The Jewish Question: History of a Marxist Debate

283 Pages·2018·1.087 MB·English

by  Enzo Traverso

TheJewishQuestion
Historical Materialism
Book Series
EditorialBoard
SébastienBudgen(Paris)
DavidBroder(Rome)
SteveEdwards(London)
JuanGrigera(London)
MarcelvanderLinden(Amsterdam)
PeterThomas(London)
volume 178
Thetitlespublishedinthisseriesarelistedatbrill.com/hm
The Jewish Question
Historyof aMarxistDebate
By
EnzoTraverso
Translatedby
BernardGibbons
LEIDEN | BOSTON
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Names:Traverso,Enzo,author.|Gibbons,Bernard,translator.
Title:TheJewishquestion:historyofamarxistdebate/byEnzoTraverso;
translatedbyBernardGibbons.
Othertitles:Marxistesetlaquestionjuive.English
Description:Leiden;Boston:Brill,[2018]|Series:Historicalmaterialismbook
series,ISSN1570-1522;volume178|Includesbibliographicalreferencesand
index.
Identifiers:LCCN2018037080(print)|LCCN2018038465(ebook)|
ISBN9789004384767(ebook)|ISBN9789004301337(hardback:alk.paper)
Subjects:LCSH:CommunismandJudaism–History.|Jewishcommunists–History.|
Jews–Europe,Eastern–History.|Jews–Russia–History.
Classification:LCC HX550.J4(ebook)|LCC HX550.J4 T72132018(print)|
DDC335.43089/924–dc23
LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2018037080
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What do you want with this particular suffering of the Jews?The
poor victims of the rubber plantation in Putumayo, the Negroes
in Africa with whose bodies the Europeans play a game of catch,
arejustasneartome.Doyourememberthewordswrittenonthe
workoftheGreatGeneralStaffaboutTrotha’scampaignintheKala-
haridesert?‘Andthedeath-rattles,themadcriesof thosedyingof
thirst,fadedawayintothesublimesilenceofeternity’.Oh,this‘sub-
limesilenceofeternity’inwhichsomanyscreamshavefadedaway
unheard.ItringswithinmesostronglythatIhavenospecialcorner
of myheartreservedfortheghetto:Iamathomewhereverinthe
worldthereareclouds,birdsandhumantears…
Rosa Luxemburg,lettertoMathilde Wurm(1917)
…
Thepuppetcalled‘historicalmaterialism’istowinallthetime.It
caneasilybeamatchforanyoneifitenliststheservicesoftheology,
whichtoday,asweknow,iswizenedandhastokeepoutofsight.
Walter Benjamin,‘OntheConceptofHistory’(1940)
…
The Jewish heretic who transcends Jewry belongs to a Jewish tra-
dition.Youmay,ifyoulike,seeAkherasaprototypeofthosegreat
revolutionariesofmodernthought:Spinoza,Heine,Marx,RosaLux-
emburg, Trotsky, and Freud. You may, if you wish to, place them
withinaJewishtradition.Theyallwentbeyondtheboundariesof
Jewry. They all found Jewry too narrow, too archaic, and too con-
stricting.They all looked for ideals and fulfillment beyond it, and
they represent the sum and substance of much that is greatest
in modern thought, the sum and substance of the most profound
upheavalsthathavetakenplaceinphilosophy,sociology,econom-
ics,andpoliticsinthelastthreecenturies.
Isaac Deutscher,TheNon-JewishJew(1958)
∵

