Chapter 12
During the War (1914‒1916)
The First World War was undoubtedly the
greatest of the follies of the twentieth century. With no real motives
or purposes, three major European powers—Germany, Russia,
Austria‐Hungary—clashed in a deadly battle which resulted in the first
two not recovering for the duration of the century, and the third
disintegrating. As for the two allies of Russia, seemingly victors, they
held out for another quarter of a century, and then lost their power of
domination forever. Henceforth, the whole of Europe ceased to fulfil
its proud mission of guiding humanity, becoming an object of jealousy
and incapable of keeping in its weakened hands its colonial possessions.
None of the three emperors, and even less Nicholas II and his entourage, had realised in what
war they were plunging, they could imagine neither its scale nor its
violence. Apart from Stolypin and after him, Durnovo, the authorities
had not understood the warning addressed to Russia between 1904 and
1906.
Let us consider this same war with the eyes
of the Jews. In these three neighbouring empires lived three‐quarters of
the Jews of the planet (and 90% of the Jews of Europe1)
who were on top of that living in the area of future military
operations, of the province of Kovno (then Livonia) up to Austrian
Galicia (then Romania). And the war placed them before an interrogation
as pressing as it was painful: could all, living on the front steps of
these three empires, preserve their imperial patriotism under these
conditions? For if, for the armies that were advancing, behind the front
was the enemy, for the Jews established in these regions, behind the
front lived neighbours and co‐religionists. They could not want this
war: could their mindset shift brutally towards patriotism? As for the
ordinary Jews, those of the Pale of Settlement, they had even less
reason to support the Russian army. We have seen that a century before,
the Jews of western Russia had helped the Russians against Napoleon.
But, in 1914, it was quite different: in the name of what would
they help the Russian army? On behalf of the Pale of Settlement? On the
contrary, did the war not give rise to the hope of a liberation? With
the arrival of the Austrians and the Germans, a new Pale of Settlement
was not going to be established, the numerus clausus would not be maintained in the educational establishments!
It is precisely in the western part of the
Pale of Settlement that the Bund retained influence, and Lenin tells us
that its members “are in their majority Germanophiles and rejoice at the
defeat of Russia.”2 We also learn that during the war, the Jewish autonomist movement Vorwarts
adopted an openly pro‐German position. Nowadays, a Jewish writer notes
finely that, “if one reflects on the meaning of the formula ‘God, the
Tsar, the Fatherland…’, it is impossible to imagine a Jew, a loyal
subject of the Empire, who could have taken this formula seriously,” in
other words, in the first degree.3
But, in the capitals, things were different.
Despite their positions of 1904‒1905, the influential Jewish circles,
like the Russian liberals, offered their support to the autocratic
regime when the conflict broke out; they proposed a pact. “The patriotic
fervour which swept Russia did not leave the Jews aside.”4 “It was the time when, seeing the Russian patriotism of the Jews, Purishkevich* embraced the rabbis.”5 As for the press (not Novoie Vremia,
but the liberal press, “half‐Jewish” according to Witte, the same one
who expressed and oriented the jolts of public opinion and who, in 1905,
literally demanded the capitulation of power), it was, from
the first days of the war, moved by patriotic enthusiasm. “Over the head
of little Serbia, the sword is raised against Great Russia, the
guarantor of the inalienable right of millions of people to work and to
life!” At an extraordinary meeting of the Duma, “the representatives of
the different nationalities and different parties were all, on this
historic day, inhabited by the same thought, a single emotion made all
the voices tremble… That no one lay a hand on Saint Russia!… We are
ready for all sacrifices to defend the honour and dignity of Russia, one
and indivisible… ‘God, the Tsar, the people’—and victory is assured…
We, Jews, defend our country because we are deeply attached to it.”
Even if, behind this, there was a
well‐founded calculation, the expectation of a gesture of recognition in
return—the attainment of equal rights, even if it was only once the war
was over—, the government had to, by accepting this unexpected ally,
decide to assume—or promise to assume—its share of obligations.
And, in fact, did the achievement of equal
rights necessarily have to come through the revolution? Moreover, the
crushing of the insurrection by Stolypin “had led to a decline in
interest in politics in Russian as well as Jewish circles,”6—which, at the very least, meant that there was a move away from the revolution. As Chulguine*
declared: “Combating the Jews and the Germans simultaneously was above
the forces of power in Russia, it was necessary to conclude a pact with
somebody.”7
This new alliance with the Jews had to be formalised: it was necessary
to produce at least a document containing promises, as had been done for
the Poles. But only Stolypin would have had the intelligence and the
courage to do so. Without him, there was no one to understand the
situation and take the appropriate decisions. (And, from the spring of
1915, even more serious mistakes were made.)
The liberal circles, including the elite of
the Jewish community, also had in view another consideration that they
took for a certainty. From the year 1907 (again, without urgent
necessity), Nicholas II had allowed himself to be dragged into a
military alliance with England (thus putting around his neck the rope of
the subsequent confrontation with Germany). And, now, all the
progressive circles in Russia were making the following analysis: the
alliance with the democratic powers and the common victory with them
would inevitably lead to a global democratisation of Russia at the end
of the war and, consequently, the definitive establishment of equal
rights for the Jews. There was, therefore, a sense for the Jews of
Russia, and not only for those who lived in Petersburg and Moscow, to
aspire to the victory of Russia in this war.
But these considerations were counterbalanced by the precipitated, massive expulsion
of the Jews from the area of the front, ordered by the General Staff at
the time of the great retreat of 1915. That the latter had the power to
do so was the result of ill‐considered decisions taken at the beginning
of the war. In July 1914, in the heat of the action, in the agitation
which reigned in the face of the imminence of conflict, the Emperor had
signed without reflection, as a document of secondary importance, the
provisional Regulation of the field service which gave the General Staff
unlimited power over all the neighbouring regions of the front, with a
very wide territorial extension, and this, without any consultation with
the Council of Ministers. At the time, no one had attached any
importance to this document, because all were convinced that the Supreme
Command would always be assured by the Emperor and that there could be
no conflict with the Cabinet. But, as early as July 1914, the Emperor
was persuaded not to assume the Supreme Command of the armies. As a wise
man, the latter proposed the post to his favourite, the fine speaker
Sukhomlinov, then Minister of Defence, who naturally declined this
honour. It was the great prince Nicholas Nicolaevich who was appointed,
and the latter did not consider it possible to begin by upsetting the
composition of the General Staff, at the head of which was General
Yanushkevich. But, at the same time, the provisional regulations were
not altered, so that the administration of a third of Russia was in the
hands of Yanushkevich, an insignificant man who was not even a military
officer by profession.
From the very beginning of the war, orders were given locally for the expulsion of the Jews from the army areas.8
In August 1914, the newspapers read: “The rights of the Jews…
Telegraphic instruction to all the governors of provinces and cities to
stop the acts of mass or individual expulsion of Jews.” But, from the
beginning of 1915, as testified the doctor D. Pasmanik, a medic on the
front during the war, “suddenly, throughout the area of the front and in
all circles close to power, spread the rumour that the Jews were doing
espionage.”9
During the summer of 1915,
Yanukhovich—precisely him—tried to mask the retreat of the Russian
armies, which at that time seemed appalling, by ordering the mass
deportation of the Jews from the front area, arbitrary deportation,
without any examination of individual cases. It was so easy: to blame
all the defeats on the Jews!
