Party Council of World Union of Zionist Revisionists Meet at Kattowitz to Decide Question of Relatio

The differences between the Jabotinsky and Grossman wings were brought out at today’s session of the Revisionist Party Council meeting here.

Speaking to the Party Council, which was attended by forty delegates representing most of the European countries, as well as Palestine and Canada, Vladimir Jabotinsky, President of the Revisionist Union, demanded further supplementation of the Calais and Vienna decisions regarding the primacy of the Revisionist discipline. He contended that the Calais agreement, which was ratified at the Revisionist World Conference held in Vienna last August still shackled the Revisionist Union to the Zionist Organization, and hampered the full development of political work. He averred that the composition of the present Revisionist Executive made difficult the full implementation of the Calais agreement, in that the section of the Revisionist Union, which demanded greater independence, was not sufficiently represented on the Executive. He accordingly demanded that three more members of this own wing be co-opted on the Executive.

In reply, Meer Grossman, Vice-president of the Union, declared that the argument advanced by Jabotinsky for the co-option of three members of his own wing to the Executive was untenable, as never, in any circumstances, had any section of the Revisionist Executive made use of its majority to outvote Jabotinsky. M. Grossman also opposed a further widening of the primacy of Revisionist discipline over that of the World Zionist Organization, arguing that in actual practice. Zionist discipline had never prevented Revisionists from carrying out separate political work.

In view of the acute differences of opinion obtaining between the two extreme views as represented by V. Jatbotinsky and M. Grossman, a center group has been formed at the Conference with the object of preventing a split, in any circumstances.

The conference at Kattowitz was called in order to decide the future relations of the Revisionist Union to the Zionist Organization, in view of the recent decision of the Zionist Congress Court suspending the Revisionist Union as a separate Union. The Congress Court went into the question of the Calais agreement, which it held a breach of Zionist discipline, in that it allowed members of the Revisionist Union to carry out separate political work independent of the Zionist Organization.

The Revisionist Union is now organized in two sections, under a single Executive. One section, led by V. Jabotinsky, refuses to acquire the Shekel and adhere to the Zionist Organization. It was owing to the action of this section that the Calais agreement, which declared that the Revisionist Union was no longer an integral part of the Zionist Organization, came into being. The Calais agreement was in the nature of a compromise, allowing those members who did not wish to belong to the Zionist Organization to remain members of the Revisionist Union, and in the same organization as those who still retained membership in the Zionist Organization.