3.  THE GUBERNATORIAL COMMISSIONS

After wavering for some time, the anti-Semitic Government of Ignatyev finally made up its mind as to the attitude it was henceforth to adopt towards the Jewish problem.  Taken aback at the beginning of the pogrom movement, the leading spheres of Russia were first inclined to ascribe it to the effects of the revolutionary propaganda, but they afterwards came to the conclusion that, in the interest of the reactionary policies pursued by them and as a means of justifying the disgraceful anti-Jewish excesses before the eyes of Europe, it was more convenient to throw the blame upon the Jews themselves.  With this end in view, a new theory was put forward by the Russian Government, the quasi-economic doctrine of “the exploitation of the original population by the Jews.”  This doctrine consisted of two parts, which, properly speaking, were mutually exclusive: 

  First, the Jews, as a pre-eminently mercantile class, engage in
  “unproductive” labor, and thereby “exploit” the productive classes
   of the Christian population, the peasantry in particular.

Second, the Jews, having “captured” commerce and industry—­here the large participation of the Jews in industrial life, represented by handicrafts and manufactures, is tacitly admitted—­compete with the Christian urban estates, in other words, interfere with them in their own “exploitation” of the population.

The first part of this strange theory is based upon, primitive economic notions, such as are in vogue during periods of transition, when natural economic production gives way to capitalism, and when all complicated forms of mediation are regarded as unproductive and harmful.  The thought expressed in the second part of the thesis is implied in the make-up of a police state, which looks upon the occupation of certain economic positions by a given national group as an illegitimate “capture” and regards it as its function to check this competition for the sole purpose of insuring the success of the dominant nationality.

The Russian Government was disturbed neither by the primitive character of this theory nor by the resort to brutal police force implied in it—­the idea of supporting the “exploitation” practised by the Russians at the expense of that carried on by the Jews; nor was it abashed by its inner logical contradictions.  What the Government needed was some means whereby it could throw off the responsibility for the pogroms and prove to the world that they were a “popular judgment,” the vengeance wreaked upon the Jews either by the peasants, the victims of exploitation, or by the Russian burghers, the unsuccessful candidates for the role of exploiters.  This point of view was reflected in the report of Count Kutaysov, who had been sent by the Tzar to South Russia to inquire into the causes of the “disorders.” [1]

[Footnote 1:  It may be added that Kutaysov recognized that the Russian masses were equally the victims of the commercial exploitation of the Russian “bosses,” but was at a loss to find a reason for the pogroms perpetrated in the Jewish agricultural colonies, i.e., against those who, according to this theory, were themselves the victims of exploitation.]