The Making of Jewish Revolutionaries in the Pale of Settlement

Community and Identity during the Russian Revolution and its Immediate Aftermath, 1905–07

I. Shtakser

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781137430229
• eBook ISBN: 9781137430236
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Eastern European History

This book examines the emotional aspects of revolutionary experience during a critical turning point in both Russian and Jewish history - the 1905 revolution. Shtakser argues that radicalization involved an emotional transformation, which enabled many young revolutionaries to develop an activist attitude towards reality.

Part I

Becoming a Revolutionary

1

The Road to a Revolutionary Identity

Background

Russia acquired a substantial Jewish population in the wake of the three partitions of Poland during the reign of Catherine the Great (1762–96), the partitions of Polish territory between Russia, Prussia and Austria after which independent Poland ceased to exist. In Russia at that time, belonging to an estate determined the legal status of a person. Catherine assigned Jews the status of meshchane (townspeople), considering their prevalence in cities and in city-based occupations. Catherine’s court legislated that Jews had to reside in their previous areas of residence because Russian merchants feared commercial competition from their Jewish peers, who had considerably more experience in international trade. None of this was considered discriminatory at the time.¹ Being attached to a certain estate and a certain place was a normal situation for the population in Russia. Socially mobile Jews could, however, move into the merchant estate and, if their merchant category (and therefore their taxes) were high enough, could expect flexibility in residency permits. The issue of wealth as the ticket to legal rights applied to the entire non-noble, free population in Russia.

Gradually the Pale became more of a problem due to demographic issues. Jews, who initially could support themselves within the Pale, became too numerous to do so. Still, the Jews largely supported the 1812 war of Russia against Napoleon. Nicholas I objected to the special legal status of the Jews and, while leaving all the anti-Jewish restrictions in place, attempted to settle some of the Jews on the land, made use of the Jewish Enlightenment adherents to introduce schooling in secular subjects and insisted that young Jews serve in the army as with everyone else. However, while attempting to ameliorate the differences between the Jews and the Russians, Nicholas never intended to make Jews legally equal in status to Russians.² Neither did his son Alexander II, although he, unlike Nicholas, considerably lightened the legal burdens on the Jews.

During the rule of Alexander II (1855–81), when additional categories of Jews (college-educated, some artisans and additional tax categories of merchants) were legally permitted to reside outside the Pale, even the existing regulations restricting Jews were ignored. Jews who resided outside the Pale illegally were, as per the tsar’s orders, not bothered by the police. This was an important issue at the time given that, as mentioned above, while the territory of the Pale had been sufficient to support the Jewish population during the reign of Catherine, the subsequent rapid population growth meant that staying within the Pale entailed impoverishment for all but a small number of Jewish entrepreneurs. It seemed that the general liberalization of Russian society under Alexander II’s rule would include Jews, but after his assassination in 1881 by populist revolutionaries his son Alexander III (1881–94) adopted a more hard-line position. This stemmed from the notion prevalent among the Russian elite that the Jews were to blame for exploiting and impoverishing the peasantry and thus needed to be contained.

In fact, the Jews had an important role in the economic contacts between the countryside and the city, and were often blamed for the shortcomings of the local nobility, who indeed exploited the peasantry and used Jews as go-betweens. These Jews were often as poor and as exploited as the peasants. Alexander III nonetheless decided on isolating the Jews from the non-Jewish population, enforcing the observance of the Pale of Settlement regulations and forbidding them from residing in the countryside, even within the Pale. In addition, the government established a quota on the number of Jewish students in educational institutions and, with rare exceptions, forbade the employment of Jews in state service. These policies, even though not always upheld,³ gravely affected the ability of Jews to compete economically with their neighbours and unfavorably changed Jewish life in the Russian Empire. At this point the Jews were worse off legally than any other ethnic or religious group in the empire.

Legal discrimination was not the only factor affecting the economic status of Jews in the Russian Empire during the second half of the nineteenth century. Other factors included a steep rise in the Jewish population, industrialization and the liberation of the serfs, which immediately created mass competition for Jewish artisans. Initially the size of the Pale had not limited the economic activities of the Jews, but during the nineteenth century the Jewish population rapidly increased. While in 1820 there were 1.6 million Jews in Russia, in 1880 there were about 4 million.⁴ By 1905 there were about 5 million Jews in Russia, including a significant number who were young.⁵ Many Jews were forced to move from the countryside to the cities of the Pale, increasing these cities’ already excessive number of artisans and small merchants. The development of the railroads, however, meant that the traditional Jewish occupation as go-betweens between peasants and the cities became obsolete, since peasants could themselves easily and swiftly sell their produce in the cities.⁶ Jewish families tended to have many children, hence a large percentage of Jews were young and could not find employment in the largely agricultural areas of the Pale. By the late nineteenth century the Jews became an almost exclusively urban population, also making up much of the urban population in the Pale.

