ABSTRACT
Communist indictment of Zionism is as old as the Bolshevik movement itself, and hence there exists a vast literature of ideological pronouncements on Zionism in the various Marxist-Leninist writings. In Palestine, for the first time, Zionism was fought on Zionist territory, mostly in an underground fashion. The Comintern faced an oppressive Colonial government, it was surrounded by hostile Jewish Zionist masses, and despite its strong pro-Arab position, it failed to penetrate or influence the Arab masses. Zionism was labeled by the Comintern as a most reactionary movement for basically three reasons: for its alleged bourgeois social origin, for its nationalist ideology, and for its collaboration with the imperialist-colonialist forces. The Comintern did not deny that the rise of Zionism during the years following the Balfour Declaration was a result of the considerable appeal that it had among the broad Jewish masses or that Zionism enjoyed the support of diverse strata of Jewry.
