4.  Participation in joint-stock and other commercial or industrial companies and partnerships, and also employment in these companies and partnerships in all kinds of positions, either by elections or by employment.

    5.  Employment of servants, salesmen, foremen, laborers, and trade
    apprentices.

6.  Entering the government service, civil as well as military, and the grade or condition of such service; participation in the elections for the institutions for local self-government, and all kinds of public institutions; serving in all kinds of positions of government and public establishments, as well as the prosecution of the duties connected with such positions.

7.  Admission to all kinds of educational institutions, whether private, government, or public, and the pursuing of the courses of instruction of these institutions, and receiving scholarships.  Also the pursuance of teaching and other educational professions.

    8.  Performing the duties of guardians, trustees, or jurors.

    9.  The use of language and dialects, other than Russian, in the
    proceedings of private societies, or in teaching in all kinds of
    private educational institutions, and in commercial bookkeeping.

Thus all the humiliating restrictions which had been imposed upon the Jewish people were swept away.  Had the Provisional Government done nothing else than this, it would have justified itself at the bar of history.  But it accomplished much more than this:  before it had been in office a month, in addition to its liberation of Finns, Poles, and Jews, the Provisional Government abolished the death penalty; removed all the provincial governors and substituted for them the elected heads of the provincial county councils; confiscated the large land holdings of the Imperial family and of the monasteries; levied an excess war-profits tax on all war industries; and fixed the price of food at rates greatly lower than had prevailed before.  The Provisional Government had gone farther, and, while declaring that these matters must be left to the Constituent Assembly for settlement, had declared itself in favor of woman suffrage and of the distribution of all land among the peasants, the terms and conditions of expropriation and distribution to be determined by the Constituent Assembly.

The Provisional Government also established a War Cabinet which introduced various reforms into the army.  All the old oppressive regulations were repealed and an attempt made to democratize the military system.  Some of these reforms were of the utmost value; others were rather dangerous experiments.  Much criticism has been leveled against the rules providing for the election of officers by the men in the ranks, for a conciliation board to act in disputes between men and officers over questions of discipline, and the abolition of the regulations requiring private soldiers to address officers by the title “Sir.”  It must be borne in mind, however, in discussing these things, that these rules represented a great, honest effort to restore the morale of an army that had been demoralized, and to infuse it with democratic faith and zeal in order that it might “carry on.”  It is not just to judge the rules without considering the conditions which called them forth.