The state did all that it could to prevent the Jews from taking advantage of the new opportunities for social advancement that came with industrialization. The opportunity for Jewish youth to improve their social status through education was curtailed by the imposition of a quota of no more than 3 to 5 per cent Jews in all state-funded educational institutions outside of the Pale and 10 per cent within the Pale. The poor among them were justifiably certain that the richer Jews would bribe local officials to get their children into schools as part of the quota. Their only way to get an education was either to make use of a rare opening in an official school, wherever this might arise in the Pale, or to attend a private commercial school where they had to pay tuition fees. An additional route was to study with the aid of textbooks and try to pass the state gymnasium exams without any professional assistance. These options often resulted in a young student residing on his or her own in an unfamiliar city with very little financial support. This weakened the contacts of these young people with their families and communities. However, relationships among the young, who could count only on their peers for emotional, social and often financial support, became stronger.

Those youths without the means to gain an education often learned a craft. Numerous autobiographies show that the local Jewish communities made a serious effort to ensure that every poor child would study not only Judaism, but also some craft to fall back on, even if the community had to pay for the entire project. Still, considering that many families had five or six children, these children found themselves in very difficult conditions if a parent fell ill or died. In such cases, the community and relatives, who could not support all the children financially, did everything they could to arrange as early as possible for an apprenticeship for a child, without necessarily considering the working conditions.

For the most part, the working conditions experienced by apprentices were abominable. Even though some employers treated their apprentices decently and actually taught them a craft, many others abused them and used them as unpaid domestic help, without any attempt made to teach them a skill.⁷ The older workers habitually took part in the abuse. The children frequently ran away, but were forced to take up another apprenticeship that was often similar to the one they had left. Jewish apprentices, who were employed in small workshops, were even worse off than others since they could not rely on the labour protection rules, which operated only in large establishments with 50 or more employees. Sadly, it seems that the abuse of children by adults was habitual and prevalent in Jewish society (no less so than in the rest of contemporary Europe), both in the workplace and in Jewish schools, and memories of this abuse were often recalled with horror. Jewish society was experienced as much more violent than commonly believed, but because the violence was directed almost exclusively towards other Jews, it was rarely observed outside of the Jewish community.⁸ Almost all the apprentices who later wrote autobiographies remembered their apprenticeship years with dread.

While they could expect some improvement with the end of their apprenticeship, these Jewish teenagers could not ignore the general economic deterioration of the situation of Jewish artisans in the Pale. They knew that they would not have the same opportunities as previous generations, and had no hope for improvement under the current political and economic regime.⁹ Many of these young people, including those whose families had known better times, were relegated to the status of artisans, and increasingly as employees rather than as independent producers. The owners of large factories, whether Jewish or not, preferred to employ newcomers from the villages, forcing Jewish labourers to work in the small workshops, which fought a hopeless battle against the factories.

These economic conditions put a great deal of pressure on Jewish youth. Small workshops could offer only the worst of working conditions, and young Jewish artisans felt that they had no future. Young people did their best to leave the shtetls, where working conditions were even worse than elsewhere, and go to larger cities. The industrialized cities of Poland – Warsaw, Lodz, Bialystok – attracted Jewish workers from both Poland and the Pale. In Lithuania Jewish workers moved to Vilna where they in fact constituted the local working class, and where the combination of many Jewish workers and a Yiddish-speaking Jewish intelligentsia gave rise to the Jewish labour movement that developed into a political party – the Bund. Odessa attracted immigrants due to its status as a port and to the commercial opportunities there. And many young Jews chose to go abroad, especially to America.¹⁰

Those who did not emigrate abroad struggled against the hostile forces that they encountered. Since the workers had to be highly mobile in their search for better working conditions, and often did not reside with their families that remained in the shtetls or elsewhere, a community of peers was an important source of social support. When they opted to protest against their conditions, it was together with their peers, other young, poor Jews of the Pale. In 1905, struggle seemed feasible since many others in Russia felt the same as the young Jewish workers about exploitation and the lack of equality. This hope that the fight against the regime was winnable ended in disappointment, but in the meantime many young Jews acquired political experience, as well as some general and political education.

