Leon
Trotsky: On the "Jewish Problem”
February
1934
[Leon
Trotsky, On the Jewish Question. New York 1970, p. 17 f.]
Question:
Does the Left Opposition have to make special demands to win the
Jewish working class in America?
Answer:
The role of the foreign-born Jewish worker in the American
proletarian revolution will be a very great one, and in some respects
decisive. There is no question but that the Left Opposition must do
all it can to penetrate into the life of the Jewish workers.
Question:
What is your attitude towards the Jewish language? Why do you in your
autobiography characterize it as "jargon"?
Answer:
My attitude towards the Jewish language is similar to that of all
languages. If I really used in my autobiography the term "jargon,"
it is because in the years of my youth in Odessa the Jewish language
was not called Yiddish, as today, but "jargon." Such was
the expression of Jews themselves, who did not consider it a sign of
superciliousness. The word Yiddish is in universal use for the last
fifteen or twenty years. I can see this even in France.
Question:
In the Jewish circles you are considered to be an "assimilator."
What is your attitude towards assimilation?
Answer:
I do not understand why I should be considered as an "assimilator."
I do not know, generally, what kind of a meaning this word holds. I
am, it is understood, opposed to Zionism and all such forms of
self-isolation on the part of the Jewish workers. I call upon the
Jewish workers of France to better acquaint themselves with the
problems of French life and of the French working class. Without that
it is difficult to participate in the working class movement of that
country in which they are being exploited. As the Jewish proletariat
is spread in different countries it is necessary for the Jewish
worker, outside of his own language, to strive to know the language
of other countries as a weapon in the class struggle. What has that
to do with "assimilation"?
Question:
The official Communist Party characterized, without question, the
Jewish-Arab events in 1929 in Palestine as the revolutionary uprising
of the oppressed Arabian masses. What is your opinion of this policy?
Answer:
Unfortunately, I am not thoroughly familiar with the facts to venture
a definite opinion. I am now studying the question. Then it will be
easier to see in what proportion and in what degree there were
present those elements such as national liberationists
(anti-imperialists) and reactionary Mohammedans and anti-Semitic
pogromists. On the surface, it seems to me that all these elements
were there.
Question:
What is your attitude about Palestine as a possible Jewish "homeland"
and about a land for the Jews generally? Don't you believe that the
anti-Semitism of German fascism compels a different approach to the
Jewish question on the part of Communists?
Answer:
Both the fascist state in Germany, as well as the Arabian-Jewish
struggle, bring forth new and very clear verifications of the
principle that the Jewish question cannot be solved within the
framework of capitalism. I do not know whether Jewry will be built up
again as a nation. However, there can be no doubt that the material
conditions for the existence of Jewry as an independent nation could
be brought about only by the proletarian revolution. There is no such
thing on our planet as the idea that one has more claim to land than
another.
The
establishment of a territorial base for Jewry in Palestine or any
other country is conceivable only with the migrations of large human
masses. Only a triumphant socialism can take upon itself such tasks.
It can be foreseen that it may take place either on the basis of a
mutual understanding, or with the aid of a kind of international
proletarian tribunal which should take up this question and solve it.
The
blind alley in which German Jewry finds itself as well as the blind
alley in which Zionism finds itself is inseparably bound up with the
blind alley of world capitalism, as a whole. Only when the Jewish
workers clearly see this interrelationship will they be forewarned
against pessimism and despair.