Dov Ber Borochov was born in the town of Zolotonosha, Russian Empire (now in Ukraine),[2] and grew up in nearby Poltava.

[3] As an adult he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party but was expelled when he formed a Zionist Socialist Workers Union in Yekaterinoslav.

"[8] Borochov predicted that nationalist forces would be more important in determining events than economic and class considerations, especially as concerned the Jews.

[2] He became an avid supporter of a Palestine-based Zionism following the Sixth World Zionist Congress, during which the question of Uganda as a possible temporary refuge for the Jews was debated.

Some say that the Turkish law hinders our work, others contend that Palestine is insignificantly small, and still others charge us with the odious crime of wishing to oppress and expel the Arabs from Palestine...When the waste lands are prepared for colonization, when modern technique is introduced, and when the other obstacles are removed, there will be sufficient land to accommodate both the Jews and the Arabs.

[10]However, in previous writings, Borokhov imagined that the Arab inhabitants of Palestine would disappear through assimilation with the economically and culturally more advanced European settlers.

[citation needed] However, Borochov's theories remained most influential in Eastern Europe, where they formed the basis of the Left Poale Zionist movement which was active in Poland during the interwar years.

[citation needed] Borochov, for years an advocate for a doctrinaire Marxist Zionism, himself seemed to repudiate his former vision of class struggle in Palestine in speeches towards the end of his life.

[citation needed] Borochov returned to Russia in August 1917 and attended the Third All-Russian Poale Zion party congress to argue for socialist settlement in Palestine.

[2] The European branch of the Left Poale Zion movement was effectively destroyed by the early 1950s; many of its members were killed by the Nazis during World War II, and the surviving activists were persecuted and ultimately outlawed under the various post-war Communist regimes of Eastern Europe.