TROTSKY ON ANTI-SEMITISM NEW TRANSLATIONS
Yuch-Bunar
Yuch-Bunar
Leon Trotsky
A new translation by Stan Crooke of an article by Trotsky on anti-semitism, from 1913
12 December, 2024 -
Author: Leon Trotsky
Pic from Sofia Globe
“Luch”, number 77 (163), 2 April, 1913.
Click here for other previously untranslated articles by Trotsky on antisemitism.
This is not a theatre of military activities. Nor is it an occupied province. There is therefore no need to look for this name on a General Staff map. Yuch Bunar is part of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria.
We walk along the long Pirotsky Street. We turn into Dragoman Boulevard. From there into Saint Clementina Street. On the left is the magnificent Mount Vitosha, already covered by snow, but set against a background of fully springtime clouds. A few steps further on, we reach Paisius Street, named after one of the pioneers of the Bulgarian national revival, a monk-chronicler who rebuked Bulgarians for being ashamed to call themselves Bulgarian. Since that time much snow has melted on Vitosha, and now the spiritual heirs of Paisius violently convert to Bulgarianism those who do not want to do so ….
Paisius Street marks the beginning of a continuous empire of poverty. And as if to demonstrate that poverty does not engage in national favouritism, fate has dumped in Yuch-Bunar Jewish, Gypsy and Bulgarian poverty, as if swept together here by some great broom.
The centre of Sofia – from the station to the palace and parliament – is a thoroughly European city. Excellent and clean pavements, tall buildings, electricity, trams, promenades, elegant clothing, and women’s hats in greater numbers than in Paris. But this clean and fashionable, this thoroughly “European” Sofia has its horrifying, arch-Asiatic Yuch-Bunar. History has given too little time to the countries of the Near East, as too to the countries of the Far East and even to Russia to a significant degree, for them to be able to make a gradual transition from barbarism to capitalist civilisation. History obliged them to build railways and manufacture aeroplanes for their armies – before they had built highways. History adorned the heads of their possessing classes with shiny top hats – before those heads had been penetrated by European concepts. And, finally, History illuminated city centres with magnificent incandescent streetlights – before it had drained the repulsive pools, foul-smelling concentrations of disease, to be found on their outskirts.
Let us carefully walk along this street, through its pools and decomposing refuse – we are in Yuch-Bunar, its Jewish part. People have already noticed us and assume that we are bringing immediate assistance with us. Figures who seem to be an embodiment of poverty, horror and human indignity crawl out from doorways which resemble holes. With a mixture of fear and hope, they wretchedly gaze into our eyes. Elderly hunchbacked Jews in filthy rags which seem to have merged into their bodies, wearing large glasses which have turned green and sit askew their nose. Adolescents with bloodless gums and a sinister blueness around their eyes automatically hold out their hands for alms – hands which sometimes have clearly never known soap. And the women of Yuch-Bunar – beasts of burden of poverty, with large stomachs and misshapen legs, surrounded by bow-legged and scrofulous children with festering eyelids. Pushing each other aside, wearing wooden shoes which slip off their dirty heels, they mutter something pathetic to our guide in Spanish.
We long ago left houses behind us. What surrounds us here are not houses but mudhuts, with a single square window of a single “room”, accessed straight from the street, devoid of an entrance hall or even a threshold.
All this has been built of clay and mud, by the occupants’ own hands, on a stretch of ground which has been illegally seized from the city. Scarcely acquainted with sacred Roman law, the paupers of Yuch-Bunar arbitrarily decided that they too were entitled to a place for themselves, however small, on earth, known as our mother in epic poetry. On more than one occasion the city administration of Sofia has attempted to eliminate this naïve belief with the assistance of the hoses of the fire brigade. Just last year, Sofia firefighters diligently destroyed these pathetic mudhuts, illegally erected on municipal ground. The method they used was the same as that employed in the steppes of Novorossiya in order to eliminate ground squirrels, by flushing them out of their lairs with water. But to no avail: The incorrigible inhabitants of Yuch-Bunar did not allow themselves to be torn from the surface of the earth in this manner. And then came the war, and everyone was driven into the field of battle: the insolent “usurpers” and also the firefighters.
