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diff --git a/19453.txt b/19453.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6d7a172 --- /dev/null +++ b/19453.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4450 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Shield, by Various, et al, Edited by +Maksim Gorky, Leonid Nikolayevich Andreyev, and Fyodor Sologub, Translated +by A. Yarmolinsky + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Shield + + +Author: Various + +Editor: Maksim Gorky, Leonid Nikolayevich Andreyev, and Fyodor Sologub + +Release Date: October 3, 2006 [eBook #19453] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHIELD*** + + +E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Jeannie Howse, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/) + + + + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Inconsistent hyphenation and unusual spelling in the | + | original document have been preserved. | + | | + | A number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected | + | in this text. For a complete list, please see the end of | + | this document. | + | | + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +THE SHIELD + + + + +--------------------------------------------------+ + | THE NEWEST BORZOI BOOKS | + | | + | ASPHALT | + | _By Orrick Johns_ | + | | + | BACKWATER | + | _By Dorothy Richardson_ | + | | + | CENTRAL EUROPE | + | _By Friedrich Naumann_ | + | | + | CRIMES OF CHARITY | + | _By Konrad Bercovici_ | + | | + | RUSSIA'S MESSAGE | + | _By William English Walling_ | + | | + | THE BOOK OF SELF | + | _By James Oppenheim_ | + | | + | THE BOOK OF CAMPING | + | _By A. Hyatt Verrill_ | + | | + | MODERN RUSSIAN HISTORY | + | _By Alexander Kornilov_ | + | | + | THE RUSSIAN SCHOOL OF PAINTING | + | _By Alexandre Benois_ | + | | + | THE JOURNAL OF LEO TOLSTOI (1895-1899) | + | | + | THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SUPERTRAMP | + | _By William H. Davies_ | + | _With a Preface by Bernard Shaw_ | + | | + +--------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +THE SHIELD + + +Edited by + +MAXIM GORKY, LEONID ANDREYEV, and FYODOR SOLOGUB + +With a Foreword by William English Walling + +Translated from the Russian by A. Yarmolinsky + + + + + + + +New York Alfred A. Knopf Mcmxvii +Copyright, 1917, by +Alfred A. Knopf +Printed in the United States of America + + + + +FOREWORD + + +This is not merely a book about the Russian Jews. It is a marvellous +revelation of the Russian soul. It shows not only that the +overwhelming majority of the Russian intellectuals, including nearly +all of her brilliant literary geniuses, are opposed to the persecution +of the Jews or any other race, but that they have a capacity for +sympathy and understanding of humanity unequalled in any other land. I +do not know of any book where the genius and heart of Russia is better +displayed. Not only her leading litterateurs but also her leading +statesmen and economists are represented--and all of them speak as +with a single voice. + +I am writing on the 16th of March. Yesterday the news reached the +world that Russia had probably at last succeeded in emancipating +itself from the German-sustained and German-supported autocracy which +so long has been renounced by practically all classes of the Russian +people. I have pointed out elsewhere that this Second Act of the great +drama of social transformation in Russia was to be expected in +connection with the present war. It is not surprising that this Act, +like the first--the Revolution of 1905--is accompanied by an +irresistible demand for the cessation of the persecution of the Jews +and other minority races. The first Duma, that of 1906, demanded +unanimously that all these races be given absolutely the same rights +as other Russians. The rise of Liberalism during the war, in +connection with military necessities, had already abolished a number +of Jewish disabilities. There is no longer any question that the Jews +will be given equality. Without exception the anti-Semitic +organisations were supported by the pro-German party, the money which +was alone responsible for the pogroms was furnished by these same +organisations, and now this Party and these organisations are forever +overthrown. It was Dr. Dubrovin, for example, who year by year carried +out the murders of the leading representatives of the Jews in the Duma +and who almost succeeded in having Milukov assassinated a few weeks +ago. Dubrovin was one of the most important of the sinister forces +supported by the money of the German Czarina's court party--which was +organised by Baron Fredericks and other notorious Germans masquerading +as Russians. + +The re-birth of Russia which is now taking place cannot be understood +apart from the Jewish problem. As Russia's leading Liberal statesman, +Prof. Paul Milukov--who is well and favorably known in America because +of extended visits here--points out in the article he contributes to +the present volume, the anti-Semitic parties coincide with the +anti-constitutional parties. At first this seems a strange and +unaccountable fact, but a brief glance at the history of other +countries will show that the party standing for the persecution of weak +foreign neighbours and the oppression of minority races within and +without a country has always and everywhere been the party of reaction. +As Milukov says, there was no need for an anti-constitutional movement +until there was a constitutional movement. As soon as Liberalism +appeared, however, and gained support among the masses, it was +necessary to fabricate some counter movement, and the governmental +bureaucracy fixed upon anti-Semitism as a primitive means of appealing +to the masses, and so of bridling them. It may be further pointed out +that this systematic propaganda against democracy was almost +non-existent in Russia until it had become thoroughly organised and +successful in Germany. Both Kovalevsky and Milukov demonstrate in the +present volume that anti-Semitism became an important factor in Russian +life only after the middle of the Nineteenth Century--that is to say, +after the final victory of Prussian Reactionism over German Liberalism +in 1849 (a victory which has lasted to the present time)--and still +more, after the great military victories of Prussia from 1864 to 1870 +had put Prussian militarism in the saddle and had made it the +dominating force in the Russian court and Russian bureaucracy. + +However, the intelligence, energy, and courage of the Russian Liberals +has entirely thwarted this scheme to divide the Russian people. The +bureaucracy has gained almost no support among any section of the +Russian nation, except its own narrow circles, either for its +persecution of the Jews or its oppression of the Poles, Finns, +Tartars, Armenians and other races. On the contrary, the anti-Semitic +propaganda has reacted against its promoters. A considerable number, +though by no means a majority, of the Russian Liberals are Jews, and +Russian Liberals do not at all endeavour to hide this fact. The +consequence is that the union of the Russian Liberals with all the +persecuted races has been all the more firmly cemented. And just as +all Russian Liberals are ardent supporters of the war against Germany, +so practically all the leaders of the Russian Jews are equally +patriotic--in spite of the fact that many forms of persecution have +remained, and, furthermore, new forms of persecution have been +invented since the war. Though the German agitation in America has won +over a large part of the Russian Jews in this country to the German +cause, this agitation has had no such success in Russia, unless among +a relatively small proportion of the Jewish population. + +It is known that the anti-Semitic agitation in Russia has taken hold +of only a small proportion of the Russian people among the +semi-criminal population of the cities and towns. It is notorious that +the pogroms were often organised and carried out by the secret police +and the cossacks, and that in other instances they were executed by +bands of a few hundred bribed toughs, called by educated Russians "the +black hundreds." This social element is what we would ordinarily call +in America the "mob," and it certainly does not constitute one per +cent. of the population in Russia or in any other country. Gorky +refers to it as "the populace": "In addition to the people, there is +also the 'populace,' something standing outside of social classes and +outside of civilisation, and united by the dark sense of hatred +against all that surpasses its understanding and is defenceless +against brute force. I speak of the populace which thus defines itself +in the words of Pushkin: + + "'We are insidious and shameless, + Ungrateful, faint-hearted and wicked; + At heart we are cold, sterile eunuchs, + Traducers, born to slavery.'" + +The refusal of the Russian people to be either bribed or deceived into +hostility to the Jews is clearly enough demonstrated by the feeling +of affection on the part of most intelligent Jews towards the Russian +people. The only exceptions are those Jews which come from the Polish +cities far within the Jewish Pale and do not know the Russian people +except by hearsay. Unfortunately, this is a considerable portion of +the total of the Jews in Russia, and it is from these cities and towns +in the heart of the Pale that most of our immigrants come. But all the +more educated Jews--and a very large part are educated--all those who +know Russia either by a travel or through Russian literature and +newspapers, feel a deep affection for their country, for in spite of +all, Russia belongs to them just as much as it does to other Russians. +One of the editors of the present volume, Fyodor Sologub, says: + +"Whenever I met Russian Jews abroad, I always marvelled at the +strangely tenacious love for Russia which they preserve. They speak of +Russia with the same longing and the same tenderness as the Russian +emigrants; they are equally eager to return and equally saddened, if +the return is impossible. Wherefore should they love Russia, who is +so harsh and inhospitable toward them?" + +It is useless for Americans to deceive themselves into thinking that +the Russian Jewish question is either unimportant or incomprehensible +from the point of view of our progress and democracy. Do we not have +our negro and Asiatic problems? Do not the English have their Irish +and Indian questions? I do not suggest that the parallel is complete, +but it is clear that the Russian writers in the present volume are +perfectly correct in referring both to our negro question and our +question of yellow labour as closely similar to their Jewish problem. +Both the brilliant and fascinating discussions by Andreyev and +Merezhkovsky will apply almost as well to any other so-called "race +question" as to that of the Russian Jews. Says Merezhkovsky: + +"We would like very much to say that there is no such thing as the +Jewish, Polish, Ukrainian, Armenian, Georgian, question; that there is +only one question--the Russian. Yes, we would like to, but we cannot; +the Russian people have yet to earn the right to say that, and therein +lies their tragedy...." + +"'Judophilism' and 'Judophobia' are closely related. A blind denial of +a nationality engenders an equally blind affirmation of it. An +absolute 'Nay' naturally brings forth an absolute 'Yea.'" + +"That is why we say to the 'Nationalists': 'Cease oppressing the +non-Russian element of our empire, so that we may have the right to be +Russians, and that we may with dignity show our national face, as that +of a human being, not that of a beast. Cease to be 'Judophobes' so +that we may cease to be 'Judophiles.''" + +Is it not clear from the recent discussion in the British Parliament +that the Irish problem weighs like an almost intolerable burden just +as much upon the British Empire as it does upon Ireland? Is it not +equally clear from England's concession of a cotton tariff to India +that she will be obliged for her own sake to make further concessions +to justice in that country? And can America ever hope to have any +standing in the court of nations as long as our infamous persecution +of the negroes and our atrocious attitude towards Asiatics continues? +Nations can indulge themselves for a certain period in such gross and +stupid crimes, but the longer the settlement is postponed the greater +the blood-price that must be paid in the end--and in the meanwhile all +our civilisation is poisoned, if not actually rotted, by the network +of lies by which the persecutors are forced to defend their +infamies--lies which are necessarily more far-reaching and impudently +false in a democracy than they are in an autocracy where the existing +system maintains itself rather by force than by public opinion. + +But few of us educated Americans have the intellectual and moral +courage of the educated classes of Russia. We feel that we can avoid +our moral and intellectual responsibilities by turning our back on +existing crimes. It has frequently been pointed out that in spite of a +government even more anti-democratic than that of Germany, the Russian +people have been infinitely more democratic than the Germans. In the +same way, while the institutions of America are much further developed +in the direction of general democracy than those of Russia, the very +reverse is the case with public opinion. The educated classes of +Russia have the courage and intelligence to call a spade a spade. +They realise that they are partly responsible for the sins committed +by the Russian nation, even though they have been powerless heretofore +to remedy these conditions in the face of an armed and organised +autocracy, backed by the moral, intellectual and military force of +Germany and by the money of France and England. Andreyev, for example, +regards the Jewish problem as primarily a Russian problem. It is one +of the chief burdens, if not the chief burden, which has been crushing +the Russian nation. In this book he says: + +"When did the 'Jewish question' leap on my back?--I do not know. I was +born with it and under it. From the very moment I assumed a conscious +attitude towards life until this very day I have lived in its noisome +atmosphere, breathed in the poisoned air which surrounds all these +'problems,' all these dark, harrowing alogisms, unbearable to the +intellect. + +"And yet I, a Russian intellectual, a happy representative of the +sovereign race, although fully conscious and convinced that the +'Jewish question' is no question at all,--I felt powerless and doomed +to the most sterile tribulation of spirit. For, all the clear-cut +arguments of my intellect, the most fervent tirades and speeches, the +sincerest tears of compassion and outcries of indignation unfailingly +broke against a dull, unresponsive wall. But all powerlessness, if it +is unable to prevent a crime, becomes complicity; and this was the +result: personally guiltless of any offence against my brother, I have +become in the eyes of all those unconcerned and those of my brother +himself, a Cain." + +The new Russia is being born while I write these lines, and +intelligent Americans are discussing nothing else except this great +world event--comparable in importance even to the colossal war itself. +If we wish to understand educated Russia--which has brought about the +change--many-sided, large-hearted and intellectually more brilliant +perhaps than the educated class of any other nation, we cannot do +better than to read and think over what that galaxy of Russian genius +that has composed the present volume has written. We must not forget +that the educated class in Russia is almost as numerous as in the +other great nations, and perhaps plays an even more important role in +Russia than it does in other countries. What Russia has lacked has +been neither an educated class nor masses capable and ready to be +trained to any kind of modern employment, but a great technically +trained, free and organised "intellectual middle class"--an expression +I am forced to coin for my present purpose. It is hardly necessary to +prove this assertion. The world is well acquainted with Russian genius +in literature, art, music, philosophy, sociology, economics, history, +and the higher realms of science. Moreover Russia is not without +technological schools, but the proportion of her population employed +in the scientific organisation of industry and business is +insignificant in comparison with that of other countries--owing, of +course, to the backward state of Russian industry and Russian +government. But this fact, important as it is, must not obscure the +equally important fact that the educated and cultivated class in +Russia, speaking several languages, and personally familiar with the +civilisation of one or more foreign countries, exercises an influence +over Russian society and Russian public opinion undoubtedly stronger +than that of any other educated class whatever--with the possible +exception of that of Germany. We cannot hope to understand the new +Russia unless we understand the character and point of view of the +Russian "intellegentsia," and this is nowhere so clearly, succinctly +and interestingly set forth as in "The Shield." + + WILLIAM ENGLISH WALLING. + +Greenwich, Connecticut. + + + + +PREFACE + + +Published by the Russian Society for the Study of Jewish Life under +the joint editorship of three eminent men-of-letters, Gorky, Andreyev, +and Sologub, the original Shield saw the light of day last year in +Petrograd. The book consists of numerous studies, essays, stories and +poems, all these contributions to the symposium on the Jewish question +coming exclusively from the pen of Russian authors of non-Jewish +birth. In making a selection for the present volume, I have thought it +advisable to give decided preference to the publicistic articles of +the original collection. Thus, the present version contains +practically all the various important studies and essays of the +Russian _Shield_, while most of the stories have been omitted, without +great detriment to the book. I have also had to sacrifice, for obvious +reasons, all the poetic contributions to the original, signed by such +great masters of modern Russian poetry as Balmont, Bunin, Z. Hippins, +Sologub, and Shchepkina-Kupernik. + +My thanks are due to Dr. Louis S. Friedland and Professor Earle F. +Palmer for going over a considerable portion of the present volume. + + A. YARMOLINSKY. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +MAXIM GORKY, Russia and the Jews 3 + +LEONID ANDREYEV, The First Step 19 + +VLADIMIR KOROLENKO, Mr. Jackson's Opinion on the + Jewish Question 37 + +PAUL MILYUKOV, The Jewish Question in Russia 55 + +M. BERNATZKY, The Jews and Russian Economic Life 77 + +PRINCE PAUL DOLGORUKOV, The War and the Status of the Jew 95 + +MAXIM KOVALEVSKY, Jewish Rights and Their Enemies 103 + +DMITRY MEREZHKOVSKY, The Jewish Question as a Russian +Question 115 + +VYACHESLAV IVANOV, Concerning the Ideology of the +Jewish Question 125 + +MAXIM GORKY, The Little Boy, a Story 133 + +FYODOR SOLOGUB, The Fatherland for All 143 + +VLADIMIR SOLOVYOV, On Nationalism 155 + +COUNT IVAN TOLSTOY, Concerning the Legal Status of +the Jews 159 + +LEONID ANDREYEV, The Wounded Soldier, a Story 165 + +CATHERINE KUSKOVA, How to Help? 171 + +S. YELPATYEVSKY, The Homeless Ones 181 + +MICHAEL ARTZIBASHEF, The Jew, a Story 193 + + + + + +RUSSIA AND THE JEWS + + + _Alexey Maksinovich Pyeshkov, better known under the assumed name + of Maxim Gorky, was born in 1869. In 1905 he was arrested and + imprisoned because of his political convictions. After the + revolutionary days of 1906 he left Russia and settled on the + island of Capri. At the beginning of the present war he returned + to Russia and took an active part in the public life of the + country. He is at present residing in Petrograd, where he edits a + monthly of distinctly radical tendencies._ + + + + +THE SHIELD + + + + +RUSSIA AND THE JEWS + +BY MAXIM GORKY + + +From time to time--more often as time goes on!