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Let us turn to those characteristic social and economic conditions under which the Jews exist in our country. Nearly all of them, upward of five millions, live within the Pale of Settlement, which comprises fifteen governments and Poland, and only six per cent. live outside of this territory. Within the Pale, Jews are not allowed to buy or take on lease real estate outside the towns and townlets, which circumstance makes it impossible for them to become farmers. This, in connection with the limitation of residence, has naturally resulted in a peculiar character of the Jewish occupations. It is characteristic of the part the Jews play in Russia's economic life that nearly seventy-three and eight hundredths per cent. of them are forced to seek employment in the country's commerce and industry. Of the entire Jewish population throughout the Empire, only two and four tenths per cent. are engaged in agriculture, four and seven tenths per cent. in liberal professions, eleven and five tenths per cent. in personal service (domestic service etc.); the rest, minus the persons without any definite employment are forced to seek for means of livelihood in the field of commerce (thirty-one per cent.), industry (thirty-six and three tenths per cent.), and transport (three per cent.) In the same way works the artificial congestion of the Jews in the cities: only eighteen per cent. live in the villages of the Pale of Settlement, while the rest—more than four-fifths—toil in the towns and townlets. Such a one-sided distribution of Jewish labour would not be a negative phenomenon if it were possible to spread it uniformly over the entire country. For, backward as Russia is industrially and commercially, the Jews would easily find a place in the fields of endeavour which suit them best and would greatly benefit the country by furthering the process of its industrialisation. Under present circumstances they are crowded in one place and overburden the commerce and the industry of the Pale of Settlement. As a result, the struggle for existence among them is so keen and desperate that in some sections they are undoubtedly on the way to degeneration. In the West, Galicia and Roumania excluded, the Jews are well represented in the wealthy classes; in Russia an overwhelming portion of them are proletaries, "free like birds," poverty-stricken people who literally do not know to-day by what they are going to live to-morrow. Heart-rending pictures are painted by impartial observers of the life of the Jewish poorer classes, of all these tradesmen, factory workers, petty merchants and peddlers. They literally starve and cripple both mind and body in the slums of cities and towns. The natural result is that in their eager search for means of livelihood they are forced to have recourse to all sorts of expedients. Hence, all this talk about the "criminal features" of the Jewish character and their propensity for financial speculation, which propensity is, however, easily forgiven and even encouraged in the "true-Russian" representatives of our commercial interests. On the other hand, the Jews lower "the standards of living" by offering their services often at a very low price. Thus a peculiar "social anti-Semitism" comes into being, in Russia as well as in the countries of Jewish immigration,—a phenomenon not unlike the movement against "yellow labour" in the United States and in the Australian Federation. There can be no doubt that the artificially restrained field of application of Jewish labour is alone responsible for the unspeakable condition in which it is forced to exist. In spite of the exodus of a large mass of Jews from Russia, which bears analogy to the emigration of the Irish people from their native country,—upward of one and a half million Jews left Russia between the years 1881 and 1908,—the remaining millions seem to be doomed to starvation and degeneration. The popular tales about Jewish wealth are most emphatically contradicted by impartial facts. Of the emigrants who reach the shores of America the Jews are the poorest. A Scotch emigrant coming to the United States brings on the average $41.50, an Englishman $38.70, a Frenchman $37.80, a German $28.50, while a Jew brings the sum of $8.70, the smallest of all, far below the general average, which is $15.00. Consequently, if any real danger at all threatens the aboriginal Russian population, it is precisely the cheap labour of the congested Jewish masses, and the more the Jews will be oppressed the worse it will be for the Russian workman! For the employer will always give preference to cheaper labour. It is evident, therefore, that the present treatment of the Jews is really not dictated by the native Russian population, and that the democratic argument is but a false pretext. The Russian labour market, while congested in the Pale, is scarce in other sections. That the economic life of Russia, as a whole, suffers from it is obvious.
In this connection, another point is worthy of our attention. Contrary, to the popular idea of the Jewish greed, the Jews are usually satisfied with a lower rate of interest on the capital invested, since what they are after is the bare means of livelihood. In this fashion they lower, to a considerable extent, the capitalist's profits, a circumstance which cannot fail to irritate the Gentile capitalists. Consequently, all this comes to competition of capital, and it is significant that the fiercest anti-Semitic outcries come from the capitalistic classes. Let us not forget that the early pogroms at Odessa were caused by the agitation of the Greek merchants who feared for their commercial ascendency.
What has been said so far demonstrates with sufficient clearness that the anti-Semitic economic policy is detrimental to the economic organism of Russia as a whole. The true interests of our country demand that Jewish labour and Jewish means should be given complete freedom of application. Russia will only gain from such a change of policy toward the Jews. Anti-Semitism, from the economic standpoint, is nothing but a tremendous waste of the country's productive powers.
Here is another aspect of the question. Whether the Jews as a race are to one's liking or not, is a question of individual taste, the solution of which cannot be allowed to influence the sane economic policy of a state. This must be guided by objective data. As a matter of fact, the Jews constitute more than one third, thirty-five per cent., of the commercial class in Russia. If we believe our country's prosperity to be bound up with the process of its progressive industrialisation, we must admit that the part the Jews play in Russia's commercial life is tremendous, that to a considerable degree they handle her entire commerce. All that hinders the untrammelled manifestation of the Jewish economic energies is harmful to Russia's economic organism.
"If there were no Jews now in Russia, it would be necessary to invite them, in the interests of both the commercial and industrial development of the country, just as they were more than once invited for the same purposes in the past." This conclusion, reached by a student of the Jewish question in Russia, is eminently and profoundly true. The opinion of an individual student may not appear authoritative, but it has been many a time endorsed by social groups and organisations. We need not go far back into history to find facts of this sort. In 1912 at the time when the customary fair was in full swing, the Governor of Nizhni-Novgorod showed an unusual zeal in persecuting the Jews. This was in all probability connected with the Duma pre-election campaign. The "Society of the Manufacturers and Mill Owners of the Moscow Industrial Section," an organisation which is rather far from being liberal in its opinions, saw fit to interfere in its own interests. A memoir dealing with the prohibitive measures directed against the Jews was composed and presented, through the president of the Society, Mr. Goujon, to the chairman of the Council of the Ministers. Here is a quotation from this memoir: "In the economic life of the country the Jews play the part of middlemen, placed between the producer and the consumer of goods. In the Northwestern, Southern, and Southwestern provinces this function is almost exclusively that of the Jews. To isolate under such conditions, the commercial and industrial population of a considerable section of the country from the centre of its manufacturing districts is equivalent to inflicting a tremendous loss not only on the Jewish merchant class but also on the many millions of the non-Jewish population.... To isolate the village from the town, the towns of the West and South from the towns and villages of the Centre and the East, is to disturb intentionally the economic life of the country, to undermine credit and depreciate the people's labour."
That is the opinion of the Moscow manufacturers. Well aware of the real needs of the country, and unwilling to sacrifice their commercial interests to anti-humanitarian mottoes, they expressed their fear that the actions of the administration would hinder the realisation of the harvest and that the "stocks of goods would find neither consumers nor buyers nor energetic middlemen to the extent to which they otherwise would have."
The Jewish people has grown to be a living part of Russia's economic organism, and the blows which are directed against the Jews affect in an equal, if not a greater, degree the mass of the aboriginal Russian population. We do not intend to discuss here the Zionistic dreams and aspirations of the Jews. One thing is clear to us, namely, that a complete exodus of the Jews from Russia would be greatly detrimental to her economic development. The Western world understands this truth very well. Werner Sombart in his work Die Zukunft der Juden (The Future of the Jews) reaches the following conclusion: "If by a miracle all the Jews would decide to-morrow to emigrate to Palestine we (the Germans) would never allow them to. For it would mean a catastrophe in the field of economic relation, not to speak of other fields, such as we have never as yet experienced and which would probably cripple our economic organism forever."
But we, Russians, give little thought to such questions. As late as the year 1914 we did not hesitate to inaugurate new restrictive measures, which it took the great trial of this War to stop.
Whoever has our economic welfare at heart, whoever dreams about the mighty development of our country and of its real emancipation from foreign influence,—inasmuch as this is generally possible,—must understand that anti-Semitism is the worst foe of our economic prosperity, that, in short, the Jewish question is a Russian question. Full rights for the Jews, equal with those that the rest of the population of the Empire enjoy, are an indispensable condition for our peaceful cultural development. Only on that basis can we achieve the broad ideals which have come into prominence in this tragic struggle with German imperialism.
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THE WAR AND THE STATUS OF THE JEW
Prince Paul Dmitriyevich Dolgorukov, a prominent leader of the emancipatory movement in Russia, was born in 1866. He is one of the founders of the Constitutional Democratic party, and for a while he stood at the head of the Central Committee of this party. He was a member of the Second Duma, where he represented the city of Moscow.
THE WAR AND THE STATUS OF THE JEW
BY PRINCE PAUL DOLGORUKOV
The storm that has recently swept over our country brought to light a series of conditions which have been weighing down upon the Russian nation for a good many years. These conditions on account of their long duration have come to be considered as something habitual. The impossibility of their further continuance, at least in their present form, has suddenly become quite apparent.
The first among these is the existing attitude toward peoples whose fate is closely interwoven with the fate of Russia. The need for a new policy toward the Poles has been recognised officially and solemnly. The hour for settling the Jewish question has also struck. The contrast between the duties and responsibilities of the Jew toward the state and his position in the country where he is deprived of all rights and privileges has always existed; during the war this contradiction has become so pronounced that it is impossible to overlook it any longer.
