On the receipt of this grim command, the Senate was at first puzzled as to whether the imperial order was a mere repetition of the former law concerning the expulsion of the Jews from the villages and hamlets on the frontier,[1] or whether it was a new law involving the expulsion of all Jews on the border, without discrimination, including those in the cities and towns. Swayed by the harsh and emphatic tone of the imperial resolution, the Senate decided to interpret the new order in the sense of a complete and absolute expulsion. This interpretation received the Tzar's approbation, except that the time-limit for the expulsion of real estate owners was extended for two years more and the ruined exiles were promised temporary relief from taxation.
[Footnote 1: See above, p. 40.]
The new catastrophe which descended upon tens of thousands of families, particularly in the government of Kovno, caused a cry of horror, not only throughout the border-zone but also abroad. When the Jews doomed to expulsion were ordered by the police to state the places whither they intended to emigrate, nineteen communities refused to comply with this demand, and declared that they would not abandon their hearths and the graves of their forefathers and would only yield to force. Public opinion in Western Europe was running high with indignation. The French, German, and English papers condemned in no uncertain terms the policy of "New Spain." Many Jewish communities in Germany petitioned the Russian Government to revoke the terrible expulsion decree. There was even an attempt at diplomatic intervention. During his stay in England, Nicholas I. was approached on behalf of the Jews by personages of high rank. Yet the Government would scarcely have yielded to public protests, had it not become patent that it was impossible to carry out the decree without laying waste entire cities and thereby affecting injuriously the interests of the exchequer. The fatal ukase was not officially repealed, but the Government did not insist on its execution.
In the meantime the "Jewish Committee" kept up a correspondence with the governors-general in regard to the ways and means of carrying into effect the third article of its program, the "assortment," or "classification" of the Jews. The plan called for the division of all Russian Jews into two categories, into useful and useless ones. The former category was to consist of merchants affiliated with guilds, artisans belonging to trade-unions, agriculturists, and those of the burgher class who owned immovable property with a definite income. All other burghers who could not claim such a financial status and had no definite income, in other words, the large mass of petty tradesmen and paupers, were to be labelled as "useless" or "detrimental," and subjected to increased disabilities.
The inquiry of the Ministry of the Interior regarding the feasibility of such an "assortment" met with a strongly-worded rebuttal from the governor-general of New Russia, Vorontzov. While on a leave of absence in London, this Russian dignitary, who had evidently been affected by English ideas, prepared a memorandum and sent it, in October, 1843, to St. Petersburg with the request to have it submitted to the Tzar.
I venture to think—quoth Vorontzov with reference to the projected segregation of the "useless" Jews—that the application of the term "useless" to several hundred thousand people who by the will of the Almighty have lived In this Empire from ancient times is in itself both cruel and unjust. The project labels as "useless" all those numerous Jews who are engaged either in the retail purchase of goods from their original manufacturers for delivery to wholesale merchants, or in the useful distribution among the consumers of the merchandise obtained from the wholesalers. Judging impartially, one cannot help wondering how these numerous tradesmen can be regarded as useless and consequently as detrimental, if one bears in mind that by their petty and frequently maligned pursuits they promote not only rural but also commercial life.
The atrocious scheme of "assorting" the Jews is nailed down by Vorontzov as "a bloody operation over a whole class of people," which is threatened "not only with hardships, but also with annihilation through poverty."
I venture to think—with these words Vorontzov concludes his memorandum—that this measure is both harmful, and cruel. On the one side, hundreds of thousands of hands which assist petty industry in the provinces will be turned aside, when there is no possibility, and for a long time there will be none, of replacing them. On the other side, the cries and moans of such an enormous number of unfortunates will serve as a reproach to our Government not only in our own country but also beyond the confines of Russia.
Since the time of Speranski and the like-minded members of the "Jewish Committee" of 1803 and 1812[1] the leading spheres of St. Petersburg had had no chance to hear such courageous and truthful words. Vorontzov's objections implied a crushing criticism of the whole fallacious economic policy of the Government in branding the petty tradesmen and middlemen as an injurious element and building thereon a whole system of anti-Jewish persecutions and cruelties. But St. Petersburg was not amenable to reason. The only concession wrested from the "Jewish Committee" consisted in replacing the term "useless" as applied to small tradesmen by the designation "not engaged in productive labor."
[Footnote 1: See Vol. I, p. 340.]