--circumstances force +the Russian author to remind his compatriots of certain indisputable, +elementary truths. + +It is a very hard duty:--it is painfully awkward to speak to grown-up +and literate people in this manner: + +"Ladies and gentlemen! We must be humane; humaneness is not only +beautiful, but also advantageous to us. We must be just; justice is +the foundation of culture. We must make our own the ideas of law and +civil liberty: the usefulness of such an assimilation is clearly +demonstrated by the high degree of civilisation reached by the +Western countries, for instance, by England. + +"We must develop in ourselves a moral tidiness, and an aversion to all +the manifestations of the brute principle in man, such as the wolfish, +degrading hatred for people of other races. The hatred of the Jew is a +beastlike, brute phenomenon; we must combat it in the interests of the +quicker growth of social sentiments and social culture. + +"The Jews are human beings, just like others, and, like all human +beings, the Jews must be free. + +"A man who meets all the duties of a citizen, thereby deserves to be +given all the rights of citizenship. + +"Every human being has an inalienable right to apply his energy in all +the branches of industry and all the departments of culture, and the +broader the scope of his personal and social activities, the more does +his country gain in power and beauty." + +There are a number of other equally elementary truths which should +have long since sunk into the flesh and blood of Russian society, but +which have not as yet done so. + +I repeat--it is a hard thing to assume the role of a preacher of +social proprieties and to keep reiterating to people: "It is not good, +it is unworthy of you to live such a dirty, careless, savage +life--wash yourselves!" + +And in spite of all your love for men, in spite of your pity for them, +you are sometimes congealed in cold despair and you think with +animosity: "Where then is that celebrated, broad, beautiful Russian +soul? So much was and is being said about it, but wherein does its +breadth, might and beauty actively manifest itself? And is not our +soul broad because it is amorphous? And it is probably owing to its +amorphousness that we yield so readily to external pressure, which +disfigures us so rapidly and radically." + +We are good-natured, as we ourselves express it. But when you look +closer at our good-naturedness, you find that it shows a strange +resemblance to Oriental indifference. + +One of man's most grievous crimes is indifference, inattention to his +neighbour's fate; this indifference is pre-eminently ours. + +The situation of the Jews in Russia, which is a disgrace to Russian +culture, is one of the results of our carelessness, of our +indifference to the straight and just decrees of life. + +In the interests of reason, justice, civilisation, we must not +tolerate that people without rights should live among us; we would +never have tolerated it, if we had a strong sense of self-respect. + +We have every reason to reckon the Jews among our friends; there are +many things for which we must be grateful to them: they have done and +are doing much good in those lines of endeavour in which the best +Russian minds have been engaged. Nevertheless, without aversion or +indignation, we bear a disgraceful stain on our consciousness, the +stain of Jewish disabilities. There is in that stain the dirty poison +of slanders and the tears and blood of numberless pogroms. + +I am not able to speak of anti-Semitism in the manner it deserves. And +this not because I have not the power or the right words. It is rather +because I am hindered by something that I cannot overcome. I would +find words biting, heavy, and pointed enough to fling them in the face +of the man-haters, but for that purpose I must descend into a kind of +filthy pit. I must put myself on a level with people whom I do not +respect and for whom I have an organic aversion. + +I am inclined to think that anti-Semitism is indisputable, just as +leprosy and syphilis are, and that the world will be cured of this +shameful disease only by culture, which sets us free, slowly but +surely, from ailments and vices. + +Of course, this does not relieve me of the duty to combat in every way +the development of anti-Semitism and, according to my powers, to +preserve people from getting infected by it. The Jew of to-day is dear +to me, and I feel myself guilty before him, for I am one of those who +tolerate the oppression of the Jewish nation, the great nation, whom +some of the most prominent Western thinkers consider, as a psychical +type, higher and more beautiful than the Russian. + +I think that the judgment of these thinkers is correct. To my mind, +Jews are more European than the Russians are, because of their +strongly developed feeling of respect for work and man, if not for any +other reason. I admire the spiritual steadfastness of the Jewish +nation, its manly idealisms, its unconquerable faith in the victory +of good over evil, in the possibility of happiness on earth. + +The Jews--mankind's old, strong leaven,--have always exalted its +spirit, bringing into the world restless, noble ideas, goading men to +embark on a search for finer values. + +All men are equal; the soil--is no one's, it is God's; man has the +right and the power to resist his fate, and we may stand up even +against God,--all this is written in the Jewish Bible, one of the +world's best books. And the commandment of love for one's neighbour is +also an ancient Jewish commandment, just as are all the rest, "thou +shalt not kill" among them. + +In 1885 the German-Jewish Union in Germany published "The Principles +of the Jewish Moral Doctrine." Here is one of these principles: +"Judaism teaches: 'Love thy neighbour as thyself' and announces this +commandment of love for all mankind to be the fundamental principle of +Jewish religion. It, therefore, forbids all kinds of hostility, envy, +ill-will, and unkindly treatment of any one, without distinction of +race, nationality and religion." + +These principles were ratified by 350 rabbis, and published just at +the time of the anti-Jewish pogroms in Russia. + +"Judaism teaches respect for the life, the health, the forces and the +property of one's neighbour." + +I am a Russian. When, alone with myself, I calmly scrutinise my merits +and demerits,--it seems to me that I am intensely Russian. And I am +deeply convinced that there is much that we Russians can and ought to +learn from the Jews. + +For instance, the seventh paragraph of the "Principles of the Jewish +Moral Doctrine" says: "Judaism commands us to respect work, to take +part by either physical or mental labour in the communal work, to seek +for life's goods in constant productive and creative work. Judaism, +therefore, teaches us to take care of our powers and abilities, to +perfect them and apply them actively. It, therefore, forbids all idle +pleasure not based on labour, all idleness which hopes for the help of +others." + +This is beautiful and wise, and this is just what we Russians lack. +Oh, if we could educate our unusual powers and abilities, if we had +the will to apply them actively in our chaotic, untidy existence, +which is terribly blocked up with all kinds of idle clack and +home-spun philosophy, and which gets more and more saturated with +silly arrogance and puerile bragging. Somewhere deep in the Russian +soul--no matter whether it is the "master's" or the muzhik's--there +lives a petty and squalid demon of passive anarchism, who infects us +with a careless and indifferent attitude toward work, society, people, +and ourselves. + +I believe that the morality of Judaism would assist us greatly in +overcoming this demon,--if only we have the will to combat him. + +In my early youth I read--I have forgotten where--the words of the +ancient Jewish sage--Hillel, if I remember rightly: + +"If thou art not for thyself, who will be for thee? But if thou art for +thyself alone--wherefore art thou?"[1] + +The inner meaning of these words impressed me with its profound +wisdom, and I interpreted them for myself in this manner: I must +actively take care of myself, that my life should be better, and I +must not impose the care of myself on other people's shoulders; but if +I am going to take care of myself alone, of nothing but my own +personal life,--it will be useless, ugly and meaningless. + +This thought ate its way deep into my soul, and I say now with +conviction: Hillel's wisdom served me as a strong staff on my road, +which was neither even nor easy. It is hard to say with precision to +what one owes the fact that one kept on his feet on the entangled +paths of life, when tossed by the tempests of mental despair, but I +repeat--Hillel's serene wisdom assisted me many a time. + +I believe that Jewish wisdom is more all-human and universal than any +other, and this not only because of its immemorial age, not only +because it is the first-born, but also because of the powerful +humaneness that saturates it, because of its high estimate of man. + +"The true Shekinah--is man," says a Jewish text. This thought I dearly +love, this I consider the highest wisdom, for I am convinced of this: +that until we learn to admire man as the most beautiful and +marvellous phenomenon on our planet, until then we shall not be set +free from the abomination and lies that saturate our lives. + +It is with this conviction that I have entered the world, and with +this conviction I shall leave it, and in leaving it I will believe +firmly that the time will come when the world will acknowledge that + +"The holy of holies is man!" + + * * * * * + +It is unbearably painful to see that human beings who have produced so +much that is beautiful, wise and necessary for the world, live among +us oppressed by unfair laws, which in all ways restrain their right to +life, work and freedom. It is necessary,--for it is just and +useful--to give the Jew equal rights with the Russians; it is +imperative that we should do so not only out of respect to the people +which has rendered and is constantly rendering yeoman service to +humanity and our own nation, but also out of self-respect. + +We must make haste with this plain, human reform, for the animosity +against Jews is on the increase in our country, and if we do not make +an attempt to arrest the growth of this blind hatred, it will prove +pernicious to our cultural development. We must bear in mind that the +Russian people have hitherto seen very little good, and therefore, +believe all the evil things that man-haters whisper in their ears. The +Russian peasant does not manifest any organic hatred for the Jew,--on +the contrary, he shows an exceptional attraction for Israel's +religious thought, fascinating for its democratic spirit. As far as I +can remember, the religious sects of "judaizers" exist only in Russia +and Hungary. In late years, the sects of "Sabbathists" and "The New +Israel" have been developing rather rapidly in our country. In spite +of this, when the Russian peasant hears of persecutions of Jews, he +says with the indifference of an Oriental: + +"No one sues or beats an innocent man." + +Who ought to know better than the Russian peasant that in "Holy +Russia" the innocent are too often tried and beaten? But his +conception of right and wrong has been confused from time immemorial, +the sense of injustice is undeveloped in his dark mind, dimmed by +centuries of Tartardom, boyardom, and the horrors of serfdom. + +The village has a dislike for restless people, even when that +restlessness is expressed in an aspiration for a better life. We +Russians are intensely Oriental by nature, we love quiet and +immobility, and a rebel, even if he be a Job, delights us in but an +abstract way. Lost in the depth of a winter six months long, and wrapt +in misty dreams, we love beautiful fairy-tales, but the desire for a +beautiful life is undeveloped in us. And when on the plane of our lazy +thought something new and disquieting makes its appearance,--instead +of accepting and sympathetically scanning it, we hasten to drive it +into a dark corner of our mind and bury it there, lest it disturb us +in our customary vegetative existence, amidst impotent hopes and grey +dreams. + +In addition to the people, there is also the "populace," something +standing outside of social classes and outside of culture, and united +by the dark sense of hatred against everything surpassing its +understanding and defenceless against brute force. I speak of the +populace which thus defines itself in the words of Pushkin, our great +poet, who himself suffered so cruelly from the aristocratic populace: + + "We are insidious and shameless, + Ungrateful, faint-hearted and wicked; + At heart we are cold, sterile eunuchs, + Traducers, born to slavery." + +It is mainly this populace that is the bearer of the brute principles, +such as anti-Semitism. + +The Jews are defenceless, and this is especially dangerous for them in +the conditions of Russian life. Dostoyevsky, who knew the Russian soul +so well, pointed out repeatedly that defencelessness arouses in it a +sensuous inclination to cruelty and crime. In late years there have +appeared in Russia quite a few people who have been taught to think +that they are the finest of the wheat, and that their enemy is the +stranger, above all--the Jew. For a long time these people were being +persuaded that all the Jews are restless people, strikers and rioters. +They were next informed that the Jews like to drink the blood of +thievish boys. In our days they are being taught that the Polish Jews +are spies and traitors. + +If this preaching of hatred will not bring bloody and shameful fruits, +it will be only because it will clash with our Russian indifference to +life and will disappear in it; it will split against the Chinese +wall, behind which our still inexplicable nation is hidden. + +But if this indifference be stirred up by the efforts of the hatred +preachers,--the Jews will loom up before the Russian nation as a race +accused of all crimes. + +And it is not for the first time that all the troubles of Russian life +will be blamed on the Jew; time and again was he the scapegoat for our +sins. Only recently he paid with his life and goods for the help he +rendered us in our feverish struggle for freedom. I think no one has +forgotten the fact that our "emancipatory movements" strangely wound +up with anti-Jewish riots. + + * * * * * + +When the many-raced populace of Jerusalem demanded the death of the +defenceless Jew, Christ, Pilate, believing Christ innocent, washed his +hands, but allowed him to be put to death. + +How then will honest Russian men and women act in Pilate's place? +Their judgment is awaited. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] "If I am not for myself who is for me? And being for my own self, +what am I?" "Pirqe Aboth," I, 14.--Translator's Note. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE FIRST STEP + + + _Leonid Nikolayevich Andreyev, the author of impressive tales and + remarkable dramas, is well known both in America and in England. + Since the beginning of the Great War he has devoted himself to + the artistic portrayal of the war's effect on his country, and + also to purely publicistic tasks. He was born in 1871._ + + + + +THE FIRST STEP + +BY LEONID ANDREYEV + + "O heavens, if within your blue, + Old God is still alive and mighty, + Unseen by me alone, ye pray + For me and for my doom e'er bleeding! + My lips no more are fraught with hymns, + No brawn in arm, no hope in heart.... + How long, how long, how long?" + + --H. BYALIK. + + +It is with deep emotion that I have read in the Polish _New Gazette_ +an interview about the Jewish question with a personage of high +station who seems to be really well informed. According to this +personage, a number of measures are being proposed and planned, which +are intended to lighten the grievous lot of the Jews in Russia: the +abolition of the "Pale of Settlement" in relation to towns large and +small, the abrogation of the percentage "norm" in the secondary and +higher educational institutions, the establishment of special Jewish +schools, the reorganisation of Jewish emigration on a broad and +rational basis. I confess that I was not prompt in giving credence to +these good tidings. And those with whom I shared the news, although +excited no less than I, accepted them also with some degree of +diffidence, which is only natural in Russians: life indulges us so +rarely and so reluctantly. But private rumours corroborate this news, +and to persist in one's disbelief would mean to doubt the very meaning +of the present great "emancipatory" war, which is building a glorious +temple of renovated life on the blood of Russians, Poles, Jews and +Lithuanians. And finally, I simply cannot help believing, for my soul +is weary with waiting and repeating together with the great Jewish +poet: "How long, how long, how long?" + +An aged journalist, who, it seems, has lost all fervour and faith, has +recently laughed in his sleeve at the word "miracle," which nowadays +comes so often to our lips: according to him, miracles, generally +speaking, do not exist. It is my opinion also that there are no +miracles, if we understand by a miracle an arbitrary violation of the +natural, logical, inevitable order of things. But to him who +contemplates life proper, not the table of multiplication,--logic +itself appears as the greatest of all miracles. Oh, if logic would +really reign supreme in life; oh, if in our cursed human existence, +where there are so many aimless and unnecessary sorrows and tears and +wild outrages, the simplest "two and two is four" would not be the +rarest of miracles, equal to the transubstantiation of water into +precious wine. Would millions of individually innocent human beings +perish in this most terrible of wars, if instead of a dark and +terrible _alogism_ a clear and lucid syllogism lay at the basis of our +intricate and enigmatical existence? It is logic that is the true +miracle, and "two and two is four" is that extraordinary happiness, +which falls so seldom to our lot! + +And just as I rejoiced as at miracles, at Russia's achievement of +temperance, and Poland's rebirth in the same way, I now marvel at the +coming solution of the "Jewish question," the immemorial and darkest +of alogisms. There is something festive in it; it stirs up in me a +feeling of serene and immense joy, bordering on religious +exaltation.... And the fact that for me, as well as for many other +Russian writers, _all this_ was never even a problem, does not by any +means diminish the extraordinary character of what is going to happen; +for a plain brotherly kiss is almost a miracle and can move one to +tears at the time when the rule of life and its highest wisdom is a +fierce war of brother against brother. + +And how can I help feeling this extraordinary import, I, a Russian +intellectual, if, together with the solution of the "question" my +soul, too, is suddenly set free. It is delivered from all the habitual +and harrowing experiences that, constant companions of my days and +nights as they have been, have acquired all the peculiarities of those +chronic and incurable ailments, to which the grave alone can bring +release. For, if to the Jews themselves the "Pale," the "norm," etc., +were a fatal and impregnable fact, which deformed their entire life, +they were also for me, a Russian, something in the nature of a hump on +my back, a stationary and ugly growth, arising no one knows when or +under what circumstances. Wherever I went and whatever I did, the hump +was with me; at night it disturbed my sleep, and in my waking hours, +when I was among people, it filled me with feelings of confusion and +shame. + +It is not my intention to demonstrate the soundness and justice of the +proposed measures and to force the door which to me was always open, +but I am going to take the liberty of adding a few more words about my +hump. When did the "Jewish question" leap on my back?--I do not know. +I was born with it and under it. From the very moment I assumed a +conscious attitude towards life until this very day I have lived in +its noisome atmosphere, breathed in the poisoned air which surrounds +all these "problems," all these dark, harrowing alogisms, unbearable +to the intellect. + +Who needs it? Whom does it benefit? If all this exists and is +supported, if there are people who assert it fiercely and firmly, +there must be some definite sense in it; evidently, the Pale, the +educational norm, and the rest increase mankind's sum of joy, exalt +life, broaden the limits of human possibilities. Taking a logical +point of departure, that is what I thought, but this same logic +dictated to me an absolutely negative answer to all these questions: +no one needs it, it brings good to no one: all these discriminations +not only do not increase the sum of joy on this earth, but engender a +multitude of wholly unnecessary, aimless sufferings; some they +oppress, and others they badly corrupt. And yet I, a Russian +intellectual, a happy representative of the sovereign race, although +fully conscious and convinced that the "Jewish question" is no +question at all,--I felt powerless and doomed to the most sterile +tribulation of spirit. For, all the clear-cut arguments of my +intellect, the most fervent tirades and speeches, the sincerest tears +of compassion and outcries of indignation unfailingly broke against a +dull, unresponsive wall. But all powerlessness, if it is unable to +prevent a crime, becomes complicity; and this was the result: +personally guiltless of any offence against my brother, I have become +in the eyes of all those unconcerned and those of my brother himself, +a Cain. + +The first consequence of my fatal powerlessness was that the Jew did +not trust me, which meant that I lost my self-confidence. Living +together with the Jews as my co-citizens, being in constant personal +and business relations with them, in the field of consorted social +work, I came face to face with the Jewish "problem" every single +day,--and every single day of my life I felt with intolerable keenness +all the falsehood and wretched ambiguity of my situation, that of an +oppressor against one's will. In the doctor's office, at my desk, in +the editorial room, in the street, finally in jail, where together +with the Jew I fulfilled the all-Russian prison duty--everywhere I +remained the privileged "Russian," the representative of the sovereign +race, the baron,--without the baronial blazon. And with horror I +noticed that even the eyes of a Jew-friend were dimmed with strange +shadows ... that terrible images surged behind my friendly Russian +shoulders and mingled wholly unsuitable noises and voices with my +sincere plea for "world citizenship." ... And yet he knew me well, he +knew my attitude toward the Jews,--how about those who know only that +I am a "Russian"? + +I remember having spent one night in talking with a very gifted +writer, a Jew, who was my casual and most welcome guest. I was trying +to convince him that he, a great master of the word, ought to write, +but he repeated obstinately that although he loves the Russian +language with all his artist's heart, he cannot write in it, in the +language which has the word _zhid_.