Hundreds of thousands of Jews are shedding their blood for Russia, while at home they are deprived of such elementary rights as other Russian subjects could lose only when convicted of crime. When a population of six million occupies such a position, the fact is bound to make itself felt in all walks of life; but what the war has made supremely clear is the limitations to which the Jew is subjected as to his right to choose freely his place of residence and to give his children an education.
The so-called "Pale of Settlement," Poland and the southwestern section, constituted the arena for the early operations of the war. The tradesmen, the merchants, all people of any means were ruined; the poor workman was left without a crust of bread. The invading foe forced both these groups to flee. Where were they to flee? The simplest solution that presented itself was for them to go into other cities of the "Pale." But the burden of the war was felt there also. The chief bread-winner of the family had gone to war; both industries and trades were crippled. Emigration, the safety valve of poverty, was now impossible. Into the midst of this suffering came pouring in the refugees from the border regions, on the one hand, and on the other, the exiles from Germany and Austria, where they had previously found food and shelter, and whence they had now, so to speak, been thrown overboard.
The economic role of such an element, hungry and unemployed, is easily appraised. Small wonder, then, that such a condition should become absolutely unbearable; starvation has become a common occurrence, and many prefer suicide to asking for alms. And should some of these care to ask for aid there is no one who could offer it, since the local population cannot cope with the need that has so suddenly swooped down upon them.
Russia is a vast country, as is the soul of the Russian. Enough land and bread exists for all its children. Many have relatives who would welcome the refugees and exiles into their homes for the time being; many could earn their livelihood. But in accordance with the existing regulations the authorities must observe that no one who has not the right of residence should come without the "Pale." The absurdity of such regulations becomes more apparent when applied to participants in the war. Thousands of wounded Jewish soldiers are scattered all over Russia, many outside the "Pale." Their own may not come to stay with them nor even visit them. Should one of these wounded die, his people are deprived of the privilege of paying their last respects to him; unless they choose to violate the law and remain during the visit in hiding without registering their arrival.
The conditions under which the Jewish child may be educated are at present fraught with similar difficulties. A great number of educational institutions in the south and west are now closed. The parents are recommended to transfer their children to other cities—in which case the local schools have been allowed to accept Jewish pupils in excess of their regulation percentage. But the possibility of utilising this privilege in institutions outside of the "Pale" is in its turn combined with the "right of settlement," which condition certainly limits the application of this privilege. With this exception, all other educational institutions of higher and middle grades, strictly observe the usual percentage and the drawing of lots, on the basis of which the Jewish students are accepted. These limitations have become especially conspicuous, because the war has completely done away with the possibility of entering the universities of Germany and Austria, to which the Jewish youth flocked prior to the war.
Another question arises: Where should the Jewish students, who have begun their studies at a foreign university, now turn? In vain do they knock at the doors of the higher institutions; these remain closed to them, in spite of the fact that there are many vacancies there. They cannot get back to the universities of either Germany or Austria. Thus must they waste years of persistent effort and vast amounts of energy, and very many of them will not be in a position to continue their studies, and subsequently serve their own country, which is so sadly in need of educated men. Are all these discriminations against Jewish people essential for the great Russia, which is now called upon to free nations and peoples from a foreign tyranny?
The complete abrogation of all national disabilities must pass through our legislative institutions, but the loosening of the existing limitations is a measure which it is perfectly possible to take at once.
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JEWISH RIGHTS AND THEIR ENEMIES
Professor Maxim Maximovich Kovalevsky, one of the greatest Russian sociologists, was born in 1851. Owing to his political convictions, he had to leave Russia. In 1901 he founded in Paris the Russian Higher School of Social Sciences, the faculty of which consisted of exiled Russian scholars and political emigrants. In 1905 he came back to Russia, resumed his University work and took an active part in the political movement. In 1906 he was elected to the Duma and in 1907 to the Imperial Council. He died in 1916.
JEWISH RIGHTS AND THEIR ENEMIES
BY MAXIM KOVALEVSKY
If the question should be put as to who at present stands in the way of Jewish equal rights and who demands still further limitations of the Jews' participation in both military and civil service, the answer is that no one class follows a more systematic and more definite programme in this connection than the League of United Nobility. In the year 1913 one of their conventions made the following recommendations, recorded in a volume published in the name of the league, and here quoted literally:
"I. Jews and converted Jews should not be allowed to serve in the army and navy either as regular recruits or as volunteers, nor should they be admitted to military schools.
"II. Jews and converted Jews should not be allowed to take part in the electoral conventions of the Zemstvos.
"III. Jews and converted Jews are not to be permitted to serve in the Zemstvos.
"IV. Jews and converted Jews are not to be permitted to serve in any municipal capacity.
"V. Jews and converted Jews should not be permitted to enter the civil service.
"VI. Jews and converted Jews should not be included in the lists of jurors; they may not be appointed or elected to serve in courts, they may not practice as either advocates or attorneys."
These recommendations are clearly at variance with the trend of Russian legislation throughout the reigns of Peter the Great, Catherine the Second and Alexander the First. Peter the Great called into the service of the Russian government all subjects irrespective of their nationality or religion. His fellow champions were representatives of different nationalities such as Bruce, Bauer, Repnin, Menshicov and Yaguzhinsky. As to Catherine the Second, our code of laws still retains the expression of her wish that all the peoples of Russia, each according to the precepts of its religion, should pray to the Almighty for the welfare of its rulers, and should all be equally benefited by its government.
In his "Principles of the Russian Governmental Law" Professor Gradovsky says: "In the reign of Peter the Great there were no general regulations concerning the Jews." Measures against the Jews date from the reign of Catherine the First. During the reign of Catherine the Second, little was added to the existing array of limitations. In the districts in which the first Partition of Poland found them, the Jews at that time enjoyed almost all the rights of the native Russian citizen. Although the Empress recognized the "Pale of Settlement" created in the reign of Peter the Second, she, nevertheless, stretched its boundaries to include not only Little Russia but also the Vice-Royalty of Ekaterinoslav and the province of Taurida, wherein the Jews were granted all rights of citizenship. In the "Regulations Concerning the Jews" published in 1804, in the reign of Alexander the First, the principle of equal civil rights for this nation is brought out in Article 42. "All the Jews in Russia," says this article, "whether residents or new settlers or foreigners coming to transact business are free and are to be under the protection of the law on a par with other Russian subjects." In commenting upon this article, Professor Gradovsky writes that this is clearly an attempt to fuse the Jewish nation with the rest of the Russian population by giving the former definite civil rights.
Only during the last year of the reign of Alexander the First were some measures adopted whereby the "Pale of Settlement" was narrowed down because of a certain sect of "Sabbathists," closely related to Judaism, which had greatly increased in numbers, particularly in the provinces of Voronezh, Samara, Tula, and others. According to the "Regulations Concerning the Jews" of 1835, enacted in the reign of Nicholas the First, the Jews retained the right to own all kinds of real estate, with the exception of inhabited estates and to deal in all kinds of merchandise on the same basis as the other citizens,—of course, only within the "Pale."
It is noteworthy that at this time the Jews were allowed to attend governmental schools of all grades, and that graduates from these were granted certain privileges. It is only toward the end of the reign of Nicholas I that the government adopts a system of limitations relating to the Jews, without, however, restraining their right to attend the governmental educational institutions. On the 31st of March, 1856, an imperial edict was issued ordering a revision of the existing regulations relating to the Jews. Therein it is clearly stated that the purpose of this revision is to conciliate these regulations with the intention of the government to fuse this people with the native population of the land. During the entire reign of Alexander II no limitations existed for the entrance of Jews into the Universities and the other educational institutions. On the contrary, according to Gradovsky, the limitations within the "Pale" did not apply to persons desiring to obtain a higher education, namely to those entering the medical academy, the universities, and the Institute of Technology. Gradovsky refers to the continuation of the "Code of Laws," of 1868. The book was published in 1875, while this freedom was in full swing. Within the "Pale," the Jews had equal commercial rights with other citizens. Until the Polish rebellion of 1863 the Jews were permitted to own real estate, not only in cities but also in rural districts. After the rebellion this was forbidden to them as well as to the Poles. The foreign Jew could come to Russia freely and register on the same foreign passport as would be required from any other citizen of that country.
From what has been said, it follows that many of the limitations, which at present weigh down upon the Jews have been created only recently. The present reign, too, was begun with measures favoring the Jew. In 1903, in spite of the fact that the Jews, in accordance with a law which was confirmed in 1872, were forbidden to live in villages even within the "Pale," two hundred of these villages were turned into towns, and later fifty-seven more were added to this number. The measure rendered these places legally habitable by the Jews. On August 11, 1904, a law was passed wherein it was emphatically stated that Jews who were graduates from a university were to be permitted to live freely everywhere in the Empire. But since the repression of the revolutionary movement, this privilege has become a pretext for the restriction of the admittance of Jews into higher educational institutions.
From the viewpoint of the interests of the Russian state, the existing disabilities of the Jews are detrimental both to our economic life, and to the mutual relations among our citizens; they also work havoc upon the progress of education as well as upon the raising of the general level of our culture. Measures limiting a portion of the population in its rights to acquire property, to obtain an education in middle and higher state schools, to assume the responsibilities of a judge or of a lawyer, and, in general, restraining its freedom to pursue a professional career—are clearly irreconcilable with the promises given us in the manifesto of the 17th of October, 1906.
