Upbuilding of Bureya Undertaken Not for Jewish Immigrants from Abroad but for Working-class Jews of

The plan of work for 1932 in the Bureya Region in Siberia is on a large and complicated scale and in order to carry it out the work must be conducted in accordance with Stalin’s six points, M. Dimantstein, the Chairman of the Central Ozet (Jewish Colonisation Society) and member of the Council for National Minorities, writes in a long article in to-day’s “Emess”.

The scheme for this year is to take in 4,000 to 5,000 families of migrants-about 20,000 souls-for the collective farms, Soviet farms, and artisan industry in Bureya, he proceeds. This figure includes several thousand Jewish immigrants from abroad, a good number from Palestine. These are expected to arrive in Bureya in a few months, by the beginning of the spring, and we must therefore see about providing them with houses and tolerable living conditions.

The number of applications from foreign Jews who want to immigrate to Bureya is large, he continues, but at first we shall accept only skilled building workers and such who can be employed in providing building material on the spot, like timber-workers felling the trees in the forests, and wood-workers to make up the frameworks for the standardised houses. A considerable number of the foreign immigrants will also be used, if they are qualified, in the metal plants, for some parts of Bureya are very rich in mineral wealth.

This question of the foreign immigrants must be dealt with seriously, M. Dimantstein says, but at the same time we must bear it in mind that the building of Bureya is undertaken not for the Jewish immigrants from abroad, but for the working-class Jews of the Soviet Union, who need to migrate from their present places so that they should be able to settle as quickly as possible in this rich and sparsely populated area in the Far East. Jewish immigrants from abroad will be admitted only to such an extent as they are necessary for speeding up and strengthening the building of Bureya.

MUST KEEP OUR JEWISH NATIONALISM IN CREATING JEWISH AUTONOMOUS UNIT AND SIMULTANEOUSLY COMBAT LEFT TENDENCY WHICH DENIES UTILITY OF ESTABLISHING JEWISH AUTONOMOUS UNIT

The decision of the last session of the All-Union Central Executive Committee for establishing a Jewish national territorial unit in Bureya must be carried into effect, M. Dimantstein declares. But we must take care, he proceeds, not to allow any ideological Jewish nationalist distortion to enter into the question of creating a Jewish autonomous unit in Bureya, while simultaneously combating the Left tendency which totally denies the utility of establishing a Jewish autonomous unit under favourable conditions for the Jewish immigrants in Bureya. Lenin definitely said that the best way of solving the National question is to give national territorial autonomy to the nationalities concentrated in any territory. That policy was enforced after the October revolution. Now the time has come when we have an opportunity of conducting the same policy in regard to the Jewish population of the Soviet Union.

The setting up of a Jewish autonomous unit in Bureya, Dimantstein, concludes, will have its significance not only to the comparatively small number of Jews who will be in Bureya in the early period, but also to the working-class Jews of other parts of the Soviet Union, and insofar as the interests of the Jewish Proletariat in all countries are identical and insofar as the working-class Jewish populations of the capitalist countries suffer everywhere equally from Fascism and antisemitism and the Soviet Union is the fatherland of all oppressed, also to the working-class Jews of the entire world.