The Shield

Avrahm Yarmolinsky, Maksim Gorky, Leonid Nikolayevich Andreyev, Fyodor [Pseud.] Sologub

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• Publié par: mashag
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 33
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Shield, by Various, Edited by Maksim Gorky, Leonid Nikolayevich Andreyev, and Fyodor Sologub, Translated by A. Yarmolinsky This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online atww.wro.ggetugrebn Title: The Shield Author: Various Editor: Maksim Gorky, Leonid Nikolayevich Andreyev, and Fyodor Sologub Release Date: October 3, 2006 [eBook #19453] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHIELD***   E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Jeannie Howse, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/)        

Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent hyphenation and unusual spelling in the original document have been preserved. A number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this text. For a complete list, please see the end of this document.

THE SHIELD

THE NEWEST BORZOI BOOKS ASPHALT By Orrick Johns BACKWATER By Dorothy Richardson CENTRAL EUROPE By Friedrich Naumann CRIMES OF CHARITY By Konrad Bercovici RUSSIA'S MESSAGE By William English Walling THE BOOK OF SELF By James Oppenheim THE By A. Hyatt Verrill MODERN RUSSIAN HISTORY By Alexander Kornilov THE RUSSIAN SCHOOL OF PAINTING By Alexandre Benois THE JOURNAL OF LEO TOLSTOI (1895-1899) THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SUPERTRAMP By With a Preface by Bernard Shaw

THE SHIELD

Edited by MAXIM GORKY LEONID ANDREYEV and FYODOR SOLOGUB

With a Foreword By WILLIAM ENGLISH WALLING

Translated from the Russian by A. Yarmolinsky

BOOK

William

OF

H.

CAMPING

Davies

New York ALFRED A. KNOPF Mcmxvii

COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

FOREWORD This is not merely a book about the Russian Jews. It is a marvellous revelation of the Russian soul. It shows not only that the overwhelming majority of the Russian intellectuals, including nearly all of her brilliant literary geniuses, are opposed to the persecution of the Jews or any other race, but that they have a capacity for sympathy and understanding of humanity unequalled in any other land. I do not know of any book where the genius and heart of Russia is better displayed. Not only her leading litterateurs but also her leading statesmen and economists are represented—and all of them speak as with a single voice. I am writing on the 16th of March. Yesterday the news reached the world that Russia had probably at last succeeded in emancipating itself from the German- sustained and German-supported autocracy which so long has been renounced by practically all classes of the Russian people. I have pointed out elsewhere that this Second Act of the great drama of social transformation in Russia was to be expected in connection with the present war. It is not surprising that this Act, like the first—the Revolution of 1905—is accompanied by an irresistible demand for the cessation of the persecution of the Jews and other minority races. The first Duma, that of 1906, demanded unanimously that all these races be given absolutely the same rights as other Russians. The rise of Liberalism during the war, in connection with military necessities, had already abolished a number of Jewish disabilities. There is no longer any question that the Jews will be given equality. Without exception the anti-Semitic organisations were supported by the pro-German party, the money which was alone responsible for the pogroms was furnished by these same organisations, and now this Party and these organisations are forever