Within the Pale: The True Story of Anti-Semitic Persecution in Russia

by Michael Davitt

Unnatural social and economic conditions necessarily engender correlative abuses and evils. Poverty, illegal pursuits, the smuggling and sale of liquor, evasion of coercive laws, bribery and corruption, protested against the causes which begot them, until finally an Imperial Commission had to be appointed to inquire into and report upon the measures necessary to remedy this state of things. This Commission issued its report in 1812. The report is so tersely summarised in Prince Demidoff’s book, and the matters dealt with are so intimately connected with the inherited injustices of the Russian Jew, that I cannot forbear adding the following extract to this brief historic sketch of anti-Semitic legislation and its results:

“Firstly, the Commission was of opinion that the impossibility of carrying out the provisions of paragraph 34 of the Law of 1804 ‘did not arise from the obstinacy of the Jews and remissness of the authorities, but from the natural and political condition of those provinces to which residence of the Jews is restricted.’ The report then states that while the Jews retained their political independence and lived in their own country, they were an agricultural people. Subsequently, when they were dispersed over the whole world and everywhere subjected to the bitterest persecution, unrecognised as regular citizens of the countries in which they were domiciled, agriculture became to them an inaccessible pursuit. They were thus necessarily obliged to have recourse to trade as the sole means of occupation according with their new condition of life.

“In Poland the Jews were so numerous that the pursuit of trade alone was insufficient for their subsistence. On the one hand, the Polish landlords, owing to constant wars and internal strife, were not able to manage their own estates in a proper manner. They were, therefore, obliged to seek special means for increasing the revenue of their properties, for instance, by distilling brandy, lease of farms, etc. The correlation of these two causes led to the utilisation of the Jews by the landed proprietors in their domestic concerns. The Jews became indispensable to the landed proprietors, and as they did not possess the right to acquire land and engage in agriculture, they were obliged, while residing in villages, to confine themselves to a retail sale of spirits as a main pursuit.

“When White Russia was annexed to Russia, the Russian Government recognised all the previously existing rights of the Jews. The ukase of the Senate of 1786 confirmed their right of residence in provincial districts, and their faculty of holding estates on lease. The immediate object of this law was the suppression of drunkenness among the rural population. The distillation of brandy, however, is a privilege of all landed proprietors, and forms a necessary adjunct to the process of agriculture. With the departure [expulsion from villages] of the Jews the retail sale of spirits would be carried on by tapsters of the native rural class, so that drunkenness would not diminish, but only a decrease would take place in the number of agriculturists. A peasant had previously been in the habit of selling his corn on the spot to a Jew, but now he was obliged to proceed to the nearest town, at a loss in time and labour, to sell his produce to a Jew, and the money realised he would still spend on brandy, bought from the same Jew. The same result would ensue in the purchase by the peasant of articles required by him, such as iron, salt, etc.

“The Commission also found it unadvisable to allow the Jews to reside in villages under the prohibition of their not engaging in the retail sale of brandy; this opinion being founded on the following consideration: The Jews who inhabit the villages belong to the poorest class, and if not allowed to sell spirits they would be deprived of all means of subsistence. The poverty of the peasantry of White Russia is not caused by the Jews, and this is proved by the fact that there are also many Jews in the southwestern provinces, yet the peasantry there are in a more prosperous condition than those populating White Russia. So long as the landlords of this latter region continue to adhere to their present system of working their estates, which encourages drunkenness, the evil will spread, be the village tapster who he may, either Jew or peasant. This is confirmed by the example of the provinces of Petersburg, Livonia, and Esthonia, where there are no Jews and yet drunkenness is very prevalent.

“Should the Government adopt the proper measures for making the sale of brandy less lucrative, the Jews would be obliged to turn to other pursuits, perhaps to those of husbandry, especially if they are accorded the right of purchasing land. If the Jews be interdicted to sell brandy such sale would be carried on by the peasants, who, in order to increase their landlord’s revenue, will be obliged to do the same as the Jews. It should also be borne in mind that the Jews, with all their aptitude and experience in matters relating to the sale of spirits, never enriched themselves by this calling, but only earned enough for their subsistence. It would also be impossible to convert all Jews into traders and artisans; firstly, because they would not find sufficient occupation in the towns and hamlets, where there is no demand for a great supply of services of this kind; and secondly, because great injury would be inflicted on those Jews who are unable to find alternative sources of livelihood. As a matter of fact the retail sale of spirits in the western provinces is only carried on by those Jews who are unable to find any other means of existence. The Jews adhere to their present occupations because, owing to the want of means, the Government is unable to effect any radical change in their condition. Lastly, the Commission arrived at the conclusion that it was necessary to rescind entirely paragraph 34 of the Law of 1804.”

This paragraph of the law thus cited ordered the removal of all Jews from villages and hamlets into the towns.

The recommendation of the Commission was not acted upon. On the contrary, the law of 1804 was continued. Though not vigorously enforced it remained as a potential agency for rendering residence of employment outside the Pale a source of insecurity to the Jews, and a means by which police, business rivals, and others could at any time put the ukase of expulsion in operation against them. Trading communities were most active in appealing for the application of this law. Petitions calling for expulsion from cities and towns in which Jews were rival workers and dealers are constantly recurring features of the tyranny, official and commercial, to which they were subjected during the next half-century.

General Levashoff, Governor of Kiev, reporting to the Government in 1833 upon a petition asking for the banishment of all the Jews from that important city, laid bare the motives and condemned the selfish purpose of the petitioners, in honestly saying:

“It is desirable on the ground of public utility to allow the Jews to remain in Kiev, where, by the simplicity and moderation of their mode of life, they are able to sell commodities at a cheap rate. It may positively be asserted that their expulsion would not only lead to an enhancement of prices of many products and articles, but that it will not be possible to obtain these at all. Under these circumstances the interests of the mass of the inhabitants must be preferred to the personal advantages which the Christian trading class would derive by the ejection of the Jews.”[1]