Lost Memories of Solidarity: Iurenev, the Bund and the Pale of Settlement, 1901-1917

Three lost memories from the Russian revolutionary era will be woven through this paper. First is the half-forgotten story of the almost obsessively sectarian nature of the Bolshevik party. Notwithstanding its arrogation of the politics of solidarity through the invocation of “workers’ councils” and “united fronts,” its practice was almost always centralist and schismatic rather than solidaristic. Second is the equally forgotten story of Il’ia Iurenev, born Konstantin Konstaninovich Krotovskii, in his diplomatic career known as K. K. Iurenev. The principal organizer of the Petersburg Mezhraionka or “Interdistrict Committee” between 1911 and 1917, Iurenev was partially successful in challenging the sectarian practices of the Bolsheviks, winning some of them to solidaristic cooperation with the Mensheviks. Third is the almost entirely forgotten role of the Bund (General Jewish Workers’ Association [Bund] in Lithuania, Poland, and Russia). The only mass party in the Russian empire at the turn of the last century, the Bund was the dominant presence in Iurenev’s hometown of Dvinsk (today Dugavpils, Latvia) in the Pale of Settlement. Without cooperation with the Bund, no meaningful political action was possible, and although an opponent of the Bund, as a youth, Iurenev worked in solidarity with them in building the workers’ movement and confronting the far right. The paper is based on translations from Russian to English of material written by Iurenev. It builds upon research published in “Truth Behind Bars:” Reflections on the Fate of the Russian Revolution (2021) and “The Lost Voice of Iulii Martov” (2022). It includes an appendix exploring a separate, but related aspect of Iurenev’s life – his role as the first leading military organizer of the Bolshevik state.