History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, Volume 3 [of 3] / From the Accession of Nicholas II until the Present Day

by Simon Dubnow

3. The Undaunted Struggle for Equal Rights

The terrible October calamities were faced by Russian Jewry in a spirit of courage and fortitude. It stood alone in its sorrow. The progressive elements of Russian society which were themselves in the throes of a great crisis reacted feebly upon the sufferings of the Jewish people which had become the scape-goat of the counter-revolution. The indifference of the outside world, however, was counteracted by the rise of the Jewish national sentiment among the better classes of Russian Jewry. One month after the pogrom bacchanalia, the "League for the Attainment of Equal Rights for the Jewish People" held its second convention in St. Petersburg. The Convention which lasted four days (November 22-25) gave public utterance to the feeling of profound national indignation. It voted down the motion to send a deputation to Count Witte, asking for the immediate grant of equal rights to the Jews. In the resolution repudiating this step the policy of the Government was characterized in these words:

The facts have incontrovertibly proved that the recent pogroms, appalling by their dimensions and by the number of their victims, have been staged with the open connivance and, in many cases, with the immediate assistance and sometimes even under the direction of the police and highest local administration; that the Government, not at all abashed by the monstrous crimes of its executive organs, the local representatives of State authority, has not removed from office a single one of the suspected functionaries, and has taken no measures to bring them to justice.

In view of the fact that Count Witte has repeatedly stated that the Government does not see its way clear to proclaim at the present moment the emancipation of the Jews, supposedly in the interest of the Jews themselves, against whom the agitation of the popular masses might be intensified by such a measure, whereas, in reality, the pogroms are a result of that very rightlessness of the Jews which is fully realized by the masses of the Russian people and by the so-called Black Hundred—the Convention resolves that the sending of a deputation to Count Witte and the entering into negotiations with him will achieve no purpose, and that, instead, all efforts shall be concentrated upon organizing Russian Jewry in the struggle for its equality of citizenship by joining the ranks of the general movement for liberty.

Imbued with the spirit of martyrdom, the Convention remembered the martyr Dashevski, the avenger of the Kishinev massacre,[49] and passed a resolution to convey to the youthful sufferer, who was then languishing in a penal military company, its "enthusiastic greetings."

In an outburst of national enthusiasm the Convention adopted the following bold resolution:

In the interest of realizing to their full extent the civil, political, and national rights of the Jewish nationality in Russia, the Convention resolves as follows:

To proceed without delay to call, on the basis of universal and equal suffrage, without discrimination of sex, and by a direct secret vote, an All-Russian Jewish National Assembly in order to establish, in accordance with the will of the entire Jewish population, the forms and principles of its national self-determination as well as the foundations of its internal organization.

It was the project of a national Synedrion, radically different in its conception from the Napoleonic Synedrion convened in 1807.

The third convention of the "League of Equal Rights" was held on February 10-13, 1906, during the election campaign to the first Imperial Duma. The proposal of the Left wing of the League to boycott the Duma, on the ground that it "will prove a bulwark of reaction"—a prediction which was fully justified by events—and to refrain from taking part in the elections, was voted down. On the contrary, a resolution was passed, calling upon the Jews to take a most active part in the elections, to nominate everywhere their own Jewish candidates, and, wherever this was impossible, to give their votes to the non-Jewish candidates on condition that they pledge themselves to support in the Duma the civil, political, and national rights of the Jewish people. The resolution, moreover, contained this clause: "To insist that the Jewish question in the Duma shall be settled unconditionally in connection with the fundamental articles of the Constitution and with the questions of elementary liberties to be granted to all citizens."

An election campaign was set in motion and carried on under the most difficult circumstances. The police authorities took advantage of the state of war which had been proclaimed in many places to interfere with a comprehensive pre-election propaganda, and at the same time the Black Hundred tried to intimidate the Jews by holding out the menace of pogroms during the approaching Passover season. In Poland, the anti-Semitic chauvinists threatened the Jews with all possible reprisals for their "audacious intention" to nominate their own candidates for the Duma, alongside of the candidates of the Christian Poles. Simultaneously, the Jewish group of the Left, the "Bund" and others, followed the policy of boycotting the Duma and did their best to interfere with the elections. However, all these apprehensions proved groundless. The Passover and election pogroms did not take place, and Russian Jewry displayed a vigorous activity in the elections, with the result that twelve Jewish deputies were sent to the first Duma. The most active among these deputies were M. Vinaver, one of the leaders of the general Russian Constitutional-Democratic party and president of the "League for the Attainment of Equal Rights"; Dr. Shmaryahu Levin, the well-known Zionist; L. Bramson, actively identified with Jewish educational activities, who was affiliated with the Russian Democratic group, known as the Trudoviki, or "Laborites." All the Jewish deputies were united on the nationalistic platform formulated by the "League for the Attainment of Equal Rights." By a resolution passed at the fourth Convention of the League, held on May 9-13, 1906, they pledged themselves to co-ordinate their actions in all questions pertaining to Jewish emancipation and to abide by a common discipline, without, however, forming a separate parliamentary fraction.