Class and Ethnicity in the Pale

This study attempts to explain the emergence of a particular type of ethno-class consciousness among Jewish workers in the Russian Pale of Settlement. It examines some insights developed by "reactive nationalism" and resurrects some of the debates between the Bund and its political rivals. The author examines the ideological development of the Bund, the labour movement which emerged from the encounter between Jewish workers and Jewish socialists, and analyzes the Bund in the light of the realities faced by Jewish workers in the labour market. The ethno-class consciousness is seen here as a product, in turn, of the very complex relationships which prevailed between Jewish workers, Jewish employers and non-Jewish workers in the period of Russia's early industrialization.