The Black Sheep: the Revisionist Union and the Zionism of the Interwar Era

Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 27, nº 59. Segundo cuatrimestre de 2025. Pp. 237-262. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2025.i59.10 The Black Sheep: the Revisionist Union and the Zionism of the Interwar Era La oveja negra: la Unión Revisionista y el sionismo de entreguerras Jan Zouplna1 Oriental Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0387-7214 Recibido: 30-09-2024 Aceptado: 02-02-2025 Abstract The early Revisionist movement had a number of specifics that distinguished it from the rest of the contemporary Zionist spectrum as well as from the postindependence Israeli right. Established by a group of Russian-Jewish émigrés, the Revisionist Union considered the post-1922 settlement in Palestine to be a failure. Though focused on Palestine, the activists themselves were usually based in the diaspora and disseminated much of their output in non-Jewish languages. Merciless criticism and mockery of Zionist officialdom were interwoven with practical proposals challenging the settlement methods and showing a preference for private capital initiatives, an urban-based economy and small-scale, exportoriented intensive farming. The activists made no secret of their ultimate goal (i.e. a Jewish majority in the country) and the primacy of the national interest, yet their version of ethnic nationalism included liberal notions and was also inspired by certain progressive reforms that had taken place in post-WWI East Central Europe. Keywords: Israeli right, Revisionist Zionism, Palestine Mandate, interwar Jewry, Vladimir Jabotinsky. 1 ([email protected]) Research fellow at Oriental Institute, the Czech Academy of Sciences. Research areas: interwar Zionist movement, Israeli political and diplomatic history, secularists’ attitudes towards the state-religion relationship over time. Publications: https://cas-cz.academia.edu/ JanZouplna/CurriculumVitae. 238 Jan Zouplna Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 27, nº 59. Segundo cuatrimestre de 2025. Pp. 237-262. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2025.i59.10 Resumen El movimiento revisionista temprano tenía una serie de características específicas que lo distinguían del resto del espectro sionista contemporáneo, así como de la derecha israelí posterior a la independencia. Fundada por un grupo de emigrados ruso-judíos, la Unión Revisionista consideró que el acuerdo en Palestina posterior a 1922 fue un fracaso. Aunque su máxima aspiración política se concentraba en Palestina, los propios activistas estaban radicados en la diáspora y difundían gran parte de su producción en idiomas no judíos. Las críticas despiadadas a la burocracia sionista se entremezclaron con propuestas que cuestionaban los métodos de asentamiento y mostraban una preferencia por las iniciativas de capital privado, una economía basada en la ciudad y una agricultura intensiva en pequeña escala y orientada a la exportación. Los activistas no ocultaron su objetivo final (es decir, una mayoría judía en Palestina) y la primacía del interés nacional, pero su versión del nacionalismo étnico incluía nociones liberales y también estaba inspirada por ciertas reformas progresistas que habían tenido lugar en Europa Central y Oriental después de la Primera Guerra Mundial. Palabras-clave: derecha israelí, Sionismo Revisionista, Mandato de Palestina, Judería de entreguerras, Vladimir Jabotinsky. Introduction The continuity of succession between Revisionist Zionism and the Israeli right is not linear. The Herut party, established in 1948, originated in paramilitary groups1. The predecessor of today’s Likud (1973), it had no direct precursor in any of the Revisionist (pre-war or post-war) political parties. For obvious reasons, the attention of historians has largely been oriented to actors with links to (or a place in) the mindset of the Israeli right, be they radical activists or militaristic groups. The original appeal came to be identified with the personal story of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, seen by Herut’s founder and the later prime minister, Menachem Begin, as a mentor to himself2. In stricter historical terms, the assimilation of Revisionist Zionism by the post-independence Israeli right is problematic. Among other things, it has blurred the pluralist, polyglot and primarily diasporic character of the (early) Revisionist movement. Until the late 1930s, the activists based in Palestine constituted a vocal yet relatively small minority. The political headquarters of the movement were located in Berlin, Paris and London while the followers resided primarily in Eastern Europe, namely Poland. 239 The Black Sheep: the Revisionist Union and the Zionism of the Interwar Era Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 27, nº 59. Segundo cuatrimestre de 2025. Pp. 237-262. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2025.i59.10 The current paper intends to add some balance to the picture by focusing on the formative and least documented phase of the movement’s history, associated with its liberal (ethno)nationalist founders and covering a period from approximately the first quarter of the 1920s to the early 1930s. It shows that the ostracism of the (early) Revisionist movement within Zionism had more to do with internal quarrels than any greater humanist concerns of its immediate political foes. The founders of the Revisionist Union (RU) aimed to revise the trend of Jewish settlement from a gradual and small-scale process to a “mass colonization”. Though unacceptable to the Palestinian Arabs, the ultimate aim of a Jewish demographic majority was, on its own, not extravagant by Zionist standards. The means of achieving this end were to be political while the finer tones included the notion of agrarian reform, which was supposedly intended to benefit the indigenous peasant population as well. It was the endless chain of mockery, accompanied by counterproposals in the realm of the economy and budget spending, that challenged the RU’s Zionist rivals. The paper is divided into three sections. The first is an overview of the key characteristics of Revisionist Zionism during the (entire) interwar era, while the two sections that follow focus mainly on the issues of settlement methods and intercommunal relations, each within a restricted timeframe. These two cases aim to demonstrate that the early Revisionist movement comprised many diverse voices. The various proposals that were made were not always doctrinaire, and Jabotinsky was not the only noteworthy figure. At times, he was not even the most dominant. The limits of the hard-line microcosm The modern Jewish settlement in Palestine has been marked by tensions practically since the start. Palestine was not an empty land awaiting resurrection. The issuance of the Palestine Mandate, entrusted to Great Britain by the League of Nations in 1922 and reiterating the idea of “a national home” for the Jewish people, which had first appeared in the Balfour Declaration (1917), set JewishArab relations on a clear collision course. Unlike in other Mandates, the British were to watch over the interests of a community of European settlers while any political aspirations of the majority population were ignored. The wording of the Mandate could thus be regarded as conflicting with the usual imperial policy of the time3. The Jewish settlers differed from the usual European colonists. They were bringing resources into (rather than taking them out of) the country and had no single colonial metropolis to which they could refer4. The bulk of the immigrants originated in Eastern and Central Europe, having little connection with the British Empire. Recent scholarship has emphasized that 240 Jan Zouplna Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 27, nº 59. Segundo cuatrimestre de 2025. Pp. 237-262. