Lucien Wolf

“ As for the Liberals and Socialists, they filled the air with bitter laughter, and declared from the housetops that the stupid party had at last been overwhelmed by its own stupidity. The Conservatives began to suspect that they had made a false step, and they were confirmed in this belief by the conduct of their new ally in the Reichstag. His début in parliament was the signal for a succession of disgraceful scenes. His whole campaign of calumny was transferred to the floor of the house, and for some weeks the Reichstag discussed little else than his so-called revelations. ”

“ The Jews contend that anti-Semitism is a mere atavistic revival of the Jew-hatred of the middle ages. The extreme section of the anti-Semites, who have given the movement its quasi-scientific name, declare that it is a racial struggle—an incident of the eternal conflict between Europe and Asia—and that the anti-Semites are engaged in an effort to prevent what is called the Aryan race from being subjugated by a Semitic immigration, and to save Aryan ideals from being modified by an alien and demoralizing oriental Anschauung. ”

“ Its agitation generally, coinciding with the revival of interest in Jewish history, has helped to transfer Jewish solidarity from a religious to a racial basis. The bond of a common race, vitalized by a new pride in Hebrew history and spurred on to resistance by the insults of the anti-Semites, has given a new spirit and a new source of strength to Judaism at a moment when the approximation of ethical systems and the revolt against dogma were sapping its essentially religious foundations. ”

“ By confining the Jews to the towns at the very moment that Count Witte’s policy of protection was creating an enormous industrial proletariat they placed at the disposal of the disaffected masses an ally powerful in numbers and intelligence, and especially in its bitter sense of wrong, its reckless despair and its cosmopolitan outlook and connexions. As early as 1885 the Jewish workmen assisted by Jewish university students led the way in the formation of trades unions. ”

“ All the social and political conditions which produced anti-Semitism in Germany were present in France, but in an aggravated form due primarily to the very republican régime which at first sight seemed to be a guarantee against it. In the monarchical states the dominance of the bourgeoisie was tempered in a measure by the power of the crown and the political activity of the aristocracy, which carried with them a very real restraining influence in the matter of political honour and morality. In France these restraining influences were driven out of public life by the republic. ”

“ Though anti-Semitism has been unmasked and discredited, it is to be feared that its history is not yet at an end. While there remain in Russia and Rumania over six millions of Jews who are being systematically degraded, and who periodically overflow the western frontier, there must continue to be a Jewish question in Europe; and while there are weak governments, and ignorant and superstitious elements in the enfranchized classes of the countries affected, that question will seek to play a part in politics. ”

“ The spectacle of a Clerico-anti-Semitic tammany in Vienna had strengthened the resistance of the better elements in the country. Time had also shown that Christian Socialism is only a disguise for high Toryism, and that the German Radicals who were originally induced to join the anti-Semites had been victimized by the Clericals. The fruits of this disillusion began to show themselves in the general elections of 1900–1901, when the anti-Semites lost six seats in the Reichsrath. ”

“ Its racial doctrine is at best a crude hypothesis: its nationalist theory has only served to throw into striking relief the essentially economic bases of modern society, while its political activity has revealed the vulgarity and ignorance which constitute its main sources of strength. So far from injuring the Jews, it has really given Jewish racial separatism a new lease of life. Its extravagant accusations, as in the Tisza Eszlar and Dreyfus cases, have resulted in the vindication of the Jewish character. ”

“ While the main activity of anti-Semitism has manifested itself in Germany, Russia, Rumania, Austria-Hungary and France, its vibratory influences have been felt in other countries when conditions favourable to its extension have presented themselves. In England more than one Great Britain, &c.attempt to acclimatize the doctrines of Marr and Treitschke has been made. The circumstance that at the time of the rise of German anti-Semitism a premier of Hebrew race, Lord Beaconsfield, was in power first suggested the Jewish bogey to English political extremists. ”