These accusations may not have come about
without the help of the German General Staff, which issued a
proclamation calling on the Jews of Russia to rise up against their
government. But opinion, supported by many sources, prevails that in
this case it was Polish influence that was at work. As Sliosberg wrote,
just before the war, there had been a brutal explosion of anti‐Semitism,
“a campaign against Jewish domination in industry and commerce… When
war broke out, it was at its zenith… and the Poles endeavoured by all
means to tarnish the image of the Jewish populations in the eyes of the
Supreme Command by spreading all sorts of nonsense and legends about
Jewish espionage.”10—Immediately
after the promises made by Nikolai Nikolaevich in the Appeal to the
Poles of 14 August, the latter founded in Warsaw the “Central Committee
of the Bourgeoisie”, which did not include a single Jew, whereas in
Poland the Jews represented 14% of the population. In September, there
was a pogrom against the Jews in Souvalki.11—Then,
during the retreat of 1915, “the agitation which reigned in the midst
of the army facilitated the spread of the calumnies made up by the
Poles.”12
Pasmanik asserts that he is “in a position to prove that the first
rumours about the treason of the Jews were propagated by the Poles”, a
part of which “was actively assisting the Germans. Seeking to avert
suspicion, they hastened to spread the rumour that the Jews were engaged
in espionage.”13
In connection with this expulsion of the Jews, several sources
emphasised the fact that Yanukhevich himself was a “Pole converted to
Orthodoxy”.14
He may have undergone this influence, but we
consider these explanations insufficient and in no way justifying the
attitude of the Russian General Staff.
Of course, the Jews in the front area could
not break their ties with the neighbouring villages, interrupt the
“Jewish post”, and turn into the enemies of their co‐religionists.
Moreover, in the eyes of the Jews in the Pale of Settlement, the Germans
appeared as a European nation of high culture, much different from the
Russians and the Poles (the black shadow of Auschwitz had not yet
covered the earth or crossed the Jewish conscience…). At that time, the Times
correspondent, Steven Graham, reported that as soon as the smoke of a
German ship appeared on the horizon, the Jewish population of Libava
“forgot the Russian language” and began to speak German. If they had to
leave, the Jews preferred to go to the German side.—The hostility
displayed by the Russian army, and then their deportation, could only
provoke their bitterness and cause some of them to collaborate openly
with the Germans.
In addition to the accusations against the
Jews living in these areas, the Jews were accused of cowardice and
desertion. Father Georges Chavelsky, chaplain of the Russian Army, was
attached to the Staff, but often went to the front and was well informed
of all that was going on there; he wrote in his memoirs: “From the
first days of the war, it was repeated with insistence that the Jewish
soldiers were cowards and deserters, and local Jews spies and traitors.
There were many examples of Jews who had gone to the enemy or fled; or
Jewish civilians who had given information to the enemy, or, in the
course of their offensives, had delivered to them Russian soldiers and
officers who had lingered on the spot, etc., etc. The more time passed,
the more our situation deteriorated, the more the hatred and the
exasperation against the Jews increased. rumours were spreading from the
front to the rear… they created a climate that was becoming dangerous
for all Jews in Russia.”15—Second
Lieutenant M. Lemke, a Socialist who was then in Staff, recorded, in
the newspaper he was secretly keeping, reports from the southwest Front,
in December 1915; he noted in particular: “There is a disturbing
increase in the number of Jewish and Polish defectors, not only in the
advanced positions but also in the rear of the front.”16—In
November 1915, one even heard during a meeting of the Progressive Bloc
bureau the following remarks, noted by Milyukov: “Which people gave
proof of its absence of patriotism?—The Jews.”17
In Germany and Austria‐Hungary, the Jews
could occupy high‐level positions in the administration without having
to abjure their religion, and this was also true in the army. While in
Russia, a Jew could not become an officer if he did not convert to
orthodoxy, and Jews with higher levels of education were most often
completing their military service as simple soldiers. One can understand
that they did not rush in to serve in such an army. (In spite of this,
Jews were decorated with the cross of Saint‐George.) Captain G. S.
Doumbadze recalled a Jew, a law student, who received this decoration
four times, but refused to enter the School of Officers in order not to
have to convert, which would have caused his father to die of grief.
Later he was executed by the Bolsheviks.18)
For all that, it would be unreliable and
implausible to conclude that all these accusations were mere
fabrications. Chavelsky writes: “The question is too vast and complex…
but I cannot help saying that at that time there was no lack of motives
for accusing the Jews… In times of peace, it was tolerated that they be
assigned to civilian tasks; during the war… the Jews filled the combat
units… During the offensives, they were often in the rear; when the army
retreated, they were at the front. More than once they spread panic in
their units… It cannot be denied that the cases of espionage, of going
over to the enemy were not rare… We couldn’t avoid finding suspicious
that the Jews were also perfectly informed of what was happening on the
front. The ‘Jewish telephone’ sometimes worked better and faster than
all the countryside’s telephones… It was not uncommon for the news of
the front to be known in the small hamlet of Baranovichi, situated near
the General Staff, even before they reach the Supreme Commander and his
Chief of Staff.”19 (Lemke points out the Jewish origins of Chavelsky himself.20)
A rabbi from Moscow went to the Staff to try
to persuade Chavelsky that “the Jews are like the others: there are
some courageous, there are some cowards; there are those who are loyal
to their country, there are also the bastards, the traitors,” and he
cited examples taken from other wars. “Although it was very painful for
me, I had to tell him everything I knew about the conduct of Jews during
this war,” “but we were not able to reach an agreement.”21
Here is yet the testimony of a contemporary.
Abraham Zisman, an engineer, then assigned to the Evacuation
Commission, recalled half a century later: “To my great shame, I must
say that [the Jews who were near the front] behaved very despicably,
giving the German army all the help they could.”22
There were also charges of a strictly
economic nature against the Jews who supplied the Russian army. Lemke
thus copied the order to the General Staff signed by the Emperor on the
very day of his taking office as Supreme Commander (this order had
therefore been prepared by Yanushkevich): Jewish suppliers abused the
orders for bandages, horses, bread given to them by the army; they
receive from the military authorities documents certifying “that they
have been entrusted with the task of making purchases for the needs of
the army… but without any indication of quantity or place.” Then “the
Jews have certified copies of these documents made and distributed to
their accomplices”, thus acquiring the possibility of making purchases
all over the Empire. “Thanks to the solidarity between them and their
considerable financial resources, they control vast areas where are
bought mainly horses and bread,” which artificially raises prices and
makes more difficult the work of the officials responsible of supplies.23
But all these facts cannot justify the
conduct of Yanushkevich and the General Staff. Without making an effort
to separate the good wheat from the chaff, the Russian High Command
launched an operation, as massive as it was inept, for the expulsion of
the Jews.
Particularly striking was the attitude
towards the Jews of Galicia who lived in Austro‐Hungarian territory.
“From the beginning of the First World War, tens of thousands of Jews
fled from Galicia to Hungary, Bohemia, and Vienna. Those who remained
suffered greatly during the period of the Russian occupation of this
region.”24 “Bullying, beatings, and even pogroms, frequently organised by the Cossack units, became the daily lot of the Jews of Galicia.”25
This is what Father Chavelsky writes: “In Galicia, hatred towards the
Jews was still fuelled by the vexations inflicted under the Austrian
domination of the Russian populations [in fact, Ukrainian and Ruthenian]
by the powerful Jews”26 (in other words, these same populations were now participating in Cossack arbitrariness).
