Abstract
As Stolypin’s coup d’état had finally crushed hopes based on the Duma, that now consisted largely of aristocrats, landowners and clerics, the only solution was to rely on internal forces and abilities. In short, Russian-Jewish social and political activists affected the same shift towards internal politics as the Poles in Prussian Germany, and the Czechs in the Habsburg Empire.1 This position was taken up by all Jewish political leaders. Following the Jewish Liberals’ slogan of ‘self-protection’, coined in the ENG’s platform of 1907, all the Jewish political parties started to co-operate on the level of organic work from 1908 to 1914. Within these six years, two periods determined by the political situation can be distinguished: the first phase of organic work, that is the Stolypin years, from 1907–08 until his assassination in 1911, and the second phase from 1911 to 1914. This chapter will deal with the first period which witnessed the reorientation of most Jewish political activists to organic work. Over the catchwords of the nineteenth century, the modernization and secularization of Russian-Jewish life, the ‘old battle’ between ‘reformers’ — all the Jewish political middle-class intellectuals including Zionists and Bundists — and ‘conservative elements’ — consisting mainly of Hasidic rabbis and melameds of the traditional Heder — was rejoined.
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Notes and References
For the Poles’ ‘organic work’, its means and aims see Rudolf Jaworski, Handel und Gewerbe im Nationalitätenkampf. Studien zur Wirts-chaftsgesinnung der Polen in der Provinz Posen, 1871–1914 (Göttingen, 1986); and
Ludwig Bernhard, Das polnische Gemeinwesen im preußischen Staat. Die Polenfrage (Leipzig, 1907).
Zvi Halevy mentions some of the joint efforts regarding organic work: ‘in 1907 Nomberg edited a literary collection in which articles appeared by S. Niger (S.S.) , B. Vladeck (Bund) and Y. Zerubavel (Poalei Zion); in March 1908 the first issue of Literarishe Monatsshriften was edited by S. Gorelik (Zionist), A. Vayter (Bund) and S. Niger (S.S.)’. See Zvi Halevy, Jewish Schools under Czarism and Communism. A Struggle for Cultural Identity (New York, 1976) pp. 71–2.
For Dubnov’s criticism see Kniga zhizni, pp. 79–80. Nevertheless, Dubnov continued his lectureship in these courses throughout the next years. See Sophie Dubnov-Erlich, The Life and Work of S.M. Dubnov. Diaspora Nationalism and Jewish History (New York, 1991) pp. 146–62.
See M. Kreinin, ‘Der yetsiger Moment’, in Der Fraind, no. 40, 17 February 1908, p. 1, and
Der Fraind, no. 43, 20 February 1908, p. 2.
See S. Gepshtein, ‘K voprosu ob obshchine’ in Razsvet, no. 15, 12 April 1908, cols 3–5. Gepshtein stated that such reports came from all over the Pale; for Vitebsk,
see Gregorii Aronson, ‘Dos yidishe geselshaftlikhe Lebn in Vitebsk (1913–1917)’, in Gregorill Aronson, Jacob Lestchinskii and Abraham Kihn (eds), Vitebsk amol. Geshikhte, Zikhronut, Khurbn (New York, 1956) pp. 178–198.
Bernard, Das polnische Gemeinwesen, 1907, pp. 242–451; and Rudolf Jaworski, Handel und Gewerbe, p. 49f. Jaworski called the Polish economic organizations the ‘real ammunition depots’ for the national defense in the cities (concurrence struggle) and the countryside (struggle for land). In short, the Polish Saving and Loan Associations were founded in order to provide Polish economic organizations and peasants with cheap credit. In this context they served as a means for the Poles to fight the ‘Germanization’ of economic and cultural life in the province of Posen.
The amount of consumer co-operatives increased from 307 (1897), 996 (1904), 1,172 (1906), to 6,730 (1912); the first law on small credit of 1895 put these societies under state control, entailing an increase from 537 (1905) to 7,963 (1913); finally, the Loan and Saving Co-operatives increased from 924 (1905) to 3,053 (1913). See V.F. Totomiants, Kooperatsiia v Rossii (Prague, 1922) pp. 27–9 and pp. 52–5; see also Patrick J. Rollins, ‘Cooperative Movement in Russia and the Soviet Union’, The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History, vol. 8., pp. 53–8; the years between 1908 and 1913 witnessed — after the upswing in the 1890s — a second large industrial up-swing, see Heiko Haumann, ‘Rustling und Monopole: Industriepolitik der Regierung und organisierte Unternehmerinteressen’, Handbuch der Geschichte Russlands, vol. 3/1, pp. 430–7; and
Hugh Seton-Watson, The Russian Empire 1801–1917 (Oxford, 1988) pp. 649–62, here pp. 654–5. According to Seton-Watson, the co-operative credit and saving associations had eight million members throughout the Empire.