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2025.i59.10 all of Europe participated in the overseas expansions in one way or another. At least indirectly, via the expats working in the service of the colonizers, through privileged access to goods, knowledge and technologies that capitalized on the expansions or by sharing Eurocentric attitudes. This included Empires with no colonial possessions, such as Austria-Hungary, and even peoples with no history of statehood (before the Great War), like the Finns5. Whether they realized it or not, the Jewish settlers were part of a broader story with a bitter taste. Chaim Weizmann, president of the Zionist Organization (ZO) from 1920 to 1946 (except for the years 1931–1935), opted for a strategy that was unreservedly pro-British and toned down the Jewish-Arab strife in public. This did not forestall the Colonial Office (CO) from becoming distrustful of the Zionists with the advent of the 1930s, noting a “contrast between the professions of the Jewish Agency of their anxiety to work harmoniously with the Arabs and the tactlessness of their practice”6. If nothing else, the settlement process intensified the social problems. Dislocation of the peasant population took on considerable proportions by the mid-1940s. 70 per cent of the Palestinian Arabs in Jaffa lived in slum conditions; in Haifa, it was over 40 per cent7. Established after several years of debate in 1925, the RU (formally the Union of Zionists-Revisionists) was an open opposition bloc. The rejection of the enlarged Jewish Agency (JA) project, based on parity between the Zionists and the non-Zionists, constituted its main rallying point. At the time, the RU did not represent a faction with a distinct ideology along the lines of Labour or the Religious Zionists. It remained part of the mainstream, the General Zionists, until 1929. Electorally, the RU scored its best result in 1931, taking around 21 per cent of the delegates at the Zionist Congress8. Among its key figures were former members of the Zionist Executive (ZE), such as Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky and Richard Lichtheim, and a number of Russian-Jewish activists – Julius (Iulii) Brutzkus, Vladimir Tiomkin, Meir Grossman, Josif Schechtman, and Israel Trivus9. Later arrivals included the former head of the Radical Zionists in Austria, Robert Stricker and Max Bodenheimer, a close collaborator of Theodor Herzl. The RU was no club of pistoleros, bent on seizing Palestine by force, as some of the reinterpretations by the Israeli right might suggest10. The activists’ proper involvement in Jewish diaspora politics coincided with brief periods of parliamentary democracy in Eastern Europe. Brutzkus, to mention one case, served as minister for Jewish affairs in the government of Lithuania from 1921 to 1922. The party operated democratically until 1933. The demise of the original body mirrored an internal schism (i.e. the secession from the ZO) that was unrelated to global politics. Even if we confine our interest to the interwar era, a whole set of actors was associated with Revisionism or could claim its legacy. This included the founders, a group that fell apart in the mid-1930s. Some followed Jabotinsky 241 The Black Sheep: the Revisionist Union and the Zionism of the Interwar Era Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 27, nº 59. Segundo cuatrimestre de 2025. Pp. 237-262. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2025.i59.10 to establish the New Zionist Organization (NZO) in 1935, some continued to carry the banner of Revisionism inside the ZO, establishing the Jewish State Party in 1933, and others abandoned politics. Inside the RU, the first open challenge appeared at the turn of the 1920s/30s. Two Palestine-based factions – the radicals, headed by Wolfgang von Weisl, and the maximalists, headed by Abba Achimeir – had emerged. On the external flanks of the Revisionist formation was the Betar youth movement, established independently of the RU in 1923. Inspired by the Polish brand of right-wing nationalism, Betar also posed a generational challenge11. Irgun, a para-military force established in 1937 in Palestine, was to have the ultimate say over the Zionist right in the future. Incongruent as it was, the Revisionist movement did not pull in the same direction. The respective personalities, such as Jabotinsky, Begin or Achimeir, did not even share the same worldview12. Positioning the movement within the right-wing spectrum is not easy. Spanning four continents, it comprised both supporters of parliamentarianism and proponents of fascism. The activities of the Betar and the Irgun sidelined the political bodies in the second half of the 1930s. This was not the first time in history that a military wing had hijacked a political movement. The case of the Committee of Union and Progress in the late Ottoman Empire can serve as a good example. The alliance between Jabotinsky, a central yet elusive figure, and the radicals, leaning towards militarism and authoritarianism, seems more puzzling13. The absence of any real centre of power played an important role. Moreover, the RU had a large number of distinctly anti-establishment traits from the start. It wanted to introduce a new style of politics, going straight to the public and with a focus on the youth. Disclosing the shortcomings of the Palestine Mandate to everyone, including a non-Jewish audience, was among its aims. Both the ZO and the Mandatory Administration soon identified Revisionism with trouble. The youth interpreted the combative rhetoric in its own way. Overall, the RU was not just any opposition group. It embodied a challenge to the existing way of doing Zionist politics. As it sought to accommodate newcomers, the RU downgraded some of its early core issues, such as the struggle against “Weizmann regime”, in favour of new slogans. The third world conference (1928) could be seen as a turning point, introducing the so-called “national monism”. The definition was simple: the attainment of the Jewish majority in Palestine represented “the highest ideal, to which all the other imaginable ideals, regardless whether they are just and pure, are subordinated”14. Michael Stanislawski has traced its origins to a crosscurrent in Jabotinsky’s thought between Jewish nationalism and the teachings of the Monist philosophical fraternities in pre-WWI Austria15. One could also say that the RU elevated the notion of a Jewish majority from a postulate, as it had existed until then, to the status of the supreme ideal. This 242 Jan Zouplna Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 27, nº 59. Segundo cuatrimestre de 2025. Pp. 237-262. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2025.i59.10 outcome had effects on its relations with the Labour movement in particular. Not only individual but also class interests were subordinated to the idea of achieving a majority. Any class tensions were to be solved via compromise and the institution of national arbitration16. Gideon Shimoni has summarized the feelings of many when speaking of an “unmistakable imprint of contemporary Fascist corporative models”17. Detailed enquiries into the matter were less categorical – all we can say for sure is that Jabotinsky showed an interest in the socio-economic model adopted in Italy18. The shift is further evident in the emblematic trademarks of Revisionism – the rejection of the White Paper of 1922 and the idea of the Legion. The (re) inclusion of Transjordan in a territory open to Jewish settlement was supported by the entire Revisionist spectrum. Scholars have earmarked the notion of Greater Israel as the essence of the Zionist/Israeli right throughout its history19. The genealogy of the “no” was more complex. The activists had been vocal on the subject of Transjordan since 1923/24, yet the frontal attack against the White Paper of 1922 reached its peak only after the Palestine riots of 1929. Jabotinsky did not list the White Paper among the reasons for his resignation from the ZE in early 192320. By the spring of 1924, the critics described the exclusion of Transjordan as a de facto erection of a “Pale of Settlement” within an entity aiming to become a Jewish state21. Following the riots, the RU provided declarations on the subject with increased frequency and virulence. At the world conference in 1930, the White Paper of 1922 was castigated as the onset of an attempt to demolish Zionism and curtail the territory available for settlement22. In the press, it was assumed that the ZO had never accepted the document proper, only giving consent to act in accordance with it under certain conditions, something that constituted a vague obligation on its part23. The story of “Legionism” followed a similar trajectory. Jabotinsky presented the idea of the (re)established Jewish Legion with relatively simple reasoning in 1924 – using British soldiers and money for the protection of Jewish interests had created a “great discomfort”, both politically and on the practical level. Simultaneously, he repudiated the idea of a home guard operating unlawfully24. Jabotinsky thus recommended the reestablishment of the three Jewish battalions that had been dissolved after WWI. These were to be trained and armed by the British, paid and staffed by the Jews, and constitute part of a permanent British garrison. He put their strength at 3,000 men25. The notion was an antithesis of the Hagana (the predecessor of today’s IDF), a force unrecognized by the British and then affiliated to the Labour movement, as well as of the Irgun, created later as an underground organization. The idea acquired a new dimension in the early 1930s. It came to embody the spirit of the movement, with “Legionism” being described as the “basis” of Revisionism26. In his calls to the youth, Jabotinsky, the RU’s president, stated it was to represent a pillar 243 The Black Sheep: the Revisionist Union and the Zionism of the Interwar Era Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 27, nº 59. Segundo cuatrimestre de 2025. Pp. 237-262. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2025.i59.10 of their training. An “elementary military preparation” of all boys and girls was seen as a precondition of any national education27. Grossman and Lichtheim, the RU’s vice-presidents, questioned the new trend. Jabotinsky refused to give up uniforms and parades for the sake of disgust with Hitlerism, as he put it privately28. Speaking on the subject in public, Jabotinsky assumed the RU had to support the “spirit of armed readiness”, but confessed he was unsure how this could be used in any practical sense29. The attempts of the RU leaders to defend democracy were neither fully successful nor entirely convincing. The world conference in 1932 became a scene of bitter infighting. Referring to Oswald Mosley, Achimeir declared that democracy was an ideal that was finished and “bankrupt”. He called for the enthronization of a dictatorial model instead: “I am bringing you a new form, free of principles and free of party pressure. I am bringing you a unity in the fight, which shall save us […] the principle of a Führer”30. Jabotinsky rejected the institution of any “Führerschaft”. He did not fail to deliver a personal blow to Achimeir: “Tell the youth under your influence […] that I shall not walk alongside it and do not want to have anything in common with it. I believe in a higher principle and consider you to be a petty man”31. Grossman accused Achimeir of spreading “nihilist ideas”. Such phantasms had little in common with reality: “We cannot have a Duce, because we have no Italy. If your leader sends 200 letters, he will get 25 replies”32. Stricker asked the radical factions to leave the party altogether: “We are democrats, we cannot be adherents of dictatorship, who take Hitler, Mussolini or Lenin for their model”33. Overall, however, the existence of fascist tendencies in the midst of the Revisionists was taken for a fact. In March 1933, less than a year later, Jabotinsky “dissolved” the RU’s executive due to its refusal to back secession from the ZO. Much of the later controversy is due to one often-neglected aspect – Jabotinsky and most of his peers were dissident émigrés who made their living as publicists. They were not full-time politicians, diplomats or academics. Jabotinsky had no effective control over his admirers. Less than two years after the party’s creation, the central office had to be transferred from Paris to Berlin as personal frictions “would have made any normal work impossible”34. Even the top party organs were sometimes unable to convene as few members showed up; the rest were sick, out of reach or felt offended35. The founders, including Jabotinsky, faced growing criticism at major political venues from 1930 onwards. Resignations were on the rise. According to observers, the RU had divided into three mutually antagonistic currents by 1932 – a group around Jabotinsky, a group around Grossman and Lichtheim, and the extremists from Palestine36. The state of the party’s finances was described as “scary”37. For a movement seen by many as an emulation of the European radical right, it is astonishing how little discipline its supporters showed when it came to 244 Jan Zouplna Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 27, nº 59. Segundo cuatrimestre de 2025. Pp. 237-262. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2025.i59.10 donations. Jabotinsky pleaded desperately (1930): “To every member of the Union who reads this, or hears this read out, I say, pointing my finger at him or her: ‘I mean you. Not just the Union at large, but you’”38. Out of around 1,000 application forms dispatched afterwards, 80 were returned and just 30 individuals began paying the membership fees39. Privately, he estimated that about one per cent of RU members contributed to the party coffers while 90 per cent could afford to do so40. In Poland, Jabotinsky attracted a mass audience. Police assistance was often required to handle the crowds. Though he was nominally in charge of the Betar and the Irgun, it remains uncertain if he played any direct role in the negotiations with the Polish authorities regarding the acquisition of arms (1938/39). It is quite likely that he was left in the dark about the training of the officer corps in the Carpathians (1939)41. The insurrection in Palestine (1936–1939), marked by terrorist attacks on both sides of the Arab-Jewish divide, revealed the imaginary character of his command. His conduct convinced neither the British nor the hotheads. Jabotinsky’s English contacts were assured that he “hates these indiscriminate bombings of women and children” while their perpetrators were being eulogized by the Revisionist propaganda as martyrs42. The inward-looking challenge Like any opposition group, the RU criticised those in power. Unlike many others, it refined criticism to the state of perfection – a first-rate blend of sarcasm, mockery and insight. Its immediate Zionist foes took the lion’s share of its invective, particularly in the 1920s. The term “crisis” was everpresent. The “leading circles” of the ZO had been “unable either to work out a systematic plan or to appropriately head the Jewish pioneer’s initiative”, stated the critics in 192543. “Weizmann and his Executive do not know after 12 years in power whether it is possible to settle 50,000 Jewish families without harmful consequences to the Arabs”, they mused in 192944. Given the current tempo of progress, it would take 10,000 years to settle Palestine by the Jews, they joked in 193245. Overall, the RU perceived contemporary settlement as a failure. While Jewish labour and Jewish capital had been used, it was not a Jewish Palestine but a new English colony that was being built, the critics argued46. This critique was not without foundation. As Henry Laurens has pointed out, the relative calm of the 1920s could not conceal the fact that the progress of the national home had been slower than that of other European settlements, such as the French in the Maghreb or the British in East Africa47. In the years 1927–1930, the share of Jews in the population of Palestine was in decline. 245 The Black Sheep: the Revisionist Union and the Zionism of the Interwar Era Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 27, nº 59. Segundo cuatrimestre de 2025. Pp. 237-262. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2025.i59.10 Broadly speaking, the RU accused the ZO of having betrayed the Herzlian legacy. In its terms, the organization was permeated by “the mentality of the enemies of political Zionism”, characteristic of “the Jews of the old ghetto”48. It was the political settlement which mattered the most and which could never be replaced by social engineering or a cultural agenda alone. The critique did not exclude an affirmative set of counterproposals, however. These may not make for the most exciting reading from a contemporary perspective, but to their immediate rivals, the proposals in the realm of the economy, settlement and budget spending sounded like a declaration of war. As Lilly Weissbrod has noted, the struggle between the Revisionists and Labour actually started as a clash over the redistribution of finances49. It was Trivus who introduced the idea of combining political aims with the principles of the capitalist economy. To summarize, he suggested a reorientation from public spending towards creating better conditions that would enable profitability and stimulate development. The Jewish economy in Palestine had to be erected on two pillars: competitiveness with other markets and production based on economic models that had been tested in developed countries. The first shots against the economic policy based on subsidies, voluntarism and self-sacrifice were fired during the first quarter of 1922. These were developed in greater detail between the years 1924 and 1928. In the article “Our bank”, published in May 1922, Trivus introduced the idea of transforming the ZO’s financial arm, the Jewish Colonization Trust (JCT). According to Trivus, the JCT had to open branches in all the major centres of commerce and float its stocks on the stock exchange. The ultimate aim was to turn the bank from a plain and static cash holder into a promoter of all major financial, construction and economic activity in Palestine50. The initial idea was developed in March 1924 in the article “The financial system”, which covered four sheets. In essence, the JCT was to serve as an investment bank. It was to be transferred into a central managing and consulting institution whose aims consisted of surveying and analysing the economic potential of Palestine and promoting capital investment which might have otherwise headed elsewhere. Its stock options were to be made available on all the major markets and its shares were to be designed to circulate as currency in Palestine. The launch of a wide range of JCT branches followed the logic of establishing liaisons between Palestine and Jewish financial centres in the diaspora, interconnecting Palestine with the entire capitalist world51. An additional element of the transformation was the so-called national loan. Trivus pointed out that no colonization had succeeded in the past without the support of international capital. The loan was to be grounded in a set of international agreements with financial markets where diaspora Jews were present. The legal guarantees were to be assumed by a group of (unspecified) governments and the League of Nations, while the 252 Jan Zouplna Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 27, nº 59. Segundo cuatrimestre de 2025. Pp. 237-262. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2025.i59.10 Their demands were mutually exclusive. Third, Jabotinsky insisted on speaking in direct terms about true objectives as, to use his words, the local population were neither “woodenheads” nor a “venal stock”. They had an identity of their own, centred on Palestine. Fourth, he asserted that the principle of the equality of peoples was universal. “Palestine shall always be inhabited by two peoples […] I am ready to swear on my part, as well as on the part of posterity, that we shall never experiment with expulsion or oppression”, declared Jabotinsky on this occasion95. The above excluded surrendering the ultimate aim (majority), even for the sake of a bi-national model of the state. As Jabotinsky put it, the European dominance of the time made any such compromise unnecessary96. The accent on minority rights was to add some balance to the above. In essence, Jabotinsky emphasized that he would demand for the Arabs of Palestine the same rights he had demanded for the Jews in diaspora. Regarding the future Jewish state, both the Arabs and the Circassians were to enjoy wide-ranging autonomy97. Within the orbit of Russian-Jewish intelligentsia, the reference to minority rights was no empty phrase. At the time of the Russian revolution of 1905, the Zionists came up with the so-called Helsingfors (Helsinki) programme. This programme, drafted in December 1906, fitted into the environment created by the October Manifesto (1905), which had limited the scope of imperial despotism. The list of minority rights the activists called for encompassed political representation, self-administration in “all the spheres of national life” and the right to use vernaculars in