their ancient dream of Jewish autonomy, with an Israelite minister in the cabinet, Jewish self-governing communes, and possibly a separate Jewish Parliament. After January, 1918, the Jews woke up. They saw the Ukrainian democracy, from which they hoped so much, turning chauvinist and even antiSemite. Some small pogroms occurred as early as November, 1917. The proclamation of Ukrainian independence had severed their connection with the Russian revolution, and made the Ukraine an appanage of imperialist Germany. Reactionary ideas became the vogue. At the same time the fine dreams of democratic autonomy for the Israelites proved an illusion. Nearly all of the elections in the Israelite communes put into power rabbis and wealthy Jews. So the alliance of the Jewish democrats and the Ukrainian democrats received a check early in 1918; but instead of making Jewish socialists more radical, it merely inspired them with apathy and scepticism.

As a result of the peace of BrestLitovsk, dictated by German imperialists in their brief hour of victory, extensive additional territories were occupied by the Kaiser's army. In April, 1918, all the western and southern part of the former Russian empire, including every district in which the Jews had been permitted by law to reside under the Tsars, was occupied by German forces. Russia withdrew from the World War. The Jewish working people had abandoned entirely the bourgeois coalition platform. The abrupt change from the license of the Russian revolution to the régime of the Prussian Junkers, punctured many illusions and inspired the rank and file of the Jewish proletariat with apathy and indifference. Stunned by the apparent defeat of the Russian revolution, their interests naturally turned to a

revolution in western Europe - to a revolution in Germany, in order thus to escape from the yoke of German militarism. Consequently the fortunes of the Jewish working people of Russia were linked, after the Peace of BrestLitovsk, with those of the German proletariat.

Mensheviki and leaders of the Bund were always sceptical as to the possibility of a Socialist revolution in Russia, the most backward country in Europe. But if a revolution should break out in Germany, and place political power in the hands of its proletariat, then even the most pessimistic Socialists would have to admit that the Bolshevist programme had ceased to be a mere Utopia. A revolution in Germany would be an explicit order to put socialism into effect wherever possible. Germany was the country to which international labor had always looked for the final overthrow of capitalism. It was the country where Socialist labor was most highly organized, and most thoroughly instructed in the true doctrine. Its theoretical heads had been for a long period the leaders of Socialist thought throughout the world.

That explains why the German revolution produced such a powerful impression upon the Jewish working people of Russia. November, 1918, marks the date of a complete transformation in their ideas. They formally abandoned the orthodoxy of the Mensheviki, and carried the Bund and all the other Jewish Socialist groups into the Bolshevist camp. The German revolution marked the same transition in Jewish labor opinion that the October revolution marked in that of the native Russians. Small property holders suddenly became more conservative; while the real proletariat turned more radical. Socialism revealed itself as something more than an attractive

We have already mentioned the intimate alliance made a year before between Jewish Socialists of the Ukraine and the Central Rada. Jewish Socialists at that time supported the Nationalist movement. They fought shoulder to shoulder with the Nationalists against the Bolshevist element of the community and the peasants. We have seen how they were disillusioned by the course taken by the democratic small property holders, who soon revealed their chauvinist and reactionary tendencies. The latter were interested first and foremost in isolating themselves from the revolutionary movement in Russia proper, and in making the people Ukrainians by force. As soon as this tendency came to the fore, anti-Semitism followed in its wake. But the Central Rada was overthrown in May, 1918, by the very German bayonets which it had invited into the country to put down the popular rebellion against its own authority.

In November, 1918, the members of the old Central Rada organized the National Ukrainian Alliance and raised the standard of revolt against the Hetman, who had been placed in power by the Germans. The movement was directed by the Ukrainian Directory, presided over by Winichenko and Petljura. Thanks to the support it received from numerous Communist and Socialist revolutionary groups, it succeeded. On December 14, the Directory entered Kieff at the head of a strong army. But the reactionary character of this government speedily revealed itself. The peasants, and for the most part the working people, had risen to defend their legitimate social interests, to seize the land, and to protect their liberty. But the men at the head of the movement wished to keep

