Vladimir Jabotinsky's Russian Years, 1900-1925. Brian J. Horowitz
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that the Russian intelligentsia had abandoned Jews. Although Jews had supported the liberals in the struggle against the ruling power, they had received little in return. In fact, as Ahad-Ha’am had claimed, it seemed that the tsarist government had offered the Russian people a deal: they were permitted to beat Jews in exchange for withdrawing demands for political reform.41 Semyon Dubnov agreed, saying that 1905 resembled 1648 more than 1848.42 (1648 was the tragic year of the Chmelnitsky rebellion in Ukraine; 1848 was the year of the Spring of Nations, the partially successful revolutions in France, Germany, and Hungary.) In this complicated time, Jabotinsky gave a talk in St. Petersburg, where he chastised the Russian intelligentsia.43 He said that he could bear the violence against Jews by the reactionaries but was disturbed by the workers’ abandonment.44 “People have tried to comfort us by telling us that there were no workers among those who murdered us. Perhaps. Perhaps it was not the proletariat who made pogroms on us. But what the proletariat did to us was something worse than that: they forgot us. That is the real pogrom.”45
Once again Jabotinsky tried to separate Jews and non-Jews, to break the domination of the workers’ movement, and point out that the promises of the proletariat were empty because the interests of Jews and non-Jews differed. However, it was something of a topos to claim, as Jews often did, that the lack of support from liberal Russia hurt more than the actual violence committed by antisemitic thugs and political reactionaries.46 Incidentally, the revolutionary press of the time wrote a lot against the pogroms; they assumed that this would stop the revolution. The intelligentsia protested as well. Some non-Jewish revolutionary workers took a very active part in self-defense. On the other hand, there was a general feeling of embarrassment, since the pogromists were in fact mainly workers and peasants, who also attacked students, revolutionary workers, and anybody wearing glasses.
This speech presaged the soon-to-be screaming matches over the Jewish-liberal alliance. At the League’s second meeting, in November 1905, Jabotinsky proposed negotiating a new compact to reflect the realization that Russian society had promoted pogroms. He described a trade-off: “The Russian Revolution will cost us a river of Jewish blood; we do not want to buy Russian freedom at such an expensive price! And what then? Are there really those among you, respectable people and friends, who are honest, who are unafraid to look at truth directly and have the courage to announce that this has not happened?”47 According to Jabotinsky, the relationship of Jews and the revolution could be compared to two works of Russian literature, “Attalea Princeps” by Vsevolod Garshin and Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin’s The Golovlev Family.
In the Garshin story, the protagonist, Attalea Princeps, has a dream of freedom, but when she shatters the glass ceiling, she is stung with thousands of shards. “For years we ran towards the light, towards open space, into the sunshine. And when the dawn of liberation flickered for the Russian people, an overcast and gloomy day met us Jews. Before us appeared dark and bloody clouds, eclipsing the last ray of the sun.”48 The Saltykov-Shchedrin tale is a little different and depicts a suicide pact in which Yudushka’s cousins take poison, while the other backs out. The Jews, in this conceit, are like the latter: they do not commit suicide despite having promised to do so. In both of these stories, Jabotinsky expresses the view that the alliance with Russians and support for the revolution have left Jews worse off than they were before.
Jews were indeed paying a high price, but they were not a sacrificial lamb. The situation was more complex, and I suspect Jabotinsky knew this. For one thing, his interpretation makes the Jews unwitting victims of the revolution and denies the fact that Jews willingly joined, hoping to attain freedom. Additionally, part of his approach was calculated to gain political advantage for Zionism from whatever circumstances arose. If the Jewish public lost confidence in the revolutionaries, perhaps they would defect to the Zionists.
On the question of political direction, the main difference was that now, after the October pogroms, Jabotinsky rejected the position that only a coalition with Russians would ameliorate the Jewish condition. Jabotinsky proposed an “internal politics,” a go-it-alone strategy to improve those aspects of life that Jews do, in fact, control. “Our main and primary task is to assemble and come to an agreement to receive orders from the whole Jewish people. We need to focus our entire strength on the only brand of politics accessible to us, internal politics. I do not insist upon a name, but above all we need a genuine, nationwide Jewish assembly, not a surrogate. The call for the constituent assembly must come first and must be, perhaps, the only task that we need to lay before the new central bureau.”49
Jabotinsky conceived of Jewish political autonomy as a voluntary institution in which members would fulfill essential state functions. In contrast to cultural autonomy, as understood by the Bund, Jabotinsky’s was closer to national “self-management.”50 Jewish autonomy enjoyed popularity, and every Jewish political group took a stab at constructing its own ideas. Semyon Dubnov, the Jewish historian and leading theorist of the Folkspartey, had his version, the Bund had their version, and the Vozrozhdentsy had theirs.51 Jabotinsky, inspired by fellow Zionists—Idel’son, Ussishkin, Shmarya Levin—offered his as well.52
At the February 1906 meeting, discussions circled around the question of whether Jews should participate in elections to the first Duma. The leftist parties boycotted the elections. What would the League do? Despite his refrain about “internal politics,” Jabotinsky favored participation because he believed that it would be wrong not to try to win power.53 After all, Jews made up 4 percent of the population: they had a right to representation. With the Duma containing over five hundred seats, if Jews won proportionately, the number of Duma seats would be over twenty. At the same time, Jabotinsky reported the threats of antisemites in Odessa, who promised pogroms if Jewish candidates ran and if Jews came out to vote. But, he noted, they might use violence in any case. Therefore, he saw nothing to gain by yielding to threats. Jabotinsky was in the majority; most, if not all, of the leaders concurred, and League members encouraged Jews to vote.
The Jewish representatives elected to the Duma in 1905–6 were faced with a more divisive issue. Of course, they should consult on questions affecting Jews, but were they free to vote their conscience on other legislation? And what about alliances with parties of the right; would those be permitted? A heated debate ensued, with liberals aghast at the idea of Jewish collaboration with “pogrom-makers” and Zionists defending any alliance that would produce positive results. Zionists justified their position by noting that the real goal was not to form permanent relationships, but to leave Russia and build a national home in Palestine. The controversy died down somewhat when the results of the elections to the First Duma appeared, showing that Jews had finished with only twelve seats. Moreover, not a single Jew was elected from Congress Poland.54
The liberals were blamed for the lackluster results, since they dominated the League and had pushed hard for a Russian-Jewish alliance. At the League’s last meeting, in November 1906, after the tsar’s closing of the First Duma, Zionists called for the abrogation of the Russian-Jewish pact, insisting on going it alone. The League fell apart.
In the historical literature, most scholars have accused Zionists of seeking the League’s dissolution until they attained it.55 Zionists launched the “fatal” blow to the Union for Full Rights when, at their congress in Helsingfors, they decided to act independently in Russian political life—and in elections as well.56 However, according to Viktor Kel’ner, a historian of Russian liberalism, the Zionists were merely a symptom; the League was breaking apart because all the groups chose party interests over collective goals. He writes, “Zionist tactics only nudged the League towards dissolution. In fact, at its core there had long been several groups that had their own conception of the correct path for the struggle to attain equal rights. Practically at the same time, the Jewish People’s Group, the Jewish Democratic Group, and the Volkspartei were formed.” In other words, “The split was caused by general political tendencies inherent . . . in the period of the defeat of democracy during the events of 1905–07.”57 As a result of the League’s failure to achieve its goals, each group lost interest in the coalition and went its own way. In contrast, Vladimir Levin argues that the prospects to win elections to the second Duma caused Zionists to go it alone, and liberals could not allow Zionists to speak in the