The Maccabaean

they considered them dangerous and Utopian trivialities. Nevertheless, the discussions regarding the demands for national autonomy were of great educative value in Jewish life. The Jews got more and more accustomed to stating their national demands without qualifications, not only among themselves, but in public, although the stern Russian reality might well have frozen the most ardent wishes.

When the Zionists formulated the platform of Russian Zionism at the Conference in Helsingfors in November, 1906, they, too, expressed themselves as favoring radical nationalist tendencies. They did not, however, accept the all-inclusive plan of a Jewish parliament in Russia as outlined by the Seimists. The ideology of these latter was antipathetic to them among other reasons because it ignored their demands for a territorial concentration of Jews in Palestine. On the other hand, they, too, regarded as an urgent necessity the organization of Russian Jewry on the basis of compulsory adherence to the Jewish community and development of a communal federation which should provide for representation of the Russian Jews through its administrative body. If the Seimists had reversed their platform and advanced a territorial concentration of the Jews in Palestine as the ultimate solution of the Jewish question, the Zionists would have come nearer to them in their political demands.

We have given far more space to the Seimists than they could lay claim to through their external influence because in dwelling on the extreme nationalist platform we thought to present a concrete picture of how deeply the aspiration for national self-preservation had found expression in certain strata of Russian Jewry. At that time the ideas which the famous theorist on nationalism, Springer, propounded in his book, entitled, “The Conflict of the Austrian Nations and the State” were expressed in innumerable variations by the Jews of Russia. In this book, Springer, after a thorough analysis of the actual situation and of the prievous conflicts which had taken place had advanced and defended a new and fruitful proposition. All Austria was to be divided into small sections among the various nationalities so that, although dispersed throughout the country, each should have its proportionate national parliament. In this way a nationality might be disunited territorially and yet live its definite national life. The parliaments were not to be Bohemian, Galician, etc., as they had been previously, but Slovak, Polish, Ruthenian, etc. It is easily comprehensible that this idea should have been exported from Austria to Russia, and have made a strong appeal to those who were seeking a remedy for an analogous state of affairs. The Zionists understood the intrinsic value of such utterances better than any of the other bourgeois Jewish parties, but would not recognize them as anything more than palliative measures. Nevertheless, they were not at all inclinded to let their well-defined territorial program be weakened, especially as the opposition to Zionism grew more and more acute in the intensification of political Jewish life. This opposition was maintained with singular fanaticism by the so-called Popular Group, which, having come into existence in the winter of 1906-1907, under the leadership of Vinaver, Sliosberg, etc., shortly after the Zionist conference in Helsingfors claimed to be a nationalist organization. The founding of this anti-Zionist party was due to various causes: _ Se CO

First—To the successes of the Zionists during the Duma elections. (In the first Duma there were five active Zionists, and it seemed that in the elections to the second Duma the Zionists would carry the Jewish votes in many governments.)

Second—As a result of the craving of the Popular Party to limit its nationalist demands. They had previously been united with the Zionists, the so-called Democrats and Radicals, as well as the nationalist supporters of Dubnow’s theory, in the Association for the Granting of Equal Rights to the Jews, and in the winter of 1906 they found themselves completely under the ascendancy of the Zionists. This condition, which they bitterly resented, brought about a crisis at the Spring Conference. As they had claimed to be nationalists at the time of the Association’s founding, they were forced, however unwillingly, to reap the consequences of their statement. They did not shrink from the word “national,” but rather from the weightiest demands of the nationalist parties, those of the Zionists as well as of the similar nationalist Popular Party, which was then in process of formation. For the influential Popular Group is nationalist in nature without definite consequences. It is a political party, which it would seem potentially represents a not inconsiderable part of the Russian Jewish bourgeoisie, and has certain nationalist inclinations without being in a position to set up a nationalist platiorm. The Popular Group has never stated clearly through which national forms, through which national realities, it hopes to preserve the Jewish nation. For this reason, it has never attracted the people in great masses, although its lax and vaguely worded platform contains extremely expedient adaptations to existing: circumstances.

The Popular Group, nearer to the Jews of the middle classes than any other Jewish party, could nevertheless not be identified with it. For it is a remarkable circumstance that the Jewish upper middle class neither formed a party of its own or found any which gave accurate expression to its theories at a time when parties without number were springing up in Russia. The capitalistic upper stratum of Russian Jewry which is composed to a great extent of assimilationists and seeks to resemble the Western European Jews, did not dare in spite of its money-bags to form a party of its own which should oppose nationalist aspiration and democratic sentiment. That which would doubtless have come to pass in an analogous political situation in the early eighties, (vide the report of the Jewish Conference in 1882 in St. Petersburg) was made impossible by twenty-five years of steadily increasing nationalist propaganda. Even those Jewish magnates opposing the nationalist idea were forced to favor the nationalist standpoint if only because there were numerous representatives of that very class who were imbued with genuine Jewish nationalism. In order to assume as few obligations as possible, the majority of Jewish capitalists gave indirect support to the Popular Group without becoming affiliated with a party which “went too far” as regards democracy and nationalism.

In any case the Popular Group was thus enabled to dispose of considerable means at all times, and even at the worst period of oppression it had a decisive influence on the course of Jewish politics in Russia. Its leaders never failed to gain control over various Jewish societies and enterprises, and to be at the head of those committees which directed the whole movement for Jewish emancipation from their seat in Petrograd. Even during the interregnum from 1907 to 1908, there was a sort of commission consisting of representatives of the bourgeois Jewish parties and isolated radical elements, that determined which tactics were to be employed in the Duma, what steps were to be taken during the gravest catastrophes (banishment en masse, Beilis affair, etc.) and how public opinion was to be enlightened. This commission which was not chosen by popular vote but had

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