The fear that the granting of equal rights to the Jews may deprive the peasant of his land, is perfectly groundless. There are many other means whereby the tiller of the soil may be assured the possession of a portion of land. In the West we have systems such as that of the homestead, based on the inalienability of the family property (bien de famille). Such systems may be traced back as far as the Middle Ages. The mediaeval law forbids the taking away from the peasant, even for arrearage, of his agricultural implements and the cattle necessary for his labour,—not to speak of his land, which, however, it would be impossible to take away, since it is the suzerain that is its rightful owner. The indivisibility of the family estate, which only a short time ago was recognised by the Appellatory Division of our Senate, with reference to the Western Section, was achieving the same results because for the sale of such property the agreement of all the members of the family was required. Such a protection of the interests of the peasant landowner is essential in his relation to the capitalist, whether it be a member of the landed gentry or a wealthy peasant, known as a Kulak, or a Jew who lends money at interest, or an Armenian or, for that matter, a usurer of the Orthodox faith. In order that the land be retained by the peasant it is far more essential that only members of the peasant class be allowed to attend the auction sales of land sold because of the owner's arrears. And yet our law has permitted outsiders to attend if not the first auction sale, at least the second. I am strongly in favour of protecting the peasant's property, but I cannot see that to achieve this goal, it is necessary for a body politic based on law to limit any one's freedom of moving about, settling or choosing a profession. This view is shared by some of the political writers in Russia who, like the late B.N. Chicherin, Professor of the University of Moscow, have identified their names with the defence of the idea of equal rights for the Jews.
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THE JEWISH QUESTION AS A RUSSIAN QUESTION
Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky occupies an important place in modern Russian letters and religious philosophy. He is responsible for several books of poems and for a series of ponderous historical novels. He is also the author of numerous critical studies distinguished by an original method and an extraordinary brilliancy. He was born in 1866.
THE JEWISH QUESTION AS A RUSSIAN QUESTION
BY DMITRY MEREZHKOVSKY
Russia ... Russia alone should be our deepest concern at present. The destiny of the numerous races and nationalities that go to make Russia is the destiny of the Russian Empire itself. One would ascertain the attitude of these nationalities by asking them: "Are you with Russia or is it your desire to exist apart from her? If you desire to exist apart from her—why, then, do you appeal to us for help? If with us—let us then, in this time of terror, disdain to consider our personal fortunes and let our thoughts be with Russia and with her alone. For without her your existence is inconceivable; her rise is your rise and her fall is your fall."
We would like very much to say that there is no such thing as the Jewish, Polish, Ukrainian, Armenian, Georgian, question, that there is only one question—the Russian. Yes, we would like to, but we cannot; the Russian people have yet to earn the right to say that, and therein lies their tragedy.... The moment Russian idealism ventures to tackle any of those complicated national home problems,—it becomes weak, impotent and therefore irresponsible.
The Jewish question is a striking illustration of what we have just said. What do we owe the Jews? Indignation? Or the admission that anti-Semitism is abominable? But we admitted that a long time ago, and our indignation runs so high and is so clearly outspoken that it is beyond one's power even to speak calmly of it. The only thing we can do is to join our voice to that of the Jews. And we do.
But outcries, loud as they may be, are not sufficient, and it is the consciousness of the fact, that the outcries are insufficient and that at the present moment we possess no other weapons with which to fight the evil that wearies and harrows us.
What misery, and pain, and shame!
But in spite of the pain and the shame we cry out and reiterate and declare to the people around us, who are ignorant of the table of multiplication, that two and two make four, that the Jews are human beings like us; that they are neither enemies nor traitors to their country; that they are as good citizens as we are; that they love Russia no less than we do, and that anti-Semitism is a disgraceful stigma upon Russia's face. But apart from our righteous indignation, may we not be allowed calmly to utter one thought that occurs to us at this moment?
"Judophilism" and "Judophobia" are closely related. A blind denial of a nationality engenders an equally blind affirmation of it. An absolute "Nay" naturally brings forth an absolute "Yea."
Whom do we call a "Judophile" in Russia at the present time? Presumably, it is he or she who loves the Jews with a singular love, who finds in them greater values than in any other nationality. In the eyes of the so-called "true Russians" we, the Intellectuals, are such Judophiles.
"Why worry over the Jews all the time?" the Russian Nationalists say to us.
Now, how on earth can we stop worrying over the Jews, and, for that matter, over the Poles, Armenians, Ukrainians, Georgians, and so forth? When in our presence some one is being outraged, we cannot merely pass on; it is not humane. We must help him who is being assailed. At least, we ought to join our voice with his in crying out for help. This is precisely what we have been doing, and woe to us, if we cease to do it, cease to be human beings in order to become Russians.
A forest of national problems has grown around us, and the sounds of the Russian language are being drowned by the voices of all the numerous peoples that inhabit Russia. It is inevitable and just. We are not well, but with them it is still worse. We have great pain, but their's is greater. We must forget ourselves for their sake.
That is why we say to the "Nationalists":
Cease oppressing the non-Russian element of our empire, so that we may have the right to be Russians, and that we may with dignity show our national face, as that of a human being, not that of a beast. Cease to be 'Judophobes' so that we may cease to be 'Judophiles.' Here is an instance taken at random.
The Jewish question has a religious as well as a national aspect. Between Judaism and Christianity, as between two poles, there are strong attractions and equally strong repulsions. Judaism gave birth to Christianity. The New Testament issued from the Old Testament. Paul the Apostle, who more than any one else fought Judaism, wrote: "For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh."
But whereas we may speak of attractions, it is not well for us to speak of repulsions. Indeed, how can we quarrel with him, who has no voice? The disabilities of the Jews seal our lips. We must not separate Christianity from Judaism, for it means, as one Jew put it, the establishment of another, spiritual "Pale of Settlement." Let us do away with the physical Pale, then we will be able to discuss the spiritual one. Until then, all our protestations and declarations of righteousness will only prove to the Jews our insincerity.
Why has the Jewish question become so keen in time of war? For the same reason that the rest of the national problems have made themselves felt.
We have called the present struggle a war of liberation. We entered the war with the avowed purpose of liberating those who are situated at a distance from us. While liberating distant strangers, why then do we oppress those who live close by our side? We wage war against tyranny outside of Russia, and we allow oppression to reign within her. We pity everybody but the Jews. Why?
Are they not dying on the battlefields for our sake? Do they not love us—who hate them? Do we not hate them—who love us? If we continue to act as we have done in the past, would not everybody lose faith in us, and would not the nations of the earth be justified in saying to us: "You can love only from afar. You are liars!"
We believed our righteousness to be our strongest weapon. We wanted to conquer brute force by the truth. If we persist in this desire, let us not lie; let us not weaken our truth by falsehood.
The Teutons say: "We fight to be the rulers of the world,"—and they act accordingly. We say: "We fight for universal peace, for the emancipation of the world," but we do not act accordingly.
Let us begin then with the liberation of the Jews at home. Let the oppressed nations in our land bear in mind, however, that only a free Russian people will be able to give them freedom.
Let the Jews remember that the Jewish question is a Russian question.
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CONCERNING THE IDEOLOGY OF THE JEWISH QUESTION
Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov was born in 1866. A poet of great mastery and a refined critic, his thought, is steeped in hellenism and in the most abstruse mystic lore.
CONCERNING THE IDEOLOGY OF THE JEWISH QUESTION
BY VYACHESLAV IVANOV
One of the wiliest and the most harmful doctrines of our times is, I believe, the fashionable ideology of spiritual anti-Semitism. It attributes to Aryanism, which by the way, is a quantity ethnically if not linguistically enigmatical, many excellent and splendid qualities, while in the Semitic influences and admixtures to the Aryan element it sees nothing but negative energies, which have always hindered the free unfolding of the creative powers of the Aryan genius.
This doctrine would deprive Hellenism of Aphrodite, who came to the Hellenes from the Semites, and would cut the main and most profound root of Christianity, namely its faith in a "transcendental," or, plainly, living God. Spiritual anti-Semitism cuts the body of Christianity into two halves, and keeps only that half whose forms are justified by analogies borrowed from the Greek religious thought, justified, in the eyes of learned dodgers who choose to play the part of Romanticists of Aryanism.
This anti-religious and secretly anti-Christian theory, one of the Trojan wooden horses made in Germany, was clearly intended to "Indo-Germanize" the world, when suddenly the twilight of the Gods swooped down upon the Berlin Valhalla. Nevertheless it has succeeded in seducing many minds, obscured by prejudices. It was hailed by "immanent" philosophers and anti-Semites out of political considerations and psychological predispositions, as well as by Christians mindless of their kin, by anti-church people of all kinds, and even by atheists of Jewish birth, who are ashamed of their kin and who are in the world like salt which has lost its strength.
The more vivid and profound the church consciousness is in a Christian, the more vividly and profoundly does he feel himself, I shall not say a philo-Semite, but truly a Semite in spirit. We have so thoroughly confused, distorted and forgotten all the holy and true traditions, we have so thoroughly lost the habit of applying our reason to the lucid, old truths learned by heart, that this statement may sound like a paradox.
Vladimir Solovyov's touching affection for Judaism is a plain and natural manifestation of his love for Christ and of his inner experience of being merged in the Church. The body of the Church is for the mystic the true, although invisible body of Christ, and through Christ it is the body begotten of Abraham's seed. The latter body, like the curtain of the temple in Jerusalem in the hour of our Saviour's death, was rent in twain, and that half of it which is Judaism passionately seeks the whole, longs and yearns, and pours out its wrath upon the second half, which in its turn longs for the reunion and the integrity of mystic Israel.
Whoever is within the Church loves Mary; and whoever loves Mary loves also Israel whose name together with those of the patriarchs and prophets solemnly resounds in our liturgical hymns. The minds of those who in various times represented the earthly organisation of the Church could be poisoned by hatred of the Jews, in whom they suspected Christ's enemies, precisely because it seemed to them that the Jewish nation was already void of the true Jewish spirit and was not of Abraham's seed. But what do all these errings mean in face of the single testimony of the apostle Paul?