Let us have a look at one of the Yuch-Bunar habitats – located in this street, which carries the proud name “Slivnits Boulevard” but which in fact consists of a long row of puddles, bordered on each side by mudhuts. It consists of a single room with an iron stove – five arshins in length, and about four arshins in width. Eleven souls live here: an old man with a limp, an old woman, three daughters, a son, the wife of the son, and four small children. The earth floor is covered with rags for sleeping. In one corner there are some boards across two boxes which are also covered with rags. The window is a square arshin in size. Overhead is a mud ceiling. They are all like this, these dwellings – one just as much as the other. Taken together, they constitute Yuch-Bunar.
“But when will they be distributing a payment again?” the women ask our guide, comrade Yavo Leviev, a member of the Sofia City Council, elected in the main by the votes of the Jewish makhla (district) of Yuch-Bunar. They are referring to the city commission which has been given the task of distributing subsidies amounting to half a million francs (less than 200,000 roubles) among the poor of Sofia over a period of six months. Yako Leviev is one of the most active members of this commission.
“When will they distribute a payment again? … We cannot wait any longer?”
“There are five children in my family, and a husband in the war ….”
“There are nine people in my family, and a husband near Edirne (Adrianople).”
“They do not give us anything because my husband is not in the army. But do I actually ever see my husband? Do I actually know where he is? I have two children suffering from scarlet fever.”
“We’ll all meet up and go to the kmetstvo (city administration)!”
“No, we’ll all go with our children to the Empress herself and tell her that there is nothing to eat for us and our children. … Let her do with us as she wishes!”
There are now 700 soldiers from the Jewish district of Yuch-Bunar in the ranks of the Bulgarian army. There, they conquer new territories for the ruling dynasty and propertied classes of Bulgaria. But here, they stand to lose four square arshins from under their feet.
But in this maelstrom of poverty and degradation, a battle of ideas is underway. It can be followed even from the signage. Here is the “Krchmarnitsa i Kafene Ziyon” (“Tavern and Coffee-House of Zion”). But there, right next to it, is the “Kafene International”, run by Chaim S. Varsano. These are the two basic principles which sharply divide the Jewish makhla: Zion and the International.
Some, drowning in the putrid pool, find comfort in the fairy tale about a future kingdom of Zion. Others have freed themselves from the spell of religious melodies and national superstitions and have transferred their hopes to the socialist International of labour.
Just here, not far away, is the dwelling of comrade Solomon Isavov. Let us take a look there at his family for a few minutes: Isakov himself is currently near Chataldzha. A single room, the appearance of which is already known to us, but in this instance very clean and decorated with pictures on the walls. In the corner hangs a large framed portrait of Karl Marx. Isakov is a pechatar (typesetter) and editor of the newspaper of his trade union. He earns 80 francs (30 roubles) a month, and is unemployed for not less than two or three months each year. Here is his elderly mother, here is a young woman with a pleasant and lively face, his wife, and here is his nine-month-old child in a cradle on the ground. The child is called Karl – in honour of the person with the lion’s mane whose portrait hangs in the corner.
We are again out in the street. Here is the Yuch-Bunar club of social-democratic organisation. But not very far away a small and unsightly Jewish synagogue can be seen, a spiritual refuge for the brooding dreamers who long for Zion.
A small river – the Vladaika – separates Yuch-Bunar (in Turkish: three wells) itself from Dort-Bunar (“four wells”). There, in the main live Gypsies, but Jews as well.
When the Vladaika, which currently resembles a puddle, is swollen by rainfalls, it spills over and carries away the small rotting wooden bridges. Dort-Bunar is cut off from the town and is deprived of bread for several days. But even in normal times there is no abundance of foodstuffs. The gypsy mudhuts look a lot better and more spacious than the Jewish ones – probably because the Gypsies did not have to build by stealth: the city authorities forcefully resettled them from the central district, where they had been crammed into city squares, and gave them a free space on the outskirts. But, in general, Dort-Bunar is the blood brother of Yuch-Bunar. The same puddles, the same refuse of humans and animals, the same rotting piles in front of doors and garlands of paprika (red peppers) above windows. A legless Gypsy crawls on his hands through the dirt to meet us. Gypsy children hold out their hands and cry out “leb” (bread). On a clothesline, stretched between a toilet and a dwelling which scarcely differs from it, dirty linen made up of individual patches is hanging out to dry. Here is the “hairdresser”: in an empty and dark cubicle there is a single “armchair”, and scissors and a crude comb on a box. Next door is the “grocery store na drebno” and then “cigarettes na drebno”. In Bunar nothing is sold or bought wholesale – everything is “na drebno” (retail).
