Sorry if my audio is lower-quality than usual; my new computer doesn't agree with my old microphone. I'm currently upgrading and it should be ready in time for the next video.

I thought it said Buddhism for a second

I love this series so much. I jumped up in shock when realized Ulyanov was Lenin.

I really hope you one day get into Jewish contributions to Anarchism, especially with Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and Murray Bookchin.

As a polish person, I find these videos very educational and entertaining - our people have a…strained relationship and it’s a real tragedy, Jewish people made great contributions to our arts and culture, among a myriad of other things. Can’t wait for more great videos, and all the best from Poland.

The characterization of Lenin and Martov's positions is a bit off, they weren't really accelerationists or opposed to improving conditions for workers so much as opposed to what they saw as half measures - it wasn't "oh let's not do anything because that will delay revolution," it was more like "oh the people proposing these reforms aren't going far enough, we need to remain focused on the goal." Lenin also didn't think Russia could "establish Communism at any time," the divide between he and Martov was over who the primary allies of the Social Democrats would be in a "bourgeois-democratic revolution" against the monarchy, which both saw as a necessary precursor to the establishment of Socialism; Martov thought that the Bourgeoisie needed to be a central force in this Revolution, based on the precedence of the French Revolution, while Lenin thought that Russia lacked a Revolutionary Bourgeoisie due to the specifics of their economy, and that the workers and peasants (led by the Socialists) would thus need to overthrow the Tsar themselves. Lenin did not (at least at this stage) believe that Russia could transition to Communism by itself; as an orthodox Marxist, he held to the belief that the material conditions of Capitalism had to precede Communism. Instead, he believed that a "bourgeois-democratic" Revolution by the workers and peasants in Russia would provide motivation and support for Socialist revolutions in developed Capitalist countries like Germany and France.

I highly recommend Mike Duncan’s recently-concluded Revolutions podcast; his early episodes on the Russian Revolution speak about the Bund at length. Amazing video as always, they’re always the highlight of my day :)

This has become one of my favorite KZfaq series of all time… so robust, informative, and beautiful. I am both excited to reach the climax the story and disappointed to see the end in sight.

New insight into the Bolshevik Menshevik controversy. Thank you

Yet another great video! Speaking about the city of Vilna/Vilnius/Wilno etc., so important to the histories and cultures of several peoples, it just started the celebrations of its 700th birthday.

11:03 That's kind of a bad-faith characterization of Martov's position, no? Neither he nor Lenin opposed workers organizing for better conditions, they simply stressed that it was a means to the end of cultivating revolutionary consciousness in the working class, rather than an end unto itself as the economists believed.

As someone from Michigan, it was really weird to hear that Bundism was extinct. My ancestors came here from the Sunrise colony, but left the farms for the automotive jobs in Saginaw. My grandfather was even engineer responsible for keeping the machinery working at the Nexteer factory and was a life long Bundist.

The Bund still does actively exist... just only in Melbourne, Australia - there's the last remaining branch of the youth movement SKIF (the Sotsyalistishe Kinder Farband) as well the Melbourne Jewish Labour Bund

I think what doomed the bund regardless of ww2 from becoming as widely accepted as zionism in the long run (even if they were at some points more popular) is that it was a purely Ashkenazi east European movement. Not that it didn't manage to find popularity elsewhere, but it was mostly among immigrants from there. With things like the prioritization of Yiddish over Hebrew, they somewhat severed ties with any Sephardic and Mizrahi allies they could have had. This kind of inter Jewish racism still persists today and cause friction between Ashkenazim and Sephardim with contrasting world views, as one sees the other as not taking their separate history into account

Finally I make the connection to my Russian classes ! Where I learned that bolshe is greater and menshe is smaller but I never connected the dots before !!! What a lesson !!

Really appreciate your coverage of the different political streams! כל הכבוד!

Gotta love that flash of Stalin at about 10:13 in.

Your summary of why Lenin and Martov opposed "economism" is slightly wrong in an important way. They weren't accelerationists and didn't oppose economic reforms per se. (In fact, Martov spent a good deal of time arguing that socialists should be focused more on demonstrating socialism could improve the actual economic status of the workers, like you note.) What they opposed was advocating *purely* for economic reforms with no explicit political dimension. In their view, socialism couldn't be achieved through advocating for individual pro-worker policies without advocating for "socialism" as a whole idea. (If you want a modern analogy, many modern American socialists are critical of the AFL-CIO and other major trade unions, exactly because they're not explicitly socialist.) Of course this isn't helped by the fact that Lenin, in characteristic fashion, often used "economism" as a sort of vague pejorative towards any socialist he felt wasn't radical enough, or who was too populist (as opposed to his centralist brand of socialism), or for other relatively minor theoretical disagreements.