“In the province of Kovno all the Jews were
deported without exception: the sick, the wounded soldiers, the families
of the soldiers who were at the front.”27 “Hostages were required under the pretext of preventing acts of espionage,” and facts of this kind “became commonplace.”28
This deportation of the Jews appears in a
stronger light than in 1915—contrary to what would happen in 1941—there
was no mass evacuation of urban populations. The army was withdrawing,
the civilian population remained there, nobody was driven out—but the
Jews and they alone were driven out, all without exception and in the
shortest possible time: not to mention the moral wound that this
represented for each one, this brought about the ruin, the loss of one’s
house, one’s property. Was it not, in another form, always the same
pogrom of great magnitude, but this time provoked by the authorities and
not by the populace? How can we not understand the Jewish misfortune?
To this we must add that Yanushkevich, like
the high‐ranking officers who were under his command, acted without any
logical reflection, in disorder, precipitation, incoherence, which could
only add to the confusion. There exists no chronicle nor account of all
these military decisions. Only echoes scattered in the press of the
time, and also in “The Archives of the Russian Revolution” by I. V.
Hessen, a series of documents29
collected at random, without follow‐up; and then, as with Lemke, copies
of documents made by individuals. This scattered data nevertheless
allow us to form an opinion on what happened.
Some of the provisions foresee expelling
Jews from the area of military operations “in the direction of the
enemy” (which would mean: in the direction of the Austrians, across the
front line?), to send back to Galicia the Jews originating from there;
other directives foresee deporting them to the rear of the front,
sometimes at a short distance, sometimes on the left bank of the
Dnieper, sometimes even “beyond the Volga”. Sometimes it is “cleansing
the Jews of a zone of five versts from the front”, sometimes we speak of
a zone of fifty versts. The evacuation timeframes are sometimes five
days, with authorisation to take away one’s property, sometimes
twenty‐four hours, probably without this authorisation; as for the
resisters, they will be taken under escort. Or even: no evacuation, but
in the event of a retreat, take hostages among the significant Jews,
especially the rabbis, in case Jews denounce either Russians or Poles
who are well disposed in regard to Russia; in the event of execution of
these by the Germans, carry out the execution of the hostages (but how
can we know, verify that there were executions in German‐occupied
territory? It was truly an incredible system!). Other instruction: we do
not take hostages, we just designate them among the Jewish population
inhabiting our territories—they will bear responsibility for espionage
in favour of the enemy committed by other Jews. Or even: avoid at all
costs that the Jews be aware of the location of the trenches dug in the
rear of the front (so that they cannot communicate it to the Austrians
through their co‐religionists,—it was known that Romanian Jews could
easily cross the border); or even, on the contrary: oblige precisely
civilian Jews to dig the trenches. Or even (order given by the commander
of the military region of Kazan, General Sandetski, known for his
despotic behaviour): assemble all the Jewish soldiers in marching
battalions and send them to the front. Or, conversely: discontent
provoked by the presence of Jews in the combat units; their military
ineptitude.
There is a feeling that in their campaign
against the Jews, Yanushkevich and the General Staff were losing their
minds: what exactly did they want? During these particularly difficult
weeks of fighting, when the Russian troops retreated, exhausted and
short of ammunition, a flyer containing a “list of questions” was sent
to the heads of units and instructed them to assemble information on
“the moral, military, physical qualities of Jewish soldiers”, as well as
their relations with local Jewish populations. And the possibility was
considered of completely excluding Jews from the army after the war.
We also do not know the exact number of displaced persons. In The Book of the Jewish Russian World,
we read that in April 1915, 40,000 Jews were expulsed from the province
of Courland, and in May 120,000 of them were expelled from Kovno.30 In another place, the same book gives an overall figure for the whole period, amounting to 250,00031 including
Jewish refugees, which means that the deportees would hardly have
accounted for more than half of this digit. After the revolution, the
newspaper Novoie Vremia published information according to
which the evacuation of all the inhabitants of Galicia dispersed on the
territory of Russia 25,000 persons, including nearly a thousand Jews.32 (These are numbers that, for the moment, are too weak to be probable.)
On 10‒11 May 1915, the order was issued to
put an end to the deportations, and these ceased. Jabotinsky drew the
conclusion of the expulsion of the Jews from the zone of the front in
1915 by speaking of a “catastrophe probably unprecedented since the
reign of Ferdinand and Isabella” in Spain in the fifteenth century.33
But is there not also something of a move of History in the fact that
this massive deportation—itself, and the indignant reactions it
provoked—would make a concrete contribution to the much desired
suppression of the Pale of Settlement?
Leonid Andreyev had rightly observed: “This
famous ‘barbarity’ of which we are accused of… rests entirely and
exclusively on our Jewish question and its bloody outbursts.”34
These deportations of Jews were resonant on a
planetary scale. From Petersburg, during the war, Jews defending human
rights transmitted information about the situation of their
co‐religionists to Europe; “Among them, Alexander Isayevich Braudo
distinguished himself by his tireless activity.”35
A. G. Shlyapnikov relates that Gorky had sent him documents on the
persecution of Jews in Russia; he brought them to the United States. All
this information spread widely and rapidly in Europe and America,
raising a powerful wave of indignation.
And if the best among the representatives of
the Jewish community and the Jewish intelligentsia feared that “the
victory of Germany… would only reinforce anti‐Semitism… and, for that
reason alone, there could be no question of sympathies towards the
Germans or hopes for their victory,”36
a Russian military intelligence officer in Denmark reported in December
1915 that the success of anti‐Russian propaganda “is also facilitated
by Jews who openly declare that they do not wish the victory of Russia
and its consequence: the autonomy promised to Poland, for they know that
the latter would take energetic measures with a view to the expulsion
of Jews from within its borders”37;
In other words, it was Polish anti‐Semitism that was to be feared, not
German anti‐Semitism: the fate which awaited the Jews in a Poland which
had become independent would perhaps be even worse than that which they
underwent in Russia.
The British and French Governments were
somewhat embarrassed to openly condemn the attitude of their ally. But
at that time, the United States was increasingly engaged in the
international arena. And in the still neutral America of 1915,
“sympathies were divided…; some of the Jews who came from Germany were
sympathetic to the latter, even though they did not manifest it in an
active manner.”38
Their dispositions were maintained by the Jews from Russia and Galicia,
who, as the Socialist Ziv testified, wished for (it could no longer be
otherwise) the defeat of Russia, and even more so by the “professional
revolutionists” Russian‐Jews who had settled in the United States.39
To this was added the anti‐Russian tendencies in the American public:
very recently, in 1911, the dramatic break‐up of an eighty‐year‐old
US‐Russian economic agreement took place. The Americans regarded the
official Russia as a country that was “corrupt, reactionary, and
ignorant”.40
This quickly translated into tangible
effects. As early as August 1915, we read in the reports that Milyukov
was holding meetings of the Progressive Bloc: “The Americans pose as a
condition [of aid to Russia] the possibility for American Jews to have
free access to Russian territory,”41—always
the same source of conflict as in 1911 with T. Roosevelt.—And when a
Russian parliamentary delegation went to London and Paris in early 1916
to apply for financial aid, it was faced to a categorical refusal. The
episode is told in detail by Shingaryov*,
in the report he presented on 20 June 1916 to the Military and Maritime
Commission of the Duma after the return of the delegation. In England,
Lord Rothschild replied to this request: “You are affecting our credit
in the United States.” In France, Baron Rothschild declared: “In
America, the Jews are very numerous and active, they exert a great
influence, in such a manner that the American public is very hostile to
you.” (Then “Rothschild expressed himself even more brutally”, and
Shingaryov demanded that his words not be included in the record.) This
financial pressure from the Americans, the rapporteur concludes, is a
continuation of a policy that has led them to break our trade agreement
in 1911 (but, of course, to that was added the massive deportations of
Jews undertaken in the meantime). Jakob Schiff, who had spoken so
harshly of Russia in 1905, now declared to a French parliamentarian sent
to America: “We will give credit to England and France when we have the
assurance that Russia will do something for the Jews; the money you
borrow from us goes to Russia, and we do not want that.”42—Milyukov
evoked the protests at the Duma tribune of “millions and millions of
American Jews… who have met a very wide echo in American opinion. I have
in my hands many American newspapers that prove it… Meetings ending
with scenes of hysteria, crying jags at the evocation of the situation
of the Jews in Russia. I have a copy of the provision made by President
Wilson, establishing a ‘Jewish Day’ throughout the United States to
collect aid for the victims.” And “when we ask for money to American
bankers, they reply: Pardon, how is that? We agree to lend money to
England and France, but on condition that Russia does not see the colour
of it… The famous banker Jakob Schiff, who rules the financial world in
New York, categorically refuses any idea of a loan to Russia…”43
The Encyclopædia Judaica, written
in English, confirms that Schiff, “using his influence to prevent other
financial institutions lending to Russia…, pursued this policy
throughout the First World War”44 and put pressure on other banks to do the same.
