The Russian Empire then included Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine and most of present-day Poland, areas where the majority of the world's Jews then lived.

Of all Jewish political parties of the time, the Bund was the most progressive regarding gender equality, with women making up more than one-third of all members.

The Bund avoided any automatic solidarity with Jews of the middle and upper classes and generally rejected political cooperation with Jewish groups that held religious, Zionist or conservative views.

Even the anthem of the Bund, known as "the oath" (Di Shvue in Yiddish), written in 1902 by S. Ansky, contained no explicit reference to Jews or Jewish suffering.

[10][11] John Mill had returned from exile to attend the conference, at which he argued that the Bund should advocate for Jewish national rights.

[8] Given the Bund's secular and socialist perspective, it opposed what it viewed as the reactionary nature of traditional Jewish life in Russia.

[24] In its report to the 1903 Russian Social Democratic Labour Party congress, the Bund claimed to have district organizations in Vilna (Sventiany, etc.

), Białystok, Dvinsk (Rezhitsa ...), Minsk (Borisov, Pinsk, Mozyr, Bobruisk, Parichi ...), Vitebsk (Beshankovichy, Liozna, Lyady ...), Warsaw, Łódź, Siedlce,[25] Płock, Suwałki, Mariampol, Gomel (Dobryanyka, Vietka ...), Mogilev (Shklow, Orsha, Bykhov, Kopys ...), Zhytomyr, Berdichev, Odessa, Nizhyn, Bila Tserkva, Podolian Governorate (Vinnitsa, Bratslav, Tulchina, Nemirov), Lutsk, Volhynian Governorate, as well as the districts of the Union of Bristle-Makers; Nevel, Kreslavka, Vilkovyshki, Kalvaria, Vladislavovo, Verzhbolovo, Vystinets, Mezhdurechye [ru], Trostyan, Knyszyn, and the districts of the Union of Tanners; Smorgon, Oshmyany, Krynki, Zabludovo, Shishlovichi [ru], etc.

[26] Per Vladimir Akimov's account of the history of social democracy 1897–1903, there were 14 local committees of Bund – Warsaw, Łódź, Belostok, Grodno, Vilna, Dvisnk, Kovno, Vitebsk, Minsk, Gomel, Mogilev, Berdichev, Zhitomir, Riga.

Bund had organizations that weren't full-fledged committees in Pinsk, Sedlice, Petrokov, Płock, Brest-Litovsk, Vilkomir, Priluki, Rezhitsa, Kiev, Odessa, Bobruisk, and many smaller townships.

During the discussions, there was a division between the older guard of the Foreign Committee (Kossovsky, Kremer and John (Yosef) Mill) and the younger generation represented by Medem, Liber and Raphael Abramovitch.

[31] In February 1905, by a decision of the 6th Bund conference held in Dvinsk, a Polish District Committee (Yiddish: פוילישן ראיאן-קאמיטעט) was formed; gathering the local party branches in the areas of Congress Poland (covering 10 governorates, but not including the two main centres of Bundist activity in Poland: the cities of Warsaw and Łódz).

[8] At least in the early stages of the first Russian Revolution, the armed groups of the "Bund" were likely the strongest revolutionary force in Western Russia.

The strikes resulted in a deepened backlash for the party, and as of 1910 there were legal Bundist trade unions in only four cities, Białystok, Vilnius, Riga and Łódź.

At the time of the eighth party conference only nine local branches were represented (Riga, Vilnius, Białystok, Łódź, Bobruisk, Pinsk, Warsaw, Grodno and Dvinsk) with a combined membership of 609 (out of whom 404 were active).

[39] At the 1906 First Duma elections, the Bund made an electoral agreement with the Lithuanian Labourers' Party (Trudoviks), which resulted in the election to the Duma of two (apparently non-Bundist) candidates supported by the Bund: Dr. Shmaryahu Levin for the Vilna province and Leon Bramson for the Kovno province.

The Bund also promoted the use of Yiddish as a Jewish national language and to some extent opposed the Zionist project of reviving Hebrew.

It joined with the Poalei Zion (Labour Zionists) and other groups to form self-defense organisations to protect Jewish communities against pogroms and government troops.

[46] In December 1917 the split was formalized, as the Polish Bundists held a clandestine meeting in Lublin and reconstituted themselves as a separate political party.

Like Mensheviks and other non-Bolshevik parties, the Bund called for the convening of the Russian Constituent Assembly long demanded by all Social Democratic factions.

With the Russian Civil War and the increase in anti-Semitic pogroms by nationalists and Whites, the Bund was obliged to recognise the Soviet government and its militants fought in the Red Army in large numbers.

[51] Isaiah Eisenstadt (Yudin), Arn Vaynshteyn (Rakhmiel), Mark Liber, Henrik Erlich and Moisei Rafes were the delegates of the Central Committee at the conference.

[52] Four Bund bureaus were represented as such among the 60 delegates to the May 1918 Menshevik Party conference: Moscow (Abramovich), Northern (Erlich), Western (Goldshtein, Melamed), and Occupied Lands (Aizenshtadt).

[61] The delegates with decisive votes represented Minsk 5 delegates, Vilna 5, Gomel 5, Baranavichy 4, Bobruisk 2, Kiev 2, Yekaterinoslav 2, Kletsk 2, Nyasvizh 2 and one each from Kharkov, Riga, Moscow, Mohyliv, Konotop, Kurenets, Haradok, Shklow, Ufa/Samara, Smolensk, Rechytsa, Penza, Igumen, Mozyr, Pukhavichy, Ivianiec, Voronezh, Vitebsk and Dvinsk.

[66] Rather the Bund proposed that the Russian Provisional Government convene an all-Ukrainian territorial conference with representatives of both the Rada and non-Ukrainian forces, to establish an autonomous administration.

[65] The Bund was among the political parties that participated in the Rada (Council) of the Belarusian People's Republic, which declared independence in 1918 on territories occupied by the German Imperial Army.

[68] Bund member Mojżesz Gutman became a Minister without portfolio in the government of the newly created republic and drafted its constitution.

[77] On May 6, 1920, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (bolshevik) discussed the question of "The Conditions for the Bund's Admission to Membership of the R.C.P."

[77] At an Extraordinary All-Russian Bundist Conference, held in Minsk on March 5, 1921, the delegates representing some 3,000 party members debated disbanding the Communist Bund.

[80] Symbolically marking the merger, a ceremony was held in a theatre in Minsk on April 19, 1921, where Bundists handed over their banners to the CP(b)B.