Coachmen, carters and Macedonians live in the Bulgarian part of Bunar – this is something halfway between a nation, a party and a profession. They are disliked – because of their coarseness and parasitism. This part of Bunar is called the stable, because of the coachmen’s horses – which, right now, by the way, cannot be seen. The horses, the carriages and the coachmen are all at the disposal of the requisition commission for war needs. Women and children have remained at home. Bunar serves the fatherland: the fathers spill blood, the children are bloated with hunger ….
Sitting in the carriage of a tram – in which the duties of a conductor are carried out by grammar school pupils (the conductors are in the army) – we cast an eye over Bunar. The eye comes across a shelter for “illegitimate” children, at the entrance to which stand two small “illegitimate” children, and a crowd of Macedonians wearing wide belts and lambswool hats with green tops. The eye pauses for a moment on the school building where reserve soldiers have now taken the place of school students, and alights upon a new monumental building, a majestic castle which rises imperiously above all three Bunars – the Jewish, Gypsy and Bulgarian – like a solemn embodiment of social justice and humanity – the Sofia prison!
“Luch”, number 77 (163),
2nd April, 1913.
Letters to Lazar Kling, from 1932
Book cover image from Yiddish Book Center
Click here for other previously untranslated texts by Trotsky on antisemitism.
9 February 1932
Dear Comrade Kling!
Thank you for the books which you sent, one of which I am returning to you as I have a second copy.
It is very difficult for me to judge from here whether the League is devoting sufficient attention to work among not-“pure-American” workers, including Jews as well. Everything depends on the forces and resources available, and on their correct distribution. Looking at this from the sidelines and from afar, it is difficult to form an opinion about this.
The significance of foreign workers for the American revolution will be enormous. In a certain sense – decisive. There can be no dispute that, no matter what, the opposition must penetrate into the Jewish workers’ milieu.
You ask what is my attitude to the Jewish language? It is the same as my attitude to any other language. If I really did use the word “jargon” in my Autobiography, this was because in the years of my youth the Jewish language was not called “Yiddish”, as is the case now, but “jargon”. This was the expression used by Jews themselves, at least in Odesa, and there was certainly nothing demeaning about this word. The word “Yiddish” entered general usage, including, for example, in France, only in the past fifteen to twenty years.
You say that I am called an “assimilationist”. I really do not know what this word can mean. Of course, I am an opponent of Zionism and of all other forms of the self-isolation of Jewish workers. I appeal to Jewish workers in France to acquaint themselves as best as possible with the conditions of French life and of the French working class because, without that, it is difficult for them to participate in the workers’ movement of the country in which they are subject to exploitation. Given that the Jewish proletariat is scattered across different countries, it must strive to master the languages of other countries, in addition to the Jewish language, as tools of the class struggle. What has this got to do with “assimilationism”?
My attitude to proletarian culture is explained in my book “Literature and Revolution”. To counterpose proletarian culture to bourgeois culture is wrong, or at least not entirely correct. The bourgeois social order and, consequently, bourgeois culture as well developed in the course of many centuries. The proletarian social order is only a short-term transitional regime to socialism. In the course of this transitional regime (the dictatorship of the proletariat), the proletariat cannot create some kind of fully developed class culture. It can only prepare the elements of a socialist culture. The task of the proletariat resides in this: in the creation of a socialist culture, not a proletarian culture, on the basis of a classless society.
This, in brief, is my opinion on proletarian culture. It would not be difficult to demonstrate that Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mehring, Rosa Luxemburg and others also viewed the question in this way.
Thank you again for the book. With profound comradely greetings.
L. Trotsky
23 May 1932
Dear Comrade Kling!
It turns out that I have been negligent with regard to yourself on this occasion, for which I apologise. In recent weeks a lot of work which could not be postponed has piled up, and I found myself obliged to postpone dealing with correspondence for some time.
Even so, I managed during that time to send “Unzer Kamf” a modest letter of greetings. I hope that it was received.
I have forwarded one copy of all the issues of the newspaper which have reached me to the group “Poale Zion” in Palestine. One of the members of its Central Committee, who signs off as Nathan, has started a correspondence with myself. Judging by his letters, this is a serious comrade who is gravitating towards the Left Opposition. Amongst them, there are sympathies with the Left Opposition. A good correspondent for “Unzer Kamf” can perhaps be found amongst them.
