Volume II Part 12 (1/2)
Unfortunately the Jewish question, which was nothing more nor less than the question of equal citizens.h.i.+p for the Jews, was not placed in the line of the great reforms, but was pushed to the rear and solved fragmentarily--on the instalment plan, as it were--and within narrowly circ.u.mscribed limits. Like all the other officially inspired reforms of that period, which proceeded up to a certain point and halted before the prohibited zone of const.i.tutional and political liberties, so, too, the solution of the Jewish problem was not allowed to pa.s.s beyond the border-line. For the crossing of that line would have rendered the whole question null and void by the simple recognition of the equality of all citizens. The regenerated Russia of Alexander II., stubborn in its refusal of political freedom and civil equality, could only choose the path of half-measures. Nevertheless, the transition from the pre-reformatory order of things to the new state of affairs signified a radical departure both in the life of Russia in general and in Jewish life in particular. It did so not because the new conditions were perfect, but because the old ones were so inexpressibly ugly and unbearable, and the mere loosening of the chains of servitude was hailed as a pledge of complete liberation.
Far more intense than in the political life of Russia was the crisis in its social life. While a chilling wind was still blowing from the wintry heights of Russian officialdom, while a grim censors.h.i.+p was still holding down the flight of the printed word, the released social energy was whirling and swirling in all cla.s.ses of Russian society, sometimes breaking the fetters of police restraint. The outbursts of young Russia ran far ahead of the slow progress of the reforms inspired from above.
It blazed the path for political freedom which the West of Europe had long traversed, and which was to prove in Russia tortuous and th.o.r.n.y.
The phase of Jewish life which claimed the first thought of Alexander II.'s Government was the military conscription. Prior to the conclusion of the Crimean War, the Committee on Jewish Affairs [1] called the Tzar's attention to the necessity of modifying the method of Jewish conscription, with its fiendish contrivances of seizing juvenile cantonists and enlisting ”penal” and ”captive” recruits. Nevertheless the removal of this crying evil was postponed for a year, until the promulgation of the Coronation Manifesto [2] of August 26, 1856, when it was granted as an act of grace.
[Footnote 1: See above, p. 49.]
[Footnote 2: On the meaning of Manifesto see later, p. 246, n. 1.]
Prompted by the desire--the Manifesto reads--of making it easier for the Jews to discharge their military duty and of averting the inconveniences attached thereto, we command as follows:
1. Recruits from among the Jews are to be drafted in the same way as from among the other estates, primarily from among those unsettled and not engaged in productive labor. [1] Only in default of able-bodied men among these, the shortage is to be made up from among the category of Jews who by reason of their engaging in productive labor are recognized as useful.
2. The drafting of recruits from among other estates and of those under age is to be repealed.
3. In regard to the making up of the shortage of recruits, the general laws are to be applied, and the exaction of recruits from Jewish communities as a penalty for arrears is to be repealed.
4. The temporary rules, enacted by way of experiment in 1853, granting Jewish communities and Jewish individuals the right of presenting as recruits in their own stead coreligionists seized without pa.s.sports [2] are to be repealed.
[Footnote 1: See on these designations pp. 64 and 142.]
[Footnote 2: See above, p. 148 et seq.]
The abolition of juvenile conscription followed automatically upon the annulment, by virtue of the same Coronation Manifesto, of the general Russian inst.i.tution of ”cantonists” and ”soldier children,” who were now ordered to be returned to their parents and relatives. Only in the case of the Jews a rider was attached to the effect that those Jewish children who had embraced Christianity during their term of military service should not be allowed to go back to their parents and relatives, if the latter remained in their old faith, and should be placed exclusively in Christian families.
The Coronation Manifesto of 1856 marks the end of the recruiting inquisition, which had lasted for nearly thirty years, adding a unique page to the annals of Jewish martyrdom. In the matter of conscription, at least, the Jews were, in a certain measure, granted equal rights. The operation of the general statute concerning military service was extended to them, with a few limitations which were the heritage of the past. The old plan of the ”a.s.sortment of the Jews” is reflected in the clause of the Manifesto, providing for increased conscription from among ”those unsettled and not engaged in productive labor,” i.e., of the ma.s.s of the proletariat, as distinct from the more or less well-to-do cla.s.ses. Nor was the old historic crime made good: the Jewish cantonists who had been forcibly converted to the Greek-Orthodox faith were not allowed to return to their kindred. As heretofore, baptism remained a _conditio sine qua non_ for the advancement of a Jewish soldier, and only in 1861 was permission given to promote a Jewish private to the rank of a sergeant for general merit, without special distinction on the battlefield which had been formerly required. Beyond this rank no Jew could hope to advance.