schools, public life and the courts98. Jabotinsky was its key architect; Brutzkus, V. Tiomkin and Trivus were also involved. The issue reappeared after WWI in the context of minority rights in the new nation-states of Eastern Europe. The idea of communal, linguistic and cultural autonomy for the Jews of Eastern Europe acquired backing from the Zionists and (Western) integrationists alike99. Jabotinsky’s pledges regarding the rights of any presumed non-Jewish minority coincided with a wide-ranging yet short-lived (1919–1926) Jewish autonomy in Lithuania. The eventual stance combined the experience of the revolutionary years of 1905–1907, marked by calls for constitutionalism at one end and (intercommunal) violence at the other, with the ethnic nationalism that had become dominant in Central and Eastern Europe100. The main addition to the existing discourse on the part of the founders came with the notion of agrarian reform, addressed by several activists during the years 1924–1927. It was centred on the idea of terminating large land holdings. In April 1924, Schechtman provided the first comprehensive treatment of the subject. He argued that 95 per cent of state-owned land was unsuitable for farming. Demanding its transfer to the settlers would do no good. Moreover, the existing farmland had mostly been occupied by the tenants. The eviction 253 The Black Sheep: the Revisionist Union and the Zionism of the Interwar Era Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 27, nº 59. Segundo cuatrimestre de 2025. Pp. 237-262. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2025.i59.10 of these people was, in his view, unthinkable101. It was the speculative nature of land ownership which needed to be tackled. Schechtman advocated the introduction of a special tax, equal to a fine, on the ownership of uncultivated soil. The landed property tax was to be levied according to the market value of the land and not the current yield. A progressive system of taxation, targeting the large holdings, was to be applied. Overall, the progressive tax was to force the big landowners to sell their surplus land at reasonable prices to all those who were land-hungry, i.e., both the Jewish colonists and the local peasants, Schechtman assumed102. Other founders, such as Brutzkus, Jabotinsky and V. Tiomkin, argued similarly – the existing policy of the tithe was obsolete and had to be replaced by a landed property tax. The purchases pursued by the ZO had only caused prices to skyrocket to unprecedented heights. Trivus supported the argument of a “radical agrarian reform in Palestine” with a survey (1925), divided into four parts. In his view, Palestine was not a space beyond economic reality. The process of agrarian reform had been carried out in 22 countries. The ultimate goal was obvious – putting an end to large land holdings103. Trivus based his recommendations on the examination of reforms undertaken in postWWI Eastern Europe, namely Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia and the Baltic States. Regarding the Czechoslovak case, he stressed the role of the state as a regulator that redistributed land, under firm and precise legal conditions, to new owners via a land fund. The former owners were compensated at fixed rates while small landowners could turn to the state for assistance in acquiring a mortgage104. In the case of Romania, he noted that the agrarian reform had directly contributed to a 50 per cent reduction in uncultivated soil105. Referring to Lithuania, Trivus tried to demonstrate that the limit on the size of land holdings was necessary and that fixed rates for compensation were being set well below their actual market value106. As on other subjects, opinions were not uniform. Regarding the rights of the existing owners, Soskin and V. Tiomkin supported expropriation while Jabotinsky, Schechtman and Trivus preferred compensation. Funding hung in the air as the RU expected the Mandatory to do the job. Interestingly enough, the critics rejected the common policy of evicting the Arab tenants from the land acquired by the Jewish public agencies. As Jabotinsky put it: “In the 20th century, in front of the eyes of the civilized world, it is simply impossible to purchase the land, occupied by a muzhik [peasant], from a big land owner, as if there was no resident whatsoever”. Citing the example of a recent land acquisition around Afula, Jabotinsky noted there had been nothing wrong with it from a legal perspective, yet with such jurisprudence the Zionists “would fail in the court of universal opinion in the end”107. Pondering agrarian reform, both Trivus and Soskin concurred on the need to get the indigenous peasants onto the side of the settlers. Trivus suggested that the Mandatory would serve as 254 Jan Zouplna Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 27, nº 59. Segundo cuatrimestre de 2025. Pp. 237-262. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2025.i59.10 the agency for land redistribution, enabling payment in long-term instalments, which would be open to both the colonists and the indigenous peasants. The peasants were also to receive the land they had toiled on and possess an unspecified right to “round up” the land to the maximum limit of ownership set by the law. He further reminded his Zionist readership that meeting the just needs of the peasants was in the very interest of the Jewish settlement if it were to succeed: “Material independence is a buttress of moral self-sufficiency. A peasant-fellah [fellakh], gratified by the agrarian reform, will soon be emancipated from the influence of the big land owners and, possibly, will reassess his attitude towards Jewish colonization”108. Soskin pointed out that there was an obligation to halt the exploitation and end the ongoing “pillage”. As self-proclaimed protectors of the Palestine poor, the Zionists were: “to gain on our side the fellahin [fellakhi] whose interests we are defending […] there is no better way of liberating the Arab masses than by liberating them from the oppression of the land owners”109. At the world conference in 1925, the RU restated that: “We shall demand that the land already occupied by a fellah is granted to him”110. The common line adopted by the RU leaders following the riots of 1929 and the British policies of the first half of the 1930s was to blame the Mandatory Administration for the contemporary state of intercommunal tensions. As Jabotinsky put it, peace, “based not on mutual love, which is impossible, but on objective factors”, could only come after the Administration had fulfilled its obligations111. In his two main articles on Zionist-Arab relations – “Peace” (1929) and “A round table with the Arabs” (1931) – the RU’s president adhered to the basic line of the 1920s. He did not fail to reinstate the principle of equality: “We all imagine the future arrangement of Jewish Palestine in the following terms: the majority of the citizens will be Jewish, but the equality of all citizens shall not only be guaranteed [by the law] but also put into practice”112. This time, the list of minority rights included “a sufficient number of employment opportunities”113. Regarding any compromise, Jabotinsky emphasized that their counterparts desired real concessions and not bribes, as Zionist officialdom, nurturing “an abysmal disrespect towards the Arab soul”, had imagined. It was impossible to offer anything tangible, such as a halt on immigration or support against the colonial powers114. One could well say that Jabotinsky reduced his demands to a single point. As he put it elsewhere, free immigration constituted the ultimate red line. Though a deal with the Arabs was “a good and an inevitable thing” in principle, free immigration was not up for grabs115. Lichtheim backed this stance, asserting that establishing “friendly relations” with the locals was necessary, but a political deal was possible only after the national home had become an irreversible fact. Then would come the time to overcome “egoism and chauvinism in our midst”116. 