History of the Jews in Russia and Poland Volume II Part 21

[Footnote 1: It may be added that Kutaysov recognized that the Russian ma.s.ses were equally the victims of the commercial exploitation of the Russian "bosses," but was at a loss to find a reason for the pogroms perpetrated in the Jewish agricultural colonies, i.e., against those who, according to this theory, were themselves the victims of exploitation.]

Ignatyev seized upon this flimsy theory, and embodied it in a more elaborate form in his report to the Tzar of August 22. In this report he endeavored to prove the futility of the policy hitherto pursued by the Russian Government which "for the last twenty years [during the reign of Alexander II.] had made efforts to bring about the fusion of the Jews with the remaining population and had nearly equalized the rights of the Jews with those of the original inhabitants." In the opinion of the Minister, the recent pogroms had shown that "the injurious influence" of the Jews could not be suppressed by such liberal measures.

The princ.i.p.al source of this movement [the pogroms], which is so incompatible with the temper of the Russian people, lies--according to Ignatyev--in circ.u.mstances which are of an exclusively economic nature. For the last twenty years the Jews have gradually managed to capture not only commerce and industry but they have also succeeded in acquiring, by means of purchase and lease, a large amount of landed property. Owing to their clannishness and solidarity, they have, with few exceptions, directed their efforts not towards the increase of the productive forces [of the country] but towards the exploitation of the original inhabitants, primarily of the poorest cla.s.ses of the population, with the result that they have called forth a protest from this population, manifesting itself in deplorable forms--In violence.... Having taken energetic means to suppress the previous disorders and mob rule and to shield the Jews against violence, the Government recognizes that it is justified in adopting, without delay, no less energetic measures to remove the present abnormal relations that exist between the original inhabitants and the Jews, and to shield the Russian population against this harmful Jewish activity, which, according to local information, was responsible for the disturbances.

Alexander III. hastened to express his agreement with these views of his Minister, who a.s.sured him that the Government had taken "energetic measures" to suppress the pogroms--which was only true in two or three recent cases. At the same time he authorized Ignatyev to adopt "energetic measures" of genuine Russian manufacture against those who had but recently been ruined by these pogroms.

The imperial ukase published on August 22, 1831, dwells on "the abnormal relations subsisting between the original population of several governments and the Jews." To meet this situation it provides that in those governments which harbor a considerable Jewish population special commissions should be appointed consisting of representatives of the local estates and communes, to be presided over by the governors. These commissions were charged with the task of finding out "which aspects of the economic activity of the Jews in general have exerted _an injurious influence_ upon the life of the original population, and what measures, both legislative and administrative, should be adopted" for the purpose of weakening that influence. In this way, the ukase, in calling for the appointment of the commissions, indicated at once the goal towards which their activity was to be directed: to determine the "injurious influence" of the Jews upon Russian economic life.

The same thought was expressed even more directly by Ignatyev, who in his circular to the governors-general, dated August 25, reproduced his report to the Tzar, and firmly established the dogma of "the harmful consequences of the economic activity of the Jews for the Christian population, their racial separatism, and religious fanaticism."

We are thus made the witnesses of a singular spectacle: the ruined and plundered Jewish population, which had a right to impeach the Government for having failed, to protect it from violence, was itself put on trial.

The judges in this legal action were none other than the agents of the ruling powers--the governors, some of whom had been guilty of connivance at the pogroms--on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the representatives of the Christian estates, urban and rural, who were mostly the appointees of these governors. In addition, every commission was allotted two Jewish representatives, who were to act in the capacity of experts but without voting power; they were placed in the position of defendants, and were made to listen to continuous accusations against the Jews, which the; were constantly forced to deny. Altogether there were sixteen such commissions: one in each of the fifteen governments of the Pale of Settlement--exclusive of the Kingdom of Poland--and one in the government of Kharkov. The commissions were granted a term of two months within which to complete their labors and present the results to the Minister.

The sessions of all these "gubernatorial commissions" [1] took place simultaneously during the months of September and October.

[Footnote 1: In Russian, _Gubernskiya Kommissit_, literally, "Government Commissions," using "Government" in the sense of "Province."]

The prisoner at the bar was the Jewish people which was tried on the charges contained in the official bill of indictment--the imperial ukase as supplemented and interpreted in the ministerial circular. A well-informed contemporary gives the following description of these sessions in an official memorandum:

The first session of each commission began with the reading of the ministerial circular of August 25. The reading invariably produced a strong effect in two different directions: on the members from among the peasantry and on those from among the Jews. The former became convinced of the hostile att.i.tude of the Government towards the Jewish population and of their leniency towards the instigators of the disorders, which, according to an a.s.sertion made in Ignatyev's circular, were due exclusively to the Jewish exploitation of the original inhabitants. Needless to say, the peasants did not fail to communicate this conviction, which was strengthened at the subsequent sessions by the failure to put any restraint upon the wholesale attacks on the Jews on the part of the anti-Semitic members, to their rural communes.

