LA GUERRE, LA RÉVOLUTION RUSSE ET LE SIONISME, DISCOURS PRONONCÉE. À LA CONFÉRENCE DES SIONISTES RUSSES À PETROGRADE, LE 24. MAI - 6. JUNI 1917

1st edition. Original printed paper wrappers, 8vo, 22 pages, 23 cm. In French. Title translates as, "The War, The Russian Revolution, and Zionism." "publie par le Bureau d'organisation sioniste a` Copenhague 1917." The Petrograd Conference was the "seventh national conference of the Russian Zionists and the first after the February 1917 Revolution. It opened on June 6, 1917. Five hundred and fifty-two delegates, representing 140,000 shekel holders from 680 cities and towns, took part in the conference. In the new Russia, the conference demonstrated the growing power of Zionism among Jewry and defined the Russian Zionists' attitude toward the problems of the World Zionist movement and the upbuilding of Erez Israel. It discussed the specific problems of the Russian Jews under the democratic regime with the hope of expanding the movement, which up to that time had acted mainly illegally. Jehiel Tschlenow [E.W. Tschlenow, this imprint's author] and Menahem Ussishkin were elected as presidents of the conference. In his programmatic address, Tschlenow said that the main task of the conference was to lay the foundations for Jewish national autonomy in Russia, as well as to emphasize the Jewish people's aspiration to return to Erez Israel. Ussishkin spoke of the need to immediately mobilize Jewish capital for settlement work, especially for the purchase of land, and to train pioneer workers. This seven-day conference was the last free countrywide expression of the Russian Zionist movement before the October Revolution of the same year became the starting point of its persecution and liquidation" (Arie Rafaeli-Zenziper in EJ). Tschlenow opens his speech with great hope and excitement at the recent revolution, welcoming the attendees "to this first meeting in free Russia, you who come to publicly proclaim the hope of our people yearning for liberty and rebirth, and who come to discuss our future work. Nowhere else, it seems to me, could we find, at present, such a resounding echo as in this city, where, barely three months ago, the heavy links of the chain that had bound the life of the immense Empire were broken. For about a century, since the glorious advent of the Decembrists, the invisible preliminary work had been underway.How much innocent blood was shed! In this blood, we are proud to note-there is also some of our own, Jewish blood. Well then, in this solemn moment, let us recall the memory of those who did not have the joy of greeting the present hour, this hour that makes up for all sorrows. Only three weeks have passed since Russia won its freedom and the Provisional Government, in cooperation with the Soldiers' and Workers' Council, washed away the stain that had defiled Russia for centuries. I am referring to the disgrace known as "the deprivation of the rights of the Jewish people." It seemed that this stain had become one with the very flesh of the Russian people and that only blood could remove it. Well, no. The great purifying torrent of the Revolution washed away the filth in a single stroke, irrevocably and without suffering. The sorrowful history of our people knows no other example of the destruction of such a vast ghetto, nor of a liberation established with such simplicity, on the one hand, and accepted with such dignity, on the other. We enthusiastically salute the Provisional Government and beg it to believe in our support and devotion to the heroic work of freedom and greatness for Russia that it has undertaken. On March 21st, the weight of a burden under which Russian Judaism had been collapsing was lifted. Our hands, so long chained, were freed. The immensity of space unfolded before our minds, before our eyes, still unaccustomed to such splendor. It is precisely at this moment that we, the Russian branch of the Jewish people, will be able, thanks to our accumulated strength and energy, to tackle the national edifice, the work of addressing the great national problems." He concludes: ".here are the walls of t.…