# The Shield/The Jewish Question in Russia

Professor Paul Nikolayevich Milyukov, the central figure in the present Russian revolution, was born in 1859. Before the upheaval in 1905 he was known as a distinguished historian. In 1903 and 1904 he lectured on Russia at Harvard and at the University of Chicago, and in 1908 he spoke on the situation in Russia before the Civic Forum in Carnegie Hall. Ever since the revolutionary days of 1905-6, Professor Milyukov has been playing a most conspicuous part in the Russian emancipatory movement, as the leader of the Constitutional party, as a Duma deputy and the editor of the influential radical newspaper Ryech.
THE JEWISH QUESTION IN RUSSIA
By P. MILYUKOV
THE Jewish question in Russia presents altogether pecuhar aspects. This is not only because there are in the Empire six million Jews, i.e., more than in any other State in the world, and because in the provinces annexed at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, they form as much as 11 per cent, of the population—but also for the reason that the legal status of the Russian Jews completely differs from that of other non-Russian nationalities which go to make the Empire. These nationalities endeavour to obtain the many rights of which they are deprived. The most important of these rights is national autonomy, i.e., the right of a collective unit to preserve and develop its national individuality. In this ​manner they desire to protect themselves from the danger of assimilation, from the possibility of their fusion with the dominant nationality. Of course the Jews, too, have been striving, especially in late years, to realise national autonomy and thus safeguard the rights and aspirations of their collective unit. But they lack still other rights. They have still to be granted those rights which to a considerable degree other Russian subjects, not of Russian birth, enjoy. The law does not protect the elementary civil rights of the Jews as members of our common Russian commonwealth. Consequently, that which the Jews strive for is far more elementary, far more primitive and simple, than the objective of other non-Russian nationalities which inhabit Russia.
Anti-Semitism is not peculiar to Russia; it is to be found in other countries as well. But there it exists as an emotion and a state of mind, not as a system of legislative definitions. The time has long since passed when the legislatures of the world failed to guarantee the elementary civil rights of the Jews. Roumania alone constitutes a peculiar exception. But, as a rule, in all civilised States the law ​guarantees Jewish rights, and religious and racial differences do not create legal disabilities. Nevertheless, if anti-Semitism is still in existence in the Western countries, the aims it pursues there are political. It continues to be the weapon of political reaction. And its objective, at its extreme, is by no means like the grandiose programme of utter destruction of the Jews which is pursued by the "truly-Russian" theoreticians of our reaction.
Consequently, the Jewish question in Russia means, above all, the legal disabilities of the individual Jews that result from the discriminations made against them as a religious and national entity. It is only one aspect of our general inequality and of our lack of civil freedom. The problem of Jewish equal rights in Russia is the problem of the equal rights of all our citizens in general. That is why the anti-Semitical parties in Russia have a larger political significance and importance than the anti-Semitical parties of the West. In our country they almost coincide with anti-constitutional parties, in general, and anti-Semitism is the banner of the old régime, of which we still struggle in vain to rid ourselves. This ​accounts for the fact that the Jewish question occupies such a prominent place in Russian social and political life. Here the struggle for general rights coincides with the struggle for national rights. That is why the Jewish problem has come to occupy the centre of our political stage.
I must add that Russian anti-Semitism, as defined above, is a comparatively new phenomenon, in fact, it may be asserted that it is a phenomenon of most recent origin. However ancient may be the instincts on which our anti-Semites try to play, anti-Semitism itself as a political motto, as a movement with a party platform and definite aims, is a new means of political struggle, invented and applied only in late years. Of course, in the past there can be found manifestations—very crude and coarse—of what might be termed "zoological" anti-Semitism. In 1563, Ivan the Terrible conquered Polotzk, and for the first time the Russian Government was confronted by the fact of the existence of the Jewish nationality. The Czar's advisers were somewhat perplexed and asked him what to do with these newly acquired subjects. Ivan the Terrible ​answered unhesitatingly: "Baptise them or drown them in the river."
They were drowned. And the old Russian "zoological" nationalism was satisfied by this primitive solution of the problem. But the political wisdom of Czar Ivan's times has long since become obsolete.
A century later Russian statehood for the second time ran across the 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 role 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 bypaths 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.
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