Jewish problem when Smolensk was taken by Czar Alexyey Mikhaylovich
the Debonnaire, also an old Russian nationalist who was not conscious
of his nationalism. He could not make up his mind to settle it by
simply destroying the object which perplexed Russia's political mind.
After due deliberation, he decided to have the Jews deported. This was
a somewhat milder measure. Another century passed, and Russia
conquered the vast and rich territory which is included in the
so-called "Pale of Settlement." This portion of Russia was peopled
with many millions of Jews. It was not possible any longer to do away
with this large population by either drowning it in a river, or
even--as many are still planning in all earnestness--by deportation.
Thus, the Russian state, in the person of Empress Catherine II, for
the first time found itself forced to face the Jewish question in a
form which did not allow of simply waving it aside. How then did the
enlightened Empress settle it? Well, she simply did not put the
question. Her decision was nearly this: The Jews have lived there--let
them stay there; they had certain rights relating to their faith and
property--let them enjoy these rights in the future. The
Interpretation of the Senate even more strongly emphasised this
thought. Here is the gist of this Interpretation: "Since the Imperial
Ukase has placed the Jews in a legal status of equality with the rest
of the population, the rule established by her Majesty should,
therefore, be followed in application to each particular case. Every
one should enjoy his rights and acquisitions according to his
condition and calling without distinction of faith and nationality."
Such was the decision of the Senate of the time of Catherine the
Great. There can be no question here of a negative solution of the
Jewish problem, for the very possibility of such a problem was not
considered. Least of all did Catherine think that in the lapse of
years her ukase of December 23, 1791, in which neither faith nor
nationality was mentioned, would give birth to ... the "Pale of
Settlement." At that time the Jews were confined within the limits of
the "Pale" neither more nor less than the Ukrainian population of that
section, or the people of the old Russian provinces were. It will be
remembered that in those times the law forbade a townsman to take up
his residence in another town or in a village. It was not a special
limitation intended for the Jews, it affected all the Russian subjects
throughout the Empire. How then did it result in a special Jewish
disability?
It did not result either from the increase in the rights of other
citizens, or from the limitation of the rights of the Jews as a
nationality. The afore-mentioned limitations were removed from the
townspeople of non-Jewish birth both in the newly annexed provinces
and elsewhere. But they remained in full force in relation to the
Jews, living in towns. But since all the Jews were registered as
townspeople, this restriction coincided with the limits of their
nationality. Hence arose the "Pale" which assumed the character of a
national disability. Thus, the problem of Jewish disabilities was
practically solved before the legislator ever formulated the Jewish
question.
For this reason, in the times of Catherine II, when the main features
of the future Jewish disabilities were becoming a fact, the Government
did not solve the general Jewish question in principle. Likewise,
during the entire century which followed Catherine's reign, that is,
all through the nineteenth century, our legislation was in a state of
constant indecision.
A brief historical survey will show plainly the accuracy of this
statement. In 1795 the Jews who lived in the villages of the Province
of Minsk were ordered to move to the towns. In the following year they
were permitted to stay in the villages, because the landed proprietors
employed them as agents for the sale of whiskey. In the year 1801 a
new edict again expels the Jews from the villages. In 1802 the Senate
rules that they must stay in their former places of residence. In
1804--the year that saw the first Regulation concerning the Jews--they
are ordered to be expelled within three years from the villages
throughout the country. But in 1808 before the term expires the law is
found impracticable. The Jews again remained where they had been
established, their status being subject to further regulation. Then
the Committee of the year 1812 came to the conclusion that the law of
1804 must be completely abrogated, in view of its being unjust and
dangerous. Between 1812 and 1827 the mood of the legislation is again
altered and prohibitive measures follow one another. In 1835, these
measures are once more found to be useless and inefficient. In 1852,
expulsions are renewed, but a few years later, with the beginning of
the liberal reign of Alexander II, this policy is again abandoned and
an interval of rest and quiet, covering a quarter of a century, is
inaugurated. Then the temporary Regulations of 1882 undertake to
prohibit new Jewish settlements outside of towns. Former settlements,
although illegal, were legalised and exempted from persecution. But in
1893 all the Jews who had illegally settled in the villages were again
ordered to be expelled therefrom. Nevertheless, the committee of the
year 1899 not only refused to ratify this measure, but, on the
contrary, it recognised the necessity of relaxing even the old
Temporary Regulation of 1882. And, in fact, in 1903 we find the Jewish
settlements in 158 villages. At the same time, the Jewish rural
population within the limits of the "Pale of Settlement" grew
considerably. In 1881 there lived in the villages 580,000 Jews; in the
year 1897 they reached the number of 711,000.