I have placed myself, in these lines, on the standpoint of religious thought, and I wish to remind people of the truth that to be a Christian means to be not a heathen, not simply an Aryan by blood, but to become through baptism, which sacramentally includes also circumcision, a child of Abraham, and, therefore, in a sacramental sense a brother to Abraham's descendants, who, according to the word of the apostle, are not deprived of inheritance, and whom, according to Christ's word, we must bless even if they curse us. Personally, I do not believe that the Jews hate Christ, unless it be that they hate Him in spite of their secret, presensuous love for Him, hate Him with that peculiar hatred which comes from jealousy and which the Hellenes defined as the negative hypostase of Eros, as anti-Eros.
I think that Providence has appointed the Jews eternally to test the Christian peoples in their love for Christ and in their faithfulness to Him. And when His work will be consummated in us, then their demands and expectations will be fulfilled and they will be convinced that they need not wait for another Messiah. As for us, if we were walking with Christ, we would not fear our examiners: for love conquers fear.
The accounts the Russian soul has to settle with that of the Jew are complex. In spite of the fact they have frequently and most completely been united in suffering, the Jew is loath to love that which is most sacred to the Russian soul. For the benefit of those in whom resound the separate clashing voices of this spiritual dispute, I shall quote in conclusion this final and irrevocable verdict of Dostoyevsky, who had the reputation of being an anti-Semite:
"All that is demanded by humanity, justice and Christian law, must be done for the Jews. I shall add to these words that in spite of the considerations exposed above, I definitely stand for an increase of the Jewish rights in formal legislation and, if possible, for the removal of all the legal disabilities which stand in the way of their equality with the rest of the population (although in some cases they have already more rights than the aboriginal population, or, better, they have greater possibilities to utilise the rights which they enjoy)."
("A Writer's Journal," March, 1877, III, p. 4.)
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THE LITTLE BOY
THE LITTLE BOY
(A STORY)
BY MAXIM GORKY
It is hard to tell this little story,—it is so simple. When I was a youth, I used to gather the children of our street on Sunday mornings during the spring and summer seasons and take them with me to the fields and woods. I took great pleasure in the friendship of these little people, who were as gay as birds.
The children were only too glad to leave the dusty, narrow streets of the city. Their mothers provided them with slices of bread, while I bought them dainties and filled a big bottle with cider, and like a shepherd, walked behind my carefree little lambs, while we passed through the town and the fields on our way to the green forest, beautiful and caressing in its array of Spring.
We always started on our journey early in the morning when the church bells were ushering in the early mass, and we were accompanied by the chimes and the clouds of dust raised by the children's nimble feet.
In the heat of noon, exhausted with playing, my companions would gather at the edge of the forest, and after that, having eaten their food, the smaller children would lie down and sleep in the shade of hazel and snow-ball trees, while the ten-year-old boys would flock around me and ask me to tell them stories. I would satisfy their desire, chattering as eagerly as the children themselves, and often, in spite of the self-assurance of youth and the ridiculous pride which it takes in the miserable crumbs of worldly wisdom it possesses, I would feel like a twenty-year-old child in a conclave of sages.
Overhead is the blue veil of the spring sky, and before us lies the deep forest, brooding in wise silence. Now and then the wind whispers gently and stirs the fragrant shadows of the forest, and again does the soothing silence caress us with a motherly caress. White clouds are sailing slowly across the azure heavens. Viewed from the earth, heated by the sun, the sky appears cold, and it is strange to see the clouds melt away in the blue. And all around me—little people, dear little people, destined to partake of all the sorrows and all the joys of life.
These were my happy days, my true holidays, and my soul already dusty with the knowledge of life's evil was bathed and refreshed in the clear-eyed wisdom of child-like thoughts and feelings.
Once, when I was coming out of the city on my way to the fields, accompanied by a crowd of children we met an unknown little Jewish boy. He was barefooted and his shirt was torn; his eyebrows were black, his body slim and his hair grew in curls like that of a little sheep. He was excited and he seemed to have been crying. The lids of his dull-black eyes, swollen and red, contrasted with his face, which, emaciated by starvation, was ghastly pale.
Having found himself face to face with the crowd of children, he stood still in the middle of the road, burrowing his bare feet in the dust, which early in the morning is so deliciously cool. In fear, he half opened the dark lips of his fair mouth,—the next second he leaped right on to the sidewalk.
"Catch him!" the children started to shout gaily and in a chorus. "A Jewish boy! Catch the Jew boy!"
I waited, thinking that he would run away. His thin, big-eyed face was all fear; his lips quivered; he stood there amid the shouts and the mocking laughter. Pressing his shoulders against the fence and hiding his hands behind his back, he stretched and strangely appeared to have grown bigger.
But suddenly he spoke,—very calmly and in a distinct and correct Russian.
"If you wish,—I will show you some tricks."
I took this offer for a means of self-defence. But the children at once became interested. The larger and coarser boys alone looked with distrust and suspicion on the little Jewish boy. The children of our street were in a state of guerilla warfare with the children of other streets; in addition, they were deeply convinced of their own superiority and were loath to brook the rivalry of other children.
The smaller boys approached the matter more simply.
"Come on, show us," they shouted.
The handsome, slim boy moved away from the fence, bent his thin body backward, and touching the ground with his hands, he tossed up his feet and remained standing on his arms, shouting:
"Hop! Hop! Hop!"
Then he began to spin in the air, swinging his body lightly and adroitly. Through the holes of his shirt and pants we caught glimpses of the greyish skin of his slim body, of his sharply bulging and angular shoulder-blades, knees and elbows. It seemed to us as if with one more twist of his body his thin bones would crack and break into pieces.
He worked hard until the shirt grew wet with sweat about his shoulders. After each especially daring feat he looked into the children's faces with an artificial, weary smile, and it was unpleasant to see his dull eyes, grown large with pain. Their strange and unsteady glance was not like that of a child.
The lads encouraged him with loud outcries. Many imitated him, rolling in the dust and shouting for joy, pain and envy. But the joyous minutes were soon over when the boy, bringing his exhibition to an end, looked upon the children with the benevolent smile of a thoroughbred artist and stretching forth his hand said:
"Now give me something."
We all became silent, until one of the children said:
"Money?"
"Yes," said the lad.
"Look at him," said the children.
"For money, we could do those tricks ourselves."
The audience became hostile toward the artist, and betook itself to the field, ridiculing and insulting him. Of course, none of them had any money. I myself, had only seven kopecks about me. I put two coins in the boy's dusty palm. He moved them with his finger and with a kindly smile said: "Thank you."
He went away, and I noticed that his shirt around his back was all in black blotches and was clinging close to his shoulder-blades.
"Hold on, what is it?"
He stopped, turned about, scrutinised me and said distinctly, with the same kindly smile:
"You mean the blotches on my back? That's from falling off the trapeze. It happened on Easter. My father is still lying in bed, but I am quite well now."
I lifted his shirt. On his back, running down from his left shoulder to the side, was a wide dark scratch which had now become dried up into a thick crust. While he was exhibiting his tricks the wound broke open in several spots and red blood was now trickling from the openings.
"It doesn't hurt any more," said he with a smile. "It doesn't hurt, it only itches."
And bravely, as it becomes a hero, he looked in my eyes and went on, speaking like a serious grown-up person:
"You think—I have been doing this for myself? Upon my word—I have not. My father ... there is not a crust of bread in the house, and my father is lying badly hurt. So you see, I have to work hard. And to make matters worse, we are Jews, and everybody laughs at us. Good-bye."
He spoke with a smile, cheerfully and courageously. With a nod of his curly head, he quickly went on, passing by the houses which looked at him with their glass eyes, indifferent and dead.
All this is insignificant and simple, is it not?
Yet many a time in the darkest days of my life I remembered with gratitude the courage and bravery of the little Jewish boy. And now, in these sorrowful days of suffering and bloody outrages which fall upon the grey head of the ancient nation, the creator of Gods and religion,—I think again of the boy, for in him I see the symbol of true manly bravery,—not the pliant patience of slaves, who live by uncertain hopes, but the courage of the strong who are certain of their victory.
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THE FATHERLAND FOR ALL
Fyodor Sologub is the pseudonym of Fyodor Kuzmich Teternikov, novelist and poet. A considerable portion of his prose works has been recently made accessible to the English reader. Sologub's poetic output includes lyrical pieces of rare beauty. He was born in 1864.
THE FATHERLAND FOR ALL
BY FYODOR SOLOGUB
The great war, which we did not want, but which we are conducting with intense fervour, exerting all our spiritual and material forces, has put before our consciousness and our moral sense the fundamental problems of our social and political organisation. Not in vain have the newspapers hastened to style this war a Fatherland War. The question of the Fatherland has suddenly acquired for us a peculiar keenness and significance.
The war has taken Russian society and the Russian people by surprise, but luckily it has come to us at the moment when the questions which were confronting us had already been settled both in our reason and conscience. The heroic labour of the Russian intellectual has not been in vain. And now what we have to do is not to argue and demonstrate, but to determine the meaning of events. And the meaning of what is going on is such that we are forced to consider this war not only as one of defence, but also as one of emancipation. It appears to us not only as a struggle for the rights of small states threatened by large ones, and as a war against German militarism, but also as a strife against...[1] internal danger, whatever may be the various forms this danger assumes.
