notwithstanding the fact that this legislation has developed largely under the influence of a most severe outlook on Judaism, teaches us that there is only one way and one solution—­to emancipate and unite the Jews with the rest of the population under the protection of the same laws.  All this is attested not by theories and doctrines but by the living experience of centuries....  Hence the final goal of any legislation concerning the Jews can be no other than its abrogation, a course demanded equally by the needs of the times, the cause of enlightenment, and the progress of the popular masses.

The fitness of the Jews for full civil equality, to be attained by degrees and in the course of many long years, will be the final goal of the reforms, and will lead at last to the disentangling of that age-long knot.  In saying this, we do not mean to imply that by that time the Jews will have cast off or transformed all those obnoxious qualities which are at present responsible for the fight in which all are engaged against them.  But, as in the case of Europe, this fight can only be terminated by according them full emancipation and equal citizenship.  To place obstacles in the way of this solution would be nothing more than a fruitless attempt to check the course of development of human society and Russian civil life.  Unsympathetic as the Jews may be to the Russian masses, it is impossible not to agree with this axiomatic truth.

Turning now to the execution of its task, the High Commission has up to the present been able to carry out but a very small part of the program indicated.  It was tied down by that gradation and cautiousness which it considers an indispensable condition for every improvement in the status of the Jews....  The principal task of the legislation, as far as it affects the Jews, must consist in uniting them as closely as possible with the general Christian population.  It is not advisable to frame a new legislation in the form of a special “Statute” or “Regulation,” since such a course would be fundamentally subversive of the efforts of the Government to remove Jewish exclusiveness. The system of repressive and discriminating measures must give way to a graduated system of emancipatory and equalizing laws.  The greatest possible cautiousness and gradation are the principles to be observed in the solution of the Jewish question.

3.  THE TRIUMPH OF REACTION

With all their moderate and cautious phraseology, the conclusions of the Pahlen Commission, whose members, as hide-bound conservatives, were forced to reckon with the anti-Semitic trend of the governing circles, implied an annihilating criticism of the repressive policy of that very Government by which the Commission had been appointed.  From the loins of Russian officialdom issued the enemy who opposed it in its manner of dealing with the Jewish question.