[1] Of course, logic was on my +side, but on his side there was some dark _truth_--truth is not always +lucid--and I felt, that my ardent arguments began, little by little, +to sound like false and cheap babbling. So that I have not succeeded +in convincing him, and when we parted I had not the courage to kiss +him: how many _unexpected_ meanings could be disclosed in this plain, +everyday token of friendship and affection? + +Things are altogether bad when even a kiss becomes suspicious and can +be susceptible of "interpretation," as a complicated act of intricate +and enigmatic relations! That is exactly what happened. And how many +odd and nightmare-like misunderstandings were engendered by the +poisonous mist in which we all wandered, both friends and foes, and in +which the outlines of the plainest objects and feelings assumed the +dismal grotesqueness of phantoms. I cannot help recalling here the +case of E.A. Chirikov, which at the time excited much comment: the +noble and fervent champion of the persecuted race, the author of the +drama "Jews," which has more than any other Russian drama contributed +to the dispersion of the evil prejudice,--this man was suddenly, in a +most absurd manner, without a shadow of foundation, insulted by the +accusation of anti-Semitism; and--to think of it!--it was necessary to +furnish _proofs_ that the accusation was false. What a painful, what a +wholly disgraceful absurdity! + +"Who needs all this? Who does not know it?" wearily thought every one +of us, again and again realising the harrowing necessity of convincing +some unbeliever, that two and two is four ... nothing but four! + +And abroad? "What an injustice!"--thought I, when the cultured West, +having separated me from Tolstoy, as if I had stolen him, handed me on +the spot, a bill for the "excesses" known the world over, at the same +time frowning unambiguously upon my eternal hump. The West refused to +consider that I, too, am against _this_. I was considered a Russian, +and the question was put this way: "Tell me, why in your country, in +Russia?..." + +It is ridiculous and utterly odd to think that our far-famed +"barbarism" of which our enemies accuse us and which puts our friends +out of countenance, is based wholly and exclusively on our Jewish +question and its bloody excesses. Take away from Russia these +excesses, leave, if you wish, the anti-Semitism, but in that +externally decorous form in which it still exists in the backward +portions of Europe,--and we shall become at once decent Europeans, and +not Asiatics and barbarians, whose proper place is beyond the Ural. +This is a fact the obviousness of which every new day of the present +war makes more strikingly evident. + +Of course culturally we are far behind the world, our economic life is +undeveloped, our civic life is at a low level, and all the aspects of +our life show clearly that we have not as yet broken the shell of the +egg. But we are young, we are only beginning, and for a people who +abolished serfdom only half a century ago, we have done quite a good +deal,--so that, at the worst, lack of culture is the only reproach +which a European with a sense of justice will fling at us. But it is +enough to put side by side the words "Russian" and "Jew,"--and I +become at once a barbarian, a dark and terrible being, who chills and +darkens resplendent Europe. At once in America people begin to hate +me, in England and France to despise me; with the swiftness of +theatrical transformations Tolstoy's compatriot turns into the brother +of those who drive nails into their neighbours' heads,--I become a +_barbarian_. And even the German anti-Semite, a stupid and dull +creature, looks down at me and warns England: "See with whom you are +friends? Are they not the same people who...?" + +"To whose interest is it that Europe should despise me, hate and fear +me?" I mused, perplexed, feeling that in the light of the European sun +my cursed hump assumes immense proportions and like a screen shuts off +the light which comes from the East, and in which the aged and weary +West is quite inclined to believe. To whom is it necessary for me to +ramble among the cultured nations like a leper, to conceal my race and +obtain the ironical bow so essential to my unacknowledged dignity, by +means of exorbitant "tips" flung right and left? A barbarian, a +barbarian!... + +The war has opened our eyes to many things, and therein lies for us +Russians the sad advantages of it. And now when Germany brands France +and England for the union with "the Russian barbarians who...," when +the allies, while relying on our elemental force, tremble with doubts +and fear behind the screen of their noisy sympathies,--I begin to +understand in whose interests it was, who needed it, that in the +legion of European states we should remain all alone with our +barbarism. Whatever is a misfortune for us is favourable for Germany, +with her "well-tried" friendship for us, to which Wilhelm referred so +loudly from the balcony of his palace. As barbarians we are only an +excellent and indispensable market for the Germans' merchandise, a +two-hundred-million flock of sheep ready for the shears. As a cultured +nation we are a power dangerous to the Teuton's dream of world +dominion. And the Jewish question, with its excesses and nails driven +into heads, is that trump which our honest German neighbour has always +kept hidden in his cuff and which he throws out on the green table at +the necessary moment. And he was right from his standpoint. But why +had we to drink off the bitter cup? Losing our self-respect, having no +faith in our power, growing corrupted by an unnatural existence, +cutting down by means of the celebrated "norm" the number of our +educated and cultured men--a devilish joke!--our entire nation was +diligently performing the "Fools' Dance," which, under the name of a +drama from Russian life, has recently met with such a success in the +Berlin playhouses. It must not be forgotten that the ardent Polish +anti-Semitism, which frightens us so much and which seriously hinders +the upbuilding of a new life, as well as the cold Finnish +anti-Semitism, the power of which is still unknown to us,--that these +two phenomena are nothing but the logical development of the +fundamental absurdity, its natural and poisonous fruits. But the time +has not come yet to speak about that. + +May I be pardoned that in an hour so momentous for the Jews I persist +in speaking not of them and their sufferings, but of ourselves. I +repeat, the Jewish question was never a question for me, and in order +to justify the proposed measures I need not allege the heroism shown +by the Jews in defending Russia, their love for Russia, tragic in its +faithfulness. As for demonstrating again and again that a Jew, too, is +a human being, to do so would mean not only to bow too low to +absurdity, but also to insult those whom I respect and love. And if I +persist in speaking of ourselves and our suffering, it is not for +personal egoism, nor even class egoism, but the pardonable egoism of a +nation, which has been too long playing a miserable part on Europe's +stage and in its own conscience, and which now repudiates the +suffering of yesterday and, at the dawn of new life, seeks the +possibility--oh, only the possibility!--of respecting itself. + +Yes, we are still barbarians, the Poles still mistrust us, we are a +dark terror for Europe, a baffling menace to her civilisation, but we +do not want to be that any more, we long for purity and reason, our +wretched rags burden us beyond all measure. The Jews' tragic love for +Russia finds a counterpart in our love for Europe, as tragical in its +faithfulness and completeness. Are we not ourselves the Jews of Europe, +and is not our frontier--the same "Pale of Settlement"--something in +the nature of a Russian Ghetto? And try as our Pushkin and Dostoyevsky +and your Byalik may to prove that we, too, are human beings, people do +not believe us, as they do not believe you: here is that equality +whence we all can derive a bitter consolation; here is the punishment +by means of which impartial life takes revenge on the Russians for the +Jews' sufferings. + +The thirst for self-respect--that is the fundamental feeling which +now, in the days of the most terrible war, has seized all Russian +society, which has exalted the people to the heights of heroism, and +which makes us fear all that reminds us of our sad past. That is why +persecution of Germans in our own country is so unbearable to us; we +want no persecution; that is why we hate all that, like the belching +of yesterday's drinking, distorts our disinterested aims and +intentions: better yield than take too much of what belongs to other +people--that is nowadays the motto of the majority. Could the country +become sober if not for this feeling which one has when about to +receive holy communion? Although proud at the victories of our arms, +we scrupulously hide this pride, we treasure it in our hearts as our +most precious possession, and we hate all swaggering and +self-adulation. Not with the haughtiness of a righteous pharisee do we +approach the altar, but with a prayer of penitence: "like a murderer I +profess Thee." + +We must all understand that the end of Jewish sufferings is the +beginning of our self-respect, without which _Russia cannot exist_. +The black days of war will pass, and the "German barbarians" of to-day +will again become cultured Germans, to whose voice the world will once +more hearken with deference. And we must never again allow this or any +other voice to utter aloud: "The Russian barbarians." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] This is an insulting synonym for "Jew."--Translator's Note. + + * * * * * + + + + +MR. JACKSON'S OPINION ON THE JEWISH QUESTION + + + _Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko is to-day universally + recognized in Russia as the most worthy guardian of the best + traditions of Russian letters. He has done yeoman service to his + country both as an author of humanitarian tales and as the + mouth-piece of Russia's public conscience. After the government + some time ago suppressed the magazine "Russian Wealth" which + Korolenko had edited, he retired to the city of Poltava, in the + South, and in late years his appearance in print has been a rare + event. He was born in 1853._ + + + + +MR. JACKSON'S OPINION ON THE JEWISH QUESTION + +BY VLADIMIR KOROLENKO + + +One of the most intelligent though not one of the most profound +opinions about the Jewish question I happened to hear from a chance +fellow-traveller on the Atlantic Ocean. And although it was quite some +time ago, and the man who expressed it was in no way remarkable, +nevertheless this opinion is recalled to me on various occasions--very +frequently in these days. + +It was in 1904. Together with a fellow countryman, also a man of +letters, I was travelling aboard a steamer of the Anglo-American +Company, "Cunard." Our cabin was small and narrow. It was lighted by +the dull light of an electric bull's-eye in the ceiling which served +as a deck. There were three berths and a wash basin. My friend and I +occupied two of the berths. On the third there camped the gentleman +about whom we read in the passenger list: "Mr. Henry Jackson of +Illinois." This was all we knew about him for the first few days. He +rose very early, went to bed late and spent all day outside of the +cabin. As a rule, we woke early, because to the muffled and steady +splash of the ocean over the sides of the ship there was added a +splash issuing from the basin, nearby. By the dim light of the +bull's-eye I could see from my top berth a tall figure in a nightshirt +as long as a shroud, with a small bald spot on the pate. Out of +delicacy he did not turn on the electric lights and in the +semi-darkness made his toilet very quietly, but was not able to forego +the pleasure of emitting some snorts while splashing himself with cold +water from the basin. Then he dived again into his berth and for some +time quietly and cautiously busied himself there; then--a light squeak +of the door, and a long figure glided out from the cabin. We were +interested in the personality of our neighbour. He was the first +American whom fate had brought so near to us. We were unable even to +distinguish his face and during the day tried to single him out in +the international crowd of gentlemen scurrying about the deck of our +_Urania_, lounging on the deck-chairs, having luncheon, or dinner or +supper, or lost in the smoke of cigars in the smoking room. This +elusiveness made the personality of the traveller puzzling and +interesting, and we bestowed the title of "Our American" now on one, +now on another of the middle-aged American gentlemen. Of course, we +marked as candidates the more interesting and typical figures. The +_Urania_ had been on the ocean for quite some time when my friend at +last said to me: "I have found out which American is ours. Here he +comes now. Look!" + +Along the railing, a lanky gentleman and a short stout lady were +coming toward us. I felt a sense of involuntary disappointment: both +he and she were the least interesting of all the first-class +passengers on the _Urania_. + +A kind of half-European, half-exotic troupe were on the boat. They +were going to America for a tour. The central figures in the group +were two beautiful Creoles who had already succeeded in gaining a +reputation in Europe. Around them were grouped a few stars of smaller +magnitude, and the whole constellation attracted considerable +attention from the men of the various nationalities represented on +board. Soon a few couples circling the decks together came into +notice. Amongst them were the lanky gentleman and the short, very +vulgar lady, who looked like a maid or a duenna. As they passed in +front of the other couples, one could sometimes notice slightly +ironical glances and meaning smiles. But "our" American had a most +self-satisfied, even somewhat victorious look. My companion, +well-versed in English soon made a few acquaintances. Most often I saw +him converse with "our" American in the hours when the latter was free +from his knightly duties. Pretty soon we gained an insight into the +main facts of his life-history. We learned that in his youth he had +followed in turn a number of various callings, until one of them +brought him success. He had retired and was now living on his large +income, had provided very well for his two sons, had lost his wife, +and decided to devote to pleasure the rest of his life which had begun +amidst drudgery and many vicissitudes. He spent his time in +travelling from one son to the other and retiring now and then to his +own well-furnished home in Chicago. "When travelling you very often +have very interesting adventures, don't you?" And he shot a triumphant +and sly glance in the direction of his artistic lady. + +Having learned that we were Russian writers, he decided at once that +we were going to the Exhibition in the capacity of correspondents. + +"Oh, yes, in my hard days I ate bread baked in this oven, too," he +said, with an air of satisfaction. "There are many occupations which +are more respectable and profitable.... But one tries everything. I +can give you a good piece of advice. On the first train which will +take you into the interior of the country, you will encounter a young +man who offers illustrated guide-books for sale. Do not grudge your +half-dollar, and buy these guide-books as frequently as possible. You +will find in them excellent descriptions of noteworthy places, written +by real masters. You can draw from them quite liberally. Even we, +Americans, cannot know all our guide-books, as for Russia.... Heh-heh! +Before reaching Chicago you will have several thousand lines.... Your +readers will be satisfied, and so will your editor and you will earn +your pay easily.... What?... Isn't that so?" + +"Much obliged, sir!" answered my companion with ironical civility, and +added in Russian: "The swine! He is cock-sure that he has benefited us +highly by his advice." + +My companion had a strong sense of humour, and every day he had some +new episode, some characteristic opinion held by the American or some +story of his past to tell me. Sometimes he would take out his +note-book and make believe he was respectfully taking notes on some +especially happy passages from these enlightening conversations. And +at the same time he would say to me in Russian: + +"He is deeply convinced that America is the best country in the world, +Illinois is the best State in America, the street he lives on is the +best street in his city, and his house the best house on the street. +Now he is trying to persuade me that Chicago outgrew New York long ago +and is now the first city in the world. Wait a minute ... there comes +another one. That one is a New Yorker." He stopped the gentleman who +was passing by and proceeded to introduce them to each other: + +"Mr. Jackson of Illinois, Mr. Carson of New York." + +Then in the naive tone of a person, somewhat perplexed, he asked: + +"You told me that New York is the first city in the world. And here is +Mr. Jackson who asserts that for the last ten years Chicago has +outstripped New York in population. According to him Chicago has so +many million inhabitants." + +My companion leaned back slightly in his arm-chair and looked with +obvious curiosity at the two Americans. + +"Presently we shall have a cock-fight," he said to me in Russian, and +a mocking twitch appeared beneath his moustache. + +Mr. Carson straightened up. His eyebrows lifted impatiently but +immediately his face took on an expression of polite calm, and +slightly tipping his hat, he said: "It is very possible ... the +gentleman evidently includes the population of the cemeteries of +Chicago." + +He bowed and resumed his walking, leaving Mr. Jackson aghast with +mouth wide-open, speechless, for he had not time to protest. Then he +got up quickly and walked along the deck.... My companion followed him +with his smiling eyes.... + +"Perfect parrots," he said. "Petty patriotism, in its most naive +form.... Dickens long ago noticed that trait of American character and +so it goes on." My sly countryman skilfully interviewed his victim, +disclosing step by step the ludicrous traits of a Yankee. There were +many weak sides. Mr. Jackson, in whom we were mainly interested, +proved to be a mediocre person in all respects, with a naively +middle-class outlook on life, and we, the two Russian observers, +revelled in that delightful malice which is so characteristic of +Russians abroad. So that is what they are, the far-famed children of +the transatlantic republic! + +Sometime later, I again found my companion engaged in conversation +with Mr. Jackson. The ocean was somewhat rough. The ladies did not +come out on deck; Mr. Jackson was, therefore, free and evidently in +high spirits. He spoke with great animation. My companion had his +note-book in his hands and there was a slyly respectful smile on his +face. + +"We are discussing the Jewish question," he said in Russian. "Mr. +Carson, a quarter of an hour ago, praised the Jews, and ever since +'our man' cannot calm down. He enlightens me with arguments which +sound as if they were just taken from our yellow newspapers. Please, +go on, sir," he respectfully addressed Mr. Jackson. "Everything you +say is so new and interesting...." + +Mr. Jackson, who was flattered by the respectful attention of the +naive Russian, continued his sermon. It was before the days of the +Beyliss trial. Nevertheless, except for the "ritual" murder, all the +rest of the jargon of our anti-Semitic papers was there, and the +Jewish character was painted the most frightful black. + +On the other end of the deck resounded the shrill sound of the gong, a +signal for lunch. + +"Thank you, sir," said my companion. "It is with great pleasure that I +have listened to your views on the subject, and I am certain that all +this will be found extremely novel in our country.... I have a few +more minutes to ask you one last question...." + +"What else do you wish to know?" said Mr. Jackson. + +"I wonder," answered my friend, "what conclusions are to be drawn from +this enlightening conversation. You are undoubtedly against equal +rights for the Jews. You would shut the doors of the country for the +Jews, wouldn't you? And you would limit the rights of those who +already live there, by establishing, let us say, something in the +nature of a special zone outside of which they would not be allowed to +settle?" + +Even as my friend was saying this the American's eyebrows went up, +forming a sharp angle, and he looked at the speaker with such an air +of pity that the latter was somewhat put out of countenance. + +"How in the world have you reached such a conclusion?" asked Jackson +coldly, and somewhat severely. + +"But ... you dislike the Jews heartily...." + +The clanging of the gong was reaching our corner. Mr. Jackson rose +and buttoning his coat, he said: + +"It does not follow. You have made a bad syllogism: the conclusion +does not follow from the premises." + +"But, sir...." + +"It is true that I dislike those people, but it doesn't follow that I +want their rights restricted...." + +And after a moment of deliberation, as though seeking for the clearest +form of explanation, he went on. + +"Here we are being called for dinner ... I must tell you, sir, that I +cannot tolerate green peas. That is my personal taste. But it does not +follow by any means, gentlemen, that I have the right to demand that +green peas should not be served.... Probably, others like the +dish...." + +And rising to his full height, he added: + +"As for the rest of your words ... as an American, I would feel +insulted, if there were in my country citizens deprived of equal +rights.... That a Kentuckian, for instance, should not have the right +to breathe freely the air of Illinois.... My goodness.... The idea!" + +And he started out, moving along the railing, straight and gaunt, and, +there was something peculiar in his entire figure. He seemed to feel +himself deeply insulted. At the door of the smoking-room, he met Mr. +Carson of New York, his recent