The first and chief danger which threatened, and is still threatening us, is the danger of internal division and disorder. The equal readiness and zeal to stand up for her which all the peoples inhabiting Russia have manifested has shown how unjust is the preaching of hatred and of narrow nationalism. The peoples who bear the same burdens of our state as the Russians do, who defend our common fatherland just as faithfully as the Russians, thereby assert that our fatherland is for all, that Russia is for every one who is considered a Russian subject and meets his duties toward the state. Russia is not only for those who are Russians by language and birth, she is for all who live under her sovereign dominion. No one in Russia is benefited by the unequal rights of her various peoples; this inequality does not add to our political power, it only supports our internal disorder. Its abolition by no means contradicts the fundamental conceptions of Russian statehood.
You will say that Russia has been created by the Russian race. Well, then, her policy must be determined by the qualities of the Russian popular spirit,—but animosity and exclusiveness are things strange and repulsive to it. The soul of the Russian people is trusting and open to all influences. And this is only natural: only that nation can become the basis of a great state which is able with ease and joy to unite with all the races it meets on its historic road. The history of Russia illustrates this. Besides, who has ever asserted that people born unto the Russian tongue are racially pure Slavs?
You will say that Russia is a Christian state. Agreed. But do not Christ's commandments teach us to see a friend and a brother and one's equal in every man? The more we are Christians, the less of animosity and exclusiveness can be in our hearts. What difference does it make that two men speak different languages and pray in different ways? When it is a question of paying duties and taxes, and bearing arms in defence of the fatherland, religious and race peculiarities do not matter.
The fatherland is for all of us, because we are all for the fatherland. The fatherland is our common home, and this home we build, keep in good order, and defend. We build our common home not like hirelings, to whom, after they get their pay, the building becomes alien. In rearing, decorating and defending it we bargain with no one, we give everything that is necessary for its upbuilding and defence,—we give our property, our labour, our very life. Even when our labour appears selfish, even then—provided it is not criminal—it is for the good of our common home: for, all that adds to the happiness, well-being and freedom of each one living in the home, adds to its strength and beauty.
We build our common home, decorate it and defend it, and we do it with joy and willingness because in our common home we are neither hirelings nor guests. In our common home, then, who are we? We must know and always remember that in our common home we are all masters of the house. It is not our right, but our duty toward our home, of which we must take care just as every good master takes care of his house. The consciousness of the fact that we are the masters of our common home is clear; for it is seen that every one of us in whom conscience and reason do not slumber, feels responsible for the disorder of our life.
Not an outsider, nor a congress of allies, nor some one social class shall regulate our affairs for the best of Poland, Finland, the Jews and the rest. Neither our allies, nor any one of our social classes, nor the wisest and strongest among us,—but all of us Russian citizens, all of us who joyously and willingly bear the burden of statehood, are called upon to settle in conscience and reason, the fundamental problems of our great home-building.
* * * * *
In the face of the common foe we are all united. We have mustered all our forces for the defence of our native land from the hostile invasion. We are all brothers, all children of one fatherland, and to all Russia is a good mother loving all equally well. Many are the peoples Russia has gathered under her dominion and she is to all equally benevolent.
How eager is one to say these words, to have the right to utter them! But we have it not. Not toward all is Russia equally benevolent, and in the hour of great trials and high deeds she is still unable, still unwilling, to tear asunder the fatal chain, the terrible "Pale of Settlement."
Whenever I met Russian Jews abroad, I always marvelled at the strangely tenacious love for Russia which they preserve. They speak of Russia with the same longing and the same tenderness as the Russian emigrants; they are equally eager to return and equally saddened if the return is impossible. Wherefore should they love Russia, who is so harsh and inhospitable toward them?
Strange as it may sound, there are children who love their cruel stepmothers. Of course, they are exceptions; usually such stepmothers are hated. But in the case of Jews such exceptions become the general rule: the Jews love the same Russia that is so cruel toward them.
Some one's interests demand that the Jews should be oppressed, stabled in the "Pale of Settlement," limited in the right to education, and in other respects. But to whose interest is it? Russia's? Surely not.
Social relations in Russia, as in every civilised state, must rest on the immovable foundations of justice, reason, and conscience. All those persons who are united by the fact of their belonging to the Russian state must have, within the limits of the empire, the minimum of rights, which, to our shame, are refused the Jews. This minimum each one of us receives not for his personal or racial deserts or distinctive traits, but as a citizen of the state. To obey the common Russian laws, to pay the established taxes, to serve in the army,—all these are the duties of a Russian subject, corresponding to the amount of rights of which he can be deprived only by a court ruling for a crime.
A man not dishonoured by a court decision may not live where he wants to,—because he is a Jew; a boy who has not been dismissed from any school for deficiency or misconduct, may not enter the "gymnasium," where there are plenty of vacancies, but where the few vacancies set aside by a percentage rule for the Jewish brats, are eagerly filled by them; a soldier's wife may not visit her wounded and agonising husband because he happens to be dying outside the "Pale"; the deceased may not be buried in the town where he died, for he had no right of residence in that town,—what does all this mean? Who needs all this?
All these people are Russian subjects, not our enemies, and yet they are treated in this fashion. What is the purpose of it all? Is it in order to kindle among the Jews the fire of implacable hatred of Russia and turn them into our enemies? But then we must be logical and not tolerate them in the "Pale of Settlement"; we must exile or destroy them. But a civilised state will never persuade itself to commit such acts, inhuman though logical. And if it does not decide to do that, it must, for the sake of its safety and dignity, grant to every Russian citizen the elementary human rights. It is imperative that every Russian citizen should have every reason to love Russia and no right to hate her. If that portion of the Russian population which is deprived of rights still loves Russia, it is because the people of purely Russian extraction have no hatred for people of non-Russian birth, and our co-citizens are fully aware of it. They know that their disabilities are a burden to ourselves.
The removal of the Jewish disabilities is most imperatively dictated to us also by our dignity as a body politic. The name of Russian subject must be respected within our country, for otherwise the civilised world will not grow accustomed to respect Russia. Our country is feared for its military might and loved for the fine qualities of its people, but it will be respected only when it becomes a land of free men.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Several words here are crossed out by Russian censorship.—Translator's Note.
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ON NATIONALISM
Vladimir Sereyevich Solovyov is known to the world as the noblest and the most profound of Russian thinkers. The author of a large number of philosophical and theological treatises, he is also responsible for a slender volume of exquisite poems and a series of publicistic works, wherein the cause of progress is vigorously upheld. Solovyov was born in 1853 and died in 1900.
ON NATIONALISM
A speech delivered by Vladimir Solovyov at a University Dinner on February 8th, 1890
The dominating idea of the present time is the national idea. Of course, there is nothing bad about this. But the national idea as well as any other, can be very differently interpreted. The conception of nationalism which is very popular in our country reminds one of the famous answer made by a Hottentot to a missionary, who asked him whether he knows the difference between good and bad. "Sure I know," retorted the Hottentot. "Good—is when I steal other people's cattle and wives, and bad—when my own are stolen." In a like manner, many of our nationalists praise the love for their people and brand other people's patriotism as treason.
In spite of the wide diffusion of this view, I persist in my belief that the Russian national idea cannot be based on a Hottentot-like morality, that it cannot exclude the principles of justice and all-human solidarity. It is time that we should see the realisation of the true Russian idea and of all that it implies, namely: Poland's autonomy, Jewish equal rights and the untrammelled development of all the nationalities that people the Russian Empire.
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CONCERNING THE LEGAL STATUS OF THE JEWS
Count Ivan Ivanovich Tolstoy, born in 1858, occupied the post of Minister of Public Instruction at the time of Count Witte's premiership. In 1907 he was a candidate for election to the Duma, as deputy from Petrograd. A distinguished archeologist and connoisseur of art, he was for many years the vice-president of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts.
CONCERNING THE LEGAL STATUS OF THE JEWS
BY COUNT IVAN TOLSTOY
"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." (St. Matthew, 7, 12.) This is the divine law, which it is the task of every one who considers and feels himself a Christian to follow, and which should also be strictly observed by a State. Now, would any one of the Christians who owe their allegiance to the Russian state consent to be treated as the Jews are in Russia? Would he like to be confined within a certain definite zone of settlement, to be kept from giving his children an education, and to find himself excluded from many fields of honest and honourable endeavour? Would he like, all through his life to be humiliated before his co-citizens of other faith and birth?
You despise them, hate them, and accuse them of all that it may please any maniac or liar to invent about them. Yet you demand of the Jews that they should help you, when you stand in need of help. You, Jew-haters, serve somebody or something, but truly it is not God, it is not the cause of goodness that you are serving. In your blindness you harm, above all, yourself and our country, our dear, long-suffering Russia, whom the Jews, your co-citizens, love and cannot help loving more than you do. They know that Russia hates none of her faithful and loving children and that they are hated only by people, who, either by nature or because of a poor education, cannot exist without hating some one or something. By their deeds ye shall know them, these wolves disguised as sheep.
Combat evil and side with good, do good, and do not judge a man by the fact that his parents are Jewish or Christian, or that he was born into one faith or another. Remember that we are all born equally naked and that we must all die. Therefore, do not boast of your birth; bear firmly in mind that we are all equal before God, before Truth and that we must be equal before the Law.
As for the legal disabilities of a portion of citizens who are guilty of no crime,—such as injustice must be completely condemned. In practice, such a policy has always borne and always will bear fruits of evil. The very existence of such an injustice corrupts and puts in jeopardy the social body which tolerates it.... No benefits which may be derived by individual persons or social classes from an inequality of rights can justify the State in depriving a group of citizens of their full rights, as a result of their race and faith. This is the A-B-C of justice, and those who do not know it have yet to learn what justice is.