For the annual reports of the Loan and Saving Co-operatives of Akkerman, Smorgonsk, Lutsk for 1908 see Razsvet, no. 12, 22 March 1909, col. 36; for Gomel see Razsvet, no. 15, 12 April 1909, col. 21/22; for Koretsk see Razsvet, no. 16, 19 April 1909, col. 28; Cherkassy see Razsvet, no. 22, 31 May 1909, cols 15–17 and so on. For more information see S.O. Margolin, Evreiskiia Kreditnyia Kooperatsii (St. Petersburg, 1908); the EKO report for 1909–1910 stated the existence of 459 Loan and Saving Associations (1908) of which 226 were subsidized by EKO.
See Hugo Nathanson, ‘Die jüdischen Spar- und Darlehenskassen in Rußland und Galizien’, in Zeitschrift für Demographie und Statistik der Juden, no. 12 (December 1910) pp. 184–9; for the general Russian co-operative movement see Totomiants’, Kooperatsiia v Rossii, pp. 47–70.
See Aexander Orbach, ‘The Jewish People’s Group and Jewish Politics in Tsarist Russia, 1906–1914’, in Modern Judaism, February 1990, vol. X, pp. 9–10.
Heinz-Dietrich Löwe, ‘From charity to social policy’, Paper presented at the Deutsch-Polnische Historikertag: Deutsche — Polen — Juden, February 1992, Freiburg/Breisgau, Germany, pp. 10–12.
At that time, Petr Struve, one of the KD’s central committee, concluded his ideological shift from the ‘Liberal on the Left’ to the ‘Liberal on the Right’. See Richard Pipes, Struve: Liberal on the Right 1905–1944 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1980). Struve published several articles in the Russian press in which he not only raised the Russian national demands — for instance towards a unification of Russian language and culture in the Ukraine — but also openly supported the idea of a continuation of a unified Russian empire in its political form, and defended Stolypin’s land reform project. This caused an outcry among the radical Russian intelligentsia in and outside the Kadet party.
See S.L. Frank, Biografiia P.B. Struve (New York, 1956) pp. 72 and 96. In this context, Vinaver approached Struve with an open letter in which he defended the Jews’ rights for national self-determination. See Der Fraind, no. 61, 15 March 1909, p. 2. For more information on this controversy see Po vekham. Sbornik statei ob intelligentsii i natsional’nom litse : P. Boborykina, A. Vasileva, M. Vinavera et al, 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1909) especially pp. 32–7, 42–7, 81–6; and Hagen, Die Entfaltung, pp. 264–5.
See N.M. Fridman’s report about the bill at the conference in Stenograficheskii otchet. Soveshchanie evreiskikh deiateli v Kovne 19–22 Novembria 1909 (St. Petersburg, 1910) pp. 48–52.
For a detailed description of Jewish community life in Russia see Lazar Abramson, ‘Die ostjüdische Gemeinde’, in Der Jude 1 (1916–17) pp. 80–9 and
Isaac Levitats, The Jewish Community in Russia, 1844–1917 (Jerusalem, 1981) pp. 5–23. According to Silberfarb, regarding its fiscal duties to the state, the Jewish community still existed after the formal abolition of the kahal.
See Moses Silberfarb, Die Verwaltungen der jüdischen Gemeinden (Pressburg, 1911) pp. 34–47.
First Shneerson attacked the Moderates for their presence at the congress by stating: ‘they have seized our prayer houses, transformed them into clubs and expelled any spirit of piety out of them’, and concerning the census he said that ‘they have split the Jewish people and now they are sneaking up to the rabbis. Any census is a fatal danger to Jewry’. See Novyi Voskhod, no. 9, 4 March 1910, pp. 15–17. Then he turned to the state rabbis, reproaching them of lacking the scholarship necessary for such a post, and calling them simple bureaucrats. According to him, a rabbi just had to know the Torah, and nothing else. See Novyi Voskhod, no. 11, 18 March 1910, p. 13; and Vl. Temkin, ‘Na Ravvinskom s’ezde’, in Razsvet, no. 11, 14 March 1910, cols 21 and 22. The state rabbis regarded their opponents as ivory-towered and as a ‘medieval’ part of the society who, as rabbi Brushtein put it, ‘do not know anything about the new life. On the contrary they are sitting on mount Sinai observing the Jewish masses’. (See Novyi Voskhod, no. 12, 25 March 1910, p. 22.)
