Dimanshtein, Semen, editor and Mikhail Dlugach (artist).

[PHOTOMONTAGE – THE JEWISH QUESTION IN THE USSR] Tribuna: organ Tsentral'nogo Pravleniia, UKR i BEL OZET'a [Tribune: the organ of the Central Office, Ukrainian and Belarusian Society for Settling Working Jews on the Land (OZET)].

Moscow-Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo, 1929. Octavo (22.8 × 15.2 cm). Original pictorial wrappers by Mikhail Dlugach; 100, [4] pp. Illustrations. Unopened and uncut copy; rust from staples to wrappers; else about very good. Item #54664

Single issue of this journal of OZET (Society for Settling Working Jews on Land), which helped "the Soviet government in the matter of transitioning the Jewish poor into engaging in productive labour." Founded in 1925, OZET had regional branches in Belarus, Georgia, Russia, and Ukraine, but was centralised in Moscow where this journal was published in 1927–1937. This issue includes photo illustrations of Jewish settlements (national districts) in Ukraine, such as Larindorf (Crimea) and Kalinindorf (Kherson region), an announcement of the founding of a new agricultural college in Birobidzhan, as well as information about the upcoming Second Congress of OZET planned for December 1930. The organisation was funded in part through selling lottery tickets, with the lottery advertising and earning reports printed to inside wrappers. The opening text explains the reasons for the resettlement project. “The need for this was caused by the fact that the situation of the Jewish working masses under the tsarist government was extremely abnormal, they were limited in rights more than other oppressed nationalities, they were deprived of the opportunity to develop economically on an equal basis with other strata of the population. Only a small group of Jewish capitalists, exploiting the workers, like the rest of the bourgeoisie, lived for their own pleasure. The overwhelming mass of the Jewish poor lived very poorly […] But the more the economy of the Soviet Union strengthened, thanks to the correct policy of the Leninist party, the Jewish poor got the opportunity to join labor, first of all, agriculture, since there was a lot of free land in the country.” OZET would go on to resettle over 120,000 Jews on newly-created Jewish territories, including Birobidzhan, a Jewish autonomous district in the Russian Far East officially founded in 1931. Less then half of those resettled between 1925 and 1937 would remain in their new homes by the start of WWII. The majority of the leadership of OZET was repressed during the Stalinist purges, including the head editor of this journal, an old Bolshevik and top Soviet theoretician of the “national question” Semen Dimanshtein (1886–1938). The photomontage wrappers for this issue were designed by the Jewish-Ukrainian poster artist and one of the masters of the Soviet film poster, Mikhail Dugach (1893–1988).

As of May 2025, KVK, OCLC show scattered issues at four institutions in North America.

Price: €1,200.00

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