Neither are the Jews better than we are, nor are we better than they. We are all human beings and, as such, we must all be equal before the impartial and dispassionate Law, which determines our rights and duties towards the State and society. Good and bad people, I repeat, are everywhere, and the proportion is roughly the same among us as among them. Let us, therefore, strive for the realisation of justice on earth, and let us believe in the final triumph of truth. The rest will be added unto us. Without such a faith it is hard to live....
* * * * *
THE WOUNDED SOLDIER
THE WOUNDED SOLDIER
BY LEONID ANDREYEV
A sad and disquieting image often rises before my eyes.
It happened in Petrograd, on the staircase of a large, new building, one apartment of which was transformed into a private ward. When I entered the porter's lodge, on my way to a friend, I saw that it was filled with wounded soldiers, who had just arrived, while curious spectators crowded near the plate-glass door. The house was new and luxuriously furnished, and the elevator on which the wounded soldiers were taken up, was carefully covered with some kind of cloth, for fear that the velvet would be soiled and the insects would get into the seams. Upstairs the wounded were cordially greeted by a priest and a man dressed in white. After having kissed the priest's hand, the wounded, evidently embarrassed by the bright light and the luxury of the place, entered the ward awkwardly and silently. There were no seriously wounded on stretchers among them, all were able to walk; yet it was painful to look at them.
There was a wounded soldier in one of the last groups taken up by the elevator who strangely attracted everybody's attention. He was a short, young, lean, ghastly pale Jew. All the wounded were pale, but there was something sinister about the pallor of his face; it was a paleness of an utterly exhausted, anaemic or fatally sick man. He was walking alone, feebly moving his feet, and like everybody else bent to kiss the hand of the priest, but he hardly knew what he was doing, and his kiss was strangely indifferent and meaningless. He was evidently wounded in his arm, which he held stretched out. Several fingers were wrapped up, the others, which were not injured, were covered with a crust of dirt and blood. But on his coat, on the back, there was a large brown blotch of blood, a very large one, covering almost half of his back and in the midst of the soft cloth it bulged stiffly as if starched. And this horrible spot told the simple story of the battle and the wound. But it was not the stain that made him so peculiarly conspicuous—other soldiers had similar blotches—it was rather his unusual pallor, thinness and smallness, and, above all, an expression of peculiar timidity, as if he was not at all sure whether his behaviour was appropriate and whether he had come to the right place. The faces of the other wounded soldiers, non-Jews, expressed nothing of the kind. These men were confused, but not afraid, and walked straight ahead, into the ward.
And then I recollected how a military sanitarian, whose duty it is to escort a train of wounded soldiers, had told me that the wounded Jews actually try not to moan. It was hardly credible, and at first I did not believe it; how was it possible, that a wounded soldier, freshly picked up from the battlefield and lying among wounded soldiers should try not to moan, as all do? But the sanitarian confirmed his statement and added: they are afraid to attract attention to themselves.
The Jewish soldier entered the ward after the others, and the door was closed, but his image, sorrowful and disquieting, lingered before my eyes. Of course, he, too, tried not to attract attention—and therein is the cause of his shyness; and when his wound will be dressed and he will be put into bed, he will also try not to moan. For, what right has he to moan aloud?
It is very possible, that he has no right of settlement in Petrograd and is allowed to stay there only as one of the wounded; a rather precarious right! And that which is home for others is nothing but a kind of honourable imprisonment for him; he will be kept for a while, then they will let him go, saying: "Go away, you must not be here."
And what if his mother, or sister, or father, who also have no right of settlement, will desire to come to him and kiss his bloodstained hand which has defended Russia—vague, distant Russia? But these reflections and questions came to my mind later. At the moment, I beheld, with the eyes of a peaceful citizen, the bloody, hardened blotch and the dreadful pallor of war, and the needless terror before that which, after all, is your own, and I felt an overwhelming depression and sadness.
* * * * *
HOW TO HELP?
Catherine Kuskova is a journalist and social worker of considerable note.
HOW TO HELP?
BY CATHERINE KUSKOVA
Lord, what a familiar sight! How many times have we seen it during the last nine or ten months.... And every time you blush with shame and you have the feeling of being overcome and petrified in the face of the incomprehensible, elemental catastrophe.
The train slowly pulls up to the high structure of the station. The scene is laid in one of the towns of the Western section. Faces of passengers, restless, way-worn, sickly, are seen in the windows. The cars are over-crowded beyond all measure. There are many black-eyed children, with curly black locks, and also old people, decrepit with age. The railway platform is crowded with Jewish youths, with representatives of the Jewish community, and a mass of curious people who eagerly scan the newcomers. A large crowd of passengers emerge from the cars rapidly and in disorder. They are Jews deported from the zone of military operations. The local Jewish community had been notified by a telegram and now they are meeting the newcomers.
The community has seen to it that hot tea, bread, and milk for the children is served to the deported right at the station. A most timely measure! Many of them had had no time even to take food along; they were deported on short notice, and, besides, a family is allowed to carry no more than forty pounds of luggage. What is forty pounds for a family often very large? They can hardly afford to take some underwear and warm clothes.... Behind each family there remained a home, probably a store, a stand, a workshop or simply a sewing-machine, the sole source of income.... All are equal now in this dreadful train, which carries them away from home, naked wrecks of humanity, torn from their customary course of life and deprived of the daily toil, which fed the family. And what a terror it is to look into their eyes. It is plainly written in them: "This is nothing, the worst is still to come."
They sat down on the benches in the waiting room, and started drinking tea, and eating.
"Well, you are feeding your spies, eh?" suddenly remarks a porter, addressing a representative of the Jewish community. The latter grows pale, shivers, and quickly moves away. What, indeed, could one answer? How does this great migration of a people impress an unsophisticated brain? If the entire population leaves a district the matter is clear; the place must be evacuated before the enemy. But the trains loaded with Jews do not come from districts already occupied by the foe. How else can a plain man construe this fact than that the Jews are spies, dangerous people, in short, our internal enemy? And so this one-year-old baby whose puffed-up, tiny hand hangs down from its mother's shoulder is also an enemy, just as is this sad girl wearily skulking in a corner, and this old man with his shaking head and wrinkled hands,—all these are our enemies, otherwise why should they have been deported before the arrival of the foe? Why such a peculiar selection of the passengers of the dreadful trains? I go from one porter to another, asking them who was brought on. The answer is the same: "Jews, spies...." The very arrival of such a train engenders an ill feeling toward the entire Jewish nation,—and how many such trains have arrived here lately! And if you were to stop and ask who established the guilt of these people, and whether it is thinkable that all these tens of thousands of men, women, and children should have been caught red-handed, no one will stop to listen to you. A Jew is a spy,—this is the only impression that becomes indelibly branded in the brains of the Russian population which witnesses the new tragedy of the Jewish nation. The effect of the passage of these trains is truly terrible, it is a series of systematic object-lessons of hatred....
When the crowd has quenched its hunger and thirst, a new problem presents itself: how to transport all this mass to the town and give them shelter. For this purpose a number of carriages are kept in readiness. The coachmen, all of them Jews, load the miserable luggage and try to accommodate the old, the sick, and the children. Now and then a bearded, husky driver would wipe away a tear; to one side, Jewish women weep frankly. The sorrowful procession sets out for the town. There the refugees will once more have to meet the Russians and endure questionings, insulting remarks and slaps in the face.... Will the Jewish nation stand all this?
Yes, it will undoubtedly stand this frightful trial. There is something in its inner nature that enables it to hold out under the most terrible conditions.
At the house of a representative of the Jewish community, I find several people who handle the transportation and distribution of the deported Jews.
"How many people have passed through your hands?"
"Several thousand. We get word by telegraph from the centres of deportation as to how many people we should keep and how many send further."
"Where do you get the means necessary for these operations?"
"The entire Jewish population of our town has imposed upon itself a systematic refugee tax. This source furnishes us 3,000 rubles monthly. Of course this is very little, ours is a poor town. Then we get financial aid from the Jewish communities, which do not have to help the deported directly. We have received several thousand rubles from Smolensk, Petrograd, Moscow, and elsewhere."
"And how about the Russian population, does it render you any assistance?"
"No, its attitude toward the deported is at best indifferent, and at worst hostile."
"And the Jews, do they not protest against this new tax?"
"Oh, no, not in the least. You have no idea to what an extent the feeling of solidarity grows among us in such cases. Here is an instance. A train with the deported arrived here yesterday. It was Saturday. That is, as you know, a sacred day for the Jews. Nevertheless, all our Jewish coachmen came to the station to take the newcomers to the town. We have asked them to come to-day to get paid for their services. Not one of them appeared. And so it has been all along. There is not a Jewish coachman in the town who would take money in such a case. On the contrary, they would be insulted if they were not asked to do their bit. When the first train arrived, the present self-taxation was not yet in existence. We received the telegram suddenly. Nothing was in readiness. Our young people got busy and started canvassing the Jewish houses. And at once people brought all they could: tea, sugar, eggs, milk. We met the hungry ones with full hands. No, we cannot complain against the Jews; they do all they can, even the poorest."
The representative shows me a heap of telegrams. Their contents are brief: "To Rabbi so-and-so. Meet 900; meet 1000; meet 1100." Only the numbers differ....
"And where do you house those who remain here?"
"Well, we accommodate them in the Jewish school, in private homes, in rooms hired for the purpose. But here we met with a new obstacle. Our town is situated on the left bank of the river Dnyepr. Now a new order was issued to the effect that the deported should settle exclusively on the left bank. We had trouble enough, I warrant you. Fortunately, the local authorities have shown us some consideration and postponed the second deportation.... But to entrain worn-out people and send them anew into the unknown,—it is painful even to imagine it. Think of it: to grow accustomed to the place, to the people who take care of you,—and then again a train, a flashing of a station, and the final outrage of the arrival. Many say: 'Better to die than to resume our road again.'
