On the Jewish Question

by Leon Trotsky

“Never was it so clear as it is today that the salvation of the Jewish people is bound up inseparably with the overthrow of the capitalist system” — Leon Trotsky, 1940.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Religion, Philosophy

44 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1994

About the author

See also Лев Троцкий

Russian theoretician Leon Trotsky or Leon Trotski, originally Lev Davidovitch Bronstein, led the Bolshevik of 1917, wrote Literature and Revolution in 1924, opposed the authoritarianism of Joseph Stalin, and emphasized world; therefore later, the Communist party in 1927 expelled him and in 1929 banished him, but he included the autobiographical My Life in 1930, and the behest murdered him in exile in Mexico.

The exile of Leon Trotsky in 1929 marked rule of Joseph Stalin.

People better know this Marxist. In October 1917, he ranked second only to Vladimir Lenin. During the early days of the Soviet Union, he served first as commissar of people for foreign affairs and as the founder and commander of the Red Army and of war. He also ranked among the first members of the Politburo.

After a failed struggle of the left against the policies and rise in the 1920s, the increasing role of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union deported Trotsky. An early advocate of intervention of Army of Red against European fascism, Trotsky also agreed on peace with Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. As the head of the fourth International, Trotsky continued to the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, and Ramón Mercader, a Soviet agent, eventually assassinated him. From Marxism, his separate ideas form the basis of Trotskyism, a term, coined as early as 1905. Ideas of Trotsky constitute a major school of Marxist. The Soviet administration never rehabilitated him and few other political figures.

Reviews

[Fu Sheng Wilson Wong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Trotsky believes that the revolution of the proletariat towards a communist state has to be a global one; small, localized revolutions will not do. Trotsky, referring to Frederick Engels label of anti-Semitism as the "socialism of idiots" implies that the "socialism" advocated by Hitler and Stalin is not "socialism" in its truest sense at all. Accordingly, he believes breaking down racial barriers is for the betterment of all. Thus, for Trotsky, the emancipation of Jews will mark a step closer to the emancipation to mankind.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read during 1980s. I own it. One of a kind as only Trotsky could pen.

[Shulamith Farhi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Trotsky admits that “The Jewish question therefore has never occupied the center” of his attention but that he can no longer ignore the tug of war between varying forms of Jewish nationalism, as well as anti-Semitic reaction from both fascism and Stalinism. Against the grain of Bundist isolationism and Zionist mythologization of the land of Israel, Trotsky insists that there is no truth to “the idea that one has more claim to land than another.” In the case of Zionism, Trotsky argues that whatever success it may achieve in the short run is ultimately undermined by its embrace of the forces of capitalism and imperialism. The independence of Jews, as well as all other nationalities, “could be brought about only by the proletarian revolution.”

Trotsky warns against illusory optimism, suggesting that revolutionary optimism must not be afraid to face bitter truths without neutralizing consolations. Not only does Stalin’s bureaucratic regime not hesitate to “resort in a scarcely camouflaged manner to chauvinistic tendencies, above all to anti-Semitic ones,” it prohibits workers from understanding their defeats. Only by “thinking through the reasons for failure and independently extracting from it all the necessary conclusions for the future” will the proletariat become “capable of withstanding the harshest political blows.”

[Pritom Dutta · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Jewish Question has become the biggest global concern nowadays as it entails sordid crimes inflicted on the Muslim citizens of the Zionist-infested terrain- the arab land, the Philistines, and Gaza. Though Jews in general who are scattered all over the world don’t uphold the zionist propaganda of evacuating or expelling Philistines from their land the American alliance with Israel wants it to be substantiated. And this heinous idea of annexation has been corrugated through the tide of Auschwitz, it has come to this decisive phase by a long ride over history.

Trotsky tried to sort it out in a good way, he sought a better way forward which amalgamates with class struggle- a political solution for the political problem. He was against the evangelical group formation which was forged on the religious identity mainly, I mean it was supposed to work for the Jews only -for their rights as segregated ecclesiastical acolytes seceding from the class identity. Many letters he jotted down for the heads of the committees of the bunds not to get separated from the political class struggle, but they did it anyway.

For anyone who seeks the cornerstone principles of this book, it is about the historical premises of the jewish question not about the solution. The solution is yet to come. Trotsky's attempts through letters and speeches compiled here as a book, a good one of course.

[James Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book detailing the plight of the Jews and how their future and success is tied to the socialist revolution.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

a bit based ngl...

[Marc Lichtman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Trotsky didn't speak Yiddish. As he explains in My Life: An Attempt at an Autobiography, he grew up speaking a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian. And he didn't experience any anti-Semitism. But the Whites in the Civil War had a poster with an anti-Semitic caricature of him. And Stalin brought back anti-Semitism along with Great Russian chauvinism (despite being Georgian) and used it frequently against Trotsky in the Thermidorian reaction that started with the death of Lenin.

But Jewish newspapers were always interested in interviewing him. And despite not having much of a sense of being Jewish, he had very inciteful things to say, as he did with almost everything. I think the revival of Jew-hatred brings new significance to his 1940 statement that,

"Never was it so clear as it is today that the salvation of the Jewish people is bound up inseparably with the overthrow of the capitalist system."

This book is now out of print for the wonderful reason that it has been replaced by a much better one: The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch: Stakes for the International Working Class.

Also essential reading is The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation.

[T · Rating 1 out of 5]

Trotsky's original publication date was in 1934. In 1936, Soviet socialism created the "Jewish Autonomous Oblast" (JAO). Two years after the JAO was founded, Stalin targeted Jews living in the JAO in purges. Of course, a few years later, in 1939, German socialism & Soviet socialism joined together for WWII.

The socialist Trotsky encouraged Jewish people to embrace socialism shortly before Soviet socialism & German socialism joined to launch WWII, invading Poland together, and going onward, leading to massive genocides.

Trotsky's title is a reminder the similar title by Karl Marx. German socialism (and its leader Hitler) obtained bad ideas from Marx's publication. Soviet socialism obtained similar bad ideas from Marx's publication. Hitler and German socialism obtained horrid ideas from Soviet socialism. Never forget. More of these reminders are in the book "WORLD'S DUMBEST CRIMINALS - Stalin, Mao, & Hitler"