The Referendum

The figures of the Histadruth referendum which rejected the London agreement are very interesting. To begin with—out of a membership of 70,000, only 25,000 deigned to vote. One would have expected a much heavier poll, in a controversy conducted with so much thunder, and in a small country where everybody knows and influences everybody.

Obviously, the vast majority of the left wing Histadruth doesn’t care. In America the phenomenon is well known—the vast majority of labor prefers to stay “unorganized”; in Palestine they do join the Histadruth, for it saves much bother and ensures quite tangible advantages, but remain perfectly indifferent as to whether the “holy” right to strike without offering arbitration should or should not be limited, and even as to whether there should or not be contact between the various labor exchanges. Incidentally—that majority does not care also who is to lead it, moderates of class or extremists.

The rest of the Yishuv, and world Zionism at large, can hardly share this blissful attitude of je m’en fiche. The old-timers who built up both the Labor party and the Histadruth have been beaten in their own fold. They cannot complain that they had not been warned. For years and years they had been warned that in the circles of the Hashomer Hazair and of the “left wing Poale Zion” doctrines were being spread which stood in contradiction to all interests of Zionism; that it was a fatal mistake to encourage, by deliberate favoritism in the distribution of certificates, the swamping of Palestine with these elements; that in the schools of the Histadruth their youngsters were being taught from textbooks which Dr. Weizmann describe as “suitable rather for Soviet Russia than for Palestine.” Now all that seed has produced its natural crop.

One need not expect that the old-timers will resign—it is more likely that they will submit, but in any case the leadership of both the Napai and the Histadruth will henceforward have to bear, even more clearly than heretofore, the stamp of the class war wing.

It therefore becomes rather essential to get acquainted with that wing’s mentality. I have recently been presented with a full bag of their literature and have been enjoying it during my American travels. It calls the Mapai a party of “traitors” to the proletarian cause; threatens to form a new independent labor party should the London agreement be ratified. It boldly describes the aim of true Labor as “hegemony.” It proclaims that obligatory arbitration (which “is so near and so dear to the hearts of the Mapai leadership”) means renunciation of that aim. It maintains the subordination of class interests to the interests of the nation as a whole (“preached by the Mapai leaders”) is anathema. Incidentally, it also maintains that “class enemies” should be physically thrashed—the word “physically” italized (“Hapoel Hazair,” July 27, 1934, pp. 3-5).

Now that the authors of all that stuff have conquered the Labor party and the Histadruth, they are getting ready for other conquests. The first one is to be the Zionist Congress. They are shrewd enough to realize that electioneering means money—especially in Zionist elections where you have first to provide your adherent with a Shekel, and just in the most important European centers a Zloty is a serious expenditure. They are financially stronger than all the rest of Zionist parties put together, what with Keren Hayesod, and the geverkschafften campaigns, and the Hitler transfer agreement.

As they know that in Europe and in Palestine the whole “middle class’ is up in revolt against them, they have decided to devote a special effort to America, where, owing to the distance, the “middle class” can easily be misled: and here they have found sponsors, reverend and otherwise, who swear in public that “Palestine Labor” abhors class war, respects religion, etc. So they hope to capture the Congress, and incidentally to ensure, even to a greater extent than before, absolute mastery over the immigration certificates.

But the Yishuv is even more concerned about their open resolve to capture all the local organs. As they play first fiddle in deciding who will go to Palestine and who won’t, every bunch of immigrants is theirs, so it will be no miracle if the next elections to the Tel Aviv town council will give them a clear majority. The same with regard to the Vaad Leumi. All this will mean, inter alia, that the Hebrew public schools are soon to pass under the same kind of spiritual guidance as the schools of the Histadruth. And all this—with the kind assistance of Americans.