You ask whether it would be appropriate to propose in trade unions and other mass organisations motions which protest against the persecution of the Left Opposition. In my opinion, this depends on the concrete circumstances. In a reactionary union it is, of course, impossible to table such motions for voting on. But if a particular organisation is sympathetic towards the USSR, then it is entirely possible to try to win support for a resolution which pledges full support for the USSR and which demands at the same time: End the repression of the Left Opposition.
I must answer your second question – about the struggle against demoralised and unprincipled Communist Party activists – in the same terms. To build a solid campaign on this basis is, of course, impermissible, because this would create the atmosphere of a repugnant squabble, and would facilitate the use of methods of a pogromist nature by the Stalinist bureaucracy. But in those cases where the ground has been sufficiently prepared politically, it is possible to inflict an additional blow, exposing what kind of individuals stand for the defence of the “general line”. But the greatest accuracy, verification and conscientiousness are required in such blows of a personal nature. It is, of course, unacceptable in any instance to be guided by rumours and unverified information.
Thank you for the pamphlets.
With my greetings.
L. Trotsky
7 August 1932. Prinkipo.
Dear Comrade Kling!
I am very much gladdened by the news of the growth in influence of the newspaper “Unser Kamf”. Let us hope that in the near future the paper can become a weekly.
You write about the plan to publish a number of works by the Left Opposition, especially mine, in the Jewish language, in the form of brochures and books. Of course, I can only welcome this.
Comrade Nathan is not a member of the Left Opposition. He only sympathises with us and is attempting to clarify through correspondence a series of questions. I find his letters very interesting as they give me an idea of the situation in Palestine. As regards comrade Stein, he is fully a definite and active member of the Left Opposition.
As far as I can judge from comrade Nathan’s letters, the Left Opposition could achieve a significant influence in the left Poale Zion. It would be good if the American comrades were to devote the necessary efforts to this matter.
You are interested in my opinion of the organisation in New York of an international bureau of Jewish workers. It seems to me that it would be premature to begin work on this. At the present stage it suffices to energetically distribute “Under Kamf” in all countries where there are Jewish workers, to establish links, to conduct correspondence, etc. All this work will naturally become much broader and take on a more planned character when the newspaper becomes a weekly. Only on the basis of experience will it then be possible to judge how expedient the creation of a specific bureau would be.
With regard to the question about events in Palestine, I am currently only gathering materials. In particular, I am awaiting the arrival of an American, a Marxist, from Palestine. Comrade Nathan also sends me valuable materials. This provides me with the possibility of expressing myself more clearly about the movement of 1929 and to understand to what extent and in what proportions the Arab national-liberation (anti-imperialist) movement was combined with a reactionary-Islamist one and with a Jewish-pogromist one. I think that all these elements were visible.
I hope to write a book about America, but not immediately. I have been gathering materials for it for a long time.
With comradely greetings.
L. Trotsky
28 January 1934
Dear Comrade Kling
I was very pleased to learn from your letter that in the past year you have become an active worker of the American League and a member of the editorial board of “Unser Kamf”.
One of the most active representatives of our Polish Jewish organisation is currently in Paris. I have met with him once. I spoke with him in detail about the situation in Poland, and also about work among Jewish workers. In particular, I passed on to him your thoughts about a certain centralisation of the propaganda among Jewish workers. I speak of propaganda as it is of course impossible to centralise active political work in different countries. The Warsaw comrade promised to give some thought to this question and to present his suggestions to the EC. You will, of course, be informed of further developments in this matter.
As regards the Jewish question overall: less than any other question can it now be resolved through “reforms”. Now, as never before, the Jewish question has become an integral part of the world proletarian revolution.
As regards Birobidzhan: Its fate is tied to the entire eventual fate of the Soviet Union. In any case, it is not a matter here of the resolution of the Jewish question as a whole, but only an attempt to resolve it for a certain section of Jews living in the Soviet Union. As a consequence of the entire historical fate of Jews, the Jewish question is an international one. It cannot be resolved by way of “socialism in one country”. In the conditions of the current antisemitic persecutions and pogroms of the foulest and most despicable nature, Jewish workers can and must draw revolutionary pride from the consciousness that the fate of the Jewish people can be resolved only by the complete and final victory of the proletariat.