"But we are forced to send them further, although nowadays it is hard to place the deported; all the towns are crowded, the congestion leads to diseases. Here, too, we have had several deaths...."
"Tell me," I said finally, "but you know, at least approximately, why these people are deported? It is impossible that this should be done for no earthly reason, simply because they happen to be Jews...."
How great was my repentance that I put this naive question! I shall never, never forget the eyes which turned on me. There was in them a burning pain and another question: "Yes, for what crime? If we only knew it.... Perhaps, you will tell us? You are a Russian, you are in a better position to know...."
I got up quickly, shook hands, and left in silence, with a feeling of repulsion for myself and shame for my helplessness....
* * * * *
THE HOMELESS ONES
Sergey Yakovlevich Yelpatyevsky is a popular writer of realistic, and humanitarian tales and sketches. In his youth he was exiled to Siberia, and in 1910 he was imprisoned. He was born in 1854.
THE HOMELESS ONES
BY S. YELPATYEVSKY
I
A party of Jews was brought to the province of Tavrida. Officially they are called "the deported"; the newspapers refer to them as "the homeless ones." At first came three thousand Jews from the province of Kovno. They were followed by Kurland Jews, and now about seven thousand Jews have been settled in the government of Tavrida. Other parties are expected....
They had wandered a long time before they reached their new place of residence. Obviously, the authorities who handled the deportation thought only of how to get rid of the Jews, and those on whom the newcomers were thrust had not been informed in time and did not know how to arrange to take care of them.
The first party, three thousand strong, stayed a while at Melitopol, then they were transported to Simferopol where they remained five days, and were finally distributed over the towns and townlets of northern Crimea.
It is told that one of the parties was assigned to Yekaterinoslav, but the authorities refused to accept the people and ordered them to proceed further. The local papers report that a group of deported Jews was transported from Pavlograd to Jankoy, then, according to an instruction from the Ministry of the Interior they were shipped to Voronezh....
There are many old men and women, many girls and mothers, and a large number of children in the party which has been brought here. All of them are miserable and exhausted, a number are ill, either because they had been sick when the catastrophe overtook them or because they fell ill on the way, and there are many pregnant women among them. As a result of their long wanderings, wives have lost their husbands and mothers their children and they eagerly question everybody about those dear to them.
Little has been written in the newspapers about the Jews deported from the zone of military activities, and so far little has been heard of either the state or the social organisations coming to the assistance of these "war sufferers," who feel the burden of war even more heavily than those who fled from the war-stricken districts on their own account. There was a vague statement that the Pirogov Society is aiding the Jews deported to the Government of Poltava and that meagre sums were contributed by the Union of Towns and the Ministry of the Interior,—that is all the newspapers have so far reported.
The burden of taking care of the newcomers fell entirely on the local Jewish communities. It was a heavy burden, for there are no more than about twenty thousand Jewish families in the entire government of Tavrida. These twenty thousand families had to take care and to support seven thousand homeless people, mostly small tradesmen and peddlers who had had no time to liquidate their businesses and who could not take along any property, for bedding was the only thing they were allowed to carry.
They had to find housing facilities in all haste, to organise transportation and medical aid, and to solve the food and employment problems. An attempt was made to utilise the deported in agriculture, in which labour is nowadays exceedingly scarce in Crimea. But the old people and the children are not fit for agricultural work and it would take too long to train the able-bodied women. On the other hand, the largest and more prosperous Crimean towns, such as Simferopol and Sebastopol, Yalta, Yevpatoria, and Theodosia, where the deported Jews could easily find employment, are closed to the newcomers. Only the smaller and poorer towns and townlets where even the local Jews can scarcely get employment, are put at the disposal of the newcomers as their places of residence. There was even a project to settle a portion of these people in the city of Perekop. This town counts only one Jewish family among its population. It consists of a prison and several deserted shanties, and reminds one of that legendary Siberian town, which was made up of a single pillar erected as an indication of the site where the city was supposed to stand.
The local Jewish communities spend about fifty thousand rubles monthly on feeding the deported. This sum does not include the expenses of transportation and housing. The local communities applied to the Petrograd Committee, but it took upon itself only fifteen thousand rubles. The remaining thirty-five thousand are contributed by the Jews, who have also to support their specific cultural institutions as well as municipal institutions of a general character.
The representatives of the Simferopol Jewish community applied to the Governor of Tavrida for financial help. I do not know whether they were successful. Meanwhile, other parties of deported Jews are expected here, and how the Jews will be able to handle them, is more than I can tell.
The War has ruined many homes and made many men, women, and children homeless. But it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that fate has been most ruthless to these deported Jews. The so-called "refugees," after all, acted freely; they brought with them, if not what they wanted at least what they had time, what they were able to take; they could go wherever there was work. The refugees were everywhere welcomed and helped by both the authorities and the public organisations. Special days for the soliciting of donations were appointed and large sums collected. Wherever they went people tried to alleviate their sufferings. But the deportation of the Jews took place as if on the sly, without attracting any one's attention, without engaging the sympathies of the people at large to the degree which might be expected.
The deported proved a heavy burden not only for the Jewish but also for the Gentile population of the humble villages of the government of Tavrida, which were flooded by the newcomers. The prices of food, and the rent soared up, and competition among tradesmen and small merchants grew more ruthless,—in a word, life here became much harder than the War alone would have made it.
II
As one observes these throngs of old men, children and pregnant women who are deported and tossed from one end of the country to the other, simply because they are Jews, one wonders to whom it brings profit or happiness. It is clear that it does no one any good and no one finds this wholesale deportation either just or necessary.
"In discussing the deportation of Jews the Minister of the Interior pointed out that this measure was not justified by the actual behaviour of the Jewish population, which is in general loyal to the country and cannot bear responsibility for the actions of criminal individuals, of whom unfortunately no nationality is free" (Yuzhnyia Vyedomosti, No 10). The same communication contains the following statements: "It was asserted that the wholesale accusation of the Jews as traitors is wholly groundless.... In view of this the council of Ministers, by an overwhelming majority, decided to make intercession to put an end to the deportation of the Jews."
Whether the Council of Ministers has interceded and whether its efforts were crowned with success,—I know not. The papers published several orders whereby separate groups of deported Jews were permitted to return to their former places of residence,—for instance, the deported Galician Jews were allowed to return to Galicia,—but there was no general rescript which would put an end to the deportation....
The wholesale deportation of the Jews caused a great perplexity among the population of Crimea. Even people who are not over-sensitive to problems of truth and justice and whose sympathies are far from being broad, show signs of being stirred up. Suppose the Council of Ministers is mistaken, they say, and the presence of the Jews in the governments of Kovno and Kurland is really a danger for the State, but then do not Germans live in those provinces, in even larger numbers than Jews? Time and again we read in the newspapers of the friendly reception of the German armies by the German population of Kurland. There were also registered cases where penalties were imposed on individual persons who either showed too great an enthusiasm for the German troops or rendered them material services. Nevertheless, nothing was heard about the German population of the Government of Kurland being deported in a wholesale manner,—at least, not a single train with Kurland Germans has reached Crimea.
On the other hand,—so thinking people keep on arguing,—if the Jews have proved to be more German than the Germans themselves, and the Teutonic population of Kurland act like loyal Russian subjects, why then liquidate the land owned by the Crimean Germans, who have been living in Crimea for more than a century, who have never shown any disloyalty to Russia, who, furthermore, are separated from the German frontier by thousands of versts and who are, therefore, by no means able to inform the Germans from Germany about the movement of our troops in the provinces of Kurland and Kovno.
And once more rises the question: "In whose interests is all this done?"
The matter has also another aspect. How many Jews were deported—tens or hundreds of thousands—no one knows exactly; but seeing the large masses which are being shifted from place to place, people wonder how many cars were necessary to transport all these throngs. And then it occurs to them that all these trains could bring in enormous cargoes of coal, sugar, kerosene and other wares which are so badly needed here, and carry away grain and fruit, which are needed elsewhere, thus making life more livable in many corners of our vast country.
And people who have the enviable capacity of not losing their equanimity under any circumstances, remark that in this fashion the Jewish problem is being settled and the Pale of Settlement removed.
"Here already the provinces of Voronezh and Penza are opened to Jews.... Little by little all of Russia will be opened up...."
* * * * *
THE JEW
Mikail Petrovich Artzibashef, the author of Sanine was born in the year 1878 in Southern Russia. He is widely read both in his own country and outside of its borders. In 1905 he took part in the revolutionary movement, and was indicted, but escaped punishment because of the temporary success of the popular movement at the end of that year.
THE JEW
(A STORY)
BY M. ARTZIBASHEF
It so happened that the second platoon of the third squad of the Ashkadar regiment found itself completely cut off from the main body of the army, and this without the loss of a single cartridge or soldier.
How this came about, and why a group of men, fifteen or twenty strong, had suddenly become an independent fighting unit, none of them could tell.
At the outset, the entire Ashkadar regiment zealously trudged throughout the long autumn night along an interminable road, leading no one knew where, into the dark, damp, and hostile distance. To smoke or to converse was forbidden. In the dark, the black mass of the regiment, bristling with its bayonets like some huge, porcupine-like creature, crawled steadily onward, filling the air with the shuffling of innumerable feet. The men kept stumbling over each other, and swore viciously in half tones; they slipped in the mud and sank knee-deep into the wheel-tracks filled with cold water. "Some road!" they sighed quietly.
