ABSTRACT
The state of Israel came into existence as a result of Socialist initiative. Socialists have governed it since its foundation, realizing Socialist ideas in economic, social and cultural institutions, thereby imprinting Socialism more deeply into the character of the social order than in any other country that has a democratic system of government. In 1967, the Communist party split over the Soviet Union's attitude to the Arab-Israeli war in June of that year. Its hostile policy towards Israel had begun to worry the consciences of some Communists before the war's outbreak. Throughout Western and Central Europe, Jewish communities had been subjected to a gradual process of social and cultural assimilation into the nations where they lived. The central Socialist organization in the Russian Empire, embracing the Socialist parties of all the nations in the state, was the Russian Social Democratic Workers' party, founded in Vilna in 1898, which five years later was to split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.
