What is it about?
In the 1940s-1950s most Israeli kibbutzim adored the Stalinist regime despite its practices contradicting their communal egalitarian and democratic credo and practices. Scholars did fail to explain this strange phenomenon while detailed studies of the two leaders who led to this adoration explain it by their efforts to retain power and positions.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
The illogical reverence of Stalinism retained the power and status of the two leaders who became dysfunctional self-perpetuating conservatives already in the early 1940s, preventing their succession up to the 1970s and by this engendering negative processes such as failures to solve major problems, political ineptness, brain-drain, backwardness and more. The kibbutz movement nevertheless resumed growth and success in the 1960s-1970s due to mid-leveI leaders who entered the leadership vacuum caused by this dysfunction.
Perspectives
The proper explanation of the kibbutz movement leadership failure and resurrection contribute decisively to the right comprehension of the world's most successful communal movement which in the past led the resurrection of the Jewish nationhood by agricultural and other innovations. As a kibbutz member by this article and by many other publications, I explain to myself and to the readers how and why this radical movement both succeeded so much in the past and failed later on.
Dr Reuven Shapira
Western Galilee Academic College
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Rethinking reverence for Stalinism in the kibbutz movement, Israel Affairs, January 2016, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1111640.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
