Collection of proclamations of Social Democratic and Communist organisations

Collection

Title:: Collection of proclamations of Social Democratic and Communist organisations

Title (official language):: Socialdemokratinių ir komunistinių organizacijų atsišaukimų kolekcija

Scope and content:: This collection contains proclamations of different communist and social democratic parties and organisations in Lithuania. A significant part of the collection consists of proclamations of the General Union of Jewish Workers in Lithuania, Poland, and Russia, known as the Bund. The party’s proclamations included in the collection date from 1897, when the Bund was founded in Vilna by a small group of Jewish social, until the Russian Revolution in 1917. Consequently these proclamations reflect almost all the stages in the Bund's activities in the Russian Empire including the secession of the party from the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party (RSDWP) coalition in 1903, the Bund’s significant role in the First Russian Revolution of 1905, its return to the RSDWP in 1905, and challenges during the First World War and the February and Bolshevik revolutions in 1917. In addition, the collection includes proclamations in Yiddish directed by the RSDWP, the Communist Party of Lithuania (LKP) and the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania to the Jewish population.

Archival history:: After the liberation of Lithuania from the Soviet occupation, the archive of the LKP was transferred to the Archive of Lithuanian Social Organisations. After the archive's reorganisation in 2001, it became a subdivision of the Lithuanian Special Archive that was established in 1995. The subdivision contains materials of the LKP, the Lithuanian Lenin Communist Youth Union (LLKJS), the Social Democrats Party of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, the Bund, the Polish Socialist Party (PPS), The Social Democratic Party of Lithuania, Lithuanian socialist organisations abroad, other public organisations of workers, social democrats and communists in Lithuania and abroad, and personal collections.

Administrative/biographical history:: The Communist Party of Lithuania (LKP) was established in 1918 in Vilnius. After a brief unification with the Communist Party of Belorussia (during the existence of the short-lived Lithuanian-Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1919) the LKP maintained its activities in the independent Republic of Lithuania. After the 1926 nationalist coup and until the Soviet takeover in 1940, it was suppressed by the Lithuanian Government and forced to operate underground.

The General Union of Jewish Workers in Lithuania, Poland, and Russia, known as the Bund, was founded in Vilna in October 1897 in order to integrate Jewish workers into the general Russian proletariat. Later, at the beginning of the 20th century, the Bund added national-cultural autonomy to its ideological platform and became the largest and best organised Jewish party in Eastern Europe. After the revolution of 1917 some members of the Bund joined the Bolsheviks. The establishment of an independent Polish Bund was the result of a breakdown in communication between the party members in Russia and Poland on territories that had fallen into German hands during WWI. The party played a dominant role in Jewish politics and public life in independent Poland. However, in interwar Lithuania the Bunds’ activity was relatively insignificant as a result of its suppression by the Lithuanian government and the state of the country’s economy, which was industrially undeveloped.

Subject terms:: Bund movement; Communism; Jewish political activity; Revolutions; Socialism

Finding aids:: Detailed inventories are available on the website of the Lithuanian Chief Archivist Service.

Links to finding aids:: https://eais-pub.archyvai.lt/eais/faces/pages/forms/search/F3001.jspx

Yerusha Network member:: Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People

Author of the description:: Ilya Vovshin, Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, 2020