As for the Jewish members (of the commissions), the effect of the ministerial circular upon them was staggering. In their own persons they beheld the three millions of Russian Jewry placed at the prisoner's bar: one section of the population put on trial before another. And who were the judges? Not the representatives of the people, duly elected by all the estates of the population, such as the rural a.s.semblies, but the agents of the administration, bureaucratic office-holders, who were more or less subordinate to the Government. The court proceedings themselves were carried on in secret, without a sufficient number of counsel for the defendants who in reality were convicted beforehand. The att.i.tude adopted by the presiding governors, the speeches delivered by the anti-Semitic members, who were In an overwhelming majority, and characterized by attacks, derisive remarks, and subtle affronts, subjected the Jewish members to moral torture and made them lose all hope that they could be of any a.s.sistance in attempting a dispa.s.sionate, impartial, and comprehensive consideration of the question. In the majority of the commissions, their voice was suppressed and silenced. In these circ.u.mstances the Jewish members were forced, as a last resort, to defend the interests of their coreligionists in writing, by submitting memoranda and separate opinions. However, the instances were rare in which these memoranda and protests were dignified by being read during the sessions.

This being the case, it is not to be wondered at that the commissions brought in their "verdicts" in the spirit of the indictment framed by the authorities. The anti-Semitic officials exhibited their "learning"

in ignorant criticisms of the "spirit of Judaism," of the Talmud and the national separatism of the Jews, and they proposed to extirpate all these influences by means of cultural repression, such as the destruction of the autonomy of the Jewish communities, the closing up of all special Jewish schools, and the placing of all phases of the inner life of the Jews under Government control. The representatives of the Russian burghers and peasants, many of whom had but recently co-operated or, at least, sympathized with the perpetrators of the pogroms, endeavored to prove the economic "injuriousness" of the Jews, and demanded that they should be restricted in their urban and rural pursuits, as well as in their right of residence outside the cities.

Notwithstanding the prevailing spirit, five commissions voiced the opinion, which, from the point of view of the Russian Government, seemed rank heresy, that it was necessary to grant the Jews the right of domicile all over the empire so as to relieve the excessive congestion of the Jewish population in the Pale of Settlement.

4. THE SPREAD OF ANTI-SEMITISM

While the gubernatorial commissions--gubernatorial in the literal sense of the word, because entirely dominated by the governors--were holding their sessions, the satraps-in-chief of the Pale of Settlement, the governors-general, were busy sending their expressions of opinion to St.

Petersburg. The governor-general of Kiev, Drenteln, who himself was liable to prosecution for allowing a two days' pogrom in his own residential city, condemned the entire Jewish people in emphatic terms, and demanded the adoption of measures calculated "to shield the Christian population against so arrogant a tribe as the Jews, who refuse on religions grounds to have close contact with the Christians." It was necessary, in his opinion, to resort to legal repression in order to counteract "the intellectual superiority of the Jews," which enables them to emerge victorious in the straggle for existence.

Similar condemnations of Judaism came from the governors-general of Odessa, Vilna, and Kharkov, although they disagreed as to the dimensions which this repression should a.s.sume. Totleben, the master of the Vilna province, who had refused to countenance the perpetration of pogroms in Lithuania, nevertheless agreed that the Jews should henceforth be forbidden to settle in the villages, though he was generous enough to add that he found it somewhat inconvenient "to rob the whole Jewish nation of the possibility of earning a livelihood by its labor." The impression prevailed that militant Judaeophobia was determined to deprive the Jews even of the right of securing a piece of bread.

The Government was well aware beforehand that the labors of the gubernatorial commissions would yield results satisfactory to it. It, therefore, found it unnecessary to wait for their reports and resolutions, and proceeded to establish in St. Petersburg, on October 19, "a Central Committee for the Revision of the Jewish Question." The committee was attached to the Ministry of the Interior, and consisted of several officials, under the chairmanship of a.s.sistant-Minister Gotovtzev. The officials were soon busy framing "temporary measures" in the spirit of their patron Ignatyev, and, as the resolutions of the gubernatorial commissions were coming in, they were endeavoring to strengthen the foundations for the projected enactment. In January, 1882, the machinery for the manufacture of Jewish disabilities was in full swing.

This organized campaign of the enemies of Judaism, who were preparing administrative pogroms as a sequel to the street pogroms, met with no organized resistance on the part of Russian Jewry. The small conference of Jewish notables in St. Petersburg, which met in September in secret session, presented a sorry spectacle. The guests from the provinces, who had been invited by Baron Gunzburg, engaged in discussions about the problem of emigration, the struggle with the anti-Semitic press, and similar questions. After being presented to Ignatyev, who a.s.sured them in diplomatic fashion of the "benevolent intentions of the Government,"

they returned to their homes, without having achieved anything.