255 The Black Sheep: the Revisionist Union and the Zionism of the Interwar Era Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 27, nº 59. Segundo cuatrimestre de 2025. Pp. 237-262. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2025.i59.10 At the top party meetings, the RU leaders did not speak with one voice. Addressing the world conference in 1930, Jabotinsky reiterated that he was in favour of an agreement with the Arabs if such a compromise did not amount to sacrificing the right to free immigration. The Jews did not desire so much, in his view, as Palestine only constituted one 170th of the Arab territory117. Grossman approached the subject differently, retorting that it was the Arab nationalists, and not the Jews, who carried the torch of imperialism, a claim he failed to support with any elaboration. He summoned up the point as follows: “We cannot allow a situation where an Asian administration, an administration of the natives, would rule over a white population, which has not yet reached a position of the colonizer in itself”118. According to Bodenheimer’s interpretation, presented at the meeting of the RU cadres in 1931, the ultimate goals were to be achieved strictly via peaceful means and without harmful consequences for the existing population. The RU ought to seek the civic, political and religious equality of all the inhabitants of Palestine under the supervision of the League of Nations119. One may easily question the rationale behind the RU’s proposals. Palestine was controlled by the British. The decisive majority of its population was not Jewish. The RU did not represent Zionism and the Zionists were just one of many actors operating among the Jews. The British authorities were in no mood to sponsor any segment of the Palestine population, whether Arab or Jewish120. The Zionists often alleged that there was enough space for everyone in Palestine. The RU, for its part, earmarked Transjordan as the key to solving the land question and economic problems121. Jabotinsky mused that there was nothing fantastic about bringing as many as 11 million Jews to the country thereafter122. As publicists, the RU founders could apparently afford the frankness prohibited to the official leadership. There was more than bluntness in their claims. The British imperial bureaucracy discovered the importance of the (dis)possession of land only a decade later. It was in 1935 that the Administration decided to abolish the tithe altogether, dividing the land into 16 categories with a property tax reflecting the category of the soil123. The proposals rectified some of the pitfalls of the reference models. In the case of Czechoslovakia, the agrarian reform worked largely against the interests of the German minority. The RU aimed (claimed) to gain the Arab peasants on its side. Such assertions appeared not only in its public output but also in documents classified as confidential124. In a fashion characteristic of the European settlers, “the Arabs” were seen as a passive object and not as a partner who could say no. There was no shortage of cultural stereotypes, with the local population being labelled as “backward” or “uncivilized”. Jabotinsky concluded that Jews were teaching the Arabs hygiene while documents destined for public use did not hide a sense of disgust when describing the ingrained habits of the locals125. Still, they were said to be treated like any state recognized minority in Europe. 256 Jan Zouplna Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 27, nº 59. Segundo cuatrimestre de 2025. Pp. 237-262. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2025.i59.10 Conclusion The RU challenged the official line of the ZO on a plethora of subjects – from the lack of a robust political campaign to the overproduction of oranges. The issues that may seem the most controversial did not necessarily set the RU apart. After having admitted in public that the idea of a national home might not entail a Jewish majority in Palestine, Weizmann was not re-elected as president of the ZO in 1931. The territorial contours of the Jewish settlement were seen as renegotiable by a number of activists, including Weizmann, for much of the 1920s. Following the riots of 1929, Weizmann himself referred to the right to self-defence on the part of the Jews in terms similar to those of the Legion. In an unofficial proposal presented to the CO in 1930, he suggested bolstering the ranks of the police and the Tranjordanian Frontier Force with an additional 2,000 men, 1,300 of whom would be Jewish126. After a series of setbacks, the ZO stood on the edge of an abyss at the turn of the 1920s/30s. A counterfactual historian may well ask what the fate of the Zionist endeavour in Palestine would have been had Nazism not ascended to power in Europe. The crisis, which had been predicted by the critics for a long time, transformed the RU from a forum into a force in Zionist (and to a lesser extent Jewish) politics. Yet, it did not escape the aftershocks. The notion of “mass colonization”, as conceived in the 1920s, was clinically dead less than a decade later. There was no alternative to an active British (international) involvement and the leaders, with Jabotinsky at their helm, had no viable “plan B”. By the second half of the 1930s, Jabotinsky was left with only a rump of his early collaborators and of the initial project. The mass appeal failed to save doomed political initiatives. The NZO lacked personalities. Its founding convention was close to collapse due to the differences between the religious and the secularists127. Jabotinsky himself came to channel (and epitomize) the growing frustration of the Jews in Eastern Europe. For future generations of historians, Revisionist Zionism, deprived of its original context and reinterpreted by the Israeli right, would come to resemble a riddle. 257 The Black Sheep: the Revisionist Union and the Zionism of the Interwar Era Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 27, nº 59. Segundo cuatrimestre de 2025. Pp. 237-262. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2025.i59.10 Notes: 1 See Yehiam Weitz, Mi-mahteret lohemet le-miflaga politit: ha-hakama shel tnuat ha-Herut, 1947– 1949 [From fighting underground to a political party: the establishment of the Herut movement], Beer Sheba, 2002. 2 For one of the first critical treatises on Jabotinsky, see Yaacov Shavit, “Fire and Water: Ze’ev Jabotinsky and the Revisionist Movement” in Studies in Zionism, 4 (1981), pp. 215–236. 3 William M. Mathew, “War-Time Contingency and the Balfour Declaration of 1917: An Improbable Regression” in Journal of Palestine Studies, 40.2 (2011), pp. 26–28. 