Learning solidarity: socialist activism in the Pale of Settlement, 1901-1907

The Russian Left before 1914 was famous for its bitter divisions. However, between 1911 and 1917, one section – Petersburg’s Interdistrict Committee – distinguished itself by its concrete (and often successful) attempts to organize on a solidaristic basis and overcome these divisions. This paper will argue that this politics of solidarity emerged in the context of the 1905 revolution, from an intense shared experience of joint organizing between the founders of the Interdistrict Committee and what was then the only mass party in the Russian empire – the General Jewish Workers’ Association [Bund] in Lithuania, Poland and Russia. From its foundation, the Bund displayed an eloquent framing of and approach to solidaristic organizing. On the one hand, they articulated a “politics of difference” – organizing in the Pale of Settlement (the area of the Russian empire where Jewish people were allowed to live) demanded diligent work in the workers’ language (Yiddish) based on everyday concerns at work and in the community, as well as encouraging self-organization of the Yiddish-speaking workers. Simultaneously, they articulated a “politics of solidarity” – reaching out to make links and forge bonds of solidarity with non-Jewish workers and activists in the centre of the empire, as part of an “all-Russia” movement. The relation between difference and solidarity is something with which we grapple still, and disinterring and critically examining the contribution of both the Interdistrict Committee and the Bund might well be of interest in our century. Methodologically, the paper is based on original translations, from Russian to English, of relevant documents from the era and a review of the relevant literature.