With communist greetings.
L. Trotsky
This is not a theatre of military activities. Nor is it an occupied province. There is therefore no need to look for this name on a General Staff map. Yuch Bunar is part of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria.
We walk along the long Pirotsky Street. We turn into Dragoman Boulevard. From there into Saint Clementina Street. On the left is the magnificent Mount Vitosha, already covered by snow, but set against a background of fully springtime clouds. A few steps further on, we reach Paisius Street, named after one of the pioneers of the Bulgarian national revival, a monk-chronicler who rebuked Bulgarians for being ashamed to call themselves Bulgarian. Since that time much snow has melted on Vitosha, and now the spiritual heirs of Paisius violently convert to Bulgarianism those who do not want to do so ….
Paisius Street marks the beginning of a continuous empire of poverty. And as if to demonstrate that poverty does not engage in national favouritism, fate has dumped in Yuch-Bunar Jewish, Gypsy and Bulgarian poverty, as if swept together here by some great broom.
The centre of Sofia – from the station to the palace and parliament – is a thoroughly European city. Excellent and clean pavements, tall buildings, electricity, trams, promenades, elegant clothing, and women’s hats in greater numbers than in Paris. But this clean and fashionable, this thoroughly “European” Sofia has its horrifying, arch-Asiatic Yuch-Bunar. History has given too little time to the countries of the Near East, as too to the countries of the Far East and even to Russia to a significant degree, for them to be able to make a gradual transition from barbarism to capitalist civilisation. History obliged them to build railways and manufacture aeroplanes for their armies – before they had built highways. History adorned the heads of their possessing classes with shiny top hats – before those heads had been penetrated by European concepts. And, finally, History illuminated city centres with magnificent incandescent streetlights – before it had drained the repulsive pools, foul-smelling concentrations of disease, to be found on their outskirts.
Let us carefully walk along this street, through its pools and decomposing refuse – we are in Yuch-Bunar, its Jewish part. People have already noticed us and assume that we are bringing immediate assistance with us. Figures who seem to be an embodiment of poverty, horror and human indignity crawl out from doorways which resemble holes. With a mixture of fear and hope, they wretchedly gaze into our eyes. Elderly hunchbacked Jews in filthy rags which seem to have merged into their bodies, wearing large glasses which have turned green and sit askew their nose. Adolescents with bloodless gums and a sinister blueness around their eyes automatically hold out their hands for alms – hands which sometimes have clearly never known soap. And the women of Yuch-Bunar – beasts of burden of poverty, with large stomachs and misshapen legs, surrounded by bow-legged and scrofulous children with festering eyelids. Pushing each other aside, wearing wooden shoes which slip off their dirty heels, they mutter something pathetic to our guide in Spanish.
We long ago left houses behind us. What surrounds us here are not houses but mudhuts, with a single square window of a single “room”, accessed straight from the street, devoid of an entrance hall or even a threshold.
All this has been built of clay and mud, by the occupants’ own hands, on a stretch of ground which has been illegally seized from the city. Scarcely acquainted with sacred Roman law, the paupers of Yuch-Bunar arbitrarily decided that they too were entitled to a place for themselves, however small, on earth, known as our mother in epic poetry. On more than one occasion the city administration of Sofia has attempted to eliminate this naïve belief with the assistance of the hoses of the fire brigade. Just last year, Sofia firefighters diligently destroyed these pathetic mudhuts, illegally erected on municipal ground. The method they used was the same as that employed in the steppes of Novorossiya in order to eliminate ground squirrels, by flushing them out of their lairs with water. But to no avail: The incorrigible inhabitants of Yuch-Bunar did not allow themselves to be torn from the surface of the earth in this manner. And then came the war, and everyone was driven into the field of battle: the insolent “usurpers” and also the firefighters.
Let us have a look at one of the Yuch-Bunar habitats – located in this street, which carries the proud name “Slivnits Boulevard” but which in fact consists of a long row of puddles, bordered on each side by mudhuts. It consists of a single room with an iron stove – five arshins in length, and about four arshins in width. Eleven souls live here: an old man with a limp, an old woman, three daughters, a son, the wife of the son, and four small children. The earth floor is covered with rags for sleeping. In one corner there are some boards across two boxes which are also covered with rags. The window is a square arshin in size. Overhead is a mud ceiling. They are all like this, these dwellings – one just as much as the other. Taken together, they constitute Yuch-Bunar.
