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Arkadi Kremer (; ; born Aron Iosifovich Kremer, also known as Aleksandr Kremer, Solomon Kremer, and most frequently referred to as Arkady, his nickname; 1865–1935) was a Russian socialist leader known as the 'Father of the Bund' (the General Jewish Workers' Union in Lithuania, Poland and Russia). This organisation was instrumental in the development of Russian Marxism, the Jewish labour movement and Jewish nationalism.
At first, Kremer seems to have been inclined to favour economic over political agitation. As Jewish workers' circles proliferated in Russian, Lithuanian and Polish cities, some of Kremer's associates called for the creation of a unified Jewish Social-Democratic party. Kremer initially rejected this idea, believing that a political party would be the organic outcome of the workers' own economic struggle. The doyen of Russian Marxism, George Plekhanov, was instrumental in persuading Kremer to change his mind. The fact that Jewish workers in Russia would not be able to affiliate with international organisations such as the Second International unless they had a party seems to have weighed heavily with Kremer. Thus, in September 1897, Kremer and his comrades founded the General Jewish Workers' Union (Bund) in Vilna. Kremer was one of three members of its first Central Committee and was widely respected as the Bund's leader. The name hearkened back to Ferdinand Lassalle's General German Workers' Association (ADAV) of the 1860s, one of the forerunner organisations of the German Social-Democratic Party. At the same time, Kremer chose the name 'Bund' because it implied a looser federation than the term 'Party'. However, Kremer also maintained close contact with the wider Russian Social-Democratic movement. He placed less emphasis on Jewish cultural nationalism and autonomy than subsequent younger Bundist leaders like Mikhail Liber.
The Bund competed, on the one hand, with non-Marxist Jewish workers' groups influenced by Russian Narodnik (such as Mark Natanson's 'Workers' Party for the Political Liberation of Russia', RPPOR, in Minsk), and, on the other hand, with labour Zionist organisation like Poale Zion. Although some younger Bundists were influenced by Zionism and the Bund insisted on its organisational autonomy and on Jewish cultural independence, the Bund rejected Jewish Zionists' 'national separatism' and the idea of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine.
In 1898, Kremer was instrumental in bringing together various Social-Democratic groups in the Russian empire and among Russian exiles abroad to form the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party (RSDRP). The Bund was one of the constituent organisations of the RSDRP, and in its own view, an autonomous organisation within the RSDRP. Kremer attended the RSDRP's founding congress in Minsk and was elected to its first, short-lived Central Committee (which also comprised three members). Before long, the committee, including Kremer, was arrested, leaving the young party in disarray. While in prison, Kremer put his technological and mathematical studies to use by developing a system of cryptography and a coding machine that came to be widely used in the Russian revolutionary movement.
Furthermore, the conflict over the expansion of the RSDLP was one of the first major controversies among Russian Social-Democrats. Kremer supported cultural autonomy for Jewish workers and organisational autonomy for the Bund within the RSDLP, a position the Bund also adopted at the RSDLP's Second Congress in 1903. In 1903, the Bund's position, most forcefully argued by Liber, was rejected by both Lenin and Martov, shortly to emerge as the leaders of the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions. The Bund, finding its claim to exclusive representation of Jewish workers in the Russian empire and organisational autonomy within a federally organised RSDRP rebuffed, withdrew from the Congress and from the RSDRP. This occurred before the split between Lenin and Martov over the question of party membership conditions and left Lenin with a slight majority at the Congress.
The Bolshevik Party, led by Vladimir Lenin split into two factions: those who agreed with Lenin's plans to keep the party as a small group of revolutionaries, and those who wished to expand, which were the Mensheviks. Many Bund members had aligning opinions with the Mensheviks, leading to lots of tension between the Bund and other political groups, such as the Jewish Zionists and the powerful Bolsheviks.
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