Henryk Grossman Works, Volume 2: Political Writings

507 Pages·2018·1.71 MB·English

by  Henryk Grossman, Rick Kuhn

HenrykGrossmanWorks,Volume2
Historical Materialism
Book Series
EditorialBoard
LorenBalhorn(Berlin)
DavidBroder(Rome)
SebastianBudgen(Paris)
SteveEdwards(London)
JuanGrigera(London)
MarcelvanderLinden(Amsterdam)
PeterThomas(London)
volume 218
Thetitlespublishedinthisseriesarelistedatbrill.com/hm
Henryk Grossman Works
Volume 2
PoliticalWritings
By
HenrykGrossman
EditedandIntroducedby
RickKuhn
Translatedby
DominikaBalwin,BenFowkes,JosephFraccia,
FlorisKalman,RickKuhn,KenToddandFrankWolff
LEIDEN | BOSTON
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Names:Grossmann,Henryk,1881–1950,author.|Kuhn,Rick,1955-editor.
Title:HenrykGrossmanworks:essaysandlettersoneconomictheory/byHenryk
Grossman;editedandintroducedbyRickKuhn;translatedbyDominika
Balwin[andelevenothers].
Description:Leiden;Boston:Brill,[2018]|Series:Historicalmaterialismbook
series,ISSN1570-1522;volume170|Includesbibliographicalreferencesand
index.
Identifiers:LCCN2018042450(print)|LCCN2018044038(ebook)|
ISBN9789004384750(ebook)|ISBN9789004384743(hardback:alk.paper)
Subjects:LCSH:Economics.|Capitalism.|Marxianeconomics.
Classification:LCC HB71(ebook)|LCC HB71.G832018(print)|DDC335.4–dc22ß
LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2018042450
TypefacefortheLatin,Greek,andCyrillicscripts:“Brill”.Seeanddownload:brill.com/brill‑typeface.
ISSN1570-1522
ISBN978-90-04-43213-0(hardback)
ISBN978-90-04-43211-6(e-book)
Copyright2021byRickKuhn.PublishedbyKoninklijkeBrillNV,Leiden,TheNetherlands.
KoninklijkeBrillNVincorporatestheimprintsBrill,BrillHes&DeGraaf,BrillNijhoff,BrillRodopi,
BrillSense,HoteiPublishing,mentisVerlag,VerlagFerdinandSchöninghandWilhelmFinkVerlag.
KoninklijkeBrillNVreservestherighttoprotectthispublicationagainstunauthorizeduse.Requestsfor
re-useand/ortranslationsmustbeaddressedtoKoninklijkeBrillNVviabrill.comorcopyright.com.
Thisbookisprintedonacid-freepaperandproducedinasustainablemanner.
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
RickKuhn
1 TheProletariatFacedwiththeJewishQuestion 34
2 FromtheEditors 63
3 LetterstotheBund 66
4 WhatDoWeWant? 73
5 ReplytothePolishSocialDemocraticPartyofGalicia 83
6 ReporttotheCongressoftheGeneralAustrianSocialDemocraticParty
inVienna,1905 103
7 TotheSocialDemocratsofAustria 113
8 TheJewishSocialDemocraticPartyofGalicia 128
9 OurPositiononElectoralReform 136
10 OnOurAgitationandPropaganda:ANewPhaseinOur
Movement 147
11 PolishClub,JewishClubandZionistCharlatanry 155
12 WhoShouldtheKazimierzElectorateVoteFor? 158
13 BundisminGalicia:AContributiontotheHistoryoftheJewishWorkers
MovementinGalicia 161
14 LettersabouttheRadekAffair 191
15 NotesontheHistoryofSocialisminPolandFortyYearsAgo 194
vi contents
16 Adler,Victor 208
17 Anarchism 210
18 Bebel,August 236
19 Bolshevism 239
20 ChristianandReligiousSocialism 292
21 Debs,Eugene 345
22 DeLeon,Daniel 347
23 Guesde,Jules 349
24 Herzen,Alexander 354
25 Hyndman,HenryMayers 358
26 TheInternationals:TheSecondInternational(1889–1914) 361
27 TheInternationals:TheThird(Communist)International
(Comintern) 377
28 Jaurès,Jean 403
29 Kropotkin,Peter 407
30 Lenin(PseudonymforUlyanov),VladimirIlyich 410
31 Plekhanov,GeorgiiValentinovich 419
32 Rodrigues,Olinde 423
33 SocialDemocraticandCommunistParties 424
34 Sorel,Georges 450
References 455
Index,IncludingAbbreviationsandMicroBiographies 481
Acknowledgements
Tom O’Lincoln and Ben Hillier offered valuable comments on or advice for
draftsoftheintroductiontothisvolume.IamgratefultothestaffoftheYIVO
Archive in New York, particularly Leo Greenbaum, who provided access to
manuscriptandpublishedmaterialassociatedwiththeJewishSocialDemo-
craticPartyofGalicia;AngusCameronandJürgenBraunsteinobtainedmater-
ialthatwasdifficultformetoaccess.TheAustralianNationalUniversitypro-
videdfundingandothersupportfortheprojectofwhichthisbookformsapart.
MypartnerMaryGormanaswellasclosefriendsandSocialistAlternativecom-
radesencouraged,indulgedandsupportedmyGrossmania.