Thus did our legislation concerning the Jews fluctuate and vacillate.
And amidst these hesitations the thought of a complete removal of all
the Jewish disabilities never died. Here is another historical
excursion covering a century. The Committee of Jewish Affairs of the
year 1803 plainly established this regulation: "the maximum of freedom
and the minimum of limitations." The second Committee, whose
activities fall in the period from 1807 to 1812, proved even more
thoroughgoing, for it was more familiar with the conditions of Russian
life. It asserted that the Jews are useful and necessary for the
Russian village. It added, furthermore, that the negative, dark
phenomena which are attributed by some to the presence of Jews in the
villages, in reality are characteristic of Russian life in general,
and cannot be said to be due to the Jewish influence. This was also
the opinion of the minority of the Imperial Council in 1835. In 1858,
the Minister of the Interior himself demanded equal rights for the
Jews, and the reactionary Committee on Jewish affairs agreed to the
demand on the sole condition that the disabilities should be removed
gradually, from various Jewish groups. The new Committee of 1872 acted
even more vigorously. It believed that the abolition of Jewish
disabilities is, in general, nothing but an act of justice, and that
this abolition must be carried out not gradually, but immediately i.e.
it must include all the groups of the Jewish population. Again, the
Committee of 1883 comes to the same conclusion that it is necessary to
give the Jews equal rights. That was the opinion even of Von Pleve,
who is known to the world for his persecution of the Jews. In the
period from 1905 to 1907 the revision of the legislation concerning
the Jews for the purpose of abolishing the prohibitive measures was
considered but a question of time and was left to the consideration
of the people's representatives in the Imperial Duma which had just
come into being. The opinion of the first two sessions of the Duma is
well known. The People's representatives in the first two Dumas
announced directly and unambiguously that the realisation of full
civic freedom, for Jews as well as for the rest of the citizens, was
one of their first tasks. Then a new reactionary election law was
introduced. It made a radical change in the composition of the
Imperial Duma and also in the attitude of the latter toward the Jewish
question. The outright usefulness of the part played by the Jews in
the economic life of both town and village,--this fact, which even
reactionary governments, ministers and committees ceased doubting, was
again questioned by the newly elected representatives of the Russian
people. It is only from that moment on that it became possible to plan
such measures as the abolition of those meagre rights which the Jews
are still enjoying. Thus, together with the victory of political
reaction the new anti-Semitism, which we cannot any longer overlook,
has become triumphant.
Our historical excursion enables us also to explain the reason why in
the present phrase of Russian social life the Jewish problem has again
arisen in an unprecedented form. It was simply a new political weapon,
in a sense, the result of the new form of political life. As long as
the nation was voiceless, as long as all matters were decided by the
bureaucracy in the quiet of offices, committees, and ministries, it
was possible for the Government to ignore the people as a factor in
legislation, and to take into account nothing but the needs and the
welfare of the state as it understood them. But when the nation was
called to participate in state affairs, there arose the need of
influencing it in a certain sense. It became necessary to work up the
masses, to act on their intellect and will. Official anti-Semitism is
the most primitive means of satisfying this need, a simplified attempt
to bridle the masses, to suggest to them the feelings, motives, views
and methods which are in the interest of those who play the game. In
other words, demagogy came into being. For the purposes of demagogy a
special political weapon, corresponding to the political conditions
under the new régime, was created,--namely artificial political
parties.
Thus, anti-Semitism of the new type, however strange this conclusion
may appear, is the product of the constitutional epoch. It is a
response to the need for new means of influencing the masses. And in
this sense anti-Semitism plays in Russia the same rôle as it played in
Western Europe.
Bismarck, it will be remembered, called anti-Semitism the socialism of
fools. In order to combat the socialism of intelligent people, it is
necessary to take hold of the ignorant masses and to mislead them by
showing them the imaginary enemy of their welfare instead of the real
one. Anti-Semitism says to the ignorant masses: "There is your enemy,
fight the Jews, and you will improve your life conditions...." It is
well known that such attempts to apply anti-Semitism for the purpose
of creating social parties of the new type were more than once made in
the West. As an example, I shall cite the Christian Social Party in
Austria, with its late leader, Lueger.
