Komzet (Russian: Комитет по земельному устройству еврейских трудящихся, КОМЗЕТ) was the Committee for the Settlement of Toiling Jews on the Land (some English sources use the word "working" instead of "toiling") in the Soviet Union. The primary goal of the Komzet was to help impoverished and persecuted Jewish population of the former Pale of Settlement to adopt agricultural labor. Other goals were getting financial assistance from the Jewish diaspora and providing the Soviet Jews an alternative to Zionism.
Function
The Komzet was a government committee whose function was to contribute and distribute the land for new kolkhozes. A complementary public society, the OZET was established in order to assist in moving settlers to a new location, housebuilding, irrigation, training, providing them with cattle and agricultural tools, education, medical and cultural services. The funds were to be provided by private donations, charities and lotteries.
^Terry Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939 (Cornell University Press, 2001: ISBN0-8014-8677-7), pp. 411–12.
Further reading
Robert Weinberg. Stalin's Forgotten Zion. Birobidzhan and the Making of a Soviet Jewish Homeland: An Illustrated History, 1928–1996 (University of California Press, 1998)) ISBN0-520-20990-7
Jonathan L. Dekel-Chen. Farming the Red Land: Jewish Agricultural Colonization and Local Soviet Power, 1924–1941 (Yale University Press, 2005) ISBN0-300-10331-X