The Embedding Process

Abstract

Avraham Mutnikovich, a founder of the Bund, no doubt underemphasises his creative role in the formation of an organisation which stood for a full decade at the forefront of Russian Social Democracy. Yet he places before us the central problem of this chapter: analysing the social conditions underlying the ‘ideological directions’ taken by Russian Jewish intelligenty. When the contribution of these men and women to the revolutionary movement is examined in Chapter 4 it will be possible to recognise them as both products and agents of the historical process. Here I am concerned only with the context of their creativity, with the social forces which produced the opportunities allowing them to become radicalised and support conflicting ideologies. We begin a century or so before the emergence of the Social Democratic movement.

In the last few years I have often asked myself if it would have been possible for my life to have taken another ideological direction. And I must answer decisively: no. Everything had to be as it was.

Avraham Mutnikovich