See A.Litvak, ‘Rebnim Tsusamenfor’, in Tsaitfragen, March 1910, vol. II, p. 10. Litvak described in detail Stolypin’s attitude towards the deputation: after he made them wait for one and a half hours, he came out of his office and ignoring the rabbis went straight to Gintsburg and Poliakov asking them: ‘you are also dealing with such affairs?’. Stolypin’s hostile behaviour was also reported in Jewish Chronicle, 8 April 1910, p. 14; Razsvet, no. 12, 21 March 1910, cols 28 and 29; and Shneerson, Lebn un Kampf, p, 374–6.
Vladimir Medem’s statement is mentioned in Novyi Voskhod, no. 4, 28 January 1910, pp. 6–8; and
A. Litvak’s article ‘Der Kovner Tsusamenfor’, Tsaitfragen, vol. I, November 1909, pp. 1–14.
The Liberals rejected all criticism regarding the convocation and the composition of the conference by arguing that the political situation had forced the organizers to act in this way and that there was no justification for wasting time with long elections. The mere fact of the convocation of Jewish activists from all over Russia was of prime importance to them. Beyond this, they valued the possibilities for propagating solutions to the main problems facing the Jewish community. The conference, in their eyes, had moved Jewish activities from the sphere of literary discussion into the realm of practical work. See A. Perelman’s article, ‘Kovenskii s’ezd’, in Evreiskii Mir November-December 1909, suppl. pp. 1–9.
‘Why should it be impossible that the Kovno Conference and the rabbi congress should have the same point of view concerning the reorganization of the Jewish community?’, and, ‘is it unthinkable — under the present political circumstances — that the rabbis would come to conclusions similar to the Kovno resolutions, and to cooperate with the Liberals in order to achieve a unified Jewish community structure?’. Finally the Liberals pointed out that with the support of the rabbis — who were still in an influential position within Russian Jewry — these resolutions could succeed. See Evreiskaia Nedelia, no. 3, 29 April 1910, p. 7. Medem stated: ‘until recently the Jewish community had no particular form, no organs, all was anonymous … Without a centre, however, it would be impossible to bring any order in our work, and as long as it is impossible to achieve the best, we must bring the Kovno programme into life’. He called passivity and the boycott movement the worst enemies of Russian Jewry. Finally, referring to Litvak, he concluded that the rabbi congress had to be regarded as the fundament for the reorganized Jewish community and not as a ‘stone on the way to it’. See Vladimir Medem, ‘Die Yudishe Khilo’, Tsaitfragen, March 1910, vol. II, pp. 25–37.
For the reports of the delegates in Orel, see Novyi Voskhod, no. 6, 11 February 1910, p. 23;
in Chernigov, see Novyi Voskhod, no. 4, 28 January 1910, pp. 33–4;
in Melitopol, see Novyi Voskhod, no. 3, 21 January 1910, pp. 24–5;
in Gomel, see Novyi Voskhod, no. 1, 6 January 1910, p. 20.
For Eiger’s report see Ya. Eiger, ‘Normal’nyi tip evreiskoi shkoly’, in Vestnik Obshchestva Rasprostraneniia Prosveshcheniia mezhdu Evreiami v Rossii, no. 1 (November 1910) pp. 5–28.
The provincial delegates claimed that the planned edition of books for the schools, evening courses and the Heders was only fulfilled on paper but not in reality; they finally pressured the Committee for more education in Yiddish, such as for an edition of school books in Yiddish. See Der Fraind, no. 3, 4 January 1911, p. 1.
See S.L. Kamenetskii, ‘K zakonoproektu o nachal’nykh uchilishchakh’, in Vestnik Obshchestva Rasprostraneniia Prosveshcheniia mezhdu Evreiami v Rossii, no. 1 (November 1910) pp. 72–86; and
ibid., no. 2 (December 1910) pp. 38–50.
Chemeriskii justified his demand to abolish the percentage norms for Jews in schools and the Pale of Settlement claiming that these restrictions had caused the move of Russian Jews to Poland which had increased the competition among artisans in Poland, Der Fraind, no. 15, 18 January 1911, p. 1; Der Fraind, no. 23, 27 January 1911, p. 1; and Razsvet, no. 4, 23 January 1911, cols 16 and 17.
See L.N. Niselovich, ‘K zakonoproektu o ravnopravie’, in Razsvet, no. 21, 31 May 1908, cols 1–3. Thereby, he answered Idelson’s attack on the impossibility of such an action.