antagonist, and amiably taking his arm, +he started to tell him something in great excitement. Judging by the +way Mr. Carson turned to look at us, it was evident that they were +discussing us Russians, the gentlemen who draw false conclusions from +premises. + +We exchanged glances. Half a minute passed in perplexed silence. Then +we both laughed at once.... + +"_Rira bien qui rira le dernier._ We must confess that this time it is +'our' rather bad American who laughs last," said my sarcastic friend. +"And did you notice the expression on his face at that moment?" + +"Yes, it looked positively intelligent.... Probably, because the +experience and wisdom of a great nation, which has already firmly +established axioms, were speaking at that moment through the mouth of +our American...." + +"And the negroes?" said my friend hesitatingly and thoughtfully. + +"Well, the negroes are 'the black peas' which Americans detest. But +that is a matter of social custom; the law, however, does not +distinguish them from other citizens.... To love, not to love ... that +is elusive and capricious, but justice is obligatory, like an +axiom...." + +Entering the dining-room, I felt somewhat uneasy.... It seemed to me +that all the Americans would turn and eye us, the representatives of a +nation which has not as yet learned the axioms of law, and which draws +childishly false conclusions from premises.... + +But I was mistaken. There was in the dining-room the usual rustling, +clatter of plates, forks and knives, tinkling of glasses, and +whispered conversation. "Our" American was sitting at the side of his +odd Dulcinea, and he again looked like a self-satisfied cox-comb. But, +it seemed to me that into the everyday mood of the vessel's +table-d'hote, there entered something elusive and significant, which +could change the appearance of this motley crowd just as our +American's face had changed at the end of our conversation. + +And, in fact, a few weeks later, I happened to be present at one of +those tempestuous manifestations of public opinion which at times +break out like storms on the surface of the ocean. There is much that +is ridiculous in the every-day tone of American newspapers, in their +thirst for sensations and _reclame_, in their petty interviews. But +here everything was suddenly swept aside, and the dominant tone of the +American press became deep and significant. Now and then the voices of +past generations,--the men who had been the builders of freedom and +law in their country, the voices of Lincolns, Harrisons, and Davises +pierced the bustle of every-day life and were heard in editorials, +articles, in the speeches delivered at meetings. + +The occasion for all this was again the Jewish question, and the +ignorance of axioms shown by a nation of the old continent. And it +occurred to me that probably somewhere in Chicago, Mr. Jackson, "who +dislikes green peas," was delivering, or at least listening to, a +speech about the axioms of human law, and was voting in favor of a +corresponding resolution. + +For he firmly believes that love is capricious. Like mercy, it +bloweth, whither it listeth.... But justice, justice is +obligatory.... + + * * * * * + + + + +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 peculiar 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 +regime, 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 regime, 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 mediaeval 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. + +Let us turn to those characteristic social and economic conditions +under which the Jews exist in our country. Nearly all of them, upward +of five millions, live within the Pale of Settlement, which comprises +fifteen governments and Poland, and only six per cent. live outside of +this territory. Within the Pale, Jews are not allowed to buy or take +on lease real estate outside the towns and townlets, which +circumstance makes it impossible for them to become farmers. This, in +connection with the limitation of residence, has naturally resulted in +a peculiar character of the Jewish occupations. It is characteristic +of the part the Jews play in Russia's economic life that nearly +seventy-three and eight hundredths per cent. of them are forced to +seek employment in the country's commerce and industry. Of the entire +Jewish population throughout the Empire, only two and four tenths per +cent. are engaged in agriculture, four and seven tenths per cent. in +liberal professions, eleven and five tenths per cent. in personal +service (domestic service etc.); the rest, minus the persons without +any definite employment are forced to seek for means of livelihood in +the field of commerce (thirty-one per cent.), industry (thirty-six and +three tenths per cent.), and transport (three per cent.) In the same +way works the artificial congestion of the Jews in the cities: only +eighteen per cent. live in the villages of the Pale of Settlement, +while the rest--more than four-fifths--toil in the towns and townlets. +Such a one-sided distribution of Jewish labour would not be a negative +phenomenon if it were possible to spread it uniformly over the entire +country. For, backward as Russia is industrially and commercially, the +Jews would easily find a place in the fields of endeavour which suit +them best and would greatly benefit the country by furthering the +process of its industrialisation. Under present circumstances they are +crowded in one place and overburden the commerce and the industry of +the Pale of Settlement. As a result, the struggle for existence among +them is so keen and desperate that in some sections they are +undoubtedly on the way to degeneration. In the West, Galicia and +Roumania excluded, the Jews are well represented in the wealthy +classes; in Russia an overwhelming portion of them are proletaries, +"free like birds," poverty-stricken people who literally do not know +to-day by what they are going to live to-morrow. Heart-rending +pictures are painted by impartial observers of the life of the Jewish +poorer classes, of all these tradesmen, factory workers, petty +merchants and peddlers. They literally starve and cripple both mind +and body in the slums of cities and towns. The natural result is that +in their eager search for means of livelihood they are forced to have +recourse to all sorts of expedients. Hence, all this talk about the +"criminal features" of the Jewish character and their propensity for +financial speculation, which propensity is, however, easily forgiven +and even encouraged in the "true-Russian" representatives of our +commercial interests. On the other hand, the Jews lower "the standards +of living" by offering their services often at a very low price. Thus +a peculiar "social anti-Semitism" comes into being, in Russia as well +as in the countries of Jewish immigration,--a phenomenon not unlike +the movement against "yellow labour" in the United States and in the +Australian Federation. There can be no doubt that the artificially +restrained field of application of Jewish labour is alone responsible +for the unspeakable condition in which it is forced to exist. In spite +of the exodus of a large mass of Jews from Russia, which bears analogy +to the emigration of the Irish people from their native +country,--upward of one and a half million Jews left Russia between +the years 1881 and 1908,--the remaining millions seem to be doomed to +starvation and degeneration. The popular tales about Jewish wealth are +most emphatically contradicted by impartial facts. Of the emigrants +who reach the shores of America the Jews are the poorest. A Scotch +emigrant coming to the United States brings on the average $41.50, an +Englishman $38.70, a Frenchman $37.80, a German $28.50, while a Jew +brings the sum of $8.70, the smallest of all, far below the general +average, which is $15.00. Consequently, if any real danger at all +threatens the aboriginal Russian population, it is precisely the cheap +labour of the congested Jewish masses, and the more the Jews will be +oppressed the worse it will be for the Russian workman! For the +employer will always give preference to cheaper labour. It is evident, +therefore, that the present treatment of the Jews is really not +dictated by the native Russian population, and that the democratic +argument is but a false pretext. The Russian labour market, while +congested in the Pale, is scarce in other sections. That the economic +life of Russia, as a whole, suffers from it is obvious. + +In this connection, another point is worthy of our attention. +Contrary, to the popular idea of the Jewish greed, the Jews are +usually satisfied with a lower rate of interest on the capital +invested, since what they are after is the bare means of livelihood. +In this fashion they lower, to a considerable extent, the capitalist's +profits, a circumstance which cannot fail to irritate the Gentile +capitalists. Consequently, all this comes to competition of capital, +and it is significant that the fiercest anti-Semitic outcries come +from the capitalistic classes. Let us not forget that the early +pogroms at Odessa were caused by the agitation of the Greek merchants +who feared for their commercial ascendency. + +What has been said so far demonstrates with sufficient clearness that +the anti-Semitic economic policy is detrimental to the economic +organism of Russia as a whole. The true interests of our country +demand that Jewish labour and Jewish means should be given complete +freedom of application. Russia will only gain from such a change of +policy toward the Jews. Anti-Semitism, from the economic standpoint, +is nothing but a tremendous waste of the country's productive powers. + +Here is another aspect of the question. Whether the Jews as a race are +to one's liking or not, is a question of individual taste, the +solution of which cannot be allowed to influence the sane economic +policy of a state. This must be guided by objective data. As a matter +of fact, the Jews constitute more than one third, thirty-five per +cent., of the commercial class in Russia. If we believe our country's +prosperity to be bound up with the process of its progressive +industrialisation, we must admit that the part the Jews play in +Russia's commercial life is tremendous, that to a considerable degree +they handle her entire commerce. All that hinders the untrammelled +manifestation of the Jewish economic energies is harmful to Russia's +economic organism. + +"If there were no Jews now in Russia, it would be necessary to invite +them, in the interests of both the commercial and industrial +development of the country, just as they were more than once invited +for the same purposes in the past." This conclusion, reached by a +student of the Jewish question in Russia, is eminently and profoundly +true. The opinion of an individual student may not appear +authoritative, but it has been many a time endorsed by social groups +and organisations. We need not go far back into history to find facts +of this sort. In 1912 at the time when the customary fair was in full +swing, the Governor of Nizhni-Novgorod showed an unusual zeal in +persecuting the Jews. This was in all probability connected with the +Duma pre-election campaign. The "Society of the Manufacturers and Mill +Owners of the Moscow Industrial Section," an organisation which is +rather far from being liberal in its opinions, saw fit to interfere in +its own interests. A memoir dealing with the prohibitive measures +directed against the Jews was composed and presented, through the +president of the Society, Mr. Goujon, to the chairman of the Council +of the Ministers. Here is a quotation from this memoir: "In the +economic life of the country the Jews play the part of middlemen, +placed between the producer and the consumer of goods. In the +Northwestern, Southern, and Southwestern provinces this function is +almost exclusively that of the Jews. To isolate under such conditions, +the commercial and industrial population of a considerable section of +the country from the centre of its manufacturing districts is +equivalent to inflicting a tremendous loss not only on the Jewish +merchant class but also on the many millions of the non-Jewish +population.... To isolate the village from the town, the towns of the +West and South from the towns and villages of the Centre and the East, +is to disturb intentionally the economic life of the country, to +undermine credit and depreciate the people's labour." + +That is the opinion of the Moscow manufacturers. Well aware of the +real needs of the country, and unwilling to sacrifice their commercial +interests to anti-humanitarian mottoes, they expressed their fear that +the actions of the administration would hinder the realisation of the +harvest and that the "stocks of goods would find neither consumers nor +buyers nor energetic middlemen to the extent to which they otherwise +would have." + +The Jewish people has grown to be a living part of Russia's economic +organism, and the blows which are directed against the Jews affect in +an equal, if not a greater, degree the mass of the aboriginal Russian +population. We do not intend to discuss here the Zionistic dreams and +aspirations of the Jews. One thing is clear to us, namely, that a +complete exodus of the Jews from Russia would be greatly detrimental +to her economic development. The Western world understands this truth +very well. Werner Sombart in his work _Die Zukunft der Juden_ (The +Future of the Jews) reaches the following conclusion: "If by a miracle +all the Jews would decide to-morrow to emigrate to Palestine we (the +Germans) would never allow them to. For it would mean a catastrophe in +the field of economic relation, not to speak of other fields, such as +we have never as yet experienced and which would probably cripple our +economic organism forever." + +But we, Russians, give little thought to such questions. As late as +the year 1914 we did not hesitate to inaugurate new restrictive +measures, which it took the great trial of this War to stop. + +Whoever has our economic welfare at heart, whoever dreams about the +mighty development of our country and of its real emancipation from +foreign influence,--inasmuch as this is generally possible,--must +understand that anti-Semitism is the worst foe of our economic +prosperity, that, in short, the Jewish question is a Russian +question. Full rights for the Jews, equal with those that the rest of +the population of the Empire enjoy, are an indispensable condition for +our peaceful cultural development. Only on that basis can we achieve +the broad ideals which have come into prominence in this tragic +struggle with German imperialism. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE WAR AND THE STATUS OF THE JEW + + + _Prince Paul Dmitriyevich Dolgorukov, a prominent leader of the + emancipatory movement in Russia, was born in 1866. He is one of + the founders of the Constitutional Democratic party, and for a + while he stood at the head of the Central Committee of this + party. He was a member of the Second Duma, where he represented + the city of Moscow._ + + + + +THE WAR AND THE STATUS OF THE JEW + +BY PRINCE PAUL DOLGORUKOV + + +The storm that has recently swept over our country brought to light a +series of conditions which have been weighing down upon the Russian +nation for a good many years. These conditions on account of their +long duration have come to be considered as something habitual. The +impossibility of their further continuance, at least in their present +form, has suddenly become quite apparent. + +The first among these is the existing attitude toward peoples whose +fate is closely interwoven with the fate of Russia. The need for a new +policy toward the Poles has been recognised officially and solemnly. +The hour for settling the Jewish question has also struck. The +contrast between the duties and responsibilities of the Jew toward the +state and his position in the country where he is deprived of all +rights and privileges has always existed; during the war this +contradiction has become so pronounced that it is impossible to +overlook it any longer. + +Hundreds of thousands of Jews are shedding their blood for Russia, +while at home they are deprived of such elementary rights as other +Russian subjects could lose only when convicted of crime. When a +population of six million occupies such a position, the fact is bound +to make itself felt in all walks of life; but what the war has made +supremely clear is the limitations to which the Jew is subjected as to +his right to choose freely his place of residence and to give his +children an education. + +The so-called "Pale of Settlement," Poland and the southwestern +section, constituted the arena for the early operations of the war. +The tradesmen, the merchants, all people of any means were ruined; the +poor workman was left without a crust of bread. The invading foe +forced both these groups to flee. Where were they to flee? The +simplest solution that presented itself was for them to go into other +cities of the "Pale." But the burden of the war was felt there also. +The chief bread-winner of the family had gone to war; both industries +and trades were crippled. Emigration, the safety valve of poverty, was +now impossible. Into the midst of this suffering came pouring in the +refugees from the border regions, on the one hand, and on the other, +the exiles from Germany and Austria, where they had previously found +food and shelter, and whence they had now, so to speak, been thrown +overboard. + +The economic role of such an element, hungry and unemployed, is easily +appraised. Small wonder, then, that such a condition should become +absolutely unbearable; starvation has become a common occurrence, and +many prefer suicide to asking for alms. And should some of these care +to ask for aid there is no one who could offer it, since the local +population cannot cope with the need that has so suddenly swooped down +upon them. + +Russia is a vast country, as is the soul of the Russian. Enough land +and bread exists for all its children. Many have relatives who would +welcome the refugees and exiles into their homes for the time being; +many could earn their livelihood. But in accordance with the existing +regulations the authorities must observe that no one who has not the +right of residence should come without the "Pale." The absurdity of +such regulations becomes more apparent when applied to participants in +the war. Thousands of wounded Jewish soldiers are scattered all over +Russia, many outside the "Pale." Their own may not come to stay with +them nor even visit them. Should one of these wounded die, his people +are deprived of the privilege of paying their last respects to him; +unless they choose to violate the law and remain during the visit in +hiding without registering their arrival. + +The conditions under which the Jewish child may be educated are at +present fraught with similar difficulties. A great number of +educational institutions in the south and west are now closed. The +parents are recommended to transfer their children to other cities--in +which case the local schools have been allowed to accept Jewish pupils +in excess of their regulation percentage. But the possibility of +utilising this privilege in institutions outside of the "Pale" is in +its turn combined with the "right of settlement," which condition +certainly limits the application of this privilege. With this +exception, all other educational institutions of higher and middle +grades, strictly observe the usual percentage and the drawing of lots, +on the basis of which the Jewish students are accepted. These +limitations have become especially conspicuous, because the war has +completely done away with the possibility of entering the universities +of Germany and Austria, to which the Jewish youth flocked prior to the +war. + +Another question arises: Where should the Jewish students, who have +begun their studies at a foreign university, now turn? In vain do they +knock at the doors of the higher institutions; these remain closed to +them, in spite of the fact that there are many vacancies there. They +cannot get back to the universities of either Germany or Austria. Thus +must they waste years of persistent effort and vast amounts of energy, +and very many of them will not be in a position to continue their +studies, and subsequently serve their own country, which is so sadly +in need of educated men. Are all these discriminations against Jewish +people essential for the _great Russia_, which is now called upon to +free nations and peoples from a foreign tyranny? + +The complete abrogation of all national disabilities must pass through +our legislative institutions, but the loosening of the existing +limitations is a measure which it is perfectly possible to take at +once. + + * * * * * + + + + +JEWISH RIGHTS AND THEIR ENEMIES + + + _Professor Maxim Maximovich Kovalevsky, one of the greatest + Russian sociologists, was born in 1851. Owing to his political + convictions, he had to leave Russia. In 1901 he founded in Paris + the Russian Higher School of Social Sciences, the faculty of + which consisted of exiled Russian scholars and political + emigrants. In 1905 he came back to Russia, resumed his University + work and took an active part in the political movement. In 1906 + he was elected to the Duma and in 1907 to the Imperial Council. + He died in 1916._ + + + + +JEWISH RIGHTS AND THEIR ENEMIES + +BY MAXIM KOVALEVSKY + + +If the question should be put as to who at present stands in the way +of Jewish equal rights and who demands still further limitations of +the Jews' participation in both military and civil service, the answer +is that no one class follows a more systematic and more definite +programme in this connection than the League of United Nobility. In +the year 1913 one