Marxism, Zionism and the National Question
Do Marxists Have To Support The Demand For Self-Determination? (3/4)
The same approach was taken by one wing of Third Campism in relation to Zionism. It argued that the Holocaust meant that Jews could no longer wait for Socialism to resolve the question of their oppression, and that it could only be resolved by the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. Al Glotzer wrote, in an ironic attack on the Marxist position put forward by Mandel,
“This article can be summarised briefly: The Jews of Europe have undergone almost inhuman suffering; this is due to the nature of capitalism. But the Jews are not alone in this suffering. Other peoples, other national minorities are faced with the same or similar prospects of extermination or near-extermination. This is a symbol of the decay of capitalism. There is no hope for these people except in the victory of socialism. It is true, the Jews may be entirely exterminated between now and the future, but... oops, sorry... that can’t be helped, you know. That’s capitalism for you. The Jews, despite this grim prospect, must not allow themselves to be emotionally worked up by the fact that six, seven or eight millions of them have been wiped out in Europe!”
In fact, the creation of that state has not resolved the issue of oppression of Jews. If anything, it has worsened it, whilst having driven a huge wedge into the unity of the Jewish working-class from other workers, particularly, in the Middle East itself. But, the reality, also, is that Jews themselves have not seen the creation of a Jewish state as the solution to their problems. Whereas the vast majority of British people live in Britain, of French people in France and so on, the large majority of Jews (about 60%) continue to live in other countries, not in Israel, despite having an absolute right to move there if they choose, a right that state denies to its indigenous Palestinian people. And, the potential of genocide against Jews was known to Trotsky, at the outbreak of the war, but did not convince him of the validity of Zionism.
Trotsky addressed it in some of his last writings – On The Jewish Problem. Here, Trotsky sets out why it is not at all impossible to conceive of the need, under socialism, for different nations, currently without a homeland, to be allocated space for such, even if such a state, and its borders were quickly to be dissolved along with all others. Trotsky, sets this out in quite distinct, and antagonistic terms compared to that of Zionism.
“On the other hand the Jews of different countries have created their press and developed the Yiddish language as an instrument adapted to modern-culture. One must therefore reckon with the fact that the Jewish nation will maintain itself for an entire epoch to come. Now the nation cannot normally exist without a common territory. Zionism springs from this very idea. But the facts of every passing day demonstrate to us that Zionism is incapable of resolving the Jewish question. The conflict between the Jews and Arabs in Palestine acquires a more and more tragic and more and more menacing character. I do not at all believe that the Jewish question can be resolved within the framework of rotting capitalism and under the control of British imperialism.”
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