National Ukrainian Alliance and its directory stood for the interests and aspirations of the small property holders of the cities and of the wealthier peasants. They designed to concentrate power in the hands of middleclass property owners, and this was their real object in seeking to make their country independent. At the same time the Directory had painted its programme with Bolshevist colors, in order to secure the temporary support of the multitude. It had proclaimed a government and dictatorship of manual workers. It deprived the bourgeoisie and the great landlords of political rights on the charge that they were exploiters, and responsible among other things for the government of the Hetman. It had assembled a congress of the working people as a National Constitutional Assembly, composed of representatives of the peasants, of the laborers, and of the brain workers. So far as its nationalist programme was concerned, this formulation of its objects did not conflict with the real plans of a National Ukrainian Alliance; for it merely excluded from political life classes belonging to other nationalities. The great landlords of the Ukraine were practically all Russians and Poles; the capitalists were Jews, Russians, and foreigners.

Within two months the Directory revealed its true intentions. No room was left for hesitation and side-stepping during the violent scenes which ensued. The Jewish Socialists regarded with suspicion the purposes of the Directory, and lost one illusion after another, as the latter steadily drifted toward reaction. Consequently the revolutionary elements among the Jewish parties rapidly went over to the camp of the Communists who were fighting the Directory. It was speedily shown that the fine phrases of the latter

were mere camouflage. The Directory began to suppress the workers' and peasants' soviets, carrying out the policy of the reactionary wing in the Ukrainian congress and of the military leaders of the Galician troops. This campaign speedily developed into a series of violent outrages against the working population in the towns and on the land.

A congress of the laboring population was summoned and local Radas were so selected as to place control in the hands of the wealthier peasantry. Although these new organizations masked their intentions for a time under Bolshevist formulas, they speedily lost credit with the people. They even organized pogroms, such as those at Shitomir and Berdicheff, when they found they could utilize such occurrences to injure the soviets. Faced with the alternative of an alliance with Soviet Russia of becoming a vassal of the Entente, the Directory elected the second course. From the end of January, 1919, it placed all the railways of the country at the disposal of the French Expeditionary Forces. The Jewish socialists found themselves enveloped in the fire of revolution. Simultaneously the first acts of the revolutionary drama in Germany were being played. The Spartacan movement in that country was crushed. This seemed an appeal to the revolutionists of all the world to strike in defense of the work they had begun. In the eyes of the Jewish socialists democracy had suffered a double bankruptcy; in the first place the small property holders had deserted the revolution and flocked into the camp of its enemies as represented by the Ukrainian National Alliance and the Directory; and in the second place the idea of a constitutional convention lost credit because the national assembly in Germany fell completely into the hands of the bour

geoisie, in spite of the painstaking way in which the people of Germany had been educated in preparation for a Socialist régime.

About the middle of January, 1919, a majority of the Bund and of the United Jewish Socialist party, came out definitely in favor of the soviets, joined the Communist party, and took up arms to enforce its programme. Simultaneously a quiet struggle was taking place among the Zionists, who were politically disorganized by the fact that their leaders were members of the Directory. Their Nationalist aspirations held them together for the time being in spite of this, because the Entente promised Palestine to the Jews. It was only later, toward the end of August, that the party finally split. By the side of the former 'Jewish Social Democratic Labor Party Poalei Zion' there appeared a 'Jewish Communist Party Poalei Zion.' A similar division developed in the branches of the Bund in White Russia, but in November, 1919, a majority declared themselves in favor of the Third Communist International, and joined the Communist party. According to reports received from Lithuania and Poland the preponderant sentiment of the branches of the Bund in those countries also had now become Communist. However, the Jews there are prevented from joining the Russian Communist parties by local patriotism.

As soon as the two Jewish parties in the Ukraine adopted a Communist programme, the question of their union at once arose. Although the civil war interrupted communication between different villages and cities the change of sentiment in favor of the Communist platform was simultaneous throughout the country. The only question likely to prevent a union of these groups was that of national aims.