I'm an Israeli 10th grader and just a week ago I had some school project about the bund's 4th congress, and so this might just be the fact that I'm more acquainted with this topic than with most of Jewish history, but this video feels a bit rushed, and slightly less "coherent" than the rest. I'm honestly quite impressed by the fact that you split the bund into several videos, and you mentioned basically everything that I was hoping you would mention within the bund, but it's not very obvious from this video how popular the bund was with jews in general, or what the bund's relationship was with the general outer world. Even with zionism, it's not very obvious for instance what zionists thought of the bund, especially with the mentions of people like borochov. Also I have never heard of bundism being a term used in the internet, and I would say I'm generally an internet person. I'm not going to judge you too soon because again you mentioned this isn't the last video on bundism, so I'll wait for the next video before I say anything.

Commenting for the algorithm. And because you delivered another excellent segment. Your work and effort are impressive. Oh, and the topic's interesting too.

If anyone is interested in this particular time period then I would highly suggest the revolutions podcast covering the Russian revolution as it goes into very strong detail on all of the characters and factions mentioned especially in the earlier half of this video

Bundism sounds kind of awesome actually

watching the new video every other Friday or so really brightens my bus ride home thanks sam

In the last 2 years I’ve watched your stuff, I’m surprised you never touched upon the subject of Sephardic Jews who turned to piracy after the Alhambra Decree. Keep up the good work though

I've just been linked to this video and channel. A good video! Really interesting information that I've not heard before

The description of Martov and Lenin's positions with regards to what they called economism is pretty bad. They were not opposed to trade unionism or improvements of working and living conditions. Their main thrust was against *restricting* the socialist movement's goals and activism to only these things. They were in no way accelerationists who opposed political activity to bring about social betterment, or even as that term implies, to endavour to make the workers' situation under capitalism worse. That's really disingenuous. It's really not a mistake one can come away with if one seriously examines their writings like 'What is to be done?'. Even beyond the RSDLP specifically, the position of the orthodox marxists of this time period was unmistakable not one that opposed social reforms. This is laid out in crystal clear language in Martov and Lenin's comrade and contemporary Rosa Luxemburg's 'Reform or revolution'.

Thank you for these amazing, well produced and in depth videos. Thank you for your hard work. I'm always looking forwards till your next video (and i've been following live since ypu covered the first temple) - every video you make is better then the last.

please continue the series, im trying to find more content about Bund to study, but it is really hard because both communists and zionists "erased" it

11:41 *It still does.*

Okay, this is very funny, because I do hang out in "Jewish extremely online spaces" but I'm only familiar with Bundist used in a positive way, by people who feel pride in that history and want to carry it on through Yiddishkeit.

The reactions you have for your self-portaits are amazing!

Please do a video on the Caucasus; Georgian Jews, Mountain Jews, etc. I am a Georgian Jew and there isn’t much info about my history anywhere.

Finally, a new upload for my favourite series in the entirety of KZfaq

18:32 Sweet mother of mercy WHAT is happening to Crete at this point in time

The best channel for obscure subcultural history.

Love this video. I define my beliefs as neo-bundism because I feel like Bundism even though their socialist aspect is always relevant the autonomist aspect is long gone, and it also fits me as a current Jewish resident of Poland. There are bund sympathizers still around but the most important is that the bund as a cultural movement still exists in Australia. It might be small but it carries the torch of yidishkayt and doykayt. but I guess we'll get to that later.

Hey, Hey, Daloy Politsey! Daloy Samedverszhavets V'Rasey!

Ulyanov is stressed on the second syllable

I love this channel. Not only does it extensively cover the European Jewish history in the 19th century, but also provides a vivid look into the world of the time in general. P.S. It's so nice to see and recognize Vilnius from an old map in a video like this

Loved the audio. Great job 👏🏼

The Worker's Circle in the U.S. today holds a lot of the ethos and values of the Bund with regards to Yiddish language and secular Jewish culture and arts, democratic socialism, and doikayt.