Introduction
RickKuhn
Fromthestart,HenrykGrossman’swritingswerepervadedbyaMarxistunder-
standing of society that necessarily transgressed the boundaries of conven-
tionalacademicdisciplines.Manyof theessaysandlettersmainlyconcerned
witheconomicquestions,inthefirstvolumeof hisworks,1includedpolitical
analyses and comments. These were also present in his best-known public-
ation, The Law of Accumulation and Breakdown of the Capitalist System. The
firstfullEnglishtranslationwillbethethirdvolumeofthisseries.Grossman’s
politicalperspectiveswerealsoimplicitlyarticulatedbystudiesineconomic
historythatwillbeincludedinthefourthvolume.Whilehisframeworkwas
consistently Marxist – characterised by internationalism and the promotion
of working-class revolution through the political intervention of socialists –
the positions he took on some issues changed.That is particularly apparent
inthis,thesecondvolume,whichbringstogetherthefirstEnglishtranslations
of primarilypoliticalpublicationsandcorrespondence.Thosewrittenbefore
theFirstWorldWarwereinspiredandinformedbytheactivitiesandperspect-
ivesof theBund(theGeneralUnionof JewishWorkersof Lithuania,Poland
and Russia), and Grossman’s own involvement with the workers movement
in Galicia, the Austrian-occupied province of partitioned Poland.They were
mainlydevotedtoadvocatingBundistpositionsonthe‘nationalquestion’,in
relationtothestructuresof socialistorganisationsand,later,states.Afterthe
War,hisapproachtotheseandmanyotherissueswasLeninist.Thediscussion
belowprovidescontextforthewritingsinthisvolumeandoffersbriefassess-
mentsoftheirvalue;theirtitlesarebolded.
The Galicia of Grossman’s youth was undergoing rapid political and eco-
nomic change. The province had gained considerable autonomy after 1866
andwasruledbyethnicallyPolish,aristocraticlandownersthroughtheSejm
(parliament), elected on a thoroughly undemocratic franchise.The peasants
on their land were predominantly Polish in the west of the province, where
Kraków was the cultural capital of partitioned Poland. L’viv, the province’s
largest city and seat of the Sejm, was in the less developed east, where the
Polishnobilityexploitedandoppressedapredominately‘Ruthenian’(Ukrain-
ian)peasantry.Thethirdlargestethnicgroup,abouttenpercentof thepop-
1 Grossman2017a.
© RickKuhn,2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004432116_002
2 kuhn
ulation, were Jews whose mother tongue was overwhelmingly Yiddish. Like
Ukrainians,Jewsweresubjecttosystematicdiscrimination,althoughtheywere
mainly artisans, small commercial businesspeople or, increasingly, workers,
ratherthanpeasants.TheslowpaceofindustrialisationinGaliciawasnotsuf-
ficienttoemploytheexpandingpopulationandemigrationincreasinglytook
onmassproportionsfromthe1880s.
From the much smaller town of Tarnów, Herz Grossman and Sara Kurz
moved up and out to Kraków. He changed professions, from the traditional
Jewishoccupationof runningabar,tobecomeasmallindustrialistandmine
owner. The couple was Jewish but assimilating to Polish high culture. They
wereknownbymorePolishversionsoftheirveryYiddishnames,Henrykand
Salome.Forthepurposesof theAustrianstate,theyonlymarriedthreeyears
after the birth of the last of their five children. Chaskel, always known as
Henryk,thefourth,wasbornin1881.Eventually,in1915,heformallychanged
hisnametoHenryk,probablyoneofthefewfruitsofhislegaltraining.2
Bundism
YoungHenrykdidnothaveatraditionalJewisheducation.Heattendedanaca-
demic high school, where the language of instruction was Polish. He never
learnt to write confidently in Yiddish. While at school, Grossman became
involvedinthesocialistmovementandhelpedproduceasocialistmagazine.
He continued to support radical secondary students after entering Kraków’s
JagiellonianUniversity,in1900.There,hejoinedRuch,3theorganisationofuni-
versitystudentsassociatednotonlywiththePolishSocialDemocraticPartyof
Galicia(PPSD)butalsotheSocialDemocracyof theKingdomof Polandand
Lithuania (SDKPiL), the Party of Rosa Luxemburg, and the more nationalist
PolishSocialistParty(PPS),withwhichthePPSDwasaligned,intheRussian-
occupied Congress Kingdom of Poland. Grossman helped smuggle literature
fortheSDKPiLintotheRussianEmpireandjoineditsfront,theFundforthe
AssistanceofPoliticalPrisonersandExiles.Buthisprincipalpoliticalreference
pointwastheBund.BoththeSDKPiLandtheBundwerepartsoftheinterna-
tionalist,Marxistwingoftheworldlabourmovement.
TheOctober–November1904Congressof thePPSDtookplaceinthecon-
textofrisingstrikelevelsintheAustro-HungarianEmpire.Therewasamajor
2 Unlessotherwiseindicated,thesourcesofallinformationaboutGrossman’slifecanbefound
inKuhn2007.
3 ‘Ruch’means‘Movement’.