conference accordingly declared it to be necessary to give a more popular character to its written and oral propaganda; to increase the independence of the local organizations; to effect at more equal, distribution of forces In different cities and towns; to free some of the Bund’s workers altogether from the routine work of organization In order that they may devote themselves wholly to agitation among the yet unorganized masses; to hold more frequent public meetings and demonstrations, especially in places where large numbers of working people congregate, such demonstrations to be accompanied by an armed guard in case of need; and to give special attention to the clerks and shop assistants, who have heretofore taken little or no part in the movement.

Recognizing the existence of liberal and democratic tendencies among the non-proletarian elements of the Jewish nation, the Conference declared it ary to make a effort to reach bring them to sympathy with Social Democracy, not by making concessions to them, but by thorough criticism of bourgeois ideology and of the weak practical program of the Liberals and assertion of the positive nature of the revolutionary movement. The Conference recommended that local groups everywhere urge the workingmen, and assist them, if possible, to obtain arms and learn their use and to resist the brutality of the police and military; that in every city where. It is possible a regular armed force be formed, to set under the direction of the local group of the Bund.

Steps were taken toward strengthening the Bund in Poland and in the South.

It was resolved to print a leaflet setting forth in a popular manner the immediate objects and demands of the movement, another reviewing the events of January, and a pamphlet giving a brief history of the past revolutionary movements of Western Europe and the methods there used; also to reduce the size of “Der Bund” and publish it more frequently and to have more articles on questions of organization and tactics in “Die Arbeiter Stimme.”

In towns where the Bund is organized and the Social Democratic Party is not, it was decided, the Bund should make an effort to reach the non-Jewish proletariat and hasten the formation of a Social Democratic body among them.

The Conference attached special importance to the general strike as a means for interrupting the ordinary industrial and social life and drawing the masses into the streets, but it insisted also on the necessity for armed demonstrations in moments of high revolutionary excitement. Considering that the present situation necessitates more friendly and simultaneous action on the part of the whole Social Democracy in Russia, the Conference expressed its gratification over the holding of a conference of various Social Democratic organisations in January [reported in The, Worker last week] “as a first step toward the real union of the class-conscious proletariat of all nationalities included in the Russian Empire.” It urged local groups, while maintaining their autonomy, to co-operate heartily with the local divisions of the other Social Democratic bodies, excepting only certain ones which were trying to disrupt the Bund; in time of actual revolutionary rising the Bund should co-operate with all Social Democratic bodies without exception. With regard to revolutionary organizations which are not Social Democratic, such co-operation was declared to be admissible only in time of actual outbreaks and then only if they include “the constituent assembly based on universal, direct, and secret suffrage” among their demands. Special measures were taken for the distribution et Socialist literature among the soldiers and the formation of branches in the army.

In case of the government providing for commissions of workingmen’s representatives to state the needs and desires of the proletariat, the Bund recommended that the class-conscious workingmen participate, provided complete liberty of election and of deliberation is specifically guaranteed. The reasons given are: 1. The elections would give a chance for Social Democratic agitation; 2. Comrades elected to the commissions would have a chance to put forward the Socialist minimum program before the public; 3. The foredoomed failure of the commissions would dispel the hope of legal reforms being carried out under the present political régime.

Some portions of the report of the Conference cannot be published at present.

The Worker, and its predecessor The People, emerged from the 1899 split in the Socialist Labor Party of America led by Henry Slobodin and Morris Hillquit, who published their own edition of the SLP’s paper in Springfield, Massachusetts. Their ‘The People’ had the same banner, format, and numbering as their rival De Leon’s. The new group emerged as the Social Democratic Party and with a Chicago group of the same name these two Social Democratic Parties would become the Socialist Party of America at a 1901 conference. That same year the paper’s name was changed from The People to The Worker with publishing moved to New York City. The Worker continued as a weekly until December 1908 when it was folded into the socialist daily, The New York Call.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/the-people-the-worker/050415-worker-v15n03-DAMAGED.pdf