Socialist Zionism (or Labor Zionism) strove to achieve Jewish
national and social redemption by fusing Zionism with Socialism. Its founder was Nachman
Syrkin, who promulgated this view shortly
before the third
Zionist Congress (1899).
Its philosophy was based
on the assumption that the problem of Diaspora
Jewry would remain unsolved even after
the Socialist revolution, and that the
solution to the anomaly of Jewish existence
was the emigration of Jews to, and their
concentration in, a territorial base. Dov
Ber Borochov, a prominent advocate
of Socialist Zionism, argued that the
development of capitalism would inevitably
prompt Jews to immigrate to Palestine, and that only there could the
economic structure of the Jewish people
be reconstituted as a base for the class
struggle of the Jewish proletariat. Zionism,
he asserted, is a historic-economic necessity
for the Jewish people and the historic role
of spearheading the Jewish national liberation
process is reserved for the Jewish proletariat.
Disagreements about the conceptual and philosophical
foundations of Socialist Zionism, the methods
to use in achieving it in Palestine and relations
with Socialist organizations and parties in
other countries, led to the formation of many
and sundry Socialist Zionist parties. Some
of these entities eschewed Marxist terminology
and refrained from explicitly terming themselves
Socialist. Others, considering themselves
more Socialist and less Zionist, forswore
membership in the Zionist Organization at
various times.
The Socialist Zionist
idea gave rise to many pioneering youth
movements, such as Hashomer
Hatz'air and Hehalutz. The leaders
of Socialist Zionist parties were among
the most prominent in the pre-independence
Palestine community and the State
of Israel; David
Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak
Ben-Zvi and Berl Katznelson are
but three examples. Socialist Zionism is
the progenitor of most of Israel's settlement
movements and the Israel Labor
Party, one of Israel's two main political
parties.