“But when will they be distributing a payment again?” the women ask our guide, comrade Yavo Leviev, a member of the Sofia City Council, elected in the main by the votes of the Jewish makhla (district) of Yuch-Bunar. They are referring to the city commission which has been given the task of distributing subsidies amounting to half a million francs (less than 200,000 roubles) among the poor of Sofia over a period of six months. Yako Leviev is one of the most active members of this commission.
“When will they distribute a payment again? … We cannot wait any longer?”
“There are five children in my family, and a husband in the war ….”
“There are nine people in my family, and a husband near Edirne (Adrianople).”
“They do not give us anything because my husband is not in the army. But do I actually ever see my husband? Do I actually know where he is? I have two children suffering from scarlet fever.”
“We’ll all meet up and go to the kmetstvo (city administration)!”
“No, we’ll all go with our children to the Empress herself and tell her that there is nothing to eat for us and our children. … Let her do with us as she wishes!”
There are now 700 soldiers from the Jewish district of Yuch-Bunar in the ranks of the Bulgarian army. There, they conquer new territories for the ruling dynasty and propertied classes of Bulgaria. But here, they stand to lose four square arshins from under their feet.
But in this maelstrom of poverty and degradation, a battle of ideas is underway. It can be followed even from the signage. Here is the “Krchmarnitsa i Kafene Ziyon” (“Tavern and Coffee-House of Zion”). But there, right next to it, is the “Kafene International”, run by Chaim S. Varsano. These are the two basic principles which sharply divide the Jewish makhla: Zion and the International.
Some, drowning in the putrid pool, find comfort in the fairy tale about a future kingdom of Zion. Others have freed themselves from the spell of religious melodies and national superstitions and have transferred their hopes to the socialist International of labour.
Just here, not far away, is the dwelling of comrade Solomon Isavov. Let us take a look there at his family for a few minutes: Isakov himself is currently near Chataldzha. A single room, the appearance of which is already known to us, but in this instance very clean and decorated with pictures on the walls. In the corner hangs a large framed portrait of Karl Marx. Isakov is a pechatar (typesetter) and editor of the newspaper of his trade union. He earns 80 francs (30 roubles) a month, and is unemployed for not less than two or three months each year. Here is his elderly mother, here is a young woman with a pleasant and lively face, his wife, and here is his nine-month-old child in a cradle on the ground. The child is called Karl – in honour of the person with the lion’s mane whose portrait hangs in the corner.
We are again out in the street. Here is the Yuch-Bunar club of social-democratic organisation. But not very far away a small and unsightly Jewish synagogue can be seen, a spiritual refuge for the brooding dreamers who long for Zion.
A small river – the Vladaika – separates Yuch-Bunar (in Turkish: three wells) itself from Dort-Bunar (“four wells”). There, in the main live Gypsies, but Jews as well.
When the Vladaika, which currently resembles a puddle, is swollen by rainfalls, it spills over and carries away the small rotting wooden bridges. Dort-Bunar is cut off from the town and is deprived of bread for several days. But even in normal times there is no abundance of foodstuffs. The gypsy mudhuts look a lot better and more spacious than the Jewish ones – probably because the Gypsies did not have to build by stealth: the city authorities forcefully resettled them from the central district, where they had been crammed into city squares, and gave them a free space on the outskirts. But, in general, Dort-Bunar is the blood brother of Yuch-Bunar. The same puddles, the same refuse of humans and animals, the same rotting piles in front of doors and garlands of paprika (red peppers) above windows. A legless Gypsy crawls on his hands through the dirt to meet us. Gypsy children hold out their hands and cry out “leb” (bread). On a clothesline, stretched between a toilet and a dwelling which scarcely differs from it, dirty linen made up of individual patches is hanging out to dry. Here is the “hairdresser”: in an empty and dark cubicle there is a single “armchair”, and scissors and a crude comb on a box. Next door is the “grocery store na drebno” and then “cigarettes na drebno”. In Bunar nothing is sold or bought wholesale – everything is “na drebno” (retail).
Coachmen, carters and Macedonians live in the Bulgarian part of Bunar – this is something halfway between a nation, a party and a profession. They are disliked – because of their coarseness and parasitism. This part of Bunar is called the stable, because of the coachmen’s horses – which, right now, by the way, cannot be seen. The horses, the carriages and the coachmen are all at the disposal of the requisition commission for war needs. Women and children have remained at home. Bunar serves the fatherland: the fathers spill blood, the children are bloated with hunger ….