Contents
Acknowledgements ix
HistoricisingtheMarxist‘JewishQuestion’:PrefacetotheSecond
Edition x
Introduction 1
1 Marx,RadicalEnlightenmentandtheJews 11
1 Marx:theJewasGeldmensch 16
2 Engels:theJewsasa‘PeoplewithoutHistory’ 23
3 TheStruggleagainstAnti-Semitism 27
2 TheJewishMarxistIntelligentsia 29
1 CentralEurope 29
2 EasternEurope 37
3 Hypotheses 51
3 TheGermanandAustrianMarxists(1880–1920) 54
1 Anti-Semitism 54
2 Zionism 64
3 TheParadigmofAssimilation:OttoBauer 70
4 TheParadigmofAssimilation:KarlKautsky 76
4 RussianMarxism(1900–20) 81
1 Lenin 81
2 Stalin 87
3 Trotsky 88
4 RosaLuxemburg 92
5 Conclusion 98
5 JewishMarxism 100
1 RussianMarxismandJewishMarxism 100
2 TheJewishWorkers’Movement 103
3 NationalAutonomy:VladimirMedem 108
4 Zionism:BerBorokhov 115
Intermezzo:TheJewsandtheRussianRevolution(1917–37) 127
viii contents
6 GramsciandtheJewishQuestion 136
7 FromWeimartoAuschwitz:Anti-SemitismandtheGermanLeft 143
1 TheKPD:fromthe‘SchlageterLine’tothe‘ThirdPeriod’ 145
2 The‘RooflessLeft’ 150
3 Trotsky’sWarnings 154
8 TheMessianicMaterialismofWalterBenjamin 159
1 GermanCultureandJewishness 159
2 Marxism 164
3 CritiqueofProgress 167
4 HistoricalMaterialismandTheology 170
5 Outsider 174
9 TheTheoryofthePeople-Class:AbramLeon 178
1 HistoriographicalLimitations 181
2 CapitalismandAssimilation 185
3 Anti-Semitism 191
4 Solutions 193
10 Post-warMarxismandtheHolocaust 196
1 TheFrankfurtSchool 198
2 ErnestMandel 202
3 CapitalismandtheHolocaust 207
Conclusion 216
Glossary 223
Chronology 225
Bibliography 231
Index 256
Acknowledgements
I wrote this book in Paris between 1985 and 1989 as a PhD thesis at L’Ecole
desHautesÉtudesenSciencesSociales.Itstopicwasconceivedanddiscussed
with Michael Löwy, my supervisor at the EHESS, who followed the different
phases of my work until its completion: my intellectual debt to him is obvi-
ousinthesepages.IwishtoexpressmygratitudetoJohnBunzl,NancyGreen,
Jutta Scherrer, Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Jean-Marie Vincent, and Claudie Weill,
who read the manuscript and contributed their criticisms: their suggestions
haveprovedmostvaluable.ThanksarealsoduetoBernardGibbonsandPeter
DruckerfortheEnglishtranslation,aswellastoNathanielBolingandNicholas
Bujalskiforthefinalrevisionandmanyusefulsuggestions,notpurelyformal,
thatimprovedthequalityof thissecondedition.Thanks,finally,toSebastian
Budgenforproposingtorepublishit,inanew,revisedandexpandededition,in
theHistoricalMaterialismseriesbyBrill.IoweverymuchtoJinah,whowasan
inexhaustiblesourceof encouragementformewhenIwrotethefirstversion
ofthisbook:Iwillneverforgetherintelligenceandsensitivity.Finally,Iwishto
evokethememoryof myfather,Beppino(1921–86).Thisbookisdedicatedto
him.
EnzoTraverso
Historicising the Marxist ‘Jewish Question’: Preface
to the Second Edition
ThisbookwasoriginallypublishedinFrenchin1990.Ihadgiventhemanu-
script to the publisher one year earlier, a few months before the fall of the
Berlin Wall. In a certain sense, it was one of the last pieces of the Marxist
debateof thetwentiethcentury.Itwasconceivedasacriticalreconstitution
of a classical controversy and did not defend any orthodoxy – this time was
over–butitbelongedtothathistoricaltime,withinitsintellectualhorizon.
Itstitle–keptinthefirstEnglishtranslation–mentioned‘theMarxists’,the
pluralreferringlesstothedoctrinethantoitsinterpreters.Itprobablywould
havebeenmorepertinenttospeakof ‘Marxisms’,extendingthepluraltothe
theoryitself,sincethinkersasdifferentasKarlKautskyandWalterBenjamin
didnotsimplysuggesttwodistinctexegesesofthesame‘canon’,butrathertwo
opposedconceptionsofhistory.Readingthisbook,suchadichotomyappears
evident,butitshouldhavebeenspecifiedinthetitleitself,inordertoavoid
anypossiblemisunderstanding.Thesamematrix–Marx’sthought–hadpro-
ducedamultiplicityofsometimesconflictingtheories,andthedebateonthe
‘JewishQuestion’wasanemblematicexpressionof suchintellectualrichness
anddiversity.Inotherwords,thepurposeofthisbookwasnottoproposeanew
‘MaterialistconceptionoftheJewishQuestion’;itwastosketchanintellectual
historyofsuchadebate,exploringthemultipleconnectionsrelatingJudaism
andMarxism,theJewsandsocialism,ideasandhistoricalexperiencesmadeby
actuallyexistinghumanbeings.
Duringthe1990s,thecollapseof communismandtheemergenceof Holo-
caustmemorialisationinthepublicspaceof theWesternworldeclipsedthis
old controversy: on the one hand, Marxism became the strongest symbolic
expression of an awful and deplorable ‘century of ideologies’; on the other
hand, the growing focus on the Judeocide favoured a parallel oblivion: the
‘JewishQuestion’ceasedtobelongtoacenturyof‘questions’–national,colo-
nial,etc.–andwasfinallyinterpreted,inalmostontologicalterms,asananti-
Semiticlabel,i.e.aproblemlyingintheexistenceitselfoftheJews.Forgetting
thatformorethanacenturythisformulahadmeanttheoppressionof areli-
giousminorityexcludedfromcompletecitizenshipinmanyEuropeanstates,
anewwaveofinterpretersreducedittoitsfascistdefinition.Forthefirsttime,
Jean-PaulSartrewasposthumouslyaccusedofhavingreproducedthelexicon
of theVichyregimewhen,in1946,hepublishedhisfamous Réflexionssurla
questionjuive(inEnglish Anti-SemiteandJew),whichseemedreminiscentof