For all these upheavals provoked by the
deportations, both in Russia and abroad, it was the Council of Ministers
who had to pay for the broken pots even though the Staff did not
consult it and gave no attention to its protests. I have already quoted a
few snippets of the passionate debates that were agitating the Cabinet
on this subject.45 Here are a few others. Krivoshein**
was in favour of temporarily granting the Jews the right to settle in
all the cities of Russia: “This favour granted to the Jews will be
useful not only from a political point of view, but also from an
economic point of view… Up to now, our policy in this field made one
think of this sleeping miser on his gold, which does not benefit from it
and does not allow others to do so.” But Roukhlov replied: this
proposal “constitutes a fundamental and irreversible modification of
legislation which has been introduced throughout History with the aim of
protecting the Russian heritage from the control of the Jews, and the
Russian people of the deleterious influence of the neighbouring of the
Jews… You specify that this favour will be granted only for the duration
of the war…, but we must not be in denial”: after the war, “not one
government will be found” to “send the Jews back to the Pale of
Settlement… The Russians are dying in the trenches and meanwhile the
Jews will settle in the heart of Russia, benefit from the misfortunes
endured by the people, of general ruin. What will be the reaction of the
army and the Russian people?”—And again, during the following meeting:
“The Russian population endures unimaginable hardships and suffering,
both on the front and in the interior of the country, while Jewish
bankers buy from their co‐religionists the right to use Russia’s
misfortune to exploit tomorrow this exsanguinated people.”46
But the ministers acknowledged that there
was no other way out. This measure was to be “applied with exceptional
speed”—“in order to meet the financial needs of the war.”47
All of them, with the exception of Roukhlov, signed their name at the
bottom of the bulletin authorising the Jews to settle freely (with the
possibility of acquiring real estate) throughout the Empire, with the
exception of the capitals, agricultural areas, provinces inhabited by
the Cossacks and the Yalta region.48
In the autumn of 1915 was also repealed the system of the annual
passport, which had hitherto been compulsory for the Jews who were now
entitled to a permanent passport. (These measures were followed by a
partial lifting of the numerus clausus in educational
establishments and the authorisation to occupy the functions of
litigator within the limits of the representation quotas.49) The opposition that these decisions met in the public opinion was broken under the pressure of the war.
Thus, after a century and a quarter of
existence, the Pale of Settlement of the Jews disappeared forever. And
to add insult to injury, as Sliosberg notes, “this measure, so important
in its content…, amounting to the abolition of the Pale of Settlement,
this measure for which had fought in vain for decades the Russian Jews
and the liberal circles of Russia, went unnoticed!”50 Unnoticed because of the magnitude assumed by the war. Streams of refugees and immigrants were then overwhelming Russia.
The Refugee Committee, set up by the government, also provided displaced Jews with funds to help settlements.51
Until the February revolution, “the Conference on Refugees continued
its work and allocated considerable sums to the various national
committees,” including the Jewish Committee.52
It goes without saying that were added to this the funds contributed by
many Jewish organisations that had embarked on this task with energy
and efficiency. Among them was the Union of Jewish Craftsmen (UJC),
created in 1880, well‐established and already extending its action
beyond the Pale of Settlement. The UJC had developed a cooperation with
the World Relief Committee and the “Joint” (“Committee for the
distribution of funds for aid to war‐affected Jews”). All of them
provided massive aid to the Jewish populations of Russia; “The ‘Joint’
had rescued hundreds of thousands of Jews in Russia and
Austria‐Hungary.”53
In Poland, the UJC helped Jewish candidates for emigration or settled
as farmers—because “during the war, Jews who lived in small villages had
been driven, not without coercion by the German occupier, to the work
of the land.”54
There was also the Jewish Prophylactic Society (JPS), founded in 1912;
it had given itself for mission not only to direct medical aid to the
Jews, but also the creation of sanatoriums, dispensaries, the
development of sanitary hygiene in general, the prevention of diseases,
“the struggle against the physical deterioration of Jewish populations”
(Nowhere in Russia there existed yet organisations of this kind). Now,
in 1915, these detachments were organising for Jewish emigrants, all
along their route and at their place of destination, supply centres,
flying medical teams, countryside hospitals, shelters and pædiatric
consultations.55—Also
in 1915, appeared the Jewish Association for the Assistance of War
Victims (JAAWV); benefiting of support from the Committee for Refugees
and the so generously endowed by the State “Zemgor” (association of the
“Union of Zemstvos” and the “Union of Cities”), as well as credit from
America, the JAAWV set up a vast network of missionaries to help the
Jews during their journey and their new place of residence, with rolling
kitchens, canteens, clothing distribution points, (employment agencies,
vocational training centres), childcare establishments, schools. What
an admirable organisation!—let us remember that approximately 250,000
refugees and displaced persons were taken care of; according to official
figures, the number of these was already reaching 215,000 in August
1916.56—and
there was also the “Political Bureau” near the Jewish Deputies of the
fourth Duma, which resulted from an agreement between the Jewish Popular
Group, the Jewish People’s Party, the Jewish Democratic Group and the
Zionists; during the war, it deployed “considerable activity”.57
In spite of all the difficulties, “the war
gave a strong impulse to the spirit of initiative of the Jews, whipped
their will to take charge.”58
During these years “the considerable forces hidden hitherto in the
depths of the Jewish consciousness matured and revealed to the open…
immense reserves of initiative in the most varied fields of political
and social action.”59—In
addition to the resources allocated by the mutual aid committees, the
JAAWV benefited from the millions paid to it by the government. At no
time did the Special Conference on Refugees “reject our suggestion” on
the amount of aid: 25 million in a year and a half, which is infinitely
more than what the Jews had collected (the government paid here the
wrongs of the General Staff); as for the sums coming from the West, the
Committee could retain them60 for future use.
