Editing Kibbutz (section)

== Ideology ==
{{see also|Religious Kibbutz Movement|Settlement movement (Israel)}}
[[File:PikiWiki Israel 3290 Picking Cotton.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Cotton fields of kibbutz [[Shamir, Israel|Shamir]], ca. 1958]]
First Aliyah immigrants were largely religious, but those of the Second Aliyah were mainly secular. A Jewish work ethic thus replaced religious practice. [[Berl Katznelson]], a Labor Zionist leader articulated this when he said "Everywhere the Jewish labourer goes, [[Shekhinah|the divine presence]] goes with him."<ref name=Segev255>[[Tom Segev|Segev, Tom]]. ''One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate''. Metropolitan Books, 2000, p. 255.</ref>

The first kibbutzim were founded in the upper [[Jordan Valley (Middle East)|Jordan Valley]], the [[Jezreel Valley]] and the [[Sharon]] [[coastal plain]]. The land was available for purchase because it was marshy and malaria-infested. The Zionists believed that the Arab population would be grateful for the economic benefits that developing the land would bring.{{Citation needed|date=August 2014}} Their approach was that the enemies of the Arab peasants were the Arab landowners (called ''[[effendi]]s''), not fellow Jewish farmers.{{Citation needed|date=August 2014}}

Kibbutz members were not classic Marxists though their system partially resembled [[Communism]]. [[Karl Marx]] and [[Friedrich Engels]] both shared a disdain for conventional formulations of the [[nation state]] and [[Leninism|Leninists]] were hostile to Zionism. Nevertheless, in the late 1930s, two kibbutz leaders, Tabenkin and Yaari, initially attracted to anarchist ideas,<ref>See James Horrox, ''A Living Revolution: Anarchism in the Kibbutz Movement'', Oakland: AK Press 2009. Ch. 3</ref> pushed their movements to reverence of [[Joseph Stalin]]'s dictatorship and of Stalin whom many called Shemesh HaAmim ("The Sun of the Nations").

The [[USSR]] voted at the [[UN]] for establishment of Israel. Stalin became hostile to Israel after it became apparent that Israel would not turn communist, so the USSR began serving diplomatic and military interests of various nations in the [[Arab world]]. This caused major crises and mass exit in both Kibbutz Meuchad and Kibbutz Artzi kibbutzim, especially after the 1952 [[Rudolf Slánský]] Prague show trials in which most of the accused and executed party functionaries were Jews and the 1953 [[Doctors' plot]] in Moscow of mostly Jews. Nonetheless many kibbutzim cancelled [[Purim]] celebrations when Stalin collapsed on March 1, 1953. Despite Communist atrocities {{citation needed|date=January 2022}} and increasing state antisemitism in the USSR and its satellites many in the far left kibbutz movement, like [[Hashomer Hatzair]] (The Young Guard) viewed Stalin with awe and leader of the "peace camp". The party paper [[Al HaMishmar]] (On the Watch) presented this view.
Kibbutzim were run as collective enterprises within Israel's partly [[free market]] system. Internally kibbutzim also practiced active democracy, with elections held for kibbutz functions and full participation in national elections in which the members generally voted along the lines of the kibbutz movement ideology. Jewish religious practices were banned or discouraged in many far left kibbutzim.{{citation needed|date=January 2022}}

Kibbutzim were not the only contemporary communal enterprises: pre-war Palestine also saw the development of communal villages called ''[[moshav]]im''. In a ''moshav'', marketing and major farm purchases were collective, but other aspects of life were private.{{Citation needed|date=August 2014}}

In 2009, most votes from kibbutzim went to [[Kadima]], [[Israeli Labor Party|Labor]], and [[Meretz]].<ref>{{cite news |author=Doron Shiner |date=11 February 2009 |url=http://www.haaretz.com/news/how-they-voted-see-israel-election-results-by-city-sector-1.269923 |title=How They Voted: See Israel election results by city/sector |newspaper=Haaretz |access-date=14 January 2014}}</ref>