Jewish Communist Labour Bund (Ukraine)

The Jewish Communist Labour Bund ( yi, ײדישער קאמוניסטישנ ארבעטער בונד, 'Idishe Kommunistishe Arbeiter-Bund'), or the ''Kombund'' (קאמבונד), was a Jewish Communist political party in Ukraine, formed after a split in the General Jewish Labour Bund (''Bund''). Moisei Rafes and were the main leaders of the party.

Divisions had simmered within the Bund in Ukraine during the fall of 1918. At a meeting of the Bund branch in Kiev on 18 February 1919, held on the eve of the Third All-Ukrainian Conference of the Bund, the majority voted for a motion tabled by Rafes whereby the Kiev branch declared itself the Kiev branch of the Jewish Communist Labour Bund. Rafes' motion obtained 135 votes, against 79 votes for a motion reaffirming the affiliation with international social democracy and the all-Russian Bund party and 27 abstention. At the end of the vote, the Kiev Bund branch had split into two separate party organizations. The Kiev Bundist newspaper ''Folkstsaytung'' became the organ of the ''Kombund'' on 22 February 1919. Around the same time a similar split occurred in the Ekaterinoslav branch of the Bund (with 130 votes to become part a Kombund, against 108 votes against) in March 1919. The Poltava branch of the Bund voted, almost unanimously, to become part of a Kombund. In Kharkov two separate meetings were held, at the latter a majority voted to become a Kombund.

The ''Kombund'' supported Jewish national autonomy. The ''Kombund'' was internally divided on tactics visa-vi the Communist Party. The ''Kombund'' wasn't completely committed to the Bolshevik line as such, but supported the Soviet side in the Russian Civil War.

At the Third Conference of the Communist Party (bolsheviks) of Ukraine, held in March 1919, voted to refuse the ''Kombund'' 'group entry' into the party (101 voted to refuse the ''Kombund'' to merge with the party, 96 votes in favour of a merger). Whilst the CP(b)U recognized the need to collaborate with the Ukrainian Kombund, they refused to recognize the Kombund as a communist party. CP(b)U held that the Kombund was a middle class movement and its members were not given responsibilities in different Soviets. At the local level, the relationship between the Communist Party and the ''Kombund'' was often hostile.

In the wake of the Hryhoriev Uprising, the ''Kombund'' was given representation in the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee. In the midst of the peak of pogroms in central and southern Ukraine, unity talks between the ''Kombund'' and the United Jewish Communist Party (the ''Komfareynikte'') intensified. The Yevsektsiya (the Jewish section of the Communist Party) oversaw meetings between the two parties. In May 1919 the ''Kombund'' held its first party conference in Kiev. At this conference, on 22 May 1919 the ''Kombund'' and the United Jewish Communist Party merged, forming the Jewish Communist Union in Ukraine (''Komfarband'').Gilboa, Jehoshua A.
A Language Silenced: The Suppression of Hebrew Literature and Culture in the Soviet Union
Rutherford .J. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1982. p. 282

References

{{Left-wing parties in Ukraine

Political parties of minorities in Ukraine
Bundism in Europe
Jewish anti-Zionism in Ukraine
Jewish political parties
Jewish Ukrainian history
Defunct communist parties in Ukraine
Political parties of the Russian Revolution
1919 in Ukraine
Political parties established in 1919
1919 disestablishments in Ukraine
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
Secular Jewish culture in Ukraine