It is thus that with all these movements of
the Jewish population—refugees, displaced persons, but also a good
number of volunteers—the war significantly altered the distribution of
Jews in Russia; important settlements were established in towns far from
the front, mainly Nizhny Novgorod, Voronezh, Penza, Samara, Saratov,
but also in the capitals. Although the abolition of the Pale of
Settlement did not concern Saint Petersburg and Moscow, these two cities
were now practically open. Often, they would go there to join relatives
or protectors who had settled there long ago. In the course of memoirs
left by contemporaries, one discovers for example a dentist of
Petersburg named Flakke: ten‐room apartment, footman, servant,
cook—well‐off Jews were not uncommon, and, in the middle of the war,
while there was a shortage of housing in Petrograd, they opened up
opportunities for Jews from elsewhere. Many of them changed their place
of residence during those years: families, groups of families that left
no trace in history, except sometimes in family chronicles of a private
nature, such as those of the parents of David Azbel: “Aunt Ida… left the
coldness and somnolence of Chernigov at the beginning of the First
World War to come and settle in Moscow.”61
The new arrivals were often of a very modest condition, but some of
them came to influential positions, such as Poznanski, a clerk in the
Petrograd Military Censorship Commission, who had the upper hand “over
all secret affairs”.62
Meanwhile, the General Staff mechanically
poured out its torrents of directives, sometimes respected, sometimes
neglected: to exclude Jews under the banner of all activities outside
armed service: secretary, baker, nurse, telephonist, telegrapher. Thus,
“in order to prevent the anti‐government propaganda supposed to be
carried out by Jewish doctors and nurses, they should be assigned not to
hospitals or country infirmaries, but ‘to places not conducive to
propaganda activities such as, for example, the advanced positions, the
transport of the wounded on the battlefield’.”63
In another directive: expel the Jews out of the Union of Zemstvos, the
Union of Cities and the Red Cross, where they concentrate in great
numbers to escape armed service (as did also, we note in passage, tens
of thousands of Russians), use their advantageous position for
propaganda purposes (as did any liberal, radical, or socialist who
respected themselves) and, above all, spread rumours about “the
incompetence of the high command” (which corresponded to a large extent
to reality64).
Other bulletins warned against the danger of keeping the Jews in
positions that brought them into contact with sensitive information: in
the services of the Union of Zemstvos of the western front in April
1916, “all the important branches of the administration (including those
under the defence secrecy) are in the hands of Jews”, and the names of
those responsible for the registration and classification of
confidential documents are cited, as well as that of the Director of the
Department of Public Information, who, “by his functions, has free
access to various services of the army at the rear of the front or in
the regions”.65
However, there is no evidence that the
ranting of the General Staff on the necessity of chasing the Jews from
the Zemgor had any tangible results. Always well informed, Lemke
observes that “the directives of the military authorities on the
exclusion of the Jews” from the Zemgor “were not welcomed”. A bulletin
was published stating that “all persons of Jewish confession who are
dismissed by order of the authorities shall be reimbursed for two months
with salary and travel allowances and with the possibility of being
recruited prioritarily in the establishments of the Zemgor at the rear
of the front.”66
(The Zemgor was the darling of the influential Russian press. It is
thus that it unanimously declined to reveal its sources of financing: in
25 months of war, on 1 September 1916, 464 million rubles granted by
the government—equipment and supplies were delivered directly from state
warehouses—compared with only nine million collected by Zemstvos,
towns, collects.67
If the press refused to publish these figures, it is because it would
have emptied of its meaning the opposition between the philanthropic and
charitable action of the Zemgor and that of a stupid, insignificant,
and lame government.)
Economic circumstances and geographical
conditions meant that among the army’s suppliers, there were many Jews. A
letter of complaint expressing the anger of the “Orthodox‐Russian
circles of Kiev…, driven by their duty as patriots”, points to Salomon
Frankfurt, who occupied a particularly high position, that of “delegate
of the Ministry of Agriculture to the supply of the army in bacon” (it
must be said that complaints about the disorganisation caused by these
requisitions were heard all the way to the Duma). Also in Kiev, an
obscure “agronomist of a Zemstvo of the region”, Zelman Kopel, was
immortalised by History because of having ordered an excessive
requisition just before Christmas 1916, he deprived of sugar a whole
district during the holidays (In this case, a complaint was also lodged
against the local administration of the Zemstvos68).
In November 1916, the deputy N. Markov,
stigmatising in the Duma “the marauders of the rear and trappers” of
State property and National Defence, designated, as usual, the Jews in
particular: in Kiev, once again, it was Cheftel, a member of the
Municipal Council, who blocked the warehouses and let rot more than
2,500 tons of flour, fish, and other products that the town kept in
reserve, while at the same time, “the friends of these gentlemen sold
their own fish at grossly inflated prices”; it was V. I. Demchenko,
elected from Kiev to the Duma, who hid “masses of Jews, rich Jews” (and
he enumerates them) “to make them escape military service”; it was also,
in Saratov, “the engineer Levy” who supplied “through the intermediary
of the commissioner Frenkel” goods to the Military‐Industrial Committee
at inflated prices.69 But it should be noted that the military‐industrial committees set up by Guchkov* were behaving in exactly the same way with the Treasury. So…
In a report of the Petrograd Security
Department dated October 1916, we can read: “In Petrograd, trade is
exclusively in the hands of Jews who know perfectly the tastes,
aspirations, and opinions of the man in the street”; but this report
also refers to the widespread opinion on the right according to which,
among the people, “the freedom enjoyed by Jews since the beginning of
the war” arouses more and more discontent; “it is true, there still
exists officially some Russian firms, but they are in fact controlled by
Jews: it is impossible to buy or to order anything without the
intervention of a Jew.”70 (Bolshevik publications, such as Kaiourov’s book71
at that time in Petrograd, did not fail to disguise reality by alleging
that in May 1915, during the sacking of German firms and shops in
Moscow, the crowd also attacked the Jewish establishments—which is
false, and it was even the opposite that happened: during the
anti‐German riot, the Jews, because of the resemblance of their
surnames, protected themselves by hanging on the front of their shop the
placard: “This shop is Jewish”—and they were not touched, and Jewish
trade was not to suffer in all the years of war.)
However, at the top of the monarchy—in
Rasputin’s morbid entourage—, a small group of rather shady individuals
played an important role. They not only outraged the right‐wing
circles—it is how, in May 1916, the French ambassador to Petrograd,
Maurice Paleologue, noted in his diary: “A bunch of Jewish financiers
and dirty speculators, Rubinstein, Manus, etc., have concluded an
agreement with him [Rasputin] and compensate him handsomely for services
rendered. On their instructions, he sends notes to ministers, to banks
or to various influential personalities.”72
Indeed, if in the past it was Baron Ginzburg
who intervened openly in favour of the Jews, this action was henceforth
conducted secretly by the upstarts who had clustered around Rasputin.
There was the banker D. L. Rubinstein (he was the director of a
commercial bank in Petrograd, but confidently made his way to the
entourage of the throne: he managed the fortunes of Grand Duke Andrei
Vladimirovich, made the acquaintance of Rasputin through A. Vyrubova*,
then was decorated with the order of Saint Vladimir, he was given the
title of State Counsellor, and therefore of the “Your Excellency”.) But
also the industrialist I. P. Manus (director of the Petrograd wagon
factory, member of the Putilov factory board, the board of two banks and
the Russian Transport Company, also a State Councillor).
Rubinstein attached to Rasputin a permanent
“secretary”, Aron Simanovich, a rich jeweller, diamond dealer,
illiterate but very skilful and enterprising (but what did Rasputin need
of a “secretary”, he who possessed nothing?…)
This Simanovich (“the best among the Jew”,
would have scribbled the “starets” on his portrait) published in
immigration a little book boasting about the role he had played at that
time. We find in it all sorts of gossip without interest, of
fabrications (he speaks of the “hundreds of thousands of Jews executed
and massacred by order of the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich”73); But, through this scum and those surges of boastfulness, one can glimpse real facts, quite concrete.
