ABRAHAM BENAROYA, THE MACEDONIAN QUESTION AND THE SOLUNA SOCIALIST WORKERS' FEDERATION
Abstract
Avraam Benaroya was born in 1887 in the Bulgarian town of Vidin to a family of small-scale merchants; his father was of Sephardic origin. He soon became a committed social democrat and emerged as both an ideologue and an organizer of the Macedonian social democratic movement during the period between 1909 and 1912. As the leader of the Thessaloniki Socialist Workers’ Federation (Federación Socialista Obrera), Benaroya articulated the idea of the particular character of Marxist ideology. He maintained that Marxist tactics ought to be both flexible and adaptable to the specific political conditions of each country. Accordingly, his views could be classified as distinctly centrist, aligning closely with the political logic of the left wing of Bulgarian social democracy, namely the BRSDP (Narrow Socialists). This characterization is further supported by the chronology of Benaroya’s political activity. For instance, during 1910–1911 he edited the newspaper Solidaridad Obradera / Workers’ Solidarity, the successor to the multilingual Workers’ Herald. The publication timeline of Benaroya’s periodical closely corresponds with that of Napred, a left-centrist organ issued under the leadership of the prominent Bulgarian left-centrist figure, Christian Rakovsky.
Moreover, Benaroya – like Rakovsky – initially endorsed the ideals of the Young Turk Revolution. Furthermore, in line with Rakovsky and the leadership of the centrist left within the BRSDP (Narrow Socialists), Benaroya aligned his political activities with the stance of the Second International. This occurred precisely at the time when Rakovsky was acting as a representative of the Bureau for the Unification of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Movement. Additional evidence of Benaroya’s ideological proximity to the left-centrist platform lies in the fact that, in May 1910 and again in November 1911, at his personal invitation and with the official endorsement of the Federación leadership, Rakovsky traveled to Thessaloniki “as a representative of the International Socialist Bureau.” There, he participated in the May Day rally (1910), spoke at a Federación rally (4 November 1911), and even delivered several lectures “on issues concerning the Balkan and international socialist movement.”
In conclusion, the Macedonian phase of Avraam Benaroya’s political career must be recognized as distinctly left-centrist in orientation. It was during this period that Benaroya – both as a humanist and a democratically inclined political figure, and as a prominent Macedonian socialist – maintained closest alignment with the centrist platform of the BRSDP (Narrow Socialists). It was also during this period that he most directly linked the Jewish Question to the Macedonian Question, envisioning their resolution through the implementation of a Macedonian federation (confederation or union).
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References
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