See A. Idelson, ‘K′ zakonoproektu o ravnopravie’, in Razsvet, no. 20, 24 May 1908, cols 1–4.
He based his optimism on various successes in the Duma commissions such as the one on the judiciary reform which decided not to make any distinction between Jews and non-Jews. Furthermore, the commission on State Defence did not exclude Jews from the army. See L.N. Niselovich, ‘Evreiskii vopros v III.-ei Gosudarstvennoi Dume’, in Razsvet, no. 34, 31 August 1908, cols 1–12. Niselovich pointed out that in the commission on the judiciary reform he was supported by the Kolo deputy Parchevskii, the Muslim representative and Kadet Adzhemov, the Nationalist Miloradovich and the Octobrist Andronov.
He admitted that many deputies displayed a negative attitude towards the Jews, but he maintained that this was due to a lack of knowledge and information. See L.N. Niselovich, ‘Evreiskii vopros v III.-ei Gosudarstvennoi Dume’, in Razsvet, no. 35, 7 September 1908, cols 1–9.
See L.N. Nisselowitsch, Die Judenfrage in Russland (Berlin, 1909).
See L.N. Niselovich, ‘K zakonoproektu o ravnopravii’, in Razsvet, no. 21, 31 May 1908, cols 1–3.
For more information on the discussions of this bill see Neil B. Weissman, Reform in Tsarist Russia. The State Bureaucracy and Local Government, 1900–1914 (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1981) especially pp. 197–201; and
Manfred Hildermeier, Die Russische Revolution 1905–1921 (Frankfurt/M., 1989) pp. 106–7.
See Joseph Lichten, ‘Notes on the assimilation and acculturation of Jews in Poland, 1863–1943’, in C. Abramsky et al. (eds), The Jews in Poland (Oxford, 1986) pp. 106–129; and
Frumkin, ‘Pages from the History of Russian Jewry’, pp. 37–8. Frumkin mentions the attempts of the SP to activate Warsaw Jews during the election campaign to the First Duma, which failed due to the resistance of the Nathanson group.
See Der Fraind, no. 34, 9 February 1911, p. 1; and Der Fraind, no. 35, 10 February 1911, p. 1; for the Octobrists’ view see Ben-Cion Pinchuk, The Octobrists in the Third Duma, 1907–1912 (Seattle and Washington, 1974) p. 173. Pinchuk describes the Octobrists as being paralysed by fear of their right-wing partners, and therefore, in order to show their ‘patriotism’ they never really opposed the anti-Semitic outbursts of their partners — despite the fact that quite a few Octobrists probably had a more tolerant view towards Russian Jews; see also Löwe, Antisemitismus, pp. 117–21. He held the Octobrists’ right-wing responsible which succeeded to hold the party on an indifferent course.
These booklets were all written in the same way: first, they acquainted the commission with the history of the Pale; second, they linked it to the arbitrariness of the local authorities and pointed to the negative impact on Russian Jews and the Russian economy; third, they emphasized that the modernization of Russian economy and of trade in particular would profit from the abolition, as Russian Jews had proven to be economically useful; finally, the abolition would give the Russian government more credibility abroad. See Materialypo voprosu o cherte evreiskoi osedlosti (Kiev, 1911); I. Bikerman, Materialy k zakonoproektu ob otmene cherty evreiskoi osedlosti. Ekonomicheskaia deiatelnost’ evreev, vypusk pervyi (St. Petersburg, 1911); O cherte evreiskoi osedlosti, produced by Obshchestvo rasprostraneniia pravil’nykh svedenii o evreiakh i evreistve, vypusk I (Moscow, 1911); and
Yulii Gessen, ‘Zakonodatel′stvo o zhitel′stve evreev v Rossii’, in Russkaia Mysl, 1911, vol. 5, no. XII, pp. 82–98.
See Der Fraind, no. 49, 27 February 1911, p. 3; and Paul Miliukov, Political Memoirs, 1905–1917, edited by Arthur Mendel (Ann Arbor, 1967) pp. 214–5.
For the parliamentary action see Razsvet, no. 18, 1 May 1911, col. 17; and the first anti-Semitic article in connection with the Beilis Case in Russkaia Znamia see Der Fraind, no. 88, 19 April 1911, p. 1.
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© 1995 Christoph Gassenschmidt
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Gassenschmidt, C. (1995). Jewish Liberal Politics from 1908 to 1911: Reorganization, Determination and the Beginning of ‘ Organic Work’. In: Jewish Liberal Politics in Tsarist Russia, 1900–14. St Antony’s/Macmillan Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23944-3_4
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