Small details on the question of the socialist movement: Marx's ideas weren't totally opposed to nationalism as a whole, and especially not in 1848. He himself wrote a constitution idea for a pan-german state working on the basis of parliamentary democracy with socialist incentives to guarantee workers participation. And also, the division between social-democrats and communists came far later. Almost all marxist parties were, until 1917, called Social-Democratic parties. And all these parties had divisions between Reformist (or Revisionists as they were called) and Revolutionaries. And when the October Revolution happened, the bolcheviks proclaimed the failure of the Second Internationale as it embraced nationalism and participated in the Great War. They sent a list of points to examin to all social-democratic parties with the aim of creating a Third Internationale disciplined and organized to achieve the revolution. Some parties had pro-bolchevik majorities, some others prefered to stay in their idea of social-democracy (even if they didn't see themselves as reformists or pro-capitalists). This led to a large split between parties that would retain the name Social-Democratic and that would be left only with their reformist faction as the majority and new parties (or at least parties that changed their name) that embraced the bolchevik revolution (however they were critical of it) and became member of the Communist Internationale. That's basically the origin of the divide. It doesn't come from Marx but from later socialists.

Very well explained, thanks.

Gee, can you tell Aronow is a SocDem? Anyway, though Sam's personal politics are starting to become more visible in the videos (as they inevitably would as we reach more contemporary matters and is entirely understandable, even if I'd prefer a less humorous formulation of his criticism of revolutionary socialists), the quality of the videos remains. Looking forward to the next one.

Congratulations for this video. I completely overlooked that Ulyanov was Lenin, so this felt like a "Luke I am your father moment". I can't remembering this ever happening in a video. I assume this video was more about Jewish involvement in the Russian left and how the loss essentially lead to why all "communist" countries became dictatorships than bundism in itself and I didn't see that coming. In 99% of videos I don't get such a shock, but this video did it and thats incredible.

Not to be confused with the organization of the same name plus the prefix "German American"

Best Channel!

Excellent video! I’m surprised you didn’t also include Lenin and Stalin’s responses to the Bund. Their attitudes on Jewish identity and peoplehood are arguably the foundation of most left-wing antisemitism and has worked its way into a lot of hardline antizionist rhetoric.

I'm sure allying with Bismarck worked out real well for them

I don't believe in Vanguardism, and I side with Martov over Lenin in that sense, but Martov sounds like a proto-Dengist in believing that 'Russia must become capitalist first'. It's not relevant now considering Russia has been capitalist for decades now, but it's still frustrating when people discuss things like modern-day PRC and claiming it to be anything other than state capitalism. I'm not blaming Martov for revisionism or something, but it's tragic how that tendency has lived on across the centuries. Also Marx was fine with "class traitors" if they were Bourgeois advocating for Proletarian interests. Engels was literally a factory owner, the pinnacle of a Bourgeois class traitor.

Thank you for continuing to put out videos, I've found them very informative.

That Ulyanov geezer looks familiar. Where have I seen his mug before, Guv'nor?

I like when buddy gets real close to the camera. Then you know shit's about to get real.

9:26 this is basically all of the cities in belarus

If I like bunda is that bundism?

0:54 too beautiful for this world, too pure

Hey could you leave the names of the guys up when they're pictured? When it's someone I've been exposed to very little, sometimes never before at all, it's hard to remember who is who when a bunch of guys are on extreme at the same time! Thank you for the videos so much, and thanks if you respond to this/ decide to try to use this suggestion!

I just did a rewatch of the Jewish History playlist (okay, SOME of it, but I went straight through on the last 20 or so videos), and this video wasn't on the playlist. Was that intentional?

As a neobundist (I have my criticisms but consider myself in that intellectual tradition) studying their history, thanks so much for covering this! It feels like there's so little education about them in Jewish spaces. Super excited to watch. Edit: I'd critique the description of Bundism as nationalism, even diaspora nationalism- Jack Jacobs, one of their major historians, argues that while they were anti-assimilationist and focused on supporting jews and jewish culture, and even promoted autonomism, they rejected nationalism of any kind throughout their existence. It's up to you how much you think that distinction matters, though, I suppose. That said overall a very good video, and thank you again for making it. Can't wait for more going forward!

the Bundists had the best analysis of "the National Question" of anyone on the left

Great Video so glad for the 20th century

I had no idea that Ulanyov was actually Vladimir Lenin the former leader of the Soviet Union before Joseph Stalin.