of their conventions made the following +recommendations, recorded in a volume published in the name of the +league, and here quoted literally: + + "I. Jews and converted Jews should not be allowed to serve in the + army and navy either as regular recruits or as volunteers, nor + should they be admitted to military schools. + + "II. Jews and converted Jews should not be allowed to take part + in the electoral conventions of the Zemstvos. + + "III. Jews and converted Jews are not to be permitted to serve in + the Zemstvos. + + "IV. Jews and converted Jews are not to be permitted to serve in + any municipal capacity. + + "V. Jews and converted Jews should not be permitted to enter the + civil service. + + "VI. Jews and converted Jews should not be included in the lists + of jurors; they may not be appointed or elected to serve in + courts, they may not practice as either advocates or attorneys." + +These recommendations are clearly at variance with the trend of +Russian legislation throughout the reigns of Peter the Great, +Catherine the Second and Alexander the First. Peter the Great called +into the service of the Russian government all subjects irrespective +of their nationality or religion. His fellow champions were +representatives of different nationalities such as Bruce, Bauer, +Repnin, Menshicov and Yaguzhinsky. As to Catherine the Second, our +code of laws still retains the expression of her wish that all the +peoples of Russia, each according to the precepts of its religion, +should pray to the Almighty for the welfare of its rulers, and should +all be equally benefited by its government. + +In his "Principles of the Russian Governmental Law" Professor +Gradovsky says: "In the reign of Peter the Great there were no general +regulations concerning the Jews." Measures against the Jews date from +the reign of Catherine the First. During the reign of Catherine the +Second, little was added to the existing array of limitations. In the +districts in which the first Partition of Poland found them, the Jews +at that time enjoyed almost all the rights of the native Russian +citizen. Although the Empress recognized the "Pale of Settlement" +created in the reign of Peter the Second, she, nevertheless, stretched +its boundaries to include not only Little Russia but also the +Vice-Royalty of Ekaterinoslav and the province of Taurida, wherein the +Jews were granted all rights of citizenship. In the "Regulations +Concerning the Jews" published in 1804, in the reign of Alexander the +First, the principle of equal civil rights for this nation is brought +out in Article 42. "All the Jews in Russia," says this article, +"whether residents or new settlers or foreigners coming to transact +business are free and are to be under the protection of the law on a +par with other Russian subjects." In commenting upon this article, +Professor Gradovsky writes that this is clearly an attempt to fuse the +Jewish nation with the rest of the Russian population by giving the +former definite civil rights. + +Only during the last year of the reign of Alexander the First were +some measures adopted whereby the "Pale of Settlement" was narrowed +down because of a certain sect of "Sabbathists," closely related to +Judaism, which had greatly increased in numbers, particularly in the +provinces of Voronezh, Samara, Tula, and others. According to the +"Regulations Concerning the Jews" of 1835, enacted in the reign of +Nicholas the First, the Jews retained the right to own all kinds of +real estate, with the exception of inhabited estates and to deal in +all kinds of merchandise on the same basis as the other citizens,--of +course, only within the "Pale." + +It is noteworthy that at this time the Jews were allowed to attend +governmental schools of all grades, and that graduates from these +were granted certain privileges. It is only toward the end of the +reign of Nicholas I that the government adopts a system of limitations +relating to the Jews, without, however, restraining their right to +attend the governmental educational institutions. On the 31st of +March, 1856, an imperial edict was issued ordering a revision of the +existing regulations relating to the Jews. Therein it is clearly +stated that the purpose of this revision is to conciliate these +regulations with the intention of the government to fuse this people +with the native population of the land. During the entire reign of +Alexander II no limitations existed for the entrance of Jews into the +Universities and the other educational institutions. On the contrary, +according to Gradovsky, the limitations within the "Pale" did not +apply to persons desiring to obtain a higher education, namely to +those entering the medical academy, the universities, and the +Institute of Technology. Gradovsky refers to the continuation of the +"Code of Laws," of 1868. The book was published in 1875, while this +freedom was in full swing. Within the "Pale," the Jews had equal +commercial rights with other citizens. Until the Polish rebellion of +1863 the Jews were permitted to own real estate, not only in cities +but also in rural districts. After the rebellion this was forbidden to +them as well as to the Poles. The foreign Jew could come to Russia +freely and register on the same foreign passport as would be required +from any other citizen of that country. + +From what has been said, it follows that many of the limitations, +which at present weigh down upon the Jews have been created only +recently. The present reign, too, was begun with measures favoring the +Jew. In 1903, in spite of the fact that the Jews, in accordance with a +law which was confirmed in 1872, were forbidden to live in villages +even within the "Pale," two hundred of these villages were turned into +towns, and later fifty-seven more were added to this number. The +measure rendered these places legally habitable by the Jews. On August +11, 1904, a law was passed wherein it was emphatically stated that +Jews who were graduates from a university were to be permitted to live +freely everywhere in the Empire. But since the repression of the +revolutionary movement, this privilege has become a pretext for the +restriction of the admittance of Jews into higher educational +institutions. + +From the viewpoint of the interests of the Russian state, the existing +disabilities of the Jews are detrimental both to our economic life, +and to the mutual relations among our citizens; they also work havoc +upon the progress of education as well as upon the raising of the +general level of our culture. Measures limiting a portion of the +population in its rights to acquire property, to obtain an education +in middle and higher state schools, to assume the responsibilities of +a judge or of a lawyer, and, in general, restraining its freedom to +pursue a professional career--are clearly irreconcilable with the +promises given us in the manifesto of the 17th of October, 1906. + +The fear that the granting of equal rights to the Jews may deprive the +peasant of his land, is perfectly groundless. There are many other +means whereby the tiller of the soil may be assured the possession of +a portion of land. In the West we have systems such as that of the +homestead, based on the inalienability of the family property (_bien +de famille_). Such systems may be traced back as far as the Middle +Ages. The mediaeval law forbids the taking away from the peasant, even +for arrearage, of his agricultural implements and the cattle necessary +for his labour,--not to speak of his land, which, however, it would be +impossible to take away, since it is the suzerain that is its rightful +owner. The indivisibility of the family estate, which only a short +time ago was recognised by the Appellatory Division of our Senate, +with reference to the Western Section, was achieving the same results +because for the sale of such property the agreement of all the members +of the family was required. Such a protection of the interests of the +peasant landowner is essential in his relation to the capitalist, +whether it be a member of the landed gentry or a wealthy peasant, +known as a _Kulak_, or a Jew who lends money at interest, or an +Armenian or, for that matter, a usurer of the Orthodox faith. In order +that the land be retained by the peasant it is far more essential that +only members of the peasant class be allowed to attend the auction +sales of land sold because of the owner's arrears. And yet our law has +permitted outsiders to attend if not the first auction sale, at least +the second. I am strongly in favour of protecting the peasant's +property, but I cannot see that to achieve this goal, it is necessary +for a body politic based on law to limit any one's freedom of moving +about, settling or choosing a profession. This view is shared by some +of the political writers in Russia who, like the late B.N. Chicherin, +Professor of the University of Moscow, have identified their names +with the defence of the idea of equal rights for the Jews. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE JEWISH QUESTION AS A RUSSIAN QUESTION + + + _Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky occupies an important place in + modern Russian letters and religious philosophy. He is + responsible for several books of poems and for a series of + ponderous historical novels. He is also the author of numerous + critical studies distinguished by an original method and an + extraordinary brilliancy. He was born in 1866._ + + + + +THE JEWISH QUESTION AS A RUSSIAN QUESTION + +BY DMITRY MEREZHKOVSKY + + +Russia ... Russia alone should be our deepest concern at present. The +destiny of the numerous races and nationalities that go to make Russia +is the destiny of the Russian Empire itself. One would ascertain the +attitude of these nationalities by asking them: "Are you with Russia +or is it your desire to exist apart from her? If you desire to exist +apart from her--why, then, do you appeal to us for help? If with +us--let us then, in this time of terror, disdain to consider our +personal fortunes and let our thoughts be with Russia and with her +alone. For without her your existence is inconceivable; her rise is +your rise and her fall is your fall." + +We would like very much to say that there is no such thing as the +Jewish, Polish, Ukrainian, Armenian, Georgian, question, that there +is only one question--the Russian. Yes, we would like to, but we +cannot; the Russian people have yet to earn the right to say that, and +therein lies their tragedy.... The moment Russian idealism ventures to +tackle any of those complicated national home problems,--it becomes +weak, impotent and therefore irresponsible. + +The Jewish question is a striking illustration of what we have just +said. What do we owe the Jews? Indignation? Or the admission that +anti-Semitism is abominable? But we admitted that a long time ago, and +our indignation runs so high and is so clearly outspoken that it is +beyond one's power even to speak calmly of it. The only thing we can +do is to join our voice to that of the Jews. And we do. + +But outcries, loud as they may be, are not sufficient, and it is the +consciousness of the fact, that the outcries are insufficient and that +at the present moment we possess no other weapons with which to fight +the evil that wearies and harrows us. + +What misery, and pain, and shame! + +But in spite of the pain and the shame we cry out and reiterate and +declare to the people around us, who are ignorant of the table of +multiplication, that two and two make four, that the Jews are human +beings like us; that they are neither enemies nor traitors to their +country; that they are as good citizens as we are; that they love +Russia no less than we do, and that anti-Semitism is a disgraceful +stigma upon Russia's face. But apart from our righteous indignation, +may we not be allowed calmly to utter one thought that occurs to us at +this moment? + +"Judophilism" and "Judophobia" are closely related. A blind denial of +a nationality engenders an equally blind affirmation of it. An +absolute "Nay" naturally brings forth an absolute "Yea." + +Whom do we call a "Judophile" in Russia at the present time? +Presumably, it is he or she who loves the Jews with a singular love, +who finds in them greater values than in any other nationality. In the +eyes of the so-called "true Russians" we, the Intellectuals, are such +Judophiles. + +"Why worry over the Jews all the time?" the Russian Nationalists say +to us. + +Now, how on earth can we stop worrying over the Jews, and, for that +matter, over the Poles, Armenians, Ukrainians, Georgians, and so +forth? When in our presence some one is being outraged, we cannot +merely pass on; it is not humane. We must help him who is being +assailed. At least, we ought to join our voice with his in crying out +for help. This is precisely what we have been doing, and woe to us, if +we cease to do it, cease to be human beings in order to become +Russians. + +A forest of national problems has grown around us, and the sounds of +the Russian language are being drowned by the voices of all the +numerous peoples that inhabit Russia. It is inevitable and just. We +are not well, but with them it is still worse. We have great pain, but +their's is greater. We must forget ourselves for their sake. + +That is why we say to the "Nationalists": + +Cease oppressing the non-Russian element of our empire, so that we +may have the right to be Russians, and that we may with dignity show +our national face, as that of a human being, not that of a beast. +Cease to be 'Judophobes' so that we may cease to be 'Judophiles.' +Here is an instance taken at random. + +The Jewish question has a religious as well as a national aspect. +Between Judaism and Christianity, as between two poles, there are +strong attractions and equally strong repulsions. Judaism gave birth +to Christianity. The New Testament issued from the Old Testament. Paul +the Apostle, who more than any one else fought Judaism, wrote: "For I +could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my +kinsmen according to the flesh." + +But whereas we may speak of attractions, it is not well for us to +speak of repulsions. Indeed, how can we quarrel with him, who has no +voice? The disabilities of the Jews seal our lips. We must not +separate Christianity from Judaism, for it means, as one Jew put it, +the establishment of another, spiritual "Pale of Settlement." Let us +do away with the physical Pale, then we will be able to discuss the +spiritual one. Until then, all our protestations and declarations of +righteousness will only prove to the Jews our insincerity. + +Why has the Jewish question become so keen in time of war? For the +same reason that the rest of the national problems have made +themselves felt. + +We have called the present struggle a war of liberation. We entered +the war with the avowed purpose of liberating those who are situated +at a distance from us. While liberating distant strangers, why then do +we oppress those who live close by our side? We wage war against +tyranny outside of Russia, and we allow oppression to reign within +her. We pity everybody but the Jews. Why? + +Are they not dying on the battlefields for our sake? Do they not love +us--who hate them? Do we not hate them--who love us? If we continue to +act as we have done in the past, would not everybody lose faith in us, +and would not the nations of the earth be justified in saying to us: +"You can love only from afar. You are liars!" + +We believed our righteousness to be our strongest weapon. We wanted to +conquer brute force by the truth. If we persist in this desire, let us +not lie; let us not weaken our truth by falsehood. + +The Teutons say: "We fight to be the rulers of the world,"--and they +act accordingly. We say: "We fight for universal peace, for the +emancipation of the world," but we do not act accordingly. + +Let us begin then with the liberation of the Jews at home. Let the +oppressed nations in our land bear in mind, however, that only a free +Russian people will be able to give them freedom. + +Let the Jews remember that the Jewish question is a Russian +question. + + * * * * * + + + + +CONCERNING THE IDEOLOGY OF THE JEWISH QUESTION + + + _Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov was born in 1866. A poet of great + mastery and a refined critic, his thought, is steeped in + hellenism and in the most abstruse mystic lore._ + + + + +CONCERNING THE IDEOLOGY OF THE JEWISH QUESTION + +BY VYACHESLAV IVANOV + + +One of the wiliest and the most harmful doctrines of our times is, I +believe, the fashionable ideology of spiritual anti-Semitism. It +attributes to Aryanism, which by the way, is a quantity ethnically if +not linguistically enigmatical, many excellent and splendid qualities, +while in the Semitic influences and admixtures to the Aryan element it +sees nothing but negative energies, which have always hindered the +free unfolding of the creative powers of the Aryan genius. + +This doctrine would deprive Hellenism of Aphrodite, who came to the +Hellenes from the Semites, and would cut the main and most profound +root of Christianity, namely its faith in a "transcendental," or, +plainly, living God. Spiritual anti-Semitism cuts the body of +Christianity into two halves, and keeps only that half whose forms +are justified by analogies borrowed from the Greek religious thought, +justified, in the eyes of learned dodgers who choose to play the part +of Romanticists of Aryanism. + +This anti-religious and secretly anti-Christian theory, one of the +Trojan wooden horses made in Germany, was clearly intended to +"Indo-Germanize" the world, when suddenly the twilight of the Gods +swooped down upon the Berlin Valhalla. Nevertheless it has succeeded +in seducing many minds, obscured by prejudices. It was hailed by +"immanent" philosophers and anti-Semites out of political +considerations and psychological predispositions, as well as by +Christians mindless of their kin, by anti-church people of all kinds, +and even by atheists of Jewish birth, who are ashamed of their kin and +who are in the world like salt which has lost its strength. + +The more vivid and profound the church consciousness is in a +Christian, the more vividly and profoundly does he feel himself, I +shall not say a philo-Semite, but truly a Semite in spirit. We have so +thoroughly confused, distorted and forgotten all the holy and true +traditions, we have so thoroughly lost the habit of applying our +reason to the lucid, old truths learned by heart, that this statement +may sound like a paradox. + +Vladimir Solovyov's touching affection for Judaism is a plain and +natural manifestation of his love for Christ and of his inner +experience of being merged in the Church. The body of the Church is +for the mystic the true, although invisible body of Christ, and +through Christ it is the body begotten of Abraham's seed. The latter +body, like the curtain of the temple in Jerusalem in the hour of our +Saviour's death, was rent in twain, and that half of it which is +Judaism passionately seeks the whole, longs and yearns, and pours out +its wrath upon the second half, which in its turn longs for the +reunion and the integrity of mystic Israel. + +Whoever is within the Church loves Mary; and whoever loves Mary loves +also Israel whose name together with those of the patriarchs and +prophets solemnly resounds in our liturgical hymns. The minds of those +who in various times represented the earthly organisation of the +Church could be poisoned by hatred of the Jews, in whom they suspected +Christ's enemies, precisely because it seemed to them that the Jewish +nation was already void of the true Jewish spirit and was not of +Abraham's seed. But what do all these errings mean in face of the +single testimony of the apostle Paul? + +I have placed myself, in these lines, on the standpoint of religious +thought, and I wish to remind people of the truth that to be a +Christian means to be not a heathen, not simply an Aryan by blood, but +to become through baptism, which sacramentally includes also +circumcision, a child of Abraham, and, therefore, in a sacramental +sense a brother to Abraham's descendants, who, according to the word +of the apostle, are not deprived of inheritance, and whom, according +to Christ's word, we must bless even if they curse us. Personally, I +do not believe that the Jews hate Christ, unless it be that they hate +Him in spite of their secret, presensuous love for Him, hate Him with +that peculiar hatred which comes from jealousy and which the Hellenes +defined as the negative hypostase of Eros, as anti-Eros. + +I think that Providence has appointed the Jews eternally to test the +Christian peoples in their love for Christ and in their faithfulness +to Him. And when His work will be consummated in us, then their +demands and expectations will be fulfilled and they will be convinced +that they need not wait for another Messiah. As for us, if we were +walking with Christ, we would not fear our examiners: for love +conquers fear. + +The accounts the Russian soul has to settle with that of the Jew are +complex. In spite of the fact they have frequently and most completely +been united in suffering, the Jew is loath to love that which is most +sacred to the Russian soul. For the benefit of those in whom resound +the separate clashing voices of this spiritual dispute, I shall quote +in conclusion this final and irrevocable verdict of Dostoyevsky, who +had the reputation of being an anti-Semite: + +"All that is demanded by humanity, justice and Christian law, must be +done for the Jews. I shall add to these words that in spite of the +considerations exposed above, I definitely stand for an increase of +the Jewish rights in formal legislation and, if possible, for the +removal of all the legal disabilities which stand in the way of their +equality