Accordingly, if Pestel's first plan had materialized, the Jews of Russia would have received from the Supreme Provisional Administration, not civil equality, but a stern Reglement of the Austrian or Old Prussian type, made up of a long string of "correctional measures" aiming at compulsory assimilation or Russification, at the demolition of the whole cultural autonomy of Russian Jewry, not excluding "the right of educating their children in whatever principles they like," and finally culminating in the economic "curbing of Jewry," perhaps in the spirit of that very Government against which the Decembrists were fighting.
Pestel's views on Judaism were shared by many Decembrists, but not by all. The constitution drafted by the leader of the "Northern Society," Nikita Muravyov, originally proposed to grant political rights to the Jews only within their Pale of Settlement, but in the second draft this limitation was replaced by the principle of perfect equality.
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FOOTNOTES:
[268] [In Russian, Tzarstvo Polskoye. The names Congress-Poland and Russian Poland are also frequently used.]
[269] The statistics of the period are far from being accurate. They are nevertheless nearer the truth than those of the preceding age. The official "revisions" of 1816-1819 brought out the fact that a large number of Jews had not been entered on the lists, and the Government took severe measures against those evading the census. Relying upon official information, Jost (see his Neuere Geschichte der Israeliten, ii. 122) computed, in 1845, the total number of Jews in Russia, including those of the Kingdom of Poland, at 1,600,000, but he was careful to point out that, in his opinion, the actual number of Jews was considerably larger.
[272] [Alexis Arakcheyev (b. 1769) had been prominent in Russian military affairs under Paul and Alexander, and had attained to fame on account of his iron discipline. Beginning with 1814, he gradually gained the complete confidence and friendship of Alexander. He died in 1834.]
[273] It was written in French, under the title Mémoires (sic!) sur l'état des Israélites.