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THE WORKERS' UNION AND THE JEWS 197niki joined the union at its founding, and connections were maintainedwith member of Narodnaia volia in Kiev. Duplicated written materialsfound by the police when the union was liquidated included programmaticstatements by other populist groups in the Ukraine. All thistestifies to the cross influences and exchange of views between theunion and other elements in the revolutionary camp. A short timeafter the union was founded, a printing press was installed and propagandabegan to be published.The interrelations between workers of different nationalities andreligions very soon emerged as a basic internal problem of the union.Apparently it was not so much theoretical or tactical as organizationaland psychological matters that were involved, although all theseelements were inexorably intertwined.In the history of the revolutionary movement, the name of anorganization very often had considerable significance for the foundersand members alike. Zemlia і volia, Chernyi peredel, Narodnaia volia,all catchwords, became part of the ritual terminology of the movementand its subsequent tradition. "Southern-Russian Workers' Union"sounds prosaic, yet the naming came not without difficulty.Koval'skaia relates that initially the union was to have been called"Southern" alone, to indicate its regional character. But some workersfound that unacceptable. The word "Russian" was added at thedemand of some workers, apparently to satisfy national consciousnessor pride. 21But, Koval'skaia says, "Southern Russian" did not reflectthe actual multinational composition of the union. The majority ofmembers were Ukrainians, but there were also Russians, Poles, Jews,and others. It seems that the combined adjective "Southern-Russian"was explained differently by various groups. Some Ukrainian circles— populist and socialist — contended that it was only a geographicaldescription and that it blurred the Ukrainian character of the region.Drahomanov soon reiterated that argument. Having found no informationabout the program and activity of the union, he argued that itsvery name revealed a conceptual and theoretical flaw, for it was"colorless-geographic" and not "clearly national," that is, Ukrainian. 2221Koval'skaia, 1926, pp. 24-25. She implies that the workers involved at thattime were Russians. Actually the captions of the leaflets issued by the uniongenerally omitted the word "Russian," although it did appear with the name of theprinting press. See the list of proclamations and the facsimiles in Balabanov, Кistorii, docs 1, 80a, 96a. 128a.22M. P. Drahomanov, Sobranie politicheskikh sochinenii, vol. 1 (Paris, 1905),pp. 239-40 (from the long essay "Istoricheskaia Pol'sha і velikorusskaia demo-