In the 1930s, Jews constituted 9.5 percent of Poland’s population. The enormous pressure of European fascism and the dramatic growth of antisemitism politicized the country’s Jewish community, especially its younger members. They were drawn toward Bundism, Zionism, and Communism in massive numbers. By the end of the decade, the Bund had become the hegemonic union and political force among Polish Jews. [...]
Unlike Zionism, the Polish Bund insisted, under its doctrine of “hereness” (doikayt in Yiddish), that the right place for Jews was where they already lived. Trying to escape antisemitism by moving to Palestine — which, it reminded its members, was not empty land — and establishing a Jewish state would be unjust and provoke resistance. Instead, Jews had a duty to fight in alliance with the labor movement and with socialist organizations to establish a democratic republic in Poland. [...]
Goldstein describes his newly formed militia’s discipline. Its members could not use firearms unless specifically ordered to do so nor could they act on their own to seek revenge for attacks. According to Goldstein, the party established these rules to prevent the militia from degenerating into outright banditry, as some revolutionary groups in tsarist Russia, like the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SRP) and the Polish Socialist Party (PPS), did. [...]
Occasionally, the militia went beyond self-defense and behaved more proactively. Goldstein recounts instances when he tried to stop evictions by negotiating with landlords. When it didn’t work, militiamen appeared in the building’s courtyard, waited for the authorities to move the tenant’s possessions into the street, and then carried them back to the apartment once the bailiff and police had left. They repeated the whole operation until the landlord agreed to work out a compromise. [...]
While one might object to organizing a union along ethnic lines, the practice undoubtedly came in response to the systemic discrimination — from both private and public employers — that Jewish workers faced. Goldstein provides a detailed example of this at the Central Provisions Administration Office, which once employed some two hundred Jewish workers. Soon after the Warsaw City Council took over the office, it began to dismiss its Jewish employees, claiming that the office was gradually being liquidated. With the help of PPS and Communist workplace activists, the Bund mounted a successful campaign against the discriminatory layoffs.
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