Socialist Workers' Federation

Idealistic and pragmatist at the same time, Avraam Benaroya, a Jew from Bulgaria, played a leading role in the creation of the mainly Jewish Fédération Socialiste Ouvrière in Thessaloniki, in May–June 1909.

[1] His main associates were militant Sephardic Jews, Alberto Arditti, David Recanati and Joseph Hazan, as well as Bulgarians like Angel Tomov and Dimitar Vlahov.

A prominent Bulgarian member, Dimitar Vlahov, was a socialist MP in the new Ottoman parliament, which was dominated by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) party until 1912.

Both monarchist and Venizelist policy actually assisted the emancipation and the radicalization of the left, and Benaroya, keeping equal distance from both established political groups, was quick to turn the situation to advantage.

Modern states should be based on free association and allow self-definition and self-organization of ethnicities in cultural affairs, while a mixed parliament, proportionally representing all nations of the realm, should decide on economic and political questions.

The Fédération traced the origins of its federative position in Balkan authors of the Enlightenment like Rigas Velestinlis, and stressed that the forthcoming peace should exclude any change of borders or transfer of populations.

Official logotype of the Socialist Workers' Federation.
Socialist Workers' Federation (Φεντερασιόν in Greek). The official application with which the part is asking from the Greek court authority for recognition in 1916.
Avraam Benaroya
Jewish workers march, 1908 - 1909
Socialist Workers' Federation (Φεντερασιόν in Greek). The official application with which the party is asking for recognition of the socialist youth in 1915.