About ninety per cent of the whole Jewish population form a mass of people that are entirely unprovided for, and come near being a proletariat—a mass that lives from hand to mouth, amidst poverty, and most oppressive sanitary and general conditions. This very proletariat is occasionally the target of tumultuous popular uprisings. The Jewish mass lives in fear of pogroms and in fear of violence. It looks with envy upon the Jews of the adjacent governments of the Kingdom of Poland, who are almost entirely emancipated, though living under the jurisdiction of the same State. [1] The law itself places the Jews in the category of "alien races," on the same level with the Samoyeds and pagans. [2] In a word the abnormal condition of the present position of the Jews in Russia is evidenced by the instability and vagueness of their juridic rights.
[Footnote 1: The law of 1862 conferred upon the Jews of "the Kingdom of Poland," i.e., of Russian Poland, the right of unrestricted residence throughout the Kingdom, including the villages (see p. 181). This privilege was practically annulled by the enactment of June 11, 1891, which severely restricts the property rights of the Polish Jews.]
[Footnote 2: The Russian Code of Laws classifies the Jews as follows (Volume IX., Laws of Social Orders, Article 762): "Among the Aliens inhabiting the Russian Empire are the following: 1) The Siberian Aliens; 2) The Samoyeds of the Government of Archangel; 3) The nomadic Aliens of the Government of Stavropol; 4) The Kalmycks leading a nomadic life in the Governments of Astrakhan and Stavropol; 5) The Kirgiz of the Inner Ord; 6) The Aliens of the Territories of Akmolinsk, Semipalatinsk, Semiryechensk, Ural, and Turgay; 7) the alien populations of the Trans-Caspian Territory; 8) The Jews.">[
Looking at the problem, not at all as Jewish apologetes or sympathizers, but purely from the point of view of civic righteousness and the highest principles of impartiality and justice, we cannot but admit that the Jews have a right to complain about their situation…. However unpleasant it might sound to the enemies of Judaism, it is nevertheless an axiom which no one can deny that the whole five million Jewish population of Russia, unattractive though it may appear to certain groups and individuals, is yet an integral part of Russia and that the questions affecting this population are at the same time purely Russian questions. We are not dealing with foreigners, whose admission to Russian citizenship might be conditioned by their usefulness or uselessness to Russia. The Jews of Russia are not foreigners. For more than one hundred years they have formed a part of that same Russian Empire, which has incorporated scores of other tribes many of which count by the millions….
The very history of Russian legislation, notwithstanding the fact that this legislation has developed largely under the influence of a most severe outlook on Judaism, teaches us that there is only one way and one solution—to emancipate and unite the Jews with the rest of the population under the protection of the same laws. All this is attested not by theories and doctrines but by the living experience of centuries…. Hence the final goal of any legislation concerning the Jews can be no other than its abrogation, a course demanded equally by the needs of the times, the cause of enlightenment, and the progress of the popular masses.
The fitness of the Jews for full civil equality, to be attained by degrees and in the course of many long years, will be the final goal of the reforms, and will lead at last to the disentangling of that age-long knot. In saying this, we do not mean to imply that by that time the Jews will have cast off or transformed all those obnoxious qualities which are at present responsible for the fight in which all are engaged against them. But, as in the case of Europe, this fight can only be terminated by according them full emancipation and equal citizenship. To place obstacles in the way of this solution would be nothing more than a fruitless attempt to check the course of development of human society and Russian civil life. Unsympathetic as the Jews may be to the Russian masses, it is impossible not to agree with this axiomatic truth.
Turning now to the execution of its task, the High Commission has up to the present been able to carry out but a very small part of the program indicated. It was tied down by that gradation and cautiousness which it considers an indispensable condition for every improvement in the status of the Jews…. The principal task of the legislation, as far as it affects the Jews, must consist in uniting them as closely as possible with the general Christian population. It is not advisable to frame a new legislation in the form of a special "Statute" or "Regulation," since such a course would be fundamentally subversive of the efforts of the Government to remove Jewish exclusiveness. The system of repressive and discriminating measures must give way to a graduated system of emancipatory and equalizing laws. The greatest possible cautiousness and gradation are the principles to be observed in the solution of the Jewish question.
3. THE TRIUMPH OF REACTION
With all their moderate and cautious phraseology, the conclusions of the Pahlen Commission, whose members, as hide-bound conservatives, were forced to reckon with the anti-Semitic trend of the governing circles, implied an annihilating criticism of the repressive policy of that very Government by which the Commission had been appointed. From the loins of Russian officialdom issued the enemy who opposed it in its manner of dealing with the Jewish question.
It must be added, however, that the opinions voiced by the Commission in its memorandum were by no means shared by its entire membership. For while the majority of the Commission were in favor of gradual reforms, the minority advocated the continuation of the old repressive policy. Owing to these internal disagreements, the Commission was slow in submitting its conclusions to the Government. One more attempt was made to procrastinate the matter. At the end of 1888 the Commission invited a group of Jewish "experts," being desirous, as it were, to listen to the last words of the prisoner at the bar. The choice fell upon the same Jewish notables of St. Petersburg, who had displayed so little courage at the Jewish conference of 1882. [1] The cross-examination of these Jewish representatives turned on the question of the internal Jewish organization, the existence of a secret Kahal, the purposes of the "basket tax," [2] and so on. Needless to say the replies were given in an apologetic spirit. The Jewish "experts" renounced the idea of a self-governing communal Jewish organization, and pleaded merely for a limited communal autonomy under the strict supervision of the Government. True, a few of the questions referred besides to the legal position of the Jews, but this was done more as a matter of form. Everybody knew that the opinion of the majority of the Commission, favoring "cautious and gradual" reforms, did not have the same prospects of success as the views of the anti-Semitic minority which advocated the continuance of the old-time repressive policy.