For example, the “dentists affair”—for most
Jews—which had broken out in 1913: “a veritable dentist’s diploma
factory had been elaborated” which flooded Moscow,74—their
detention gave the right to permanent residence and dispensed of
military service. There were about 300 of them (according to Simanovich:
200). The false dentists were condemned to one year in prison, but, on
the intervention of Rasputin, they were pardoned.
“During the war… the Jews sought protection
from Rasputin against the police or the military authorities,” and
Simanovitch proudly confides that “many Jewish young men implored his
help to escape the army,” which, in time of war, gave them the
possibility of entering the University; “There was often no legal
way”—but Simanovich claims that it was always possible to find a
solution. Rasputin “had become the friend and benefactor of the Jews,
and unreservedly supported my efforts to improve their condition.”75
By mentioning the circle of these new
favourites, one cannot fail to mention the unparalleled adventurer
Manassevich‐Manoulov. He was, in turn, an official of the Ministry of
the Interior and an agent of the Russian secret police in Paris, which
did not prevent him from selling abroad secret documents from the Police
Department; he had conducted secret negotiations with Gapon; when
Stürmer* was appointed Prime Minister, he was entrusted with “exceptional ‘secret missions’.”76
Rubinstein barged into public life by buying out the newspaper Novoie Vremia (see chapter 8),
hitherto hostile to the Jews. (Irony of history: in 1876, Suvorin had
bought this paper with the money of the banker of Warsaw Kroneberg, and
at the beginning, well oriented towards the Jews, he opened its columns
to them. But, at the beginning of the war between Russia and Turkey, Novoie Vremia
suddenly changed course, “went to the side of the reaction,” and, “as
far as the Jewish question was concerned, no longer put a stop to hatred
and bad faith.”77) In 1915, Prime Minister Goremykin** and the Minister of the Interior Khvostov, Junior*** in vain prevented Rubinstein’s buyback of the newspaper,78
he achieved his aims a little later,—but we were already too close to
the revolution, all that did not serve much. (Another newspaper on the
right, the Grajdanin was also partially bought by Manus).
S. Melgounov nicknamed the “quintet” the small group which treated his affairs in the “antechamber”79
of the tsar—through Rasputin. Given the power of the latter, it was no
small matter: dubious characters were in the immediate vicinity of the
throne and could exert a dangerous influence on the affairs of the whole
of Russia. Britain’s ambassador, Buchanan, believed that Rubinstein was
linked to the German intelligence services.80 This possibility cannot be ruled out.
The rapid penetration of German espionage into Russia, and its links with the speculators of the rear, forced General Alekseyev*
to solicit from the emperor, during the summer of 1916, the
authorisation to carry out investigations beyond the area of competence
of the General Staff,—and thus was constituted the “Commission of
Inquiry of General Batiushin”. Its first target was the banker
Rubinstein, suspected of “speculative operations with German capital”,
financial manipulation for the benefit of the enemy, depreciation of the
ruble, overpayment of foreign agents for orders placed by the General
Stewardship, and speculative operations on wheat in the region of the
Volga. On the decision of the Minister of Justice, Rubinstein was
arrested on 10 July 1916 and charged with high treason.81
It was from the empress in person that
Rubinstein received the strongest support. Two months after his arrest,
she asked the Emperor “to send him discreetly to Siberia, not to keep
him here, so as not to annoy the Jews”—“speak of Rubinstein” with
Protopopov**.
Two weeks later, Rasputin sent a telegram to the emperor saying that
Protopopov “implores that no one come to disturb him”, including
counter‐espionage…; “he spoke to me of the detainee with gentleness, as a
true Christian.”—Another three weeks later, the Empress: “About
Rubinstein, he is dying. Send immediately a telegram [to the northwest
Front]… for him to be transferred from Pskov under the authority of the
Minister of the Interior”—that is, of that good and gentle Christian of
Protopopov! And, the following day: “I hope you sent the telegram for
Rubinstein, he’s dying.” And the next day: “Have you arranged for
Rubinstein to be handed over to the Minister of the Interior? If he
stays in Pskov, he will die,—please, my sweet friend!”82
On 6 December, Rubinstein was released—ten
days before the assassination of Rasputin, who had just enough time to
render him a last service. Immediately afterwards, the Minister Makarov***,
whom the Empress detested, was dismissed. (Shortly thereafter, he will
be executed by the Bolsheviks.)—It is true that with the liberation of
Rubinstein, the investigation of his case was not finished; he was
arrested again, but during the redeeming revolution of February, along
with other prisoners who languished in the tsarist gaols, he was freed
of the Petrograd prison by the crowd and left ungrateful Russia, as had
the time to do so Manassevich, Manus, and Simanovich. (This Rubinstein,
we will still have the opportunity to meet him again.)
For us who live in the 90s of the twentieth century,*
this orgy of plundering of State property appears as an experimental
model on a very small scale… But what we find in one case or another, it
is a government both pretentious and lame that leaves Russia abandoned
to its destiny.
*
Educated by the Rubinstein case, the General
Staff had the accounts of several banks checked. At the same time, an
investigation was opened against the sugar producers of Kiev—Hepner,
Tsekhanovski, Babushkin, and Dobry. They had obtained permission to
export sugar to Persia; they had made massive shipments, but very little
merchandise had been reported by the customs and had reached the
Persian market; the rest of the sugar had “disappeared”, but, according
to some information, it had passed through Turkey—allied to Germany—and
had been sold on the spot. At the same time, the price of sugar had
suddenly risen in the regions of the South‐West, where Russia’s sugar
industry was concentrated. The sugar deal was conducted in an atmosphere
of rigour and intransigence, but the Batiushin commission did not carry
out its investigation and forwarded the file to an investigative judge
of Kiev, who began by expanding the accused, and then they found support
alongside the throne.
As for the Batiushin Commission itself, its
composition left much to be desired. Its ineffectiveness in
investigating the Rubinstein case was highlighted by Senator Zavadski.83
In his memoirs, General Lukomski, a member of the Staff, recounts that
one of the chief jurists of the commission, Colonel Rezanov, an
indisputably competent man, was also found to be quite fond of menus,
good restaurants, boozy dinners; another, Orlov, proved to be a renegade
who worked in the secret police after 1917, then went to the Whites
and, in emigration, would be marked by his provocative conduct. There
were probably other shady figures on the committee who did not refuse
bribes and had capitalised on the release of the detainees. Through a
series of indiscriminate acts, the commission drew the attention of the
Military Justice of Petrograd and senior officials of the Ministry of
Justice.
