of the individual Jews that result from the
discriminations made against them as a religious and national entity.
It is only one aspect of our general inequality and of our lack of
civil freedom. The problem of Jewish equal rights in Russia is the
problem of the equal rights of all our citizens in general. That is
why the anti-Semitical parties in Russia have a larger political
significance and importance than the anti-Semitical parties of the
West. In our country they almost coincide with anti-constitutional
parties, in general, and anti-Semitism is the banner of the old
regime, of which we still struggle in vain to rid ourselves. This
accounts for the fact that the Jewish question occupies such a
prominent place in Russian social and political life. Here the
struggle for general rights coincides with the struggle for national
rights. That is why the Jewish problem has come to occupy the centre
of our political stage.

I must add that Russian anti-Semitism, as defined above, is a
comparatively new phenomenon, in fact, it may be asserted that it is a
phenomenon of most recent origin. However ancient may be the instincts
on which our anti-Semites try to play, anti-Semitism itself as a
political motto, as a movement with a party platform and definite
aims, is a new means of political struggle, invented and applied only
in late years. Of course, in the past there can be found
manifestations--very crude and coarse--of what might be termed
"zoological" anti-Semitism. In 1563, Ivan the Terrible conquered
Polotzk, and for the first time the Russian Government was confronted
by the fact of the existence of the Jewish nationality. The Czar's
advisers were somewhat perplexed and asked him what to do with these
newly acquired subjects. Ivan the Terrible answered unhesitatingly:
"Baptise them or drown them in the river."

They were drowned. And the old Russian "zoological" nationalism was
satisfied by this primitive solution of the problem. But the political
wisdom of Czar Ivan's times has long since become obsolete.

A century later Russian statehood for the second time ran across the
Jewish problem when Smolensk was taken by Czar Alexyey Mikhaylovich
the Debonnaire, also an old Russian nationalist who was not conscious
of his nationalism. He could not make up his mind to settle it by
simply destroying the object which perplexed Russia's political mind.
After due deliberation, he decided to have the Jews deported. This was
a