Summary
The doctrine that supplanted orthodox Borokhovism in labour Zionism in the 1920s in Zachary Lockman’s account: the organised Jewish working class in Palestine, not Ber Borokhov’s inexorable “stychic” processes, would itself realise the Zionist project by constructing a self-sufficient, largely labour-controlled Jewish economy (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, lines 590-592).
Details
- The drive to create a separate high-wage economic sector dominated by the labour movement, coupled with the struggle for Hebrew Labour, amounted to an abandonment of orthodox Borokhovism, fully acknowledged only in the 1920s when the old schema was supplanted by the new doctrine sometimes referred to as “constructivism” (lines 590-592).
- Since “normal” capitalist development seemed unlikely to create a substantial Jewish working class in Palestine as Borokhov had predicted, the fledgling labour movement itself would have to accomplish the task, through direct involvement in developing the Yishuv’s economy and through the Conquest of Labour in other sectors; the emphasis shifted from waging class struggle within an economy dominated by Jewish capitalists to constructing a Jewish economy with the support of nonworker elements in the Zionist movement and even private capitalists (lines 590-592).
- The task required mobilising the working class through a highly centralised (and bureaucratised) apparatus, incessant appeals for self-sacrifice, hard work and discipline, and a steady focus on national construction; human agency — voluntary commitment to self-sacrifice for the nation — was now the central factor (lines 590-592).
- The Histadrut, founded in 1920, embodied the labour-Zionist synthesis in its emerging “constructivist” form by acting as the vanguard of the Zionist project in Palestine even as it enhanced the Jewish labour movement’s power (lines 842-844).
Related pages
Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, Labor Zionism, Ber Borokhov, Histadrut, Hebrew Labour, Conquest of Labour