However, there was not only the Staff to
deal with the problem of speculators, in relation to the activities “of
the Jews in general”. On 9 January 1916, Acting Director of the Police
Department, Kafafov, signed a classified defence directive, which was
addressed to all provincial and city governors and all gendarmerie
commands. But the “intelligence service” of public opinion soon
discovered the secret, and a month later, on 10 February, when all
business ceased, Chkheidze*
read out this document from the tribune of the Duma. And what could be
read there was not only that “the Jews make revolutionary propaganda”,
but that “in addition to their criminal activity of propaganda… they
have set themselves two important objectives: to artificially raise the
price of essential commodities and withdraw from circulation common
currency”—they thus seek “to make the population lose confidence in the
Russian currency”, to spread the rumour that “the Russian government is
bankrupt, that there is not enough metal to make coins.” The purpose of
all this, according to the bulletin, was “to obtain the abolition of the
Pale of Settlement, because the Jews think that the present period is
the most favourable to achieve their ends by maintaining the trouble in
the country.” The Department did not accompany these considerations with
any concrete measure: it was simply “for information”.84
Here is the reaction of Milyukov: “The method of Rostopchin**
is used with the Jews—they are presented to an overexcited crowd,
saying: they are the guilty, they are yours, do what you want with
them.”85
During the same days, the police encircled
the Moscow Stock Exchange, carried out identity checks among the
operators and discovered seventy Jews in an illegal situation; a roundup
of the same type took place in Odessa. And this also penetrated the
Duma Chamber, causing a real cataclysm—what the Council of Ministers
feared so much a year ago was happening: “In the current period, we can
not tolerate within the Duma a debate on the Jewish question, a debate
which could take on a dangerous form and serve as a pretext for the
aggravation of conflicts between nationalities.”86 But the debate really took place and lasted several months.
The most lively and passionate reaction to the bulletin of the Department was that of Shingaryov***—he
had no equal to communicate to his listeners all the indignation which
aroused in his heart: “there is not an ignominy, not a turpitude which
the State has not been guilty towards the Jew, it which is a Christian
state… spreading calumny over a whole people without any foundation…
Russian society will be able to cure its evils only when you will
withdraw that thorn, this evil that gangrenes the life of the
country—the persecution of nationalities… Yes, we hurt for our
government, we are ashamed of our State! The Russian army found itself
without ammunition in Galicia—“and the Jews would be responsible for
it?” “As for the rise in prices, there are many complex reasons for
this… Why, in this case, does the bulletin mention only the Jews, why
does it not speak of the Russians and even others?” Indeed, prices had
soared all over Russia. And the same goes for the disappearance of
coins. “And it is in a bulletin of the Department of Police that one can
read all this!”87
Nothing to object.
Easy to write a bulletin in the back of an
office, but very unpleasant to respond to a raging Parliament. Yet this
was what its author, Kafafov, had to resolve. He defended himself: the
bulletin did not contain any directive, it was not addressed to the
population, but to local authorities, for information and not for
action; it aroused passions only after being sold by “timorous” civil
servants and made public from the rostrum. How strange, continued
Kafafov: we are not talking here of other confidential bulletins which
have also, probably, been leaked; thus, as early as May 1915, he had
himself initialled one of this order: “There is a rise in hatred towards
Jews in certain categories of the population of the Empire”, and the
Department “demands that the most energetic measures be taken in order
to prevent any demonstration going in this direction”, any act of
violence of the population directed against the Jews, “to take the most
vigorous measures to stifle in the bud the propaganda that begins to
develop in certain places, to prevent it from leading to outbreaks of
pogroms.” And even, a month earlier, at the beginning of February, this
directive sent to Poltava: reinforce surveillance so as to “be able to
prevent in time any attempt to pogrom against the Jews.”88
And to complain: how is it that that bulletins such as these do not interest public opinion, that, those, they are allowed to pass in the utmost silence?
In his heated speech, Shingaryov immediately
warned the Duma against the danger of “engaging in debates on the
boundless ocean of the Jewish question.” But that was what happened
because of the publicity reserved for this bulletin. Moreover,
Shingaryov himself pushed clumsily in this direction, abandoning the
ground for the defence of the Jews to declare that the real traitors
were the Russians: Sukhomlinov*, Myasoedov, and General Grigoriev, who had shamefully capitulated at Kovno.89
This provoked a reaction. Markov**
objected that he had no right to speak of Sukhomlinov, the latter being
for the moment only accused. (The Progressive Bloc was successful in
the Sukhomlinov affair, but at the end of the Provisional Government, it
itself had to admit that time had been wasted, that there had been no
treason there.) Myasoedov had already been convicted and executed (but
some facts may suggest that it was also a fabricated affair); Markov
limited himself to adding that “he had been hanged in the company of six
Jewish spies” (what I did not know: Myasoedov had been judged alone)
and that, here is one to six, that was the report.90
Among certain proposals contained in the
programme that the Progressive Bloc had succeeded in putting together in
August 1915, “the autonomy of Poland” seemed somewhat fantastical
insofar as it was entirely in the hands of the Germans; “the equality of
rights for peasants” did not have to be demanded of the government,
because Stolypin had made it happen and it was precisely the Duma which
did not endorse it, positing precisely as a condition the simultaneous
equality of the Jews; so much so that “the gradual introduction of a
process of reducing the limitations of rights imposed on Jews”—even
though the evasiveness of this formulation was obvious—nevertheless
became the main proposal of the programme of the Bloc. The latter
included Jewish deputies91 and the Yiddish press reported: “The Jewish community wishes the Progressive Bloc a good wind!”
And now, after two years of an exhausting
war, heavy losses on the front and a feverish agitation in the rear, the
extreme right waved its admonitions: “You have understood that you must
explain yourself before the people over your silence about the military
superiority of the Germans, your silence about the fight against the
soaring prices, and your excessive zeal to want to grant equal rights to
the Jews!” That is what you are demanding “of the government, at the
present moment, in the midst of war,—and if it does not meet these
demands you blow it off and recognise only one government, the one that
will give equality to the Jews!” But “we are surely not going to give
equality now, just now that everyone is white‐hot against the Jews; in
doing so, you only raise public opinion against these unfortunates.”92
Deputy Friedman refutes the claim that the
people are at the height of exasperation: “In the tragic context of the
oppression of the Jews, however, there is a glimmer of hope, and I do
not want to ignore it: it is the attitude of the Russian populations of
the interior provinces towards the Jewish refugees who arrive there.”
These Jewish refugees “receive help and hospitality”. It is “the pledge
of our future, our fusion with the Russian people.” But he insists that
the responsibility for all the misfortunes of the Jews rests with the
government, and he lays his accusations at the highest level: “There was
never a pogrom when the government did not want it.” Through the
members of the Duma, “I am addressing the 170 million inhabitants of
Russia…: they want to use your hands to lift the knife on the Jewish
people of Russia!”93
To this was replied: do the deputies of the
Duma only know what is thought of in the country? “The country does not
write in Jewish newspapers, the country suffers, works… it is bogged
down in the trenches, it is there, the country, and not in the Jewish
newspapers where work John Does obeying mysterious guidelines.” It was
even said, “That the press is controlled by the government is an evil,
but there is an even greater evil: that the press is controlled by the
enemies of the Russian State!”94
As Shingaryov had sensed, the liberal
majority of the Duma was, now, no longer interested in prolonging the
debate on the Jewish question. But the process was on and nothing could
stop it. And it was a never‐ending series of speeches that came in the
middle of the other cases to be dealt with for four months until the end
of the fall session.
The right accused the Progressive Bloc: no,
the Duma was not going to tackle the problem of rising prices! “You are
not going to fight with the banks, the unions, against strikes in the
industry, because that would be tantamount to fighting against the
Jews.” Meanwhile, the Reformist Municipality of Petrograd “gave the town
supply to two Israelites, Levenson and Lesman: the first the meat
supply, the second the food shops—although he had illegally sold flour
to Finland. Other examples of suppliers artificially inflating prices
are given.95 (None of the deputies took it upon himself to defend these speculators.)
After that, it is impossible that the question not come up for discussion, so current during these years of war, of the numerus clausus!