2. ”HOMEOPATHIC” EMANc.i.p.aTION AND THE POLICY OF ”FUSION”
Following upon the removal of the ”black stain” of conscription came the question of lightening the ”yoke of slavery,” that heavy burden of rightlessness which pressed so grievously upon the outcasts of the Jewish Pale. Already in March, 1856, Count Kiselev, a semi-liberal official and formerly the president of the ”Jewish Committee” which had been appointed in 1840 [1] and which was composed of the heads of the various ministries, submitted a memorandum to Alexander II. in which he took occasion to point out that ”the attainment of the goal indicated in the imperial ukase of 1840, that of bringing about the fusion of the Jews with the general population, is hampered by various provisionally enacted restrictions which, when taken in conjunction with the general laws, contain contradictions and engender confusion.”
[Footnote 1: See above, p. 49 et seq.]
The result was an imperial order, dated March 31, 1856, ”to revise all existing regulations affecting the Jews so as to bring them into harmony with the general policy of fusing this people with the original inhabitants, as far as the moral status of the Jews may render it possible.” The same ministers who had taken part in the labors of the Jewish Committee were instructed to draft a plan looking to the modification of the laws affecting the Jews and to submit their suggestions to the Tzar.
In this way the inception of the new reign was marked by a characteristic slogan: the fusion of the Jews with the Russian people, to be promoted by alleviations in their legal status. The way leading to this ”fusion” was, in the judgment of Russian officialdom, blocked by the historic unity of the Jewish nation, a unity which in governmental phraseology was styled ”Jewish separatism” and interpreted as the effect of the inferior ”moral status” of the Jews. At the same time it was implied that Jews with better ”morals,” i.e., those who have shown a leaning toward Russification, might be accorded special legal advantages over their retrograde coreligionists.
From that moment the bureaucratic circles of St. Petersburg became obsessed with the idea of picking out special groups from among the Jewish population, distinguished by financial or educational qualifications, for the purpose of bestowing upon them certain rights and privileges. It was the old coin--Nicholas' idea of the ”a.s.sortment”
of the Jews--with a new legend stamped upon it. Formerly it had been intended to penalize the ”useless” or ”unsettled burghers” by intensifying their rightlessness; now this plan gave way to the policy of rewarding the ”useful” elements by enlarging their rights or reducing their rightlessness. The objectionable principle upon which this whole system was founded, the division of a people into categories of favorites and outcasts, remained in full force. There was only a difference in degree: the threat of legal restrictions for the disobedient was replaced by holding out promises of legal alleviations for the obedient.
A small group of influential Jewish merchants in St. Petersburg, which stood in close relations to the highest official spheres, the purveyor and banker Baron Joseph Yozel Gunzburg [1] and others, seized eagerly upon this idea which bade fair to shower privileges upon the well-to-do cla.s.ses. In June, 1856, this group addressed a pet.i.tion to Alexander II., complaining about the disabilities which weighed so heavily upon all Jews, ”from the artisan to the first guild merchant, from the private soldier to the Master of Arts, and forced them down to the level of a degraded, suspected, untolerated tribe.” At the same time they a.s.sured the Tzar that, were the Government to give a certain amount of encouragement to the Jews, the latter would gladly meet it half-way and help in the realization of its policy to draw the Jews nearer to the original inhabitants and turn them in the direction of productive labor.
[Footnote 1: Popularly known by his middle name as _Yozel_.]
Were--the pet.i.tioners declare--the new generation which has been brought up in the spirit and under the control of the Government, were the higher mercantile cla.s.s which for many years has diffused life, activity, and wealth in the land, were the conscientious artisans who earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, to receive from the Government, as a mark of distinction, larger rights than those who have done nothing to attest their well-meaningness, usefulness, and industry, then the whole Jewish people, seeing that these few favored ones are the object of the Government's righteousness and benevolence and models of what it desires the Jews to become, would joyfully hasten to attain the goal marked out by the Government. Our present pet.i.tion, therefore, is to the effect that our gracious sovereign may bestow his kindness upon us, and, by distinguis.h.i.+ng the grain from the chaff, may be pleased to accord a few moderate privileges to the most educated among us, to wit:
1. ”Equal rights with the other (Russian) subjects or with the Karaite Jews [1] to the educated and well-deserving Jews who possess the t.i.tle of Honorary Citizens, to the merchants affiliated for a number of years with the first or second guild and distinguished by their business integrity, to the soldiers who have served irreproachably in the army.”
2. The right of residence outside the Pale of Settlement ”to the best among the artisans” who possess laudatory certificates from the trade-unions. The privileges thus accorded to ”the best among us”