When political assembly became possible, some Jewish leaders in Russia organized a coalition of political groups to the right of the revolutionaries. The organization called itself The League for the Attainment of Full Rights for the Jewish People in Russia, or the “League” for short.³² The League was formed in spring 1905, impelled by the belief that Jews, as a small minority, had little influence over the country’s political path. Thus, it made sense for Jewish political groups to join together. Of course, even a coalition could not attain power on its own— Jews would still need non-Jewish allies—but the goal was to make the best of a politically weak position. With regard to specific issues, coalitions could produce powerful lobbies. In fact, some Kadets complained about “unreasonable Jewish demands.”³³

      Although other ethnic and religious groups faced government discrimination, Jews were the worst off. Thus, they had much to gain from political reforms that granted them the right to vote. Although the government had failed them, perhaps they could attain equal rights through democracy by lobbying among other (voting) groups in society.

      However, the organization’s leaders chose to use the appellation “full rights” in the League’s title because, in addition to equal rights as citizens, they hoped to acquire additional national rights.³⁴ Those included government schools for Jews in a Jewish language, and other institutions: a Jewish theater, libraries, and so forth. Leaders wanted the government to fund these from general tax revenues in addition to the special Jewish taxes.

      The League reflected an alliance of liberals and nationalists that was not uncommon. From the mid-1890s through the second Duma, Jewish non-Marxists made common cause with Russian liberals. Marxists were the internal political enemy. The goal of the League was to offer the Jewish masses an alternative to Marxism (the Bund as well as the Russian Socialist Democratic Labor Party). Thus the first meeting in Vilna brought together uncomfortable allies and produced a platform that was reluctantly agreed to in the face of the common foes.

      Until October 1905, the word on the street had been “no enemies on the left”—everyone fought tsarism. Nicholas II drove a wedge into the broad camp in October with his manifesto. Jewish liberals (Maxim Vinaver) and Zionists (Shmarya Levin) stayed with the Kadets, but broke over the question of whether the twelve Jews elected to the first Duma would be a single, united faction, or merely an interest group, each member free to vote as he wished on any issue. Still, Kadets were seen as supporting Jewish rights. For example, Kadet leaders wanted to send a delegation to Bialystok in the summer of 1906 to investigate the pogrom that had taken place there but were thwarted by the government.

      Because its members had different goals, the League was vulnerable to dissolution. Indeed, the breakup occurred in late 1906, when it became clear that the organization’s basic goals could not be fulfilled.³⁵ The mission to find common cause ran aground on the shoals of ideological and tactical disagreement. For starters, the parties to the left of the Trudoviki (a small non-Marxist, pro-agrarian party) such as the Bund, did not participate because they opposed any non-class-based political actions. But even without them, liberals and so-called nationalists (including Zionists) faced challenges. Foremost was the question of compromise: What kinds of compromises could be justified, and which issues would lead to endless squabbles that risked the life of the League?

      The League met four times in the course of nearly two years, and its membership rose from five thousand to almost ten thousand. The first meeting, in Vilna, in March 1905, set the tone for the future. Sixty-seven Jewish representatives from over thirty different Jewish communities gathered “to participate in organizing a Jewish political lobby that would advocate Jewish interests and concerns before the bar of progressive Russian opinion.”³⁶ Alexander Orbach explains the organization’s two goals: “(1) The relationship of the Jews to general society—here, of course, the need for full and equal rights for Jews became the central plank of the League’s program—and (2) The nature of Jewish identity and Jewish communal structure within a newly democratized, reformed Russia.”³⁷

      The largest group in the League, Jewish liberals, emphasized the need for unity under their leadership. The revolution was proceeding apace, and since liberals appeared to have the most popular support, it made sense to follow their lead. The liberal position was best articulated in the speeches and writings of the Jewish leader Maxim Vinaver. According to Viktor Kel’ner, “During the course of his entire life he defended the idea that Russian Jewry could attain equal rights only on condition of the complete support of Russian liberalism.”³⁸

      However, by the League’s second meeting, in November 1905, much had changed. Although Nicholas II’s manifesto on October 15, 1905, had confirmed new political rights for the state’s subjects, including the establishment of a legislative Duma, mass pogroms had broken out in the Pale of Settlement. A description is offered by Nahum Sokolow:

      [It] was one of the ans terribles in the annals of Jewish history. It was a year of bloodshed and terror. Not even the dark ages extracted so heavy a toll of Jewish blood: something like 1,400 pogroms took place all over the Ghetto. In many districts the Jewish population was completely exterminated. The number of persons directly affected, that is to say of those whose houses, shops, or factories were the objects of attack and pillage, reached a total of some 200,000 to 250,000. To this number must be added that of the clerks, workmen, etc., indirectly affected by the destruction of factories and shops, which could not be ascertained. The casualty list was estimated at approximately 20,000 murdered and 100,000 injured.³⁹

      The violence led many Jews to question the value of an alliance with Russians, even with Russian liberals. Orbach describes the atmosphere: “Emotions were running high, and the mood was extremely bitter and angry as some seventy representatives from thirty different locations gathered in St. Petersburg for the second Congress of the League for the Attainment of Full Rights for the Jews of Russia on November 22, 1905 (O.S.). In fact, the expectation was that many more delegates would have come, but the fear of traveling through the countryside in those violent days kept attendance down.”⁴⁰

      Jabotinsky’s