Sitting in the carriage of a tram – in which the duties of a conductor are carried out by grammar school pupils (the conductors are in the army) – we cast an eye over Bunar. The eye comes across a shelter for “illegitimate” children, at the entrance to which stand two small “illegitimate” children, and a crowd of Macedonians wearing wide belts and lambswool hats with green tops. The eye pauses for a moment on the school building where reserve soldiers have now taken the place of school students, and alights upon a new monumental building, a majestic castle which rises imperiously above all three Bunars – the Jewish, Gypsy and Bulgarian – like a solemn embodiment of social justice and humanity – the Sofia prison!
“Luch”, number 77 (163),
2nd April, 1913.
Letters to Lazar Kling, from 1932
Letters to Lazar Kling, from 1932
Leon Trotsky
A new translation, by Stan Crooke, of letters from Leon Trotsky to American journalist Lazar Kling about Jewish questions and antisemitism, from 1932
WOKERS LIBERTY
12 December, 2024 -
Author: Leon Trotsky
Book cover image from Yiddish Book Center
Click here for other previously untranslated texts by Trotsky on antisemitism.
9 February 1932
Dear Comrade Kling!
Thank you for the books which you sent, one of which I am returning to you as I have a second copy.
It is very difficult for me to judge from here whether the League is devoting sufficient attention to work among not-“pure-American” workers, including Jews as well. Everything depends on the forces and resources available, and on their correct distribution. Looking at this from the sidelines and from afar, it is difficult to form an opinion about this.
The significance of foreign workers for the American revolution will be enormous. In a certain sense – decisive. There can be no dispute that, no matter what, the opposition must penetrate into the Jewish workers’ milieu.
You ask what is my attitude to the Jewish language? It is the same as my attitude to any other language. If I really did use the word “jargon” in my Autobiography, this was because in the years of my youth the Jewish language was not called “Yiddish”, as is the case now, but “jargon”. This was the expression used by Jews themselves, at least in Odesa, and there was certainly nothing demeaning about this word. The word “Yiddish” entered general usage, including, for example, in France, only in the past fifteen to twenty years.
You say that I am called an “assimilationist”. I really do not know what this word can mean. Of course, I am an opponent of Zionism and of all other forms of the self-isolation of Jewish workers. I appeal to Jewish workers in France to acquaint themselves as best as possible with the conditions of French life and of the French working class because, without that, it is difficult for them to participate in the workers’ movement of the country in which they are subject to exploitation. Given that the Jewish proletariat is scattered across different countries, it must strive to master the languages of other countries, in addition to the Jewish language, as tools of the class struggle. What has this got to do with “assimilationism”?
My attitude to proletarian culture is explained in my book “Literature and Revolution”. To counterpose proletarian culture to bourgeois culture is wrong, or at least not entirely correct. The bourgeois social order and, consequently, bourgeois culture as well developed in the course of many centuries. The proletarian social order is only a short-term transitional regime to socialism. In the course of this transitional regime (the dictatorship of the proletariat), the proletariat cannot create some kind of fully developed class culture. It can only prepare the elements of a socialist culture. The task of the proletariat resides in this: in the creation of a socialist culture, not a proletarian culture, on the basis of a classless society.
This, in brief, is my opinion on proletarian culture. It would not be difficult to demonstrate that Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mehring, Rosa Luxemburg and others also viewed the question in this way.
Thank you again for the book. With profound comradely greetings.
L. Trotsky
23 May 1932
Dear Comrade Kling!
It turns out that I have been negligent with regard to yourself on this occasion, for which I apologise. In recent weeks a lot of work which could not be postponed has piled up, and I found myself obliged to postpone dealing with correspondence for some time.
Even so, I managed during that time to send “Unzer Kamf” a modest letter of greetings. I hope that it was received.
I have forwarded one copy of all the issues of the newspaper which have reached me to the group “Poale Zion” in Palestine. One of the members of its Central Committee, who signs off as Nathan, has started a correspondence with myself. Judging by his letters, this is a serious comrade who is gravitating towards the Left Opposition. Amongst them, there are sympathies with the Left Opposition. A good correspondent for “Unzer Kamf” can perhaps be found amongst them.