I would note that there are some groups who can directly trace their origins back to the bund still operating today. These include the Jewish Socialist Group in the UK and The Workers Circle in the US. However, these groups are not totally in line with their predecessors. Workers circle has become much more liberal, although many social, still involved in it, and while they definitely contain the emphasis on things, like trade unionism and Yiddish, they’re not really a group with the same political agenda. The Jewish socialist group in the UK might be a bit closer to the original Bund, but they don’t seem to emphasize Yiddish or national cultural autonomy, subordinating that to a broader anti-racist politics in like with the principle of Doikayt. The only group I’m aware of that still professes what you might call “true Bundism” is the Jewish Labour Bund in Australia.

Looking forward to the video I hope you will do about the Jewish Autonomous Oblast.

21:01 Oh my... That surprised me. I was wondering why that drawing looked like Lenin, cause he is Lenin! Dunno why I expected him to pop up a bit later.

My problem with your characterization of Leninism is that it ignores many realities of the time in the Russian Empire. For one thing, the VAST majority of people within the Russian Empire, industrial worker and peasant farmer alike, were illiterate. This alone would more than justify Vanguardism in my opinion, but even if society was literate, the fact is that much of the peasantry was Conservative as a result of the Russian Orthodox sermons they were hearing on a weekly basis since birth. The reason why the Revolution was carried out almost entirely by the industrial proletariat was that this was the most revolutionary class within society for many reasons. But this does not mean that peasantry didn't support the Revolution. The Bolshevik slogan of "Peace, Land, Bread" appealed greatly to even much of the Conservative peasantry, but especially the poorest among them. This alliance between the proletariat and peasantry is immortalized in the hammer and sickle iconography.

videos like this are so important

been waiting for this.

Is arkady kremer a descended of Eliyahu crämer (the vilna gaon)?

Thank you for another great video.

Very much appreciated! Too bad not a lot of people know about Yuli Martov and the majority of the topics covered in this video.

It would be nice with videos about Finnish Icelandic and Scandinavian Jews .

loved that small flash of stalin in 10:12

Get Sam some sponsors. Let’s make this man rich 😅

Fantastic video!!!

The single frame of stalin at 10:13 💀

Seven hundred and eighty ninth! LETS GOOOOO

Great video!

Episode 6 of Fall of Eagles dramatizes the rivalry between Lenin and Martov-and the Bund!

Can someone write me, whats the name of the song in the Intro? 😅

10:12 good chuckle there.

13:50, Lenin is not a credible or neutral source for Plekhanov’s antisemitism, Lenin had strong personal political incentives to discredit Plekhanov at this time. I’m not saying Plekhanov wasn’t antisemitic, I just think Lenin isn’t a credible source here

The Bund still exists in countries other than Israel (US, France, UK, etc), it's just the Israeli branch that ceased to exist in 2019.

Can you do the video about some Jewish political figures in Serbia in 19s like Avram Ozerovic ,Rabi Yehuda Alkalay and in interwar period in Yugoslavia like David Albala ,Šime Spicer ,Alexandar Licht ,Bencion Buli .

Wasn't Roza Luxemburg a pro-assimilationist? She stars in the great book titled Assimilation and Its Discontents. I recall reading a harsh quote of hers rejecting any sympathies with fellow Jews.

Your statement that Austrian political parties were almost all divided along ethnic lines is pretty questionable. The Christian social parties, for example, were explicitly NOT ethnic and held many seats in parliament and the regional diets. Also, Peter Judson cites political actions in which Jewish leaders headed mostly non-Jewish coalitions. Otherwise, big fan.

Marking socialdemocracy of the kingdom of poland as democratic-socialist is incorrect. The party, unlike bund and pps, favoured revolutionary socialism and in 1918 merged with other party created communist party of poland.

I love buddhism

Will you make a video to talk about Salonica?

My grandfather was instrumental in the polish bund,,so the polish govt asked him to leave.

Oh boy how I would have loved to live in XIXth century eastern Europe.

Good Stuff

Dang, Borochov looks just like I imagined him to, only with better hair.

Was Arkadi Kremer a descendent of the Vilna Gaon ? Same Last name and same City.

My grandfather was a Bundist. He smoked cigars.

Does anyone know where Sam is from? I'm trying to pin down his accent.

Ah, trying to trick us up by referring to Lenin by his birth name, very clever.

Great. Grand

I seethe on the top of my mouth. About the map you use. Why does it say Norway(Swed) listen Norway was in a personal union with Sweden, same king otherwise independent.

Where’s Trotsky?