ABSTRACT
The period of the post-World War one political partition of the Middle East into colonies, Palestine was perhaps the least politically developed country in the area. However, it was Palestine that attracted most of the Comintern's attention and that occupied a special place in its Middle Eastern posture. The other major factor accounting for the Comintern's focus on Palestine was that there existed in Palestine the largest, and politically, the best organized Communist Party in the entire region. Its leadership and following were Jews who originally came from Russia both before and after the Bolshevik revolution. Concurrent with the struggle and persecution of Zionism in Russia was the Soviet Government's inauguration of a new program of agricultural settlement of the Jewish masses. Some of the leaders embraced Communism as the only cultural bridge to their deep roots in Russian culture, rather than from purely ideological considerations.
