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Mill, John : PIYONERN UN BOYER: MEMUARN [VOL. 1 ONLY]

New York; Farlag "der Veker", 1946

Original Cloth. 8vo. 308 pages. 22 cm. First Edition. Volume one only (of two volumes) . With frontispiece portrait of the author, and a dozen black and white photographs throughout. ‘Pioneers and Builders’, the memoirs of Bund activist John Mill (1870–1952) . “John Mill (also known as Yoysef Shloyme Mil) was one of the founders of the Jewish Labor Bund and a central activist during its first two decades. […] He was instrumental in the creation of the Jewish Labor Bund, and indeed was one of 13 activists to participate in its founding congress in Vilna in 1897. As one of the Bund’s main leaders in its first years, Mill held the important position of editor of the main party organ, Der yidisher arbeter. While strictly adhering to orthodox Marxism, he made independent and bold editorial decisions, including the choice to publish articles by the Bund’s rivals such as Khayim Zhitlovski and Rosa Luxemburg. Forced to flee Russia after the wave of arrests that decimated the Bund leadership in 1898, he lived in exile in Geneva, where he established the Bund’s Foreign Committee. Mill was one of the most vocal supporters to encourage the Bund to adopt a national program during debates at the organization’s Third Congress (Kovno, December 1899) . Influenced by Austro-Marxist Karl Renner and the South Slav delegation’s proposal at the Brünn Congress of the All-Austrian Social Democratic Party (Gesamtpartei) in 1899, he held that Russia must be transformed into a multinational state where each nationality would be legally defined as the aggregate of its individual members (rather than on a territorial basis) and granted self-government on cultural matters, a concept later known as national-cultural autonomy. Mill’s efforts bore fruit at the party’s Fourth Congress (Bialystok, May 1901) , when, after several years of heated debates, the autonomist proposal was accepted in principle. Until World War I, Mill lived mostly in Geneva and Paris, in dire poverty, and he continued to lead the Bund’s Foreign Committee in Western Europe. In that capacity, he represented the Bund in the Socialist International and in the party’s interactions with other socialist organizations. Following his emigration to the United States in 1915, Mill settled in Chicago and left active politics, but he remained close to Bundist circles and wrote extensively for Yiddish publications. He died in 1952.” (YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Eruope) Subjects: Jews - Soviet Union - Societies, etc. Labor movement - Soviet Union - Societies, etc. Allgemeyner Idisher arbayterbund in Lita, Poylen un Rusland. Light wear to cloth, institutional stamps on outer edges, otherwise clean and fresh. Good condition. (YID-19-32)

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