There is one small difference between us and the West. In Russia the
masses are not so well prepared to appreciate a social argument, even
when served in a simplified form. In Russia anti-Semitism is forced to
present this argument in an even more popular form, making an appeal
to the most elementary passions and instincts. F.I. Rodichev once
remarked in the Duma, parodying Bismarck's aphorism to fit it to our
conditions, that anti-Semitism is "the patriotism of perplexed
people." In fact, anti-Semitism in Russia is a means of creating a
nationalism of a definite type in the masses, it is with this aim in
view that our anti-Semites play on the racial and religious
animosities of the masses.
In spite of this difference, the very means, ways, and methods our
anti-Semites use in their striving to mould the popular mind are of
distinctly foreign origin. It is enough to collate the arguments
expounded in the Duma or printed in the _Russian Standard_ and
_Zemshchina_ with the anti-Semitic literature of the West, such as
Drumont's books, or similar German works,--and it becomes apparent
that in the latter the entire anti-Semitic arsenal of our nationalists
is to be found ready-made. It is from thence that mediæval legends of
ritual murders and law projects concerning the slaughter of cattle,
and such-like inventions, are imported to us.
Anti-Semitism serves in Russia one more purpose. It is not sufficient
to influence the masses. It is also necessary to act on the powers
that be. If it is imperative to get hold of the masses, it is also
necessary to frighten the authorities. Thus a new version of the
anti-Semitic legend comes into being: the legend of the Jew as the
creator of the Russian revolution. It is the Jew,--so our anti-Semites
assure us--who created the Russian emancipatory movements, it is he
who formed the revolutionary organisation, it is he who marched under
the red banners.... The Russian who would give credence to this tale
would show his disrespect for the Russian nation. To assert that it is
only owing to the help of the Jew that the Russian people freed
themselves is tantamount to saying that without the Jew, the Russian
nation can not reach the road of its own emancipation. No, however
great my respect for the exceptional gifts of the Jewish people may
be, I will not refuse the Russian nation the ability of taking the
initiative in the cause of its own freedom.
But there is another side to this matter. If there can be no question
of the dependence of the emancipation movement on the Jews, the
dependence of the Jews on the emancipatory movement is very real. What
must be the Jew's attitude toward this movement? There can be only one
answer to the question. The Jewish masses have realised the importance
for them of the emancipatory movement not only because they are more
enlightened, because they are more educated, because they are not
addicted to alcoholism, and, hence, are superior to their neighbours
in their understanding of their own needs; the Jewish masses were also
led to side with the movement for freedom because in their case it was
a struggle for elementary rights the importance of which is plain to
every one and vitally concerns every one. That is why the entire
Jewish mass may actually be reckoned in the ranks of those who are
with the Russian emancipatory movement.
One more remark in conclusion. In late years the "inorodtzy" (Russian
subjects of non-Russian birth), having lost their hope that the
Russian emancipatory movement would bring them any immediate practical
results, have sought to influence the Government by means of more
direct methods. There are national movements which believe that they
would more rapidly get national rights by means of negotiating with
the bureaucracy. They are inclined to think that this way is more
direct than the participation in the Russian emancipatory movement.
Other national groups, in the struggle for their national rights,
choose a different kind of tactics: they seek a more direct way in
another direction,--not through the bureaucracy, not from above, but
from below. They, too, believe that the "inorodtzy" must organise for
their specific national aims and keep apart from the common cause of
Russia's political emancipation.
From what has been said about the peculiar nature of the Jewish
question which results in the sufferings of the Jews not only as a
national group, but also as individual citizens, it follows that it is
difficult for the Jews more than for any other group of "inorodtzy" to
accept either one of the aforenamed tactical methods. The Jews must
bear in mind with especial clearness that their fate is closely and
inseparably interwoven with the fate of the general emancipatory
movement in Russia. They must also keep in mind that the separate
national movements which disrupt the bonds of political parties in
order to make place for their national programmes, may prove injurious
to our common cause. They may lead us away from the common highroad to
by-paths where we all run the risk of going apart and losing our way.