As we have seen, it had been re‐established after the revolution of
1905, but was gradually mitigated by the common practice of day school
in high schools and the authorisation given to Jews who had completed
their medical studies abroad to pass the State diploma in Russia; other
measures were taken in this direction—but not the abrogation pure and
simple—in 1915, when the Pale of Settlement was abolished. P. N.
Ignatiev, Minister of Public Instruction in 1915‒1916, also reduced the numerus clausus in higher education institutions.
And in the spring of 1916, the walls of the
Duma echoed the debate on this issue at length. The statistics of the
Ministry of Education are examined, and Professor Levachev, deputy of
Odessa, states that the provisions of the Council of Ministers
(authorising the derogatory admission of children of Jews called up for
military service) have been arbitrarily extended by the Ministry of
Education to the children of Zemgor employees, evacuation agencies,
hospitals, as well as persons declaring themselves [deceitfully]
dependent on a parent called up for military service. Thus, of the 586
students admitted in 1915 in the first year of medicine at the
University of Odessa, “391 are Jews”, that is to say two thirds, and
that “only one third remain for the other nationalities.” At the
University of Rostov‐on‐Don: 81% of Jewish students at the Faculty of
Law, 56% at the Faculty of Medicine, and 54% at the Faculty of Sciences.96
Gurevich replies to Levachev: this is proof that the numerus clausus is useless! “What is the use of the numerus clausus,
when even this year, when the Jews benefited from a higher than normal
arrangement, there was enough room to welcome all Christians who wanted
to enter the university?” What do you want—empty classrooms? Little
Germany has a large number of Jewish teachers, yet it does not die of
it!97
Markov’s objection: “Universities are empty
[because Russian students are at war, and they send [to the
universities] masses of Jews.” “Escaping military service,” the Jews
“have overwhelmed the University of Petrograd and, thanks to that, will
swell the ranks of the Russian intelligentsia… This phenomenon… is
detrimental to the Russian people, even destructive,” because every
people “is subject to the power of its intelligentsia.” “The Russians
must protect their elites, their intelligentsia, their officials, their
government; the latter must be Russian.”98
Six months later, in the autumn of 1916,
Friedman harped on about this by asking the Duma the following question:
“Thus it would be better for our universities to remain empty… it would
be better for Russia to find itself without an intellectual elite
rather than admit Jews in too great numbers?”99
On the one hand, Gurevitch was obviously
right: why should the classrooms have been left empty? Let each one do
what he has to do. But, in asking the question in these terms, did he
not comfort the suspicions and bitterness of the right: therefore, we do
not work together? One group to make war, the other to study?
(My father, for example—he interrupted his
studies at Moscow University and joined the army as a volunteer. It
seemed at the time that there was no alternative: to not go to the front
would have been dishonourable. Who, among these young Russian
volunteers, and even among the professors who remained in the
universities, understood that the future of the country was not only
played on the battlefields? No one understood it neither in Russia, nor
in Europe.)
In the spring of 1916, the debate on the
Jewish question was suspended on the grounds that it provoked
undesirable agitation in public opinion. But the problem of
nationalities was put back on the agenda by an amendment to the law on
township Zemstvos. The creation of this new administrative structure was
discussed during the winter of 1916‒17 during the last months of the
existence of the Duma. And then one fine day, when the main speakers had
gone for refreshments or had returned to their penates, and that there
was little left for the sitting than half of the well‐behaved deputies, a
peasant of Viatka, named Tarassov, managed to sneak into the tribune.
Timidly, he spoke, striving to make the members of the house understand
the problem of the amendment: it provides that “everyone is admitted,
and the Jews, that is, and the Germans, all those who will come to our
township. And to those, what will be their rights? These people who are
going to be registered [in our township]… but they are going to take
places, and the peasants, no one takes care of them… If it is a Jew who
runs the township administration and his wife who is secretary, then the
peasants, them, what are their rights?… What is going to happen, where
will the peasants be?… And when our valiant warriors return, what will
they be entitled to? To stay in the back; but during the war, it was on
the front line that they were, the peasants… Do not make amendments that
contradict the practical reality of the peasant life, do not give the
right to the Jews and the Germans to participate in the elections of the
township zemstvos, for they are peoples who will bring nothing useful;
on the contrary, they will greatly harm and there will be disorders
across the country. We peasants, we are not going to submit to these
nationalities.”100
But in the meantime, the campaign for equal
rights for Jews was in full swing. It now enjoyed the support of
organisations that had not previously been concerned with the issue,
such as the Gvozdev Central Workers’ Group*,
which represented the interests of the Russian proletariat. In the
spring of 1916, the Workers’ Group claimed to be informed that “the
reaction [implied: the government and administration of the Ministry of
the Interior] is openly preparing a pogrom against the Jews throughout
Russia”. And Kozma Gvozdev repeated this nonsense at the Congress of
Military‐Industrial Committees.—In March 1916, in a letter to Rodzianko**,
the Workers’ Group protested against the suspension of the debate on
the Jewish question in the Duma; And the same Group accused the Duma
itself of complacency towards the anti‐Semites: “The attitude of the
majority at the meeting of 10 March is de facto to give its
direct support and to reinforce the policy of anti‐Jewish pogroms led by
the power… By its support of the militant anti‐Semitism of the ruling
circles, the majority in the Duma is a serious blow to the work of
national defence.”101
(They had not agreed, they had not realised that in the Duma it was
precisely the left who needed to end the debate.)—The workers also
benefited from the support of “Jewish groups” who, according to a report
by the Security Department in October 1916, “have overwhelmed the
capital and, without belonging to any party, are pursuing a policy
violently hostile to the power.”102
And the power in all this? Without direct
evidence, it can be assumed that within the ministerial teams that
succeeded each other in 1916, the decision to proclaim equal rights for
the Jews was seriously considered. This had been mentioned more than
once by Protopopov, who had already succeeded, it seems, in turning
Nicholas II in this direction. (Protopopov also had an interest in going
quickly to cut short the campaign that the left had set in motion
against him.)—And General Globachev, who was the last to direct the
Department of Security before the revolution, writes in his memoirs, in
the words of Dobrovolsky, who was also the last Minister of Justice of
the monarchy: “The bill on equal rights for the Jews was already ready
[in the months that preceded the revolution] and, in all likelihood, the
law would have been promulgated for the 1917 Easter celebrations.”103
But in 1917, the Easter celebrations were to
take place under a completely different system. The ardent aspirations
of our radicals and liberals would then have come true.
“Everything for victory!”—Yes, but “not with
that power!” Public opinion, both among the Russians and among the
Jews, as well as the press, all were entirely directed towards Victory,
were the first to claim it,—only, not with this government! Not with this tsar!
All were still persuaded of the correctness of the simple and brilliant
reasoning they had held at the beginning of the war: before it ends
(because afterwards it would be more difficult) and by winning a victory
over victory on the Germans, to throw down the tsar and change the
political regime.
And that is when the equal rights for the Jews would come.
*
We have examined in many ways the
circumstances in which took place one hundred and twenty years of common
life between Russians and Jews within the same State. Among the
difficulties, some have found a solution over time, others emerged and
increased in the course of the years prior to the spring of 1917. But
the evolving nature of the processes in motion visibly taking over and
promised a constructive future.
And it was at that moment that a blast
disintegrated the political and social system of Russia—and thus the
fruits of evolution, but also the military resistance to the enemy, paid
for with so much blood, and finally the prospects for a future of
fulfilment: it was the revolution of February.
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