with the rest of the population (although in some cases they +have already more rights than the aboriginal population, or, better, +they have greater possibilities to utilise the rights which they +enjoy)." + +("A Writer's Journal," March, 1877, III, p. 4.) + + * * * * * + + + + +THE LITTLE BOY + + + + +THE LITTLE BOY + +(A STORY) + +BY MAXIM GORKY + + +It is hard to tell this little story,--it is so simple. When I was a +youth, I used to gather the children of our street on Sunday mornings +during the spring and summer seasons and take them with me to the +fields and woods. I took great pleasure in the friendship of these +little people, who were as gay as birds. + +The children were only too glad to leave the dusty, narrow streets of +the city. Their mothers provided them with slices of bread, while I +bought them dainties and filled a big bottle with cider, and like a +shepherd, walked behind my carefree little lambs, while we passed +through the town and the fields on our way to the green forest, +beautiful and caressing in its array of Spring. + +We always started on our journey early in the morning when the church +bells were ushering in the early mass, and we were accompanied by the +chimes and the clouds of dust raised by the children's nimble feet. + +In the heat of noon, exhausted with playing, my companions would +gather at the edge of the forest, and after that, having eaten their +food, the smaller children would lie down and sleep in the shade of +hazel and snow-ball trees, while the ten-year-old boys would flock +around me and ask me to tell them stories. I would satisfy their +desire, chattering as eagerly as the children themselves, and often, +in spite of the self-assurance of youth and the ridiculous pride which +it takes in the miserable crumbs of worldly wisdom it possesses, I +would feel like a twenty-year-old child in a conclave of sages. + +Overhead is the blue veil of the spring sky, and before us lies the +deep forest, brooding in wise silence. Now and then the wind whispers +gently and stirs the fragrant shadows of the forest, and again does +the soothing silence caress us with a motherly caress. White clouds +are sailing slowly across the azure heavens. Viewed from the earth, +heated by the sun, the sky appears cold, and it is strange to see the +clouds melt away in the blue. And all around me--little people, dear +little people, destined to partake of all the sorrows and all the joys +of life. + +These were my happy days, my true holidays, and my soul already dusty +with the knowledge of life's evil was bathed and refreshed in the +clear-eyed wisdom of child-like thoughts and feelings. + +Once, when I was coming out of the city on my way to the fields, +accompanied by a crowd of children we met an unknown little Jewish +boy. He was barefooted and his shirt was torn; his eyebrows were +black, his body slim and his hair grew in curls like that of a little +sheep. He was excited and he seemed to have been crying. The lids of +his dull-black eyes, swollen and red, contrasted with his face, which, +emaciated by starvation, was ghastly pale. + +Having found himself face to face with the crowd of children, he stood +still in the middle of the road, burrowing his bare feet in the dust, +which early in the morning is so deliciously cool. In fear, he half +opened the dark lips of his fair mouth,--the next second he leaped +right on to the sidewalk. + +"Catch him!" the children started to shout gaily and in a chorus. "A +Jewish boy! Catch the Jew boy!" + +I waited, thinking that he would run away. His thin, big-eyed face was +all fear; his lips quivered; he stood there amid the shouts and the +mocking laughter. Pressing his shoulders against the fence and hiding +his hands behind his back, he stretched and strangely appeared to have +grown bigger. + +But suddenly he spoke,--very calmly and in a distinct and correct +Russian. + +"If you wish,--I will show you some tricks." + +I took this offer for a means of self-defence. But the children at +once became interested. The larger and coarser boys alone looked with +distrust and suspicion on the little Jewish boy. The children of our +street were in a state of guerilla warfare with the children of other +streets; in addition, they were deeply convinced of their own +superiority and were loath to brook the rivalry of other children. + +The smaller boys approached the matter more simply. + +"Come on, show us," they shouted. + +The handsome, slim boy moved away from the fence, bent his thin body +backward, and touching the ground with his hands, he tossed up his +feet and remained standing on his arms, shouting: + +"Hop! Hop! Hop!" + +Then he began to spin in the air, swinging his body lightly and +adroitly. Through the holes of his shirt and pants we caught glimpses +of the greyish skin of his slim body, of his sharply bulging and +angular shoulder-blades, knees and elbows. It seemed to us as if with +one more twist of his body his thin bones would crack and break into +pieces. + +He worked hard until the shirt grew wet with sweat about his +shoulders. After each especially daring feat he looked into the +children's faces with an artificial, weary smile, and it was +unpleasant to see his dull eyes, grown large with pain. Their strange +and unsteady glance was not like that of a child. + +The lads encouraged him with loud outcries. Many imitated him, rolling +in the dust and shouting for joy, pain and envy. But the joyous +minutes were soon over when the boy, bringing his exhibition to an +end, looked upon the children with the benevolent smile of a +thoroughbred artist and stretching forth his hand said: + +"Now give me something." + +We all became silent, until one of the children said: + +"Money?" + +"Yes," said the lad. + +"Look at him," said the children. + +"For money, we could do those tricks ourselves." + +The audience became hostile toward the artist, and betook itself to +the field, ridiculing and insulting him. Of course, none of them had +any money. I myself, had only seven kopecks about me. I put two coins +in the boy's dusty palm. He moved them with his finger and with a +kindly smile said: "Thank you." + +He went away, and I noticed that his shirt around his back was all in +black blotches and was clinging close to his shoulder-blades. + +"Hold on, what is it?" + +He stopped, turned about, scrutinised me and said distinctly, with the +same kindly smile: + +"You mean the blotches on my back? That's from falling off the +trapeze. It happened on Easter. My father is still lying in bed, but I +am quite well now." + +I lifted his shirt. On his back, running down from his left shoulder +to the side, was a wide dark scratch which had now become dried up +into a thick crust. While he was exhibiting his tricks the wound broke +open in several spots and red blood was now trickling from the +openings. + +"It doesn't hurt any more," said he with a smile. "It doesn't hurt, it +only itches." + +And bravely, as it becomes a hero, he looked in my eyes and went on, +speaking like a serious grown-up person: + +"You think--I have been doing this for myself? Upon my word--I have +not. My father ... there is not a crust of bread in the house, and my +father is lying badly hurt. So you see, I have to work hard. And to +make matters worse, we are Jews, and everybody laughs at us. +Good-bye." + +He spoke with a smile, cheerfully and courageously. With a nod of his +curly head, he quickly went on, passing by the houses which looked at +him with their glass eyes, indifferent and dead. + +All this is insignificant and simple, is it not? + +Yet many a time in the darkest days of my life I remembered with +gratitude the courage and bravery of the little Jewish boy. And now, +in these sorrowful days of suffering and bloody outrages which fall +upon the grey head of the ancient nation, the creator of Gods and +religion,--I think again of the boy, for in him I see the symbol of +true manly bravery,--not the pliant patience of slaves, who live by +uncertain hopes, but the courage of the strong who are certain of +their victory. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE FATHERLAND FOR ALL + + + _Fyodor Sologub is the pseudonym of Fyodor Kuzmich Teternikov, + novelist and poet. A considerable portion of his prose works has + been recently made accessible to the English reader. Sologub's + poetic output includes lyrical pieces of rare beauty. He was born + in 1864._ + + + + +THE FATHERLAND FOR ALL + +BY FYODOR SOLOGUB + + +The great war, which we did not want, but which we are conducting with +intense fervour, exerting all our spiritual and material forces, has +put before our consciousness and our moral sense the fundamental +problems of our social and political organisation. Not in vain have +the newspapers hastened to style this war a Fatherland War. The +question of the Fatherland has suddenly acquired for us a peculiar +keenness and significance. + +The war has taken Russian society and the Russian people by surprise, +but luckily it has come to us at the moment when the questions which +were confronting us had already been settled both in our reason and +conscience. The heroic labour of the Russian intellectual has not been +in vain. And now what we have to do is not to argue and demonstrate, +but to determine the meaning of events. And the meaning of what is +going on is such that we are forced to consider this war not only as +one of defence, but also as one of emancipation. It appears to us not +only as a struggle for the rights of small states threatened by large +ones, and as a war against German militarism, but also as a strife +against...[1] internal danger, whatever may be the various forms this +danger assumes. + +The first and chief danger which threatened, and is still threatening +us, is the danger of internal division and disorder. The equal +readiness and zeal to stand up for her which all the peoples +inhabiting Russia have manifested has shown how unjust is the +preaching of hatred and of narrow nationalism. The peoples who bear +the same burdens of our state as the Russians do, who defend our +common fatherland just as faithfully as the Russians, thereby assert +that our fatherland is for all, that Russia is for every one who is +considered a Russian subject and meets his duties toward the state. +Russia is not only for those who are Russians by language and birth, +she is for all who live under her sovereign dominion. No one in Russia +is benefited by the unequal rights of her various peoples; this +inequality does not add to our political power, it only supports our +internal disorder. Its abolition by no means contradicts the +fundamental conceptions of Russian statehood. + +You will say that Russia has been created by the Russian race. Well, +then, her policy must be determined by the qualities of the Russian +popular spirit,--but animosity and exclusiveness are things strange +and repulsive to it. The soul of the Russian people is trusting and +open to all influences. And this is only natural: only that nation can +become the basis of a great state which is able with ease and joy to +unite with all the races it meets on its historic road. The history of +Russia illustrates this. Besides, who has ever asserted that people +born unto the Russian tongue are racially pure Slavs? + +You will say that Russia is a Christian state. Agreed. But do not +Christ's commandments teach us to see a friend and a brother and one's +equal in every man? The more we are Christians, the less of animosity +and exclusiveness can be in our hearts. What difference does it make +that two men speak different languages and pray in different ways? +When it is a question of paying duties and taxes, and bearing arms in +defence of the fatherland, religious and race peculiarities do not +matter. + +The fatherland is for all of us, because we are all for the +fatherland. The fatherland is our common home, and this home we build, +keep in good order, and defend. We build our common home not like +hirelings, to whom, after they get their pay, the building becomes +alien. In rearing, decorating and defending it we bargain with no one, +we give everything that is necessary for its upbuilding and +defence,--we give our property, our labour, our very life. Even when +our labour appears selfish, even then--provided it is not criminal--it +is for the good of our common home: for, all that adds to the +happiness, well-being and freedom of each one living in the home, adds +to its strength and beauty. + +We build our common home, decorate it and defend it, and we do it with +joy and willingness because in our common home we are neither +hirelings nor guests. In our common home, then, who are we? We must +know and always remember that in our common home we are all masters of +the house. It is not our right, but our duty toward our home, of which +we must take care just as every good master takes care of his house. +The consciousness of the fact that we are the masters of our common +home is clear; for it is seen that every one of us in whom conscience +and reason do not slumber, feels responsible for the disorder of our +life. + +Not an outsider, nor a congress of allies, nor some one social class +shall regulate our affairs for the best of Poland, Finland, the Jews +and the rest. Neither our allies, nor any one of our social classes, +nor the wisest and strongest among us,--but all of us Russian +citizens, all of us who joyously and willingly bear the burden of +statehood, are called upon to settle in conscience and reason, the +fundamental problems of our great home-building. + + * * * * * + +In the face of the common foe we are all united. We have mustered all +our forces for the defence of our native land from the hostile +invasion. We are all brothers, all children of one fatherland, and to +all Russia is a good mother loving all equally well. Many are the +peoples Russia has gathered under her dominion and she is to all +equally benevolent. + +How eager is one to say these words, to have the right to utter them! +But we have it not. Not toward all is Russia equally benevolent, and +in the hour of great trials and high deeds she is still unable, still +unwilling, to tear asunder the fatal chain, the terrible "Pale of +Settlement." + +Whenever I met Russian Jews abroad, I always marvelled at the +strangely tenacious love for Russia which they preserve. They speak of +Russia with the same longing and the same tenderness as the Russian +emigrants; they are equally eager to return and equally saddened if +the return is impossible. Wherefore should they love Russia, who is so +harsh and inhospitable toward them? + +Strange as it may sound, there are children who love their cruel +stepmothers. Of course, they are exceptions; usually such stepmothers +are hated. But in the case of Jews such exceptions become the general +rule: the Jews love the same Russia that is so cruel toward them. + +Some one's interests demand that the Jews should be oppressed, stabled +in the "Pale of Settlement," limited in the right to education, and in +other respects. But to whose interest is it? Russia's? Surely not. + +Social relations in Russia, as in every civilised state, must rest on +the immovable foundations of justice, reason, and conscience. All +those persons who are united by the fact of their belonging to the +Russian state must have, within the limits of the empire, the minimum +of rights, which, to our shame, are refused the Jews. This minimum +each one of us receives not for his personal or racial deserts or +distinctive traits, but as a citizen of the state. To obey the common +Russian laws, to pay the established taxes, to serve in the army,--all +these are the duties of a Russian subject, corresponding to the amount +of rights of which he can be deprived only by a court ruling for a +crime. + +A man not dishonoured by a court decision may not live where he wants +to,--because he is a Jew; a boy who has not been dismissed from any +school for deficiency or misconduct, may not enter the "gymnasium," +where there are plenty of vacancies, but where the few vacancies set +aside by a percentage rule for the Jewish brats, are eagerly filled by +them; a soldier's wife may not visit her wounded and agonising husband +because he happens to be dying outside the "Pale"; the deceased may +not be buried in the town where he died, for he had no right of +residence in that town,--what does all this mean? Who needs all this? + +All these people are Russian subjects, not our enemies, and yet they +are treated in this fashion. What is the purpose of it all? Is it in +order to kindle among the Jews the fire of implacable hatred of Russia +and turn them into our enemies? But then we must be logical and not +tolerate them in the "Pale of Settlement"; we must exile or destroy +them. But a civilised state will never persuade itself to commit such +acts, inhuman though logical. And if it does not decide to do that, it +must, for the sake of its safety and dignity, grant to every Russian +citizen the elementary human rights. It is imperative that every +Russian citizen should have every reason to love Russia and no right +to hate her. If that portion of the Russian population which is +deprived of rights still loves Russia, it is because the people of +purely Russian extraction have no hatred for people of non-Russian +birth, and our co-citizens are fully aware of it. They know that their +disabilities are a burden to ourselves. + +The removal of the Jewish disabilities is most imperatively dictated +to us also by our dignity as a body politic. The name of Russian +subject must be respected within our country, for otherwise the +civilised world will not grow accustomed to respect Russia. Our +country is feared for its military might and loved for the fine +qualities of its people, but it will be respected only when it becomes +a land of free men. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Several words here are crossed out by Russian +censorship.--Translator's Note. + + * * * * * + + + + +ON NATIONALISM + + + _Vladimir Sereyevich Solovyov is known to the world as the + noblest and the most profound of Russian thinkers. The author of + a large number of philosophical and theological treatises, he is + also responsible for a slender volume of exquisite poems and a + series of publicistic works, wherein the cause of progress is + vigorously upheld. Solovyov was born in 1853 and died in 1900._ + + + + +ON NATIONALISM + +A speech delivered by Vladimir Solovyov at a University Dinner on +February 8th, 1890 + + +The dominating idea of the present time is the national idea. Of +course, there is nothing bad about this. But the national idea as well +as any other, can be very differently interpreted. The conception of +nationalism which is very popular in our country reminds one of the +famous answer made by a Hottentot to a missionary, who asked him +whether he knows the difference between good and bad. "Sure I know," +retorted the Hottentot. "Good--is when I steal other people's cattle +and wives, and bad--when my own are stolen." In a like manner, many of +our nationalists praise the love for their people and brand other +people's patriotism as treason. + +In spite of the wide diffusion of this view, I persist in my belief +that the Russian national idea cannot be based on a Hottentot-like +morality, that it cannot exclude the principles of justice and +all-human solidarity. It is time that we should see the realisation of +the true Russian idea and of all that it implies, namely: Poland's +autonomy, Jewish equal rights and the untrammelled development of all +the nationalities that people the Russian Empire. + + * * * * * + + + + +CONCERNING THE LEGAL STATUS OF THE JEWS + + + _Count Ivan Ivanovich Tolstoy, born in 1858, occupied the post of + Minister of Public Instruction at the time of Count Witte's + premiership. In 1907 he was a candidate for election to the Duma, + as deputy from Petrograd. A distinguished archeologist and + connoisseur of art, he was for many years the vice-president of + the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts._ + + + + +CONCERNING THE LEGAL STATUS OF THE JEWS + +BY COUNT IVAN TOLSTOY + + +"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, +do ye even so to them." (St. Matthew, 7, 12.) This is the divine law, +which it is the task of every one who considers and feels himself a +Christian to follow, and which should also be strictly observed by a +State. Now, would any one of the Christians who owe their allegiance +to the Russian state consent to be treated as the Jews are in Russia? +Would he like to be confined within a certain definite zone of +settlement, to be kept from giving his children an education, and to +find himself excluded from many fields of honest and honourable +endeavour? Would he like, all through his life to be humiliated before +his co-citizens of other faith and birth? + +You despise them, hate them, and accuse them of all that it may please +any maniac or liar to invent about them. Yet you demand of the Jews +that they should help you, when you stand in need of help. You, +Jew-haters, serve somebody or something, but truly it is not God, it +is not the cause of goodness that you are serving. In your blindness +you harm, above all, yourself and our country, our dear, +long-suffering Russia, whom the Jews, your co-citizens, love and +cannot help loving more than you do. They know that Russia hates none +of her faithful and loving children and that they are hated only by +people, who, either by nature or because of a poor education, cannot +exist without hating some one or something. By their deeds ye shall +know them, these wolves disguised as sheep. + +Combat evil and side with good, do good, and do not judge a man by the +fact that his parents are Jewish or Christian, or that he was born +into one faith or another. Remember that we are all born