“ Heterogeneous elements might be absorbed, but if they could not be reduced to the national type they should be eliminated. This was the pseudo-scientific note of the new anti-Semitism, the theory which differentiated it from the old religious Jew-hatred and sought to give it a rational place in modern thought. Marr’s pamphlet, which reviewed the facts of the Jewish social concentration without noticing their essentially transitional character, proved the pioneer of this teaching. It was, however, in the passions of party politics that the new crusade found its chief sources of vitality. ”

“ The temper of the tsar may be judged by the fact that when an appeal for mercy from an illustrious personage in England was conveyed to him at Fredensborg through the gracious medium of the tsaritsa, he angrily exclaimed within the hearing of an Englishman in the ante-room who was the bearer of the message, “Never let me hear you mention the name of that people again!”
The Russian May Laws are the most conspicuous legislative monument achieved by modern anti-Semitism. ”

“ The Conservatives supported him, partly to satisfy their old grudges against the Liberal bourgeoisie and partly because Christian Socialism, with its anti-Semitic appeal to ignorant prejudice, was likely to weaken the hold of the Social Democrats on the lower classes. The Lutheran clergy followed suit, in order to prevent the Roman Catholics from obtaining a monopoly of Christian Socialism, while the Ultramontanes readily adopted anti-Semitism, partly to maintain their monopoly, and partly to avenge themselves on the Jewish and Liberal supporters of the Kulturkampf. ”

“ In sympathy with the agitation in France there has been a similar movement in Algeria, where the European population have long resented the admission of the native Jews to the rights of French citizenship. The agitation has been marked by much violence, and most of the anti-Semitic deputies in the French parliament, including M. Drumont, have found constituencies in Algeria. As the local anti-Semites are largely Spaniards and Levantine riff-raff, the agitation has not the peculiar nationalist bias which characterizes continental anti-Semitism. ”

“ The new social struggle has eclipsed the racial theory of nationality. The Social Democrat became the enemy, and the new reaction counted on the support of the rich Jews and the strongly individualist Jewish middle class to assist it in preserving the existing social structure. Hence in Prince Bülow’s “Bloc” (1908) anti-Semites figured side by side with Judeophil Radicals.
More serious have been the effects of German anti-Semitic teachings on the political and social life of the countries adjacent to the empire—Russia, Austria and France. ”

“ Had it been possible to distribute the emancipated Jews uniformly throughout Christian society, as was the case with other emancipated religious denominations, there would have been no revival of the Jewish question. The Jews, however, through no fault of their own, belonged to only one class in European society—the industrial bourgeoisie. ”

“ There were other elements which had created a milieu peculiarly favourable to the transplantation of the German craze. In the first place the medieval anti-Semitism was still an integral part of the polity of the empire. The Jews were cooped up in one huge ghetto in the western provinces, “marked out to all their fellow-countrymen as aliens, and a pariah caste set apart for special and degrading treatment” (Persecution of the Jews in Russia, 1891, p. 5) . ”

“ It lays no stress on orthodoxy, but welcomes all who strive to render Jewish conduct an adequate reply to the theories of the anti-Semites. Both these movements are elements of fresh vitality to Judaism, and they are probably destined to produce important fruit in future years. A splendid spirit of generosity has also been displayed by the Jewish community in assisting and relieving the victims of the Jew-haters. ”

“ The only other country in Europe in which a legalized anti-Semitism exists is Rumania. The conditions are very similar to those which obtain in Russia, with the important difference that Rumania is a constitutional country, and that the Jewish persecutions are the work of the elected Rumania.deputies of the nation. Like the Bourgeois Gentilhomme who wrote prose all his life without knowing it, the Rumanians practised the nationalist doctrines of the Hegelian anti-Semites unconsciously long before they were formulated in Germany. ”

“ In June 1889 the anti-Semitic Christian Socialists under Stöcker again seceded.
Meanwhile racial anti-Semitism with its wholesale radical proposals had been making considerable progress among the ignorant lower classes. It adapted itself better to popular passions and inherited prejudice than the more academic conceptions of the Christian Socialists. The latter, too, were largely Conservatives, and their points of contact with the proletariat were at best artificial. ”

