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The Russian Zionist movement and the Bund (Jewish Labor Union) were rivals in Jewish politics in the Russian Empire. While they both attempted to improve the status of Jews within the Empire by participating in the Russian political arena, an important difference resided in the Zionists' insistence on the need for a territory for Jews. On the surface, the cause of this difference seems evident: the Zionists conceived of the system of nation-state, whereas the Bundists considered a multi-national statehood, in which Jews would play a part. In this respect, it is well known that the Bundists referred to the Austro-Marxist theory of nationality, initiated by Karl Kautsky and developed by Karl Renner and Otto Bauer, which assumed a multi-national statehood. The theories developed by the latter two are known for their application of the "personal principle" within the context of multi-national statehood. However, the Russian Zionists, especially those involved in the organ Rassvet, also referred to these theories in a positive light. That is, the Zionists also conceived of multi-national contexts, within which multiple nations (nationalities) would reside in a state; moreover, they did not reject Renner and Bauer's theories, combining the "personal principle" with the "territorial principle" in solving national problems within a state. What, then, was the difference between the Bundists' perceived context -- called in this article an "imagined context" -- and that of the Zionists? Furthermore, what made the Zionists criticize the Bundists' program of "cultural autonomy"? The Russian Zionists -- Zionists involved in the Russian Zionist Organization and Russian Zionist journals such as Evreiskaia Zhizn' (monthly) and Rassvet -- also strove to achieve the participation of Jews in Russian imperial politics and foresaw the continuous existence of Jews in the Empire. The main figures whose arguments are discussed in the present article are G. Abramovich, D. Pasmanik, V. Jabotinsky, M. M. A. Hartglas, and A. Idelson, who were prominent Zionist activists and major contributors to Zionist publications. Although some scholars have indicated an affinity between the program of autonomy of the Zionists in the Empire and the Austro-Marxist theory, this article proves that the Russian Zionists actually used the theory within their "imagined context" and criticized the Bundist "cultural autonomy." By doing so, this article focuses on the Russian Zionists' emphasis on the "social." We first review the theories of nationality of Kautsky, Renner, and Bauer, and the ideological history of the Bundist movement. All of them unequivocally draw a distinction between the concept of state and that of nation (nationality). Whereas Kautsky considered a nation a community of a common language, Renner and Bauer defined a nation as a "cultural" community, which was more comprehensive than Kautsky's definition. The Bundists elaborated their national program through their socialist struggle against assimilation pressure by Russian and Polish socialists. Particularly after 1905, they began to emphasize the national culture of Jews and Yiddish culture in particular. "Nation" (natsiia, narod) in Russian Zionism also carried no connotation of statehood in the period before the collapse of the Empire. Moreover, it had more affinity toward Renner's definition of nation than Kautsky's in that the Zionists considered a nation as a socio-historical category or a complex of several factors. More importantly, not unlike the context conceived by Renner, these Zionists conceived the context of multi-national statehood. Interestingly, the Zionists stressed that Kautsky, Renner, and Bauer presumed the importance of a definite territory for the existence of a nation. (In fact, Bauer explicitly denied the continuance of Jewish nationhood because of the lack of a territory where Jews constituted a majority.) This was the foundation of the Zionists' criticism of the Bundist notion of non-territorial cultural autonomy for Jews. In this "imagined context," a nation had its territorial stronghold within a state and would be granted national rights to a certain extent outside their stronghold as well. This view was reflected, for example, in Jabotinsky's systematic formulation of the principle of autonomy of minority nations. In his essay found in Vestnik Evropy in 1913, he made the following argument: majority nations were the foundation of territorial governance. Although this did not translate into an underestimation of the rights of minority nations, the autonomy of minority nations would be restricted within the autonomy of majority nations, not by the arrogance of these majority nations but by inevitable sociological principles. For instance, financial systems, communications, agricultural economy, and forest exploration were inconceivable without a territorial base. Minority nations would be granted autonomy of education, public institutions, organizations, ordinances, purchase and acquisition of articles, and taxes, which were broader than so-called cultural matters. In this manner, while Jabotinsky depicted a state in which multiple nations, including minority nations, coexist being granted their national rights throughout the state to some extent, he also highlighted the importance of territory for sufficient autonomy of a nation. Importantly, such emphasis on territoriality in nationhood did not mean that the Zionists desired more than cultural matters; rather, what was important for them was not culture itself but a social field in which culture could develop freely. Therefore, the preservation of a definite culture was meaningless to them. In this sense, they aimed at what this article calls "social autonomy." For example, Abramovich referred to the definition of nationalism by P. Struve in 1901, which denied the fixity of any national spirit but underlined its fluidity. In that same vein, Idelson, defining Jewry as a "social fact," asserted that a nation did not long for the preservation of its national culture but rather its change according to its present needs. The point was that a nation always has the possibility of having its own culture. He argued that the existence of a nation was not the result of any operation to preserve it; instead, a nation was preserved as the result of several social conditions. Thus, for the Russian Zionists, the crucial point was to establish social (socio-economic) conditions that would naturally preserve the existence of the Jewish people. This was the foundation of their claim to territoriality. In this manner, their insistence on the need for a territory for Jews did not stem from their obsession with the system of nation-state or the principle of nationality (Nationalitätenprinzip). Rather, they also presumed the context of multi-national state as the Bundists did, but not unlike Renner and Bauer, they considered a territory essential for fostering the conditions that were essential for the free social life of the people, including cultural creation. The difference between the Austrian Marxists and the Zionists resided in the following points: Both Renner and Bauer presumed that a nation would have its territorial base within the Austrian state and be personally granted national rights outside its base within the same state. The Zionists conceived of trans-border or trans-imperial autonomy; that is, in their future vision, Jews would have their territorial base in Palestine, in the Ottoman Empire, and would be granted national rights for minorities -- especially in the realm of social life, not a definite culture -- in the Russian state.
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