equally naked +and that we must all die. Therefore, do not boast of your birth; bear +firmly in mind that we are all equal before God, before Truth and +that we must be equal before the Law. + +As for the legal disabilities of a portion of citizens who are guilty +of no crime,--such as injustice must be completely condemned. In +practice, such a policy has always borne and always will bear fruits +of evil. The very existence of such an injustice corrupts and puts in +jeopardy the social body which tolerates it.... No benefits which may +be derived by individual persons or social classes from an inequality +of rights can justify the State in depriving a group of citizens of +their full rights, as a result of their race and faith. This is the +A-B-C of justice, and those who do not know it have yet to learn what +justice is. + +Neither are the Jews better than we are, nor are we better than they. +We are all human beings and, as such, we must all be equal before the +impartial and dispassionate Law, which determines our rights and +duties towards the State and society. Good and bad people, I repeat, +are everywhere, and the proportion is roughly the same among us as +among them. Let us, therefore, strive for the realisation of justice +on earth, and let us believe in the final triumph of truth. The rest +will be added unto us. Without such a faith it is hard to live.... + + * * * * * + + + + +THE WOUNDED SOLDIER + + + + +THE WOUNDED SOLDIER + +BY LEONID ANDREYEV + + +A sad and disquieting image often rises before my eyes. + +It happened in Petrograd, on the staircase of a large, new building, +one apartment of which was transformed into a private ward. When I +entered the porter's lodge, on my way to a friend, I saw that it was +filled with wounded soldiers, who had just arrived, while curious +spectators crowded near the plate-glass door. The house was new and +luxuriously furnished, and the elevator on which the wounded soldiers +were taken up, was carefully covered with some kind of cloth, for fear +that the velvet would be soiled and the insects would get into the +seams. Upstairs the wounded were cordially greeted by a priest and a +man dressed in white. After having kissed the priest's hand, the +wounded, evidently embarrassed by the bright light and the luxury of +the place, entered the ward awkwardly and silently. There were no +seriously wounded on stretchers among them, all were able to walk; yet +it was painful to look at them. + +There was a wounded soldier in one of the last groups taken up by the +elevator who strangely attracted everybody's attention. He was a +short, young, lean, ghastly pale Jew. All the wounded were pale, but +there was something sinister about the pallor of his face; it was a +paleness of an utterly exhausted, anaemic or fatally sick man. He was +walking alone, feebly moving his feet, and like everybody else bent to +kiss the hand of the priest, but he hardly knew what he was doing, and +his kiss was strangely indifferent and meaningless. He was evidently +wounded in his arm, which he held stretched out. Several fingers were +wrapped up, the others, which were not injured, were covered with a +crust of dirt and blood. But on his coat, on the back, there was a +large brown blotch of blood, a very large one, covering almost half of +his back and in the midst of the soft cloth it bulged stiffly as if +starched. And this horrible spot told the simple story of the battle +and the wound. But it was not the stain that made him so peculiarly +conspicuous--other soldiers had similar blotches--it was rather his +unusual pallor, thinness and smallness, and, above all, an expression +of peculiar timidity, as if he was not at all sure whether his +behaviour was appropriate and whether he had come to the right place. +The faces of the other wounded soldiers, non-Jews, expressed nothing +of the kind. These men were confused, but not afraid, and walked +straight ahead, into the ward. + +And then I recollected how a military sanitarian, whose duty it is to +escort a train of wounded soldiers, had told me that the wounded Jews +actually try not to moan. It was hardly credible, and at first I did +not believe it; how was it possible, that a wounded soldier, freshly +picked up from the battlefield and lying among wounded soldiers should +try not to moan, as all do? But the sanitarian confirmed his statement +and added: they are afraid to attract attention to themselves. + +The Jewish soldier entered the ward after the others, and the door was +closed, but his image, sorrowful and disquieting, lingered before my +eyes. Of course, he, too, tried not to attract attention--and therein +is the cause of his shyness; and when his wound will be dressed and he +will be put into bed, he will also try not to moan. For, what right +has he to moan aloud? + +It is very possible, that he has no right of settlement in Petrograd +and is allowed to stay there only as one of the wounded; a rather +precarious right! And that which is home for others is nothing but a +kind of honourable imprisonment for him; he will be kept for a while, +then they will let him go, saying: "Go away, you must not be here." + +And what if his mother, or sister, or father, who also have no right +of settlement, will desire to come to him and kiss his bloodstained +hand which has defended Russia--vague, distant Russia? But these +reflections and questions came to my mind later. At the moment, I +beheld, with the eyes of a peaceful citizen, the bloody, hardened +blotch and the dreadful pallor of war, and the needless terror before +that which, after all, is your own, and I felt an overwhelming +depression and sadness. + + * * * * * + + + + +HOW TO HELP? + + + _Catherine Kuskova is a journalist and social worker of + considerable note._ + + + + +HOW TO HELP? + +BY CATHERINE KUSKOVA + + +Lord, what a familiar sight! How many times have we seen it during the +last nine or ten months.... And every time you blush with shame and +you have the feeling of being overcome and petrified in the face of +the incomprehensible, elemental catastrophe. + +The train slowly pulls up to the high structure of the station. The +scene is laid in one of the towns of the Western section. Faces of +passengers, restless, way-worn, sickly, are seen in the windows. The +cars are over-crowded beyond all measure. There are many black-eyed +children, with curly black locks, and also old people, decrepit with +age. The railway platform is crowded with Jewish youths, with +representatives of the Jewish community, and a mass of curious people +who eagerly scan the newcomers. A large crowd of passengers emerge +from the cars rapidly and in disorder. They are Jews deported from +the zone of military operations. The local Jewish community had been +notified by a telegram and now they are meeting the newcomers. + +The community has seen to it that hot tea, bread, and milk for the +children is served to the deported right at the station. A most timely +measure! Many of them had had no time even to take food along; they +were deported on short notice, and, besides, a family is allowed to +carry no more than forty pounds of luggage. What is forty pounds for a +family often very large? They can hardly afford to take some underwear +and warm clothes.... Behind each family there remained a home, +probably a store, a stand, a workshop or simply a sewing-machine, the +sole source of income.... All are equal now in this dreadful train, +which carries them away from home, naked wrecks of humanity, torn from +their customary course of life and deprived of the daily toil, which +fed the family. And what a terror it is to look into their eyes. It is +plainly written in them: "This is nothing, the worst is still to +come." + +They sat down on the benches in the waiting room, and started +drinking tea, and eating. + +"Well, you are feeding your spies, eh?" suddenly remarks a porter, +addressing a representative of the Jewish community. The latter grows +pale, shivers, and quickly moves away. What, indeed, could one answer? +How does this great migration of a people impress an unsophisticated +brain? If the entire population leaves a district the matter is clear; +the place must be evacuated before the enemy. But the trains loaded +with Jews do not come from districts already occupied by the foe. How +else can a plain man construe this fact than that the Jews are spies, +dangerous people, in short, our internal enemy? And so this +one-year-old baby whose puffed-up, tiny hand hangs down from its +mother's shoulder is also an enemy, just as is this sad girl wearily +skulking in a corner, and this old man with his shaking head and +wrinkled hands,--all these are our enemies, otherwise why should they +have been deported before the arrival of the foe? Why such a peculiar +selection of the passengers of the dreadful trains? I go from one +porter to another, asking them who was brought on. The answer is the +same: "Jews, spies...." The very arrival of such a train engenders an +ill feeling toward the entire Jewish nation,--and how many such trains +have arrived here lately! And if you were to stop and ask who +established the guilt of these people, and whether it is thinkable +that all these tens of thousands of men, women, and children should +have been caught red-handed, no one will stop to listen to you. A Jew +is a spy,--this is the only impression that becomes indelibly branded +in the brains of the Russian population which witnesses the new +tragedy of the Jewish nation. The effect of the passage of these +trains is truly terrible, it is a series of systematic object-lessons +of hatred.... + +When the crowd has quenched its hunger and thirst, a new problem +presents itself: how to transport all this mass to the town and give +them shelter. For this purpose a number of carriages are kept in +readiness. The coachmen, all of them Jews, load the miserable luggage +and try to accommodate the old, the sick, and the children. Now and +then a bearded, husky driver would wipe away a tear; to one side, +Jewish women weep frankly. The sorrowful procession sets out for the +town. There the refugees will once more have to meet the Russians and +endure questionings, insulting remarks and slaps in the face.... Will +the Jewish nation stand all this? + +Yes, it will undoubtedly stand this frightful trial. There is +something in its inner nature that enables it to hold out under the +most terrible conditions. + +At the house of a representative of the Jewish community, I find +several people who handle the transportation and distribution of the +deported Jews. + +"How many people have passed through your hands?" + +"Several thousand. We get word by telegraph from the centres of +deportation as to how many people we should keep and how many send +further." + +"Where do you get the means necessary for these operations?" + +"The entire Jewish population of our town has imposed upon itself a +systematic refugee tax. This source furnishes us 3,000 rubles monthly. +Of course this is very little, ours is a poor town. Then we get +financial aid from the Jewish communities, which do not have to help +the deported directly. We have received several thousand rubles from +Smolensk, Petrograd, Moscow, and elsewhere." + +"And how about the Russian population, does it render you any +assistance?" + +"No, its attitude toward the deported is at best indifferent, and at +worst hostile." + +"And the Jews, do they not protest against this new tax?" + +"Oh, no, not in the least. You have no idea to what an extent the +feeling of solidarity grows among us in such cases. Here is an +instance. A train with the deported arrived here yesterday. It was +Saturday. That is, as you know, a sacred day for the Jews. +Nevertheless, all our Jewish coachmen came to the station to take the +newcomers to the town. We have asked them to come to-day to get paid +for their services. Not one of them appeared. And so it has been all +along. There is not a Jewish coachman in the town who would take money +in such a case. On the contrary, they would be insulted if they were +not asked to do their bit. When the first train arrived, the present +self-taxation was not yet in existence. We received the telegram +suddenly. Nothing was in readiness. Our young people got busy and +started canvassing the Jewish houses. And at once people brought all +they could: tea, sugar, eggs, milk. We met the hungry ones with full +hands. No, we cannot complain against the Jews; they do all they can, +even the poorest." + +The representative shows me a heap of telegrams. Their contents are +brief: "To Rabbi so-and-so. Meet 900; meet 1000; meet 1100." Only the +numbers differ.... + +"And where do you house those who remain here?" + +"Well, we accommodate them in the Jewish school, in private homes, in +rooms hired for the purpose. But here we met with a new obstacle. Our +town is situated on the left bank of the river Dnyepr. Now a new order +was issued to the effect that the deported should settle exclusively +on the left bank. We had trouble enough, I warrant you. Fortunately, +the local authorities have shown us some consideration and postponed +the second deportation.... But to entrain worn-out people and send +them anew into the unknown,--it is painful even to imagine it. Think +of it: to grow accustomed to the place, to the people who take care +of you,--and then again a train, a flashing of a station, and the +final outrage of the arrival. Many say: 'Better to die than to resume +our road again.' + +"But we are forced to send them further, although nowadays it is hard +to place the deported; all the towns are crowded, the congestion leads +to diseases. Here, too, we have had several deaths...." + +"Tell me," I said finally, "but you know, at least approximately, why +these people are deported? It is impossible that this should be done +for no earthly reason, simply because they happen to be Jews...." + +How great was my repentance that I put this naive question! I shall +never, never forget the eyes which turned on me. There was in them a +burning pain and another question: "Yes, for what crime? If we only +knew it.... Perhaps, you will tell us? You are a Russian, you are in a +better position to know...." + +I got up quickly, shook hands, and left in silence, with a feeling of +repulsion for myself and shame for my helplessness.... + + * * * * * + + + + +THE HOMELESS ONES + + + _Sergey Yakovlevich Yelpatyevsky is a popular writer of + realistic, and humanitarian tales and sketches. In his youth he + was exiled to Siberia, and in 1910 he was imprisoned. He was born + in 1854._ + + + + +THE HOMELESS ONES + +BY S. YELPATYEVSKY + + +I + +A party of Jews was brought to the province of Tavrida. Officially +they are called "the deported"; the newspapers refer to them as "the +homeless ones." At first came three thousand Jews from the province of +Kovno. They were followed by Kurland Jews, and now about seven +thousand Jews have been settled in the government of Tavrida. Other +parties are expected.... + +They had wandered a long time before they reached their new place of +residence. Obviously, the authorities who handled the deportation +thought only of how to get rid of the Jews, and those on whom the +newcomers were thrust had not been informed in time and did not know +how to arrange to take care of them. + +The first party, three thousand strong, stayed a while at Melitopol, +then they were transported to Simferopol where they remained five +days, and were finally distributed over the towns and townlets of +northern Crimea. + +It is told that one of the parties was assigned to Yekaterinoslav, but +the authorities refused to accept the people and ordered them to +proceed further. The local papers report that a group of deported Jews +was transported from Pavlograd to Jankoy, then, according to an +instruction from the Ministry of the Interior they were shipped to +Voronezh.... + +There are many old men and women, many girls and mothers, and a large +number of children in the party which has been brought here. All of +them are miserable and exhausted, a number are ill, either because +they had been sick when the catastrophe overtook them or because they +fell ill on the way, and there are many pregnant women among them. As +a result of their long wanderings, wives have lost their husbands and +mothers their children and they eagerly question everybody about those +dear to them. + +Little has been written in the newspapers about the Jews deported from +the zone of military activities, and so far little has been heard of +either the state or the social organisations coming to the assistance +of these "war sufferers," who feel the burden of war even more heavily +than those who fled from the war-stricken districts on their own +account. There was a vague statement that the Pirogov Society is +aiding the Jews deported to the Government of Poltava and that meagre +sums were contributed by the Union of Towns and the Ministry of the +Interior,--that is all the newspapers have so far reported. + +The burden of taking care of the newcomers fell entirely on the local +Jewish communities. It was a heavy burden, for there are no more than +about twenty thousand Jewish families in the entire government of +Tavrida. These twenty thousand families had to take care and to +support seven thousand homeless people, mostly small tradesmen and +peddlers who had had no time to liquidate their businesses and who +could not take along any property, for bedding was the only thing they +were allowed to carry. + +They had to find housing facilities in all haste, to organise +transportation and medical aid, and to solve the food and employment +problems. An attempt was made to utilise the deported in agriculture, +in which labour is nowadays exceedingly scarce in Crimea. But the old +people and the children are not fit for agricultural work and it would +take too long to train the able-bodied women. On the other hand, the +largest and more prosperous Crimean towns, such as Simferopol and +Sebastopol, Yalta, Yevpatoria, and Theodosia, where the deported Jews +could easily find employment, are closed to the newcomers. Only the +smaller and poorer towns and townlets where even the local Jews can +scarcely get employment, are put at the disposal of the newcomers as +their places of residence. There was even a project to settle a +portion of these people in the city of Perekop. This town counts only +one Jewish family among its population. It consists of a prison and +several deserted shanties, and reminds one of that legendary Siberian +town, which was made up of a single pillar erected as an indication of +the site where the city was supposed to stand. + +The local Jewish communities spend about fifty thousand rubles monthly +on feeding the deported. This sum does not include the expenses of +transportation and housing. The local communities applied to the +Petrograd Committee, but it took upon itself only fifteen thousand +rubles. The remaining thirty-five thousand are contributed by the +Jews, who have also to support their specific cultural institutions as +well as municipal institutions of a general character. + +The representatives of the Simferopol Jewish community applied to the +Governor of Tavrida for financial help. I do not know whether they +were successful. Meanwhile, other parties of deported Jews are +expected here, and how the Jews will be able to handle them, is more +than I can tell. + +The War has ruined many homes and made many men, women, and children +homeless. But it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that fate has +been most ruthless to these deported Jews. The so-called "refugees," +after all, acted freely; they brought with them, if not what they +wanted at least what they had time, what they were able to take; they +could go wherever there was work. The refugees were everywhere +welcomed and helped by both the authorities and the public +organisations. Special days for the soliciting of donations were +appointed and large sums collected. Wherever they went people tried to +alleviate their sufferings. But the deportation of the Jews took place +as if on the sly, without attracting any one's attention, without +engaging the sympathies of the people at large to the degree which +might be expected. + +The deported proved a heavy burden not only for the Jewish but also +for the Gentile population of the humble villages of the government of +Tavrida, which were flooded by the newcomers. The prices of food, and +the rent soared up, and competition among tradesmen and small +merchants grew more ruthless,--in a word, life here became much harder +than the War alone would have made it. + + +II + +As one observes these throngs of old men, children and pregnant women +who are deported and tossed from one end of the country to the other, +simply because they are Jews, one wonders to whom it brings profit or +happiness. It is clear that it does no one any good and no one finds +this wholesale deportation either just or necessary. + +"In discussing the deportation of Jews the Minister of the Interior +pointed out that this measure was not justified by the actual +behaviour of the Jewish population, which is in general loyal to the +country and cannot bear responsibility for the actions of criminal +individuals, of whom unfortunately no nationality is free" (_Yuzhnyia +Vyedomosti_, No 10). The same communication contains the following +statements: "It was asserted that the wholesale accusation of the Jews +as traitors is wholly groundless.... In view of this the council of +Ministers, by an overwhelming majority, decided to make intercession +to put an end to the deportation of the Jews." + +Whether the Council of Ministers has interceded and whether its +efforts were crowned with success,--I know not. The papers published +several orders whereby separate groups of deported Jews were