“ The last country in Europe to make use of the teachings of German anti-Semitism in its party politics was France. The fact that the movement should have struck root in a republican country, where the ideals of democratic freedom have been so passionately cultivated, has been regarded France.as one of the paradoxes of our latter-day history. ”

“ In 1882 two anti-Semitic leagues had been founded in Vienna, and to these the Radical nationalists now appealed for support. The growing importance of the party led the premier, Count Taaffe, to angle for the support of the Clericals by accepting a portion of the Christian Socialist programme. The hostility this excited in the liberal press, largely written by Jews, served to bring the feudal Christian Socialists and Radical anti-Semites together. ”

“ On the 7th of May there was a similar riot at Smiela, near Cherkasy, and the following day there was a violent outbreak at Kiev, which left 2000 Jews homeless. Within a few weeks the whole of western Russia, from the Black Sea to the Baltic, was smoking with the ruins of Jewish homes. Scores of Jewish women were dishonoured, hundreds of men, women and children were slaughtered, and tens of thousands were reduced to beggary and left without a shelter. ”

“ The reactionaries were not slow to profit by this circumstance. With the support of M. Plehve, the new minister of the interior, and the whole of the bureaucratic class they denounced the revolution as a Jewish conspiracy, engineered for exclusively Jewish purposes and designed to establish a Jewish domination over the Russian people. The government and even the intimates of the tsar became persuaded that only by the terrorization of the Jews could the revolutionary movement be effectually dealt with. For this purpose a so-called League of True Russians was formed. ”

“ The Conservatives listened to his wild charges in uncomfortable silence, and refused to support him. Stöcker opposed him in a violent speech. The Radicals and Socialists, taking an accurate measure of the shallow vanity of the man, adopted the policy of giving him “enough rope.” Shortly after his election he was condemned to five months’ imprisonment for libel, and he would have been arrested but for the interposition of the Socialist party, including five Jews, who claimed for him the immunities of a member of parliament. ”

“ He had the advantages over Stöcker that he was not a Socialist, and that he was prepared to lead his apparently large following to assist the agrarian movement and weaken the Social Democrats. The intrigue gradually came to light. Towards the end of the year Herr Liebknecht, the Social Democratic leader, denounced the Conservatives to the Reichstag as being concerned “in using the anti-Semitic movement as a bastard edition of Socialism for the use of stupid people.” ”

“ An anti-Semitic league was established, and with Royalist assistance branches were organized all over the country. The Franco-Russian alliance in 1891, when the persecutions of the Jews by Pobêdonostsev were attracting the attention of Europe, served to invest Drumont’s agitation with a fashionable and patriotic character. It was a sign of the spiritual approximation of the two peoples. In 1892 Drumont founded a daily anti-Semitic newspaper, La Libre Parole. With the organization of this journal a regular campaign for the discovery of scandals was instituted. ”

“ Agrarian capitalism, which had been dethroned by industrial capitalism in 1848, and had burnt its fingers in 1873, seized the opportunity of paying off old scores. The clericals, smarting under the Kulturkampf, which was supported by the whole body of Jewish liberalism, joined eagerly in the new cry. In 1876 another sensational pamphlet was published, Otto Glogau’s Die Börsen und Grundergeschwindel in Berlin (“The Bourses and the Company Swindles in Berlin”) , dealing in detail with the Jewish participation in the scandals first revealed by Lasker. ”

“ The tsar himself was at first persuaded that the riots were the work of Nihilists, and he publicly promised his protection to the Jews. On the other hand, his ministers, ardent Slavophils, thought they recognized in the outbreak an endorsement of the nationalist teaching of which they were the apostles, and, while reprobating the acts of violence, came to the conclusion that the most reasonable solution was to aggravate the legal disabilities of the persecuted aliens and heretics. ”