While class differentiation among Jews became more pronounced in the early twentieth century, and the options for social and economic mobility decreased, artisans still tried to open small shops and work independently, and women often engaged in trade. Frequently the same person moved back and forth between being employed in a small workshop and owning one. Also, many small workshop owners worked for one store only, and therefore there was no real difference between them and the workers. My research suggests that the workshop owners were seen as adversaries by their employees, although the former did not always view themselves in this way. In any case, when their economic situation changed, they themselves could easily become workers again. The prevalent definition of class at the time, and not just among Jews, involved accepting that the same person sometimes did and sometimes did not belong to the working class. This flexibility was especially pronounced among Jews due to their particular economic options. Arthur Liebman claims that this instability of class identity caused instability in the political commitment of Jewish working-class revolutionaries.¹¹ I argue that, on the contrary, the initial inclusiveness of the concept of ‘working class’, when some white-collar employees, like shop assistants or pharmacists, as well as some self-employed artisans were considered working class, contributed to the positive attitude that many Jews had towards socialism or anarchism, an attitude expressed en masse during the 1905 Revolution when Jewish radicals found non-Jewish allies among both workers and non-workers.

The rapid industrialization and urbanization processes that the Russian Empire experienced from the 1880s onward created new expectations among all social groups, including the workers of all ethnicities. The workers resented their treatment by their employers and demanded respect as well as improved working conditions. They also, together with other urban residents and with the land-starved peasantry, demanded the right to influence political decisions. Considering that workers’ organizations and especially strikes were illegal in Russia and were often broken up by the police, the workers clearly saw the importance of having political clout.

The anger of workers, who felt that the state was not responsive to their demands, met the anger of other social groups and culminated in the 1905 Revolution – a period of mass strikes and other protests and localized violent uprisings that led to a general strike declared on 12 October 1905. The tsar, Nicholas II (1894–1917), unsure of his support anywhere, including the army, decided to offer a compromise to some of the rebels. In his October 1905 Manifesto he provided legal protection for civil rights, such as the right to free speech and the right to organize. He also established a parliament named the Duma, where elected representatives were to debate political issues. The representatives had also some limited ability to affect political decisions directly. Thus the tsar at least partially met the immediate demands of the wealthy and the educated for civil rights and political representation. The demands of many minorities for equality were accepted – although not of the Jews, despite the fact that they could legally elect and be elected to the Duma. The lower classes, however, felt dissatisfied by the concessions and betrayed by their allies. Workers now had the right to unionize, but the legal impediments on the unions were such that many workers did not perceive the situation as an improvement. The police also closed legal unions as soon as possible, under different pretexts. The peasants did not get any additional land. The state did initiate large colonization projects for peasants at the time, but these were only partially successful. The Jews were even more dissatisfied, since the particular legal discrimination against Jews in the Russian Empire was not eliminated, although the political elites as well as the right tended to exaggerate their political importance.¹²

Oleg Budnitskii notes that Jewish revolutionaries, however dedicated, could not possibly affect the outcome of the Russian revolutions because of their concentration in the Pale. Only miniscule numbers of Jews lived in St Petersburg and Moscow, the places where the fates of the revolutions would ultimately be decided.¹³ It seems sensible to assume that Jews, not unlike other oppressed nationalities of the empire, were just one group among many engaging in revolutionary activities, and not the most important one at that. Their story becomes much more important, however, if we consider it in the context of the history of the Jews in Russia, as well as in the context of non-Russian nationalities of the empire. The Jews may not have been very important in the 1905 Revolution, but the 1905 Revolution was very important to the Jews, both as a group with specific problems and as one of the non-Russian nationalities of the empire.¹⁴

One of the more important results of the revolution for almost all national movements was the easing of government oppression against them. They could publish newspapers and books, use their own language in education and, in certain cases people, especially former Muslims who converted to Russian Orthodoxy, could revert to their original religious affiliation. Some of that freedom was sustained even after the reaction began. In any case, the public expression of nationalist ideas that developed during the revolution had a considerable impact on the intelligentsia among the nationalities, who (like Ukrainians and unlike Poles) were not accustomed to asserting their national identity.

During the First Rus...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Series Editors’ Preface
• Acknowledgements
• A Note on Dates, Place Names and Translations
• Introduction
• Part I: Becoming a Revolutionary
• Part II: Being a Revolutionary
• Appendix: The Sources
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index