During the two years of revolution

'personal national autonomy' had played an important part among Jewish objects. However, as soon as the Jews endorsed a soviet constitution of society, national autonomy ceased to have importance. The previous support given to this idea was due to the belief that such autonomy would safeguard the Jews against political oppression and assimilation by force, evils which they had frequently experienced under the old government. But the proletariat was an enemy of such oppression and no part of the proletariat need ask guaranty against oppression by another part of the proletariat. All that was necessary was that the soviets remain true representatives of the workers. Jewish aspirations were limited to securing a Jewish section in the different commissariats and in the Russian Communist party. After a general agreement had been reached upon this policy, the various Jewish organizations held a joint conference in May, 1919, where they founded a Jewish Communist Alliance, better known as the Farband.

This new society has been in existence three months at the time of writing. It publishes a Jewish weekly, called the Communist Banner, and has distributed much propaganda matter

printed in the Jewish tongue. All the members of the society are active participants in the work of the present revolution. The Farband has taken upon itself to suppress the bourgeois Jewish organizations which have remained under the control of rabbis and Zionists. The Zionists have become an arch enemy of the Jewish Communists in consequence of the Entente victory and the active Palestine propaganda which has followed. The latter propaganda has interfered with the enrollment of Jewish workingmen in the Red army, and has been generally detrimental to the soviet programme. This is what induced the Farband to take the initiative in ending the existence of the Zionist and rabbinical societies. In order to promote the enlistment of Jews in the Red army a special bureau has been established at Kieff, called the Evvoensek, which publishes a weekly, called the Red Army, and maintains a corps of propagandists and instructors throughout the country. Another Jewish office has been established as a part of the national commissariat of public instruction to promote the study of the Jewish tongue. The Farband has also taken upon itself relief work among Jewish pogrom victims.

VOL. 20-NO. 1019

IT was with a distinct sense of disappointment that we learned that the Gloucester schooner chosen to defend the traditions of the American fishing fleet against the Canadian was named the Esperanto. The word, more musical in itself than Volapuk, smacked nevertheless of the melting pot, of congresses of solemn faddists, of mediocrity dressed up in exotic kimonos. How much more salty, more redolent of Gloucester and the down east fleet would have been the Abby M. Drisco, or the Phoebe T. Preble! We feared, for a while, that Gloucester had forgotten its traditions, that the nomenclature of its schooners had become self-conscious, that the high romance of the fishing fleet had felt the devastating hand of the efficiency expert.

Consequently we read with interest C. Fox Smith's remarks in the daily Chronicle of October 15 on the similar condition prevailing on the other side of the Atlantic.

"The naming of ships seems nowadays to be something of a lost art among us. Take, for instance, those masterpieces of inept nomenclature, the "war" ships, which began quite reasonably with the War Spear, War Sword, and the like, then degenerated into meaningless combinations such as War Beryl and War Peridot, and have now reached the nadir of futility in the War Fig.

'War Fig! Could anything be conceived more inane, more meaningless, or more inappropriate? It suggests a dozen questions-as, why Fig at all? What connection is there between ships

and figs, and if Fig be conceded, then why on earth War Fig? What is a War Fig, and why is a War Fig different from a Peace Fig, or for the matter of that a pre-war Fig?

"Then there are the American standard ships, which are in little better case; the Lake Gravity, for example, and the Lake Frugality, which may quite possibly be followed by the Lake Prohibition or the Lake Sobriety! And there is the new liner, Panhandle State, just now in the public eye, which will no doubt possess equally euphonious sisters.

'And yet there can be a very charm in incongruity. There is a kind of magnificent insolence about a stately Oriental or classical polysyllable flaunted over the seven seas from the counter of an ugly, matter-of-fact, grimy cargo carrier.

'Nor need one quarrel with those plain, sensible New England names of men and women so often borne by American ships, and especially American sailing ships; those Willie T. This's, and Annie M. That's which inevitably call before the mind's eye one of those big, austere Yankee schooners, with their almost Puritanical simplicity of line and rig. They seem to belong to little one-man or family shipyards in Maine or Massachusetts; and they suggest lean, lantern-jawed skipper-owners, given to religion, and hard-fisted Down-East mates, the lineal descendants of just such seamen as Long Tom Coffin. With us, similar names are seldom found except in the coasting trade; and even there we prefer flights