And here is the practical conclusion to which these considerations
lead. The separate national movements should be postponed until the
solution of the general problem of all-Russian emancipation. Let us
hope that the Jewish nation understands the close connection existing
between its fate and that of Russia's freedom, now, as well as it did
in those years when it fought in the ranks of the Russian progressive
movements. Let us hope that in the future, as in the past, the
emancipation of the different nationalities which people the Russian
Empire will be fought for in the common ranks of the all-Russian
movement for freedom.
* * * * *
THE JEWS AND RUSSIAN ECONOMIC LIFE
_Mikhail Vladimirovich Bernatzky, born in 1878, is a noted writer
on economical topics. He taught economics at the Kiev University
and at the Polytechnical Institute, Petrograd._
THE JEWS AND RUSSIAN ECONOMIC LIFE
BY M. BERNATZKY
Much has been written about the insufferable situation of the Russian
Jews, these serfs of the twentieth century, chained to "the Pale of
Settlement," somewhat like the Roman colons, _"glebae adscripti_." The
tragic history of late years and the epoch through which we are living
can disturb the inner composure of the most indifferent spectator of
current events. It is painful to touch upon many aching and
essentially clear questions, but life constantly and severely demands
that they should be brought before our minds, and life awaits an
answer to them from the thought and conscience of Russian society.
It is not our intention to discuss the necessity for the removal of
Jewish disabilities from the humanitarian standpoint. However
majestic may be those "elementary principles of law and morality,"
which have been achieved by mankind on its long historic road and
which are now the very basis of civilisation, in the eyes of many they
are still little more than "fine words," stylistic embellishments of
highbrow talk. Of course, the atmosphere of discriminations is equally
pernicious for those who suffer and those who are privileged: did not
serfdom corrupt the master as well as the slave? All this is eminently
true. But there are arguments, which we regret to say, are more
appealing and convincing. It is these arguments that we shall treat in
the present paper.
The reader is well aware of the fact that in these days nothing has
been discussed more vividly than the necessity of developing Russia's
productive powers. The intimate connection between the general
prosperity of our country and its economic progress has penetrated
into the consciousness of people at large. It is the war, evidently,
that has driven this truth home to us: namely that the ultimate
success of the conflict depends not only on the activity of the
armies, but also on the economic stability of the belligerent
nations. The economic difficulties which are being experienced by
Germany, strengthen our faith in our final victory. More than a
quarter of a century ago the Russian Minister of Finance, who took
great pains to develop our industry, wrote in the explanatory memoir
which accompanied the project of the state budget:
"I believe it to be the duty I owe Your Imperial Majesty to express my
firm, clear, and profound conviction that economic prosperity of the
people even when coupled with a somewhat imperfect military
organisation will be more useful in case of war than the most complete
military preparedness combined with economic weakness. In the latter
case, the people, however eager they may be to sacrifice both their
life and property, can bring to the altar of the fatherland their life
only, but they will be unable to furnish the necessary financial means
for the State."
It is from this standpoint of economic interests that we shall
approach the painful Jewish question. The time is long since past when
it was possible to say with the Empress Elizabeth Petrovna: "From
Christ's enemies I desire no profit." It is precisely in this profit
that both the Exchequer and the higher classes, and--what is most
important--the people at large, are greatly interested. The basic
productive force of a country is the living work of its population.
The body politic of Russia contains about six millions of gifted and
undoubtedly industrious Jews. The manner in which the forces of this
people are applied will be treated further on. For the moment let us
state this: it is to the interest of the Russian State to utilise
economically this living Jewish energy as completely and rationally as
possible. From this standpoint all the obstacles which are created for
the Jews in the field of education are absolutely incomprehensible: it
is as if our country, sorely lacking as it is not only in
representatives of superior qualified labour, but actually in literate
people, were striving to increase its ignorance and intellectual
backwardness. Of course, formal justification can be found for every
act, and every evil-doer endeavours to convince himself of the justice
of his evil deeds. So it is in this case, too: the intentional
shutting-off of the Jewish masses from education is motivated by the
desire to keep them from becoming superior to the Russian population,
which, it is said, is intellectually inferior to the Jews. This
argument is an outright insult flung in the face of the Russian
people. It shows that the official guardians of the nation do not know
its rich natural powers. But this argument cannot obscure the
essential nature of Jewish disabilities as an intentional neglect of
that productive power which is represented by a portion of the Russian
subjects. Our economic organism does not get all the benefits to which
it may rightfully lay claim.