At dawn the regiment was brought to a halt and was stretched along the edge of a wide potato field, which the soldiers had never seen before. It was drizzling with sickening persistence, and the dark-blue distances, mildly sloping and mournful, were blurred in the haze of the rain. On both sides, as far as eye could reach, ranks of grey officers and soldiers were wretchedly soaking in the rain. Water was dripping from their sullen faces and it looked as though they were all weeping over their fate—the fate which had cast them upon this strange, unknown, God-forsaken field. In a few hours many of them will perhaps be lying dead amidst the half-rotted potato stems on the wet soil with their pallid faces upturned to the cold heavens, the very ones which now weep also over their dear, distant country.
Behind, a battery crew was vainly attempting to set the cannon which were sinking into the soaked plough-land. One could hear the hoarse angry voices, the cracking of whips, and the heavy, strained snorting of horses. In front of them lone officers wandered in drenched cloaks in the rain; still farther behind the curtain of rain and the thick fog there rumbled cannons and it was impossible to tell whether they belonged to the enemy or not. At times the shooting seemed to come from afar-off on the right. Then the rumble of the guns was deep and muffled like the sound of heavy iron balls rolling over the ground; at other times, the discharges were quite near and rent the air with a crash, bursting over the men's very heads, as it were.
The commander of the squad stood right in front of his men and kept lighting cigarettes shielding them with the skirts of his cloak. He did it so often that it seemed as if he had been vainly attempting to light the same cigarette for the last three hours. The soldiers were attentively looking at his back and were all morbidly anxious to help him. It was cold and damp, and they felt an incessant, nauseating gnawing in the pit of the stomach. It was not fear but an indefinite anguish, a sort of the-sooner-over-the-better feeling.
Several hours passed in this manner, but towards noon it all changed abruptly. Though the sky was still as grey as before and it drizzled continuously, it grew lighter, the clouds in one spot became white and shining and one felt that the sun was somewhere behind them. But amidst this cold white light a disquieting feeling pervaded the atmosphere and the gnawing anxiety was turning into unbearable agony. Suddenly, an aide-de-camp dashed past on a horse, covered with froth and fuzzy with dampness. Officers began to scurry back and forth; sharp commands were heard; and the bugles resounded.
"Well, comrades!" ... said some one in the ranks in a high, false tone of voice. Every one heard this exclamation and understood it, but no one turned around to see where it came from. The grey mass of people suddenly stirred, gave a sigh, surged like the sea whipped by a gale, and, sinking at each step into the mud, the entire regiment rolled forward, over the expanse of the shoreless fields which now suddenly looked strange and dreadful. The soldiers, their faces haggard and queer, were crossing themselves as they ran. They marched in disorder, and when they were stopped on the hill-crest, they turned the regiment into a confused mob of breathless and perplexed men. Some even forgot to lower their rifles.
Before them the hazy network of rain was still hanging and the distances stretched, strange and hostile. But now the fields were astir with flickering pale flames and a ceaseless scattered cracking of guns. In the grey sky a small black dot was discernible, seemingly motionless, but changing in size. When it grew larger, a faint buzzing was heard from above and made the soldiers turn their grey, ghastly faces upward.... Then a mighty buzzing suddenly resounded behind the regiment, and a Russian aeroplane flew over the heads of the men like a drenched bird. As the aeroplane rose higher and higher, the soldiers watched the distance between it and the small black dot far up in the sky grow smaller and smaller.
Voices were now heard from the ranks and when the black dot was rapidly beginning to grow smaller, sinking, as it were, in the sky and approaching the horizon, those voices became loud and gay.
"He don't like it, what! See him run for his life! Well done! Fine fellows!" ... was heard along the ranks.
The soldiers suddenly became lively and for a moment forgot about themselves and the uncertain fate that was in store for them.
"Why not put you on that aeroplane, Yermilich!... You'd be quite handy at it, wouldn't you!" the soldiers were poking fun at each other.
All at once a confused many-voiced cry and a disorderly crackling of rifles was heard ahead of them; then a crowd of soldiers came running from that direction, at first singly, then in groups, and finally in a mass. They belonged to another regiment of the same division. One could discern from afar their wide-open eyes, rounded mouths, and an expression of frantic terror on their pale faces.
The officers of the Ashkadar regiment, waving their swords and yelling something indistinct, were running over the washed-out field to meet the running men, but the grey crowd momentarily knocked them down, trampled upon them, completely covered them, and mingled itself with the Ashkadar men. And everything that, but a while ago, was so clear and important now became confused and meaningless.
Like the waters that wash off a dam pierced in but a single point, even so did the running soldiers confuse and sweep away the regiment. The Ashkadar men themselves were partly infected by the panic and began to run they knew not why, apparently possessed by that mysterious power which is transmitted from man to man and which pushes one from behind and compels him to run farther and farther, aimlessly and blindly.
The entire mass of men started down the slope, but having encountered the battery with a crew yelling and waving their hands, it swerved aside. Then as this mass ran into the regular line of soldiers, who were rapidly coming to meet them, their rifles carried at charge, it threw itself to one side, then to the other, then backwards and forwards and finally scattered over the fields, filling the air with mad outcries and disorderly shooting. It was at that very time that the second platoon of the third squad strayed from its regiment and its officers. Seventeen in all, instinctively keeping together, they found themselves outside of the battle-field in a narrow loamy ravine overgrown with dwarfish trees. The ravine was deep and had washed-out clay slopes. High above it stretched a muddy, uneven strip of grey sky, which poured an unceasing rain upon the soaked red clay, upon the small wet birch trees, and the group of soldiers, who had lost their way and driven by inertia were hurrying further downward.
The soldiers, all reservists, were thick-set, bearded and pock-marked peasants from the governments of Kostroma and Novgorod and among them, was a dark little Jew, Hershel Mak, who alone thought and planned for the rest of them. All these country people taken right from the plough were unable to grasp how it all happened, and were not even sure whether anything had happened at all. They could not tell whether there was a battle or not, whether it was good or bad to be left without officers in this confounded ravine, and what would come of it all. Only Hershel Mak understood that there was a battle, that the front ranks came right under the crossfire of the machine-guns, that a panic resulted and that the Ashkadar regiment was knocked off its feet by a crowd of runaways. He knew that the regiment was broken up without a shot and that now they were left to their own fate, in a place which might well be within the very centre of the enemy's position. Hershel Mak was well aware of the fact that for the present no one would or could worry about them and that they must alone disentangle themselves from this mess,—and his versatile mind began at once to work to the utmost of its ability.
The rain was rushing in murmuring streams down the slopes of the ravine and along its bottom, and the noise of the water drowned the crackling of the machine-guns and the thundering of the cannon. The ravine extended further down, and apparently into the forest, for the trees were becoming thicker, and on the ground a deep layer of half-decayed leaves was mingled with the clay. Once or twice, a heavy buzzing was heard overhead, and the soldiers involuntarily lifted their eyes, but there was no aeroplane in sight, and one could not tell whether it was the enemy or not.
Hershel Mak was walking behind the others, and was deep in thought.
"What are we going to do when we meet the enemy? When we were with the regiment, we knew what to do.... But we don't know the high military rules! Maybe, we shouldn't fight at all,—maybe, according to the high military rules it is necessary to retreat a bit?... How is one to tell I'd like to know."
Just then on the opposite bank of the stream which in its overflowing formed shallow muddy puddles something dark began to flicker among the trees, and the enemy soldiers in light grey cloaks, and varnished helmets protected with linen covers came forward. This was an enemy detachment which had also strayed away from its regiment. A non-commissioned officer, husky and red-bearded, was in charge of it. The Germans' gait was also uncertain. They walked with rifles carried at charge, timidly looking about and were just going to stop to talk over their situation, when they noticed the reddish-grey cloaks and the bayonets.
"Halt!" yelled out a flaxen-haired Kostroma peasant.
He did it so forcefully that two crows flew off in fright and rose high above the ravine.
Hershel Mak nearly fell into the water. The red and the grey soldiers separated by about fifty steps and a small, turbid, rain-beaten rivulet were eyeing each other with amazement rather than with terror. Thin scattered cries of terror and dismay were heard from the other side, and all at once it grew still with an ominous strained stillness.
"Listen ... eh," ... whispered Hershel Mak, touching the gun of the Kostroma reservist. But at this very moment, the soldiers as if in response to a command stepped back a pace or two, got down on their knees and an uneven crackling of guns rent the damp air.
The flaxen-haired Kostroma peasant and another soldier, a father of a large family, nick-named "uncle," threw up their arms and fell heavily upon the soaked clay.
The first was killed on the spot, but as to the "uncle," he clutched his abdomen, sat up and began to howl in a thin, piercing voice: "Bro-o-thers!"
And the soldiers were seized with a savage anger, immense and terrible, similar to the nervous fury with which one tramples upon a snake. Scattered bullets began flying amidst the wet trees, and wild outcries filled the air. The bullets hissed far over the forest and sank with a swish into the clay; birch leaves, quietly circling, were falling to the ground where three light-grey figures were writhing in convulsions of pain and horror.
The husky non-commissioned officer was the first among these to cease stirring. He lay there with his face stuck in the cold mud of the stream. A volley of bullets, still more uneven than the first answered it, and presently single shots, interrupted by furious outcries of pain, by groans of the wounded and rattling of the dying came from both sides.
Pale flames flickered everywhere; the bark was being ripped from the small birch trees; here and there were seen ghastly distorted faces and shivering hands hurriedly fussing with the guns. The biting odour of blood and gun-powder filled the air, and a bluish smoke rose slowly to the sky, passing through the twigs shivering, as it were, with fear, and under the birches there lay two groups of men, charging their guns, shooting, slaying one another, and strewing the wet earth with crippled, writhing, moaning bodies. |
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