4 Derek Penslar, Zionism and Technocracy: The Engineering of Jewish Settlement in Palestine, 18701914, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1991, p. 3. 5 Walter Sauer, “Habsburg Colonial: Austria-Hungary’s Role in European Overseas Expansion Reconsidered” in Austrian Studies, 20 (2012), pp. 5–23; Raita Merivirta, Leila Koivunen, Timo Särkkä eds., Finnish Colonial Encounters: From Anti-Imperialism to Cultural Colonialism and Complicity, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. 6 “Detailed Comments on a Memorandum by Mr. Leonard Stein, ‘The Palestine White Paper of October, 1930’”, p. 2, The National Archives, Kew (hereafter TNA) CO 733/183/10. 7 Issa Khalaf, “The Effect of Socioeconomic Change on Arab Societal Collapse in Mandate Palestine” in International Journal of Middle East Studies, 29.1 (1997), p. 102. 8 For a broader framing, see Amir Goldstein, “The Zionist Right: From a Centrifugal to a Centripetal Movement, 1925–1965” [in Colin Shindler ed., Routledge Handbook on Zionism, London, Routledge, 2024], pp. 148–163. 9 For a general setting, see Brian Horowitz, The Russian-Jewish Tradition: Intellectuals, Historians, Revolutionaries, Boston, Academic Studies Press, 2017. 10 Cf. Yaacov Shavit, Jabotinsky and the Revisionist Movement, 1925–1948, London, Frank Cass, 1988, pp. 229–230. 11 See in particular Daniel Kupfert Heller, Jabotinsky’s Children. Polish Jews and the Rise of RightWing Zionism, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2017. 12 For more, see Colin Shindler, The Rise of the Israeli Right: From Odessa to Hebron, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 14–31, 88–109, 149–171. 13 On Jabotinsky’s ideas and related historiography, see Dmitry Shumsky, Beyond the Nation-State: The Zionist Political Imagination from Pinsker to Ben-Gurion, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2018, pp. 124–171. 14 Protokoll der III. Weltkonferenz der Union der Zionisten-Revisionisten, Paris, 1929, p. 48. 15 Michael Stanislawski, Zionism and the Fin de Siècle: Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism from Nordau to Jabotinsky, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2001, pp. 215–216. 16 “Resolutionen der dritten Weltkonferenz der Union der Zionisten-Revisionisten”, p. 2, Jabotinsky Institute, Tel Aviv (hereafter JI) G1-4. 17 Gideon Shimoni, The Zionist Ideology, Hanover, Brandeis University Press, 1995, p. 254. 18 Vincenzo Pinto, “Between Imago and Res: The Revisionist-Zionist Movement’s Relationship with Fascist Italy, 1922–1938” in Israel Affairs, 10.3 (2004), p. 94. 19 Ilan Peleg, “Zionist Right and Constructive Realism” in Israel Studies, 10.3 (2005), pp. 128–129. 20 “Rezoliutsii V. Zhabotiskogo” [The resolutions of V. Jabotinsky], Rassviet, January 28, 1923, p. 12. 21 Vladimir Jabotinsky, “Politicheskaia offensiva” [The political offensive], Rassviet, March 2, 1924, p. 4; Ivan Klinov, “Transiordanie” [Transjordan], Rassviet, March 9, 1924, pp. 6–7. 22 “Das Referat von M. Grossman ‘Rekonstruktion der Zionistischen Politik’”, p. 2, JI G2-III/1/7; “Das Referat von V. Jabotinsky ‘Die Krise im Zionismus und die Aufgaben der Zionistischen Bewegung’”, p. 1, Ibid. 23 Iona Machover, “Ob opasnosti parlamenta” [On the danger of parliament], Rassviet, March 22, 1931, pp. 2–3. 24 V. Jabotinsky, “Legion” [The legion], Rassviet, March 9, 1924, pp. 4–5. 25 V. Jabotinsky, “Legion” [The legion], Rassviet, March 16, 1924, p. 5. 258 Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 27, nº 59. Segundo cuatrimestre de 2025. Pp. 237-262. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2025.i59.10 26 “Circular Letter”, no. 2/II, September 19, 1930, p. 2, JI G2-1/2. 27 V. Jabotinsky, “Molodiozh gertslevskogo sionizma” [The youth of Herzlian Zionism], Rassviet, August 8, 1930, p. 3. 28 Letter from V. Jabotinsky to R. Lichtheim [in German], October 19, 1932, Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem (hereafter CZA) A56/20. 29 “Generaldebatte. Mittwoch den 31. August 1932. Herr Vl. Jabotinsky”, pp. 3–4, JI G2-III/4/7. 30 “Generaldebatte. Dr. Achi Meir”, pp. 1–2, JI G2-III/4/7. 31 “Generaldebatte. Jabotinsky”, pp. 8–9, 11, JI G2-III/4/7. 32 “Grossman beantwortet die Generaldebatte am 30. und 31. August 1932”, p. 13, JI G2-III/4/7. 33 “Generaldebatte. Dienstag, 30. August 1932”, p. 3, JI G2-III/4/7. 34 Letter from M. Grossman to R. Lichtheim [in English], January 18, 1927, p. 1, JI P59-99/2. 35 Letter from J. Schechtman to M. Grossman [in Russian], October 18, 1928, JI G1-12. 36 I. R., “Rewizjoniści przed trudną decyzją” [Revisionists facing a tough decision], Nowy Dziennik, August 28, 1932, p. 11. 37 Letter from J. Schechtman to M. Grossman [in Russian], November 12, 1928, JI P59-9/108/2. 38 “The Revisionist Bulletin, no. 2/II”, September 26, 1930, p. 1, JI G2-6/3. 39 “Berichtet über die Sitzung des Exekutivkomitees vom I. XI. 1930”, p. 2, JI G2-5/1. 40 Letter from V. Jabotinsky to R. Lichtheim [in German], March 13, 1931, CZA A56/20. 41 Laurence Weinbaum, A Marriage of Convenience: The New Zionist Organization and the Polish Government, 1936-1939, New York, Columbia University Press, 1993, pp. 134–139, 146–150. 42 Letter from J. Wedgewood to M. MacDonald, June 28, 1939, TNA CO 733/401/19; Joseph Heller, The Stern Gang: Ideology, Politics and Terror, 1940-1949, London, Frank Cass, 1995, pp. 30–40. 43 Rassviet, May 10, 1925, p. 20. 44 “(Circular) Not for publication in the press, strictly confidential”, March 25, 1929, p. 2, JI G2-1/2. 45 “Weltunion der Zionisten-Revisionisten. Schekel-zählende Mitglieder des Exekutiv-Komitees”, August 11, 1932, pp. 6–7, JI G2-11/3. 46 Editorial, signed CCRU, Rassviet, July 20, 1925, p. 1. 47 Henry Laurens, La question de Palestine, tome II, Paris, Fayard, 2002, p. 609. 48 Editorial, “Protiv techenia” [Against the current], Rassviet, April 19, 1924, p. 2. 49 Lilly Weissbrod, “Economic Factors and Political Strategies; the Defeat of the Revisionists in Mandatory Palestine” in Middle Eastern Studies, 19.3 (1983), pp. 330, 336. 50 Israel Trivus, “Nash bank’” [Our bank], Rassviet, May 14, 1922, p. 14. 51 I. Trivus, “Finansovaia sistema” [The financial system], Rassviet, March 2, 1924, pp. 9–10. 52 Ibid., p. 8. 53 Julius Brutzkus, “Voprosy kolonizatsii” [The questions of colonization], Rassviet, April 23, 1922, p. 6. 54 J. Brutzkus, “Nashi ekonomicheskie trebovanie” [Our economic demands], Rassviet, March 16, 1924, p. 5. 55 I. Trivus, “Nash tsentr” [Our center], Rassviet, April 19, 1924, p. 6. 56 Ibid., p. 7. 57 I. Trivus, “Zabytye” [The forgotten], Rassviet, April 19, 1925, pp. 7–8. 58 J. Brutzkus, “Gorod i derevnia” [The city and the village], Rassviet, September 20, 1925, p. 2. 59 “Vtoroi sezd Soiuza sionistov-revizionistov” [The second conference of the RU], Rassviet, January 9, 1927, pp. 18–19; “Vtoroi sezd Soiuza sionistov-revizionistov,” Rassviet, January 23, 1927, pp. 14–15. 60 I. Trivus, “Krizis kolonizatsii” [The crisis of colonization], Rassviet, April 17, 1927, pp. 12–13. 61 I. Trivus, “Krizis kolonizatsii”, Rassviet, May 1, 1927, p. 5. 62 Rassviet, May 10, 1925, pp. 5–6, 12. 63 Josif Schechtman, “Drugoe basta” [The second basta], Rassviet, May 29, 1927, pp. 4–5. 64 V. Jabotinsky, “Levye” [The leftists], Rassviet, January 25, 1925, pp. 7–8. 