''Folksgrupe'' (, 'People's Group' in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

) was a

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

ish

Anti-Zionist Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the Palestine (region) ...

political organization in

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

, founded at a meeting in

Vilna Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

in March 1905. The organization proclaimed to work for establishing 'civil, political and national rights for the Jewish People in Russia'. The full name of the organization was the League for the Attainment of Full Rights for the Jewish People in Russia. Its followers were known as ''Dostizhentsi'' (from Достижение, ''dostizheniye'', 'attainment').Geifman, Anna.
Russia Under the Last Tsar: Opposition and Subversion, 1894-1917
'. Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 1999. p. 68Dubnow, Simon, and Israel Friedlaender.
History of the Jews in Russia and Poland.
' Bergenfield: Avotaynu, 2000. p. 472 Led by three prominent lawyers,

Maxim Vinaver Maxim Moisseyevitsch Vinaver (; 30 November O.S. 18 November">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 18 November1863, Warsaw – 11 October 1926, Menthon-Saint-Bernard) was a Russian lawyer, poli ...

, Oscar Gruzenberg and Henrik Sliozberg, it assembled

liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * Generally, a supporter of the political philosophy liberalism. Liberals may be politically left or right but tend to be centrist. * An adherent of a Liberal Party (See also Liberal parties by country ...

elements from the

Cadet Party The Constitutional Democratic Party (, K-D), also called Constitutional Democrats and formally the Party of People's Freedom (), was a political party in the Russian Empire that promoted Western constitutional monarchy—among other policies� ...

. The party demanded equal civic rights, abolishing laws imposing restrictions on Jews, linguistic rights (the right have access to Yiddish and

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

schooling) and independence of religious institutions. However, it did not advocate national autonomy for the Jews.Pinkus, Benjamin.
The Jews of the Soviet Union: The History of a National Minority. Soviet and East European studies
'.

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

: Cambridge University Press, 1988. p. 45Gitelman, Zvi Y.
A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present
'. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 2001. p. 62 The central bureau of the group was located in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

. Half of the bureau was based in the city and the other half was based in the provinces.

Zionists Zionism is an ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the Jewish people, pursued through the colonization of Palestine, a region roughly cor ...

and the

Folkspartei The Folkspartei () was founded after the 1905 pogroms in the Russian Empire by Simon Dubnow and Israel Efrojkin. The party took part in several elections in Poland and Lithuania in the 1920s and 1930s and did not survive the Holocaust. Ideology ...

leader

Simon Dubnow Simon Dubnow (alternatively spelled Dubnov; ; rus, Семён Ма́ркович Ду́бнов, Semyon Markovich Dubnov, sʲɪˈmʲɵn ˈmarkəvʲɪdʑ ˈdubnəf; 10 September 1860 – 8 December 1941) was a Jewish-Russian Empire, Russian h ...

came to accuse the group of favouring assimilation. Dubnow had belonged to the group at its initial stage, and formed part of its central bureau. The party was however able to find common ground and some cooperation with the

Bund Bund, BUND, or the Bund may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Der Bund'', a German-language newspaper published in Bern, Switzerland * Shanghai Bund (TV series), ''Shanghai Bund'' (TV series), a 2007 Chinese television remake of the 19 ...

, in their opposition to Zionism.

References

{{Authority control Jewish anti-Zionism in Russia Jewish anti-Zionist organizations Jewish political parties Jews and Judaism in the Russian Empire Political parties established in 1905 Political parties of minorities in Imperial Russia 1905 establishments in the Russian Empire