You ask whether it would be appropriate to propose in trade unions and other mass organisations motions which protest against the persecution of the Left Opposition. In my opinion, this depends on the concrete circumstances. In a reactionary union it is, of course, impossible to table such motions for voting on. But if a particular organisation is sympathetic towards the USSR, then it is entirely possible to try to win support for a resolution which pledges full support for the USSR and which demands at the same time: End the repression of the Left Opposition.
I must answer your second question – about the struggle against demoralised and unprincipled Communist Party activists – in the same terms. To build a solid campaign on this basis is, of course, impermissible, because this would create the atmosphere of a repugnant squabble, and would facilitate the use of methods of a pogromist nature by the Stalinist bureaucracy. But in those cases where the ground has been sufficiently prepared politically, it is possible to inflict an additional blow, exposing what kind of individuals stand for the defence of the “general line”. But the greatest accuracy, verification and conscientiousness are required in such blows of a personal nature. It is, of course, unacceptable in any instance to be guided by rumours and unverified information.
Thank you for the pamphlets.
With my greetings.
L. Trotsky
7 August 1932. Prinkipo.
Dear Comrade Kling!
I am very much gladdened by the news of the growth in influence of the newspaper “Unser Kamf”. Let us hope that in the near future the paper can become a weekly.
You write about the plan to publish a number of works by the Left Opposition, especially mine, in the Jewish language, in the form of brochures and books. Of course, I can only welcome this.
Comrade Nathan is not a member of the Left Opposition. He only sympathises with us and is attempting to clarify through correspondence a series of questions. I find his letters very interesting as they give me an idea of the situation in Palestine. As regards comrade Stein, he is fully a definite and active member of the Left Opposition.
As far as I can judge from comrade Nathan’s letters, the Left Opposition could achieve a significant influence in the left Poale Zion. It would be good if the American comrades were to devote the necessary efforts to this matter.
You are interested in my opinion of the organisation in New York of an international bureau of Jewish workers. It seems to me that it would be premature to begin work on this. At the present stage it suffices to energetically distribute “Under Kamf” in all countries where there are Jewish workers, to establish links, to conduct correspondence, etc. All this work will naturally become much broader and take on a more planned character when the newspaper becomes a weekly. Only on the basis of experience will it then be possible to judge how expedient the creation of a specific bureau would be.
With regard to the question about events in Palestine, I am currently only gathering materials. In particular, I am awaiting the arrival of an American, a Marxist, from Palestine. Comrade Nathan also sends me valuable materials. This provides me with the possibility of expressing myself more clearly about the movement of 1929 and to understand to what extent and in what proportions the Arab national-liberation (anti-imperialist) movement was combined with a reactionary-Islamist one and with a Jewish-pogromist one. I think that all these elements were visible.
I hope to write a book about America, but not immediately. I have been gathering materials for it for a long time.
With comradely greetings.
L. Trotsky
28 January 1934
Dear Comrade Kling
I was very pleased to learn from your letter that in the past year you have become an active worker of the American League and a member of the editorial board of “Unser Kamf”.
One of the most active representatives of our Polish Jewish organisation is currently in Paris. I have met with him once. I spoke with him in detail about the situation in Poland, and also about work among Jewish workers. In particular, I passed on to him your thoughts about a certain centralisation of the propaganda among Jewish workers. I speak of propaganda as it is of course impossible to centralise active political work in different countries. The Warsaw comrade promised to give some thought to this question and to present his suggestions to the EC. You will, of course, be informed of further developments in this matter.
As regards the Jewish question overall: less than any other question can it now be resolved through “reforms”. Now, as never before, the Jewish question has become an integral part of the world proletarian revolution.
As regards Birobidzhan: Its fate is tied to the entire eventual fate of the Soviet Union. In any case, it is not a matter here of the resolution of the Jewish question as a whole, but only an attempt to resolve it for a certain section of Jews living in the Soviet Union. As a consequence of the entire historical fate of Jews, the Jewish question is an international one. It cannot be resolved by way of “socialism in one country”. In the conditions of the current antisemitic persecutions and pogroms of the foulest and most despicable nature, Jewish workers can and must draw revolutionary pride from the consciousness that the fate of the Jewish people can be resolved only by the complete and final victory of the proletariat.
With communist greetings.
L. Trotsky
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