The only social factor in Jewish life was the press, particularly the three periodicals published in Russian, the _Razsvyet_ ("the Dawn"), the _Russki Yevrey_ ("the Russian Jew"), and the _Voskhod_ ("the Sunrise"), [1] but even they revealed the lack of a well-defined policy.

[Footnote 1: See on these papers, p. 219 et seq.]

The political movements in Russian Jewry were yet in an embryonic stage, and their rise and development were reserved for a later period. True, the Russian-Jewish press applied itself a.s.siduously to the task of defending the rights of the Jews, but its voice remained unheard in those circles of Russia in which the poisonous waters of Judaeophobia gushed forth in a broad current from the columns of the semi-official _Novoye Vremya_, the pan-Slavic _Russ_, and many of their anti-Semitic contemporaries.

While the summer pogroms were in full swing, the _Novoye Vremya_, reflecting the views of the official spheres, seriously formulated the Jewish question in the paraphrase of Hamlet: "to beat or not to beat."

Its conclusion was that it was necessary to "beat" the Jews, but, in view of the fact that Russia was a monarchical state with conservative tendencies, this function ought not to be discharged by the people but by the Government, which by its method of legal repression could beat the Jews much more effectively than the crowds on the streets.

The editor of the Moscow newspaper _Russ_, Ivan Aksakov, [1] attacked the Russian liberal press for expressing its sympathy with the Jewish pogrom victims, contending that the Russian people demolished the Jewish houses under the effect of a "righteous indignation," though he failed to explain why that indignation also took the form of plundering and stealing Jewish property, or violating Jewish women. Throwing into one heap the arguments of the medieval Church and those of modern German anti-Semitism, Aksakov maintained that Judaism was opposed to "Christian civilization," and that the Jewish people were striving for "world domination" which they hoped to attain through their financial power.

[Footnote 1: Compare above, p. 208.]

The bacillus of German anti-Semitism had penetrated even into the circles of the Russian radical _intelligenzia_. Among the "Populists,"

[1] who were wont to idealize the Russian peasantry, it became the fashion to look upon the Jew as an economic exploiter, with this distinction, however, that they bracketed him with the host of Russian exploiters from among the bourgeois cla.s.s. This resulted in a most unfortunate misunderstanding. A faction of South Russian revolutionaries from among the party known as "The People's Freedom" [2] conceived the idea that the same peasants and laborers who had attacked the Jews as the representatives of the non-Russian bourgeoisie might easily be directed against the representatives of the ruling cla.s.ses in general.

During the spring and summer pogroms, several attempts were made by mysterious persons, through written appeals and oral propaganda, to turn the pogrom movement also against the Russian n.o.bles and officials. [3]

Towards the end of August, 1881, the Executive Committee of "The People's Freedom" issued an appeal in which it voiced the thought that the Tzar had enslaved the free Ukrainian people and had distributed the lands rightfully belonging to the peasants among the pans [4] and officials, who extended their protection to the Jews and shared the profits with them. Therefore, the people should march against the Jews, the landlords, and the Tzar. "a.s.sist us, therefore," the appeal continues, "arise, laborers, avenge yourselves on the landlords, plunder the Jews, and slay the officials!"

[Footnote 1: See above, p. 222.]

[Footnote 2: In Russian, _Narodnaya Vola_. It was organized in 1879, and was responsible for the a.s.sa.s.sination of Alexander II.]

[Footnote 3: These endeavors were evidently the reason why the Russian Government was originally inclined to ascribe the anti-Jewish movement to revolutionary tactics.]

[Footnote 4: The Polish n.o.ble landowners. See Vol. I, p. 93, n. 2.]

True, the appeal was the work of only a part of the Revolutionary Executive Committee, which at that time had its headquarters in Moscow.

It failed to obtain the approval of the other members of the Committee and of the party as a whole, and, being a doc.u.ment that might compromise the revolutionary movement, was withdrawn and destroyed after a number of copies had been circulated. Nevertheless, the champions of "The People's Freedom" continued for some time to justify theoretically the utilization of the anti-Jewish movement for the aims of the general social revolution. Only at a later stage did this section of the revolutionary party realize that these tactics were not only mistaken but also criminal. For events soon made it clear that the anti-Jewish movement served as an unfailing device in the hands of the black reactionaries to divert the popular wrath from the source of all evil--the rule of despotism--and direct it towards the most unfortunate victims of that despotism.

5. THE POGROM AT WARSAW

When the July pogroms were over, it seemed as if the pogrom epidemic had died out, and no one expected that it would soon break out afresh. The greater was the surprise when, in December, 1881, the news spread that a pogrom, lasting three days, had taken, place in the capital of the Kingdom of Poland, in Warsaw. Least of all was this pogrom expected in Warsaw itself, where the relations between the Poles and the Jews were not yet marked by the animosity they a.s.sumed subsequently. But the organizers of the pogrom who received their orders from above managed to adapt themselves to local conditions, and the unexpected came to pa.s.s.

On the Catholic Christmas day, when the Church of the Holy Cross in the center of the town was crowded with worshippers, somebody suddenly shouted "Fire!" The people rushed to the doors, and in the terrible panic that ensued twenty-nine persons were crushed to death, and many others were maimed. The alarm proved a false one. There was no trace of a fire in the church, and n.o.body doubted but that the alarm had been given by pick-pockets--there were a goodly number of them in Warsaw--who had resorted to this well-known trick to rob the public during the panic. But right there, among the crowd which was a.s.sembled in front of the church, gazing in horror at the bodies of the victims, some unknown persons spread the rumor--which, it may be parenthetically remarked, proved subsequently unfounded--that two Jewish pickpockets had been caught in the church.

At that moment whistles were suddenly heard--n.o.body knew whence they came--which served as the signal for a pogrom. The street mob began to a.s.sault the Jews who happened to pa.s.s by, and then started, according to the established procedure, to attack the Jewish stores, saloons, and residences in the streets adjoining the church. The hordes were under the command of thieves, well known to the police, and of some unknown strangers who from time to time gave signals by whistling, and directed the mob into this or that street. As in all other cases in which the danger did not threaten the authorities directly, there were but few policemen and soldiers on hand--which circ.u.mstance stimulated the rioters in their further activity.

On the following day the rioters were "busy" on many other streets, both in the center of the town and in its outskirts, except for the streets which were densely populated by Jews, where they were afraid of meeting with serious resistance. [1]

[Footnote 1: In some places the Jews defended themselves energetically, and in the ensuing fight there were wounded on both sides.]

The police and the troops arrested many rioters, and carried them off to the police stations. But for some unknown reason they did not summon enough courage to disperse the crowd, so that the mob frequently engaged in its criminal work in the very presence of the guardians of public safety.

In accordance with the well-known pogrom routine, the authorities remembered only on the third day that it was time to suppress the riots, the "lesson" being over. On December 15, the governor-general of Warsaw, Albedinski, issued an order dividing the town into four districts and placing every district under the command of a regimental chief. Troops were stationed in the streets and ordered to check all crowds, with the result that on the same day the disorders were stopped.

This, however, came too late. For in the meantime some fifteen hundred Jewish residences, business places, and houses of prayer had been demolished and pillaged, and twenty-four Jews had been wounded, while the monetary loss amounted to several million rubles. Over three thousand rioters were arrested--among them a large number of under-aged youths. On the whole, the rioters were recruited from the dregs of the Polish population, but there were also found among them a number of unknown persons that spoke Russian. The _Novoye Vremya_, in commenting upon the pogrom, made special reference to the friendly att.i.tude of the Polish hooligans to the Russians in general and to the officers and soldiers in particular--a rather suspicious att.i.tude, considering the inveterate hatred of the Poles towards the Russians, especially towards the military and official cla.s.s. Here and there the soldiers themselves got drunk in the demolished saloons, and took part in looting Jewish property.

The Polish patriots from among the higher cla.s.ses were shocked by this attempt to engineer a barbarous Russian pogrom in Warsaw. In an appeal which the representatives of the Polish intellectuals addressed to the people not later than on the second day of the pogrom they protested emphatically against the hideous scenes which had been disgracing the capital of Poland. The archbishop of Warsaw acted similarly, and the Catholic priests frequently marched through the streets with crosses in their hands, admonishing the crowds to disperse. It is interesting to note that, while the pogrom was going on, the governor-general of Warsaw refused to comply with the request of a number of Poles, who applied for permission to organize a civil guard, pledging themselves to restore order in the city in one day. It would seem as if the official pogrom ritual did not allow of the slightest modification. The disorders had to proceed in accordance with the established routine, so as not to violate the humane commandment: "Two days shalt thou plunder, and on the third day shalt thou rest." Evidently some one had an interest in having the capital of Poland repeat the experiment of Kiev and Odessa, and in seeing to it that the "cultured Poles" should not fall behind the Russian barbarians in order to convince Europe that the pogrom was not exclusively a Russian manufacture.

As a matter of fact, the opposite result was attained. The revolting events at Warsaw, which completed the pogrom cycle of 1881, made a much stronger impression upon Europe and America than all the preceding pogroms, for the reason that Warsaw stood in close commercial relations with the West, and the havoc wrought there had an immediate effect upon the European market.

CHAPTER XXIII

NEW MEASURES OF OPPRESSION AND PUBLIC PROTESTS