permitted +to return to their former places of residence,--for instance, the +deported Galician Jews were allowed to return to Galicia,--but there +was no general rescript which would put an end to the deportation.... + +The wholesale deportation of the Jews caused a great perplexity among +the population of Crimea. Even people who are not over-sensitive to +problems of truth and justice and whose sympathies are far from being +broad, show signs of being stirred up. Suppose the Council of +Ministers is mistaken, they say, and the presence of the Jews in the +governments of Kovno and Kurland is really a danger for the State, but +then do not Germans live in those provinces, in even larger numbers +than Jews? Time and again we read in the newspapers of the friendly +reception of the German armies by the German population of Kurland. +There were also registered cases where penalties were imposed on +individual persons who either showed too great an enthusiasm for the +German troops or rendered them material services. Nevertheless, +nothing was heard about the German population of the Government of +Kurland being deported in a wholesale manner,--at least, not a single +train with Kurland Germans has reached Crimea. + +On the other hand,--so thinking people keep on arguing,--if the Jews +have proved to be more German than the Germans themselves, and the +Teutonic population of Kurland act like loyal Russian subjects, why +then liquidate the land owned by the Crimean Germans, who have been +living in Crimea for more than a century, who have never shown any +disloyalty to Russia, who, furthermore, are separated from the German +frontier by thousands of versts and who are, therefore, by no means +able to inform the Germans from Germany about the movement of our +troops in the provinces of Kurland and Kovno. + +And once more rises the question: "In whose interests is all this +done?" + +The matter has also another aspect. How many Jews were deported--tens +or hundreds of thousands--no one knows exactly; but seeing the large +masses which are being shifted from place to place, people wonder how +many cars were necessary to transport all these throngs. And then it +occurs to them that all these trains could bring in enormous cargoes +of coal, sugar, kerosene and other wares which are so badly needed +here, and carry away grain and fruit, which are needed elsewhere, thus +making life more livable in many corners of our vast country. + +And people who have the enviable capacity of not losing their +equanimity under any circumstances, remark that in this fashion the +Jewish problem is being settled and the Pale of Settlement removed. + +"Here already the provinces of Voronezh and Penza are opened to +Jews.... Little by little all of Russia will be opened up...." + + * * * * * + + + + +THE JEW + + + _Mikail Petrovich Artzibashef, the author of Sanine was born in + the year 1878 in Southern Russia. He is widely read both in his + own country and outside of its borders. In 1905 he took part in + the revolutionary movement, and was indicted, but escaped + punishment because of the temporary success of the popular + movement at the end of that year._ + + + + +THE JEW + +(A STORY) + +BY M. ARTZIBASHEF + + +It so happened that the second platoon of the third squad of the +Ashkadar regiment found itself completely cut off from the main body +of the army, and this without the loss of a single cartridge or +soldier. + +How this came about, and why a group of men, fifteen or twenty strong, +had suddenly become an independent fighting unit, none of them could +tell. + +At the outset, the entire Ashkadar regiment zealously trudged +throughout the long autumn night along an interminable road, leading +no one knew where, into the dark, damp, and hostile distance. To smoke +or to converse was forbidden. In the dark, the black mass of the +regiment, bristling with its bayonets like some huge, porcupine-like +creature, crawled steadily onward, filling the air with the shuffling +of innumerable feet. The men kept stumbling over each other, and +swore viciously in half tones; they slipped in the mud and sank +knee-deep into the wheel-tracks filled with cold water. "Some road!" +they sighed quietly. + +At dawn the regiment was brought to a halt and was stretched along the +edge of a wide potato field, which the soldiers had never seen before. +It was drizzling with sickening persistence, and the dark-blue +distances, mildly sloping and mournful, were blurred in the haze of +the rain. On both sides, as far as eye could reach, ranks of grey +officers and soldiers were wretchedly soaking in the rain. Water was +dripping from their sullen faces and it looked as though they were all +weeping over their fate--the fate which had cast them upon this +strange, unknown, God-forsaken field. In a few hours many of them will +perhaps be lying dead amidst the half-rotted potato stems on the wet +soil with their pallid faces upturned to the cold heavens, the very +ones which now weep also over their dear, distant country. + +Behind, a battery crew was vainly attempting to set the cannon which +were sinking into the soaked plough-land. One could hear the hoarse +angry voices, the cracking of whips, and the heavy, strained snorting +of horses. In front of them lone officers wandered in drenched cloaks +in the rain; still farther behind the curtain of rain and the thick +fog there rumbled cannons and it was impossible to tell whether they +belonged to the enemy or not. At times the shooting seemed to come +from afar-off on the right. Then the rumble of the guns was deep and +muffled like the sound of heavy iron balls rolling over the ground; at +other times, the discharges were quite near and rent the air with a +crash, bursting over the men's very heads, as it were. + +The commander of the squad stood right in front of his men and kept +lighting cigarettes shielding them with the skirts of his cloak. He +did it so often that it seemed as if he had been vainly attempting to +light the same cigarette for the last three hours. The soldiers were +attentively looking at his back and were all morbidly anxious to help +him. It was cold and damp, and they felt an incessant, nauseating +gnawing in the pit of the stomach. It was not fear but an indefinite +anguish, a sort of _the-sooner-over-the-better_ feeling. + +Several hours passed in this manner, but towards noon it all changed +abruptly. Though the sky was still as grey as before and it drizzled +continuously, it grew lighter, the clouds in one spot became white and +shining and one felt that the sun was somewhere behind them. But +amidst this cold white light a disquieting feeling pervaded the +atmosphere and the gnawing anxiety was turning into unbearable agony. +Suddenly, an aide-de-camp dashed past on a horse, covered with froth +and fuzzy with dampness. Officers began to scurry back and forth; +sharp commands were heard; and the bugles resounded. + +"Well, comrades!" ... said some one in the ranks in a high, false tone +of voice. Every one heard this exclamation and understood it, but no +one turned around to see where it came from. The grey mass of people +suddenly stirred, gave a sigh, surged like the sea whipped by a gale, +and, sinking at each step into the mud, the entire regiment rolled +forward, over the expanse of the shoreless fields which now suddenly +looked strange and dreadful. The soldiers, their faces haggard and +queer, were crossing themselves as they ran. They marched in disorder, +and when they were stopped on the hill-crest, they turned the +regiment into a confused mob of breathless and perplexed men. Some +even forgot to lower their rifles. + +Before them the hazy network of rain was still hanging and the +distances stretched, strange and hostile. But now the fields were +astir with flickering pale flames and a ceaseless scattered cracking +of guns. In the grey sky a small black dot was discernible, seemingly +motionless, but changing in size. When it grew larger, a faint buzzing +was heard from above and made the soldiers turn their grey, ghastly +faces upward.... Then a mighty buzzing suddenly resounded behind the +regiment, and a Russian aeroplane flew over the heads of the men like +a drenched bird. As the aeroplane rose higher and higher, the soldiers +watched the distance between it and the small black dot far up in the +sky grow smaller and smaller. + +Voices were now heard from the ranks and when the black dot was +rapidly beginning to grow smaller, sinking, as it were, in the sky and +approaching the horizon, those voices became loud and gay. + +"He don't like it, what! See him run for his life! Well done! Fine +fellows!" ... was heard along the ranks. + +The soldiers suddenly became lively and for a moment forgot about +themselves and the uncertain fate that was in store for them. + +"Why not put you on that aeroplane, Yermilich!... You'd be quite handy +at it, wouldn't you!" the soldiers were poking fun at each other. + +All at once a confused many-voiced cry and a disorderly crackling of +rifles was heard ahead of them; then a crowd of soldiers came running +from that direction, at first singly, then in groups, and finally in a +mass. They belonged to another regiment of the same division. One +could discern from afar their wide-open eyes, rounded mouths, and an +expression of frantic terror on their pale faces. + +The officers of the Ashkadar regiment, waving their swords and yelling +something indistinct, were running over the washed-out field to meet +the running men, but the grey crowd momentarily knocked them down, +trampled upon them, completely covered them, and mingled itself with +the Ashkadar men. And everything that, but a while ago, was so clear +and important now became confused and meaningless. + +Like the waters that wash off a dam pierced in but a single point, +even so did the running soldiers confuse and sweep away the regiment. +The Ashkadar men themselves were partly infected by the panic and +began to run they knew not why, apparently possessed by that +mysterious power which is transmitted from man to man and which pushes +one from behind and compels him to run farther and farther, aimlessly +and blindly. + +The entire mass of men started down the slope, but having encountered +the battery with a crew yelling and waving their hands, it swerved +aside. Then as this mass ran into the regular line of soldiers, who +were rapidly coming to meet them, their rifles carried at charge, it +threw itself to one side, then to the other, then backwards and +forwards and finally scattered over the fields, filling the air with +mad outcries and disorderly shooting. It was at that very time that +the second platoon of the third squad strayed from its regiment and +its officers. Seventeen in all, instinctively keeping together, they +found themselves outside of the battle-field in a narrow loamy ravine +overgrown with dwarfish trees. The ravine was deep and had washed-out +clay slopes. High above it stretched a muddy, uneven strip of grey +sky, which poured an unceasing rain upon the soaked red clay, upon the +small wet birch trees, and the group of soldiers, who had lost their +way and driven by inertia were hurrying further downward. + +The soldiers, all reservists, were thick-set, bearded and pock-marked +peasants from the governments of Kostroma and Novgorod and among them, +was a dark little Jew, Hershel Mak, who alone thought and planned for +the rest of them. All these country people taken right from the plough +were unable to grasp how it all happened, and were not even sure +whether anything had happened at all. They could not tell whether +there was a battle or not, whether it was good or bad to be left +without officers in this confounded ravine, and what would come of it +all. Only Hershel Mak understood that there was a battle, that the +front ranks came right under the crossfire of the machine-guns, that a +panic resulted and that the Ashkadar regiment was knocked off its +feet by a crowd of runaways. He knew that the regiment was broken up +without a shot and that now they were left to their own fate, in a +place which might well be within the very centre of the enemy's +position. Hershel Mak was well aware of the fact that for the present +no one would or could worry about them and that they must alone +disentangle themselves from this mess,--and his versatile mind began +at once to work to the utmost of its ability. + +The rain was rushing in murmuring streams down the slopes of the +ravine and along its bottom, and the noise of the water drowned the +crackling of the machine-guns and the thundering of the cannon. The +ravine extended further down, and apparently into the forest, for the +trees were becoming thicker, and on the ground a deep layer of +half-decayed leaves was mingled with the clay. Once or twice, a heavy +buzzing was heard overhead, and the soldiers involuntarily lifted +their eyes, but there was no aeroplane in sight, and one could not +tell whether it was the enemy or not. + +Hershel Mak was walking behind the others, and was deep in thought. + +"What are we going to do when we meet the enemy? When we were with the +regiment, we knew what to do.... But we don't know the high military +rules! Maybe, we shouldn't fight at all,--maybe, according to the high +military rules it is necessary to retreat a bit?... How is one to tell +I'd like to know." + +Just then on the opposite bank of the stream which in its overflowing +formed shallow muddy puddles something dark began to flicker among the +trees, and the enemy soldiers in light grey cloaks, and varnished +helmets protected with linen covers came forward. This was an enemy +detachment which had also strayed away from its regiment. A +non-commissioned officer, husky and red-bearded, was in charge of it. +The Germans' gait was also uncertain. They walked with rifles carried +at charge, timidly looking about and were just going to stop to talk +over their situation, when they noticed the reddish-grey cloaks and +the bayonets. + +"Halt!" yelled out a flaxen-haired Kostroma peasant. + +He did it so forcefully that two crows flew off in fright and rose +high above the ravine. + +Hershel Mak nearly fell into the water. The red and the grey soldiers +separated by about fifty steps and a small, turbid, rain-beaten +rivulet were eyeing each other with amazement rather than with terror. +Thin scattered cries of terror and dismay were heard from the other +side, and all at once it grew still with an ominous strained +stillness. + +"Listen ... eh," ... whispered Hershel Mak, touching the gun of the +Kostroma reservist. But at this very moment, the soldiers as if in +response to a command stepped back a pace or two, got down on their +knees and an uneven crackling of guns rent the damp air. + +The flaxen-haired Kostroma peasant and another soldier, a father of a +large family, nick-named "uncle," threw up their arms and fell heavily +upon the soaked clay. + +The first was killed on the spot, but as to the "uncle," he clutched +his abdomen, sat up and began to howl in a thin, piercing voice: +"Bro-o-thers!" + +And the soldiers were seized with a savage anger, immense and +terrible, similar to the nervous fury with which one tramples upon a +snake. Scattered bullets began flying amidst the wet trees, and wild +outcries filled the air. The bullets hissed far over the forest and +sank with a swish into the clay; birch leaves, quietly circling, were +falling to the ground where three light-grey figures were writhing in +convulsions of pain and horror. + +The husky non-commissioned officer was the first among these to cease +stirring. He lay there with his face stuck in the cold mud of the +stream. A volley of bullets, still more uneven than the first answered +it, and presently single shots, interrupted by furious outcries of +pain, by groans of the wounded and rattling of the dying came from +both sides. + +Pale flames flickered everywhere; the bark was being ripped from the +small birch trees; here and there were seen ghastly distorted faces +and shivering hands hurriedly fussing with the guns. The biting odour +of blood and gun-powder filled the air, and a bluish smoke rose slowly +to the sky, passing through the twigs shivering, as it were, with +fear, and under the birches there lay two groups of men, charging +their guns, shooting, slaying one another, and strewing the wet earth +with crippled, writhing, moaning bodies. + + * * * * * + +Suddenly the shooting ceased just as unexpectedly as it had begun. +There was no one upon the clearing except the wounded, and the dead. +The reddish soldiers hid behind the stones and the grey behind the +trees. + +The fire ceased. The hearts of the men beat rapidly and painfully with +a vicious inhuman terror, but no one fired a single shot. An hour +passed and then another. The men lay silently behind the stones and +the trees, each group eyeing the enemy sharply and closely watching +their slightest movements. + +"Uncle" alone, his back leaning on a trunk of a tree, was moaning +plaintively and softly like a fly caught in a spider's web. And on the +other side a young soldier was making severe attempts to lift up his +body out of the mud puddle, while the eyes of his pale youthful face +were already covered with the film of death. But no one paid the +slightest attention to either of them. Each one felt upon himself the +keen, merciless eye of the enemy and dared not budge or even stretch +out a benumbed foot. A grey soldier attempted once to change his +place, whereupon three shots thundered from the other side, and the +man only turned over and remained still. Later two men were killed, +one on each side, and again everything grew still. + +The clatter of the rain alone was heard, as though, invisible to the +eye, some one wept bitterly in the forest. The hours were passing, and +the nervous tension grew intolerable, assuming the intensity of agony. +It was quite apparent that things could not go on in this way much +longer, and every one knew that whoever would lift his head would be +killed on the spot. Lord only knows the odd and horrible thoughts that +were passing in these terror-stricken, muddled minds. + +Hershel Mak felt very keenly that he was eager to live; that like the +rest of these men, he had a father and mother and also his own little +desires, remote from this place and sacred to him alone. He was also +sorry for "uncle" and for that dying German, who lay in the puddle, +and who had been killed, perhaps by a bullet from "uncle's" rifle. + +The hours were passing and the unbearable nervous horror grew, and +the inner tension, terrible and so taut that it seemed to be ready to +snap every second, was beginning to turn into a sort of nightmare, +which makes one shiver all over, which dims one's eyes with red mist, +which banishes all fear of death and suffering and turns all that is +human into an elemental, savage fury. + +At the very moment, when the tension reached its highest point and the +nightmare was about to pass in a ruthless engagement, Hershel Mak, +unable to control his strained nerves any longer began to pray +plaintively in the tongue of his forefathers. "_Shma Isroel! Shma +Isroel!_" ... His comrades did not understand him and glanced at him +in terror, as at a madman, but from the opposite side another +frightened and plaintive voice answered him in Jewish: "A Jew!... A +Jew!..." + +Hershel Mak's heart fell within him. The mad joy that took hold of him +is indescribable. It was undefiled human joy that filled him to the +brim, when from the place whence he expected only death and hatred +there came familiar human words. Forgetting the deathly peril, he +sprang to his knees, threw up his arms and cried out, as if responding +to a voice heard in the desert. + +"I!... I!..." + +A shot crashed; but it was only Mak's cap, that jumped up and landed +in the mud puddle. From beyond the stream and the trees a typical head +with ears projecting from under the varnished helmet looked straight +at him. + +"Don't shoot!... Don't shoot!" yelled Hershel Mak in Russian, German +and Jewish all at once, waving his hands frantically. And the other +Jew, in a long light-grey cloak was also yelling something to his +fellow-soldiers. Now not one but about ten pairs of eyes looked at +Hershel Mak, with astonishment and sudden joy. A vague, faint hope was +seen in these frightened human eyes, which suddenly became simple and +sympathetic. Then Hershel Mak and the Jew in the light-grey cloak +rushed to the clearing and, splashing in the water, trustingly ran to +each other. + +They met between the two ranks of still hostile gun-barrels and +embraced each other in a fit of unreasoning human gladness. + +"Are you a Jew?" asked the grey soldier. They kept looking at each +other like two old friends who met where they least expected to find +each other. + +In the twilight, after the soldiers gathered up their dead and +wounded, they went each their own way along the ravine, now blue with +the evening fog. Those in the rear kept looking back at the enemy, +suspiciously eyeing them, and nervously clutching with their hands the +cold muzzles of their guns. + +Only Hershel Mak and the Jew in the light-grey cloak walked calmly. +Hershel chattered like a monkey, joining now one now another of the +soldiers. He was saying something about his joy, about the great +mission of Judaism. But no one listened to him, and one of the +soldiers said good-naturedly: "Go to the devil, you dirty Jew." + + + +THE END + + + + + * * * * * + + + + +[Illustration] + + +"BORZOI" stands for the best in literature in all its branches--drama +and fiction, poetry and art. "BORZOI" also stands for unusually +pleasing book-making. + +BORZOI Books are good books and there is one for every taste worthy of +the name. A few are briefly described on the next page. 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