65 V. Jabotinsky, “Klassovye problemy” [The class problems], Rassviet, March 6, 1927, p. 3. 66 V. Jabotinsky, “My, burzhui” [We, the bourgeoisie], Rassviet, May 15, 1927, pp. 5–7. 67 Protokoll der III. Weltkonferenz, pp. 43–45. 259 The Black Sheep: the Revisionist Union and the Zionism of the Interwar Era Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 27, nº 59. Segundo cuatrimestre de 2025. Pp. 237-262. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2025.i59.10 68 Conférence des Sionistes-Révisionnistes tenue à Paris du 26 au 30 Avril 1925, Salonique, 1925, p. 11; I. Trivus, “Zemel’naia reforma” [The agrarian reform], Rassviet, no. 33, August 16, 1925, pp. 10–11. 69 Evgenii Soskin, “Sel’skokhoziaistvennaia kolonizatsiia Palestiny” [The agricultural colonization of Palestine], Rassviet, February 6, 1927, pp. 4–5. 70 E. Soskin, “O sel’skokhoziaistvennoi kolonizatsii Palestiny” [On the agricultural colonization of Palestine], Rassviet, February 27, 1927, p. 7. 71 Protokoll der III. Weltkonferenz, pp. 54–57, 59–62, 68. 72 Penslar, Zionism and Technocracy, pp. 95–96. 73 Protokoll der III. Weltkonferenz, p. 62. 74 Ibid., p. 67. 75 Jacob Metzer, The divided economy of Mandatory Palestine, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 145–150, 220. 76 Michael J. Cohen, “Zionism and British imperialism II: Imperial financing in Palestine” in Journal of Israeli History, 30.2 (2011), p. 131. 77 “Circular Letter No. 3”, 2nd series, October 1930, p. 4, JI G2-1/2. 78 “Doklad M. Grossmana” [M. Grossman’s lecture], Rassviet, November 22, 1925, p. 4. 79 “Zionist ‘Revisionists’ in Conference”, Jewish Chronicle, May 8, 1925, p. 13. 80 Protokoll der III. Weltkonferenz, p. 88. 81 “Press Bulletin”, September 8, 1930, p. 1, JI G2-II/1/3. 82 “Press Bulletin”, January 5, 1932, pp. 6-8, JI G2-II/1/3; “Generaldebatte. Mittwoch den 31. August 1932. Herr Vl. Jabotinsky ”, pp. 4-5, JI G2-III/4/7. 83 “Zaiavlenie I. B. Shekhtmana” [Declaration of J. B. Schechtman], Rassviet, February 21, 1932, p. 9. 84 Minute by J. Shuckburgh, July 12, 1928, TNA CO 733/158/3; Minute by H. F. Downie, July 30, 1935, TNA CO 733/283/4. 85 V. Jabotinsky, “Bol’shinstvo” [Majority], Rassviet, October 21, 1923, pp. 3–5. 86 “Press Conference at the Revisionist Central Office”, July 28, 1931, p. 1, JI G2-1/3. 87 J. Schechtman, “Polozhenie obiazyvaet” [The situation abides], Rassviet, July 30, 1922, p. 4. 88 Ibid., p. 5. 89 Letter from V. Jabotinsky to R. Lichtheim [in English], March 21, 1922, p. 3, JI P140-3. 90 See Susan Lee-Hattis, “Jabotinsky’s Parity Plan for Palestine” in Middle Eastern Studies, 13.1 (1977), pp. 93–94. 91 Ian Lustick, “To Build and to be Built By: Israel and the Hidden Logic of the Iron Wall” in Israel Studies, 1.1 (1996), pp. 198–9. 92 Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World, London, W. W. Norton, 2014. 93 Jehuda Reinharz, Ben Halpern, Zionism and the Creation of a New Society, New York, Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 180. 94 V. Jabotinsky, “Iron Wall (We and the Arabs)”, The Jewish Herald, November 26, 1937. 95 V. Jabotinsky, “O zheleznoi stene (My i Araby)” [On the iron wall: we and the Arabs], Rassviet, November 4, 1923, pp. 2–4. 96 V. Jabotinsky, “Opiat’ o dvunatsional’noi Palestine” [Again on bi-national Palestine], Rassviet, October 16, 1927, pp. 2–6. 97 V. Jabotinsky, “Etika zheleznoi steny” [The ethics of the iron wall], Rassviet, November 11, 1923, pp. 2–4; V. Jabotinsky, “O dvunatsional’noi Palestine” [On bi-national Palestine], Rassviet, January 3, 1926, pp. 3–4. 98 “Tretii sezd sionistskoi organizatsii v Rossii” [The third conference of the ZO in Russia], Evreiskii narod, December 2, 1906, p. 52. 99 For an overview, see Anthony Polonsky, The Jews in Poland and Russia, vol. III, Oxford, The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2012, pp. 25–32. 100 See also Brian Horowitz, Vladimir Jabotinsky’s Russian Years, 1900-1925, Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, 2020, pp. 52–76; Miroslav Hroch, “Zionism as European National Movement” in Jewish Studies, 38 (1998), pp. 73–81. 260 Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 27, nº 59. Segundo cuatrimestre de 2025. Pp. 237-262. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2025.i59.10 101 J. Schechtman, “Zemel’naia politika” [The land policy], Rassviet, April 7, 1924, p. 3. 102 Ibid., pp. 4–5. 103 I. Trivus, “Zemel’naia reforma” [The agrarian reform], Rassviet, July 5, 1925, p. 4. 104 Ibid., pp. 5–6. 105 I. Trivus, “Zemel’naia reforma”, Rassviet, July 19, 1925, p. 5. 106 I. Trivus, “Zemel’naia reforma”, Rassviet, July 26, 1925, p. 5. 107 V. Jabotinsky, “O zemel’noi reforme” [On the agrarian reform], Rassviet, February 7, 1925, p. 3. 108 I. Trivus, “Zemel’naia reforma” [The agrarian reform], Rassviet, August 16, 1925, p. 11. 109 E. Soskin, “O sel’skokhoziaistvennoi kolonizatsii Palestiny” [On the agricultural colonization of Palestine], Rassviet, February 13, 1927, p. 4. 110 Conférence des Sionistes-Révisionnistes, p. 12. 111 V. Jabotinsky, “Mir” [Peace], Rassviet, November 3, 1929, p. 2. 112 V. Jabotinsky, “Kruglyi stol’ s Arabami” [A round table with the Arabs], Rassviet, March 8, 1931, p. 2. 113 V. Jabotinsky, “Mir” [Peace], Rassviet, November 3, 1929, p. 2. 114 V. Jabotinsky, “Kruglyi stol’ s Arabami” [A round table with the Arabs], Rassviet, March 8, 1931, p. 3. 115 V. Jabotinsky, “Politicheskie polozhenie sionizma” [The political situation in Zionism], Rassviet, February 22, 1931, pp. 2–3. 116 R. Lichtheim, “Soglashenie s Arabami” [An agreement with the Arabs], Rassviet, January 19, 1930, p. 3. 117 “Das Referat von V. Jabotinsky ‘Die Krise im Zionismus und die Aufgaben der Zionistischen Bewegung’”, p. 3, JI G2-III/1/7. 118 “Das Referat von M. Grossman ‘Rekonstruktion der Zionistischen Politik’”, p. 5, JI G2-III/1/7. 119 “Entwurf einer Zusammenfassung, Erläuterung und Ergänzung der programmatischen Entschließungen der ‚Union der Revisionisten-Zionisten‘ für die Parteikonferenz in Basel, Verfasst von Dr. M. J. Bodenheimer”, April 1931, p. 11, JI G2-II/2/7. 120 Barbara J. Smith, The Roots of Separatism in Palestine: British Economic Policy, 1920-1929, Syracuse, Syracuse University Press, 1993, p. 35. 121 “Protokoll der 3. Sitzung”, p. 4, JI G2-III/1/7. 122 V. Jabotinsky, “Emigratsiia” [Emigration], Rassviet, February 1, 1931, p. 3. 123 Kenneth W. Stein, The Land Question in Palestine, 1917–1939, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1984, pp. 16–18, 218–219. 124 “Not for the publication in the press, strictly confidential”, March 25, 1929, p. 3, JI G2-1/2. 125 V. Jabotinsky, “Mir” [Peace], Rassviet, November 3, 1929, p. 4; “Memorandum on the Defence of Palestine”, November 1929, p. 9, JI G2-4/1. 126 “Draft Scheme for Reorganisation”, pp. 1–2, 4, TNA CO 733/180/5. 127 S. Wolf, Wrażenia z Kongresu Nowej Organizacii Sjonistycznej. Generalissimus bez oficerów [Impressions of the NZO congress: A Generalissimo without officers], Nasz Przegląd, September 13, 1935, p. 5; S. Wolf, Wielki dzień Żabotyńskiego [Jabotinsky’s big day], Nasz Przegląd, September 15, 1935, p. 6. 261 The Black Sheep: the Revisionist Union and the Zionism of the Interwar Era Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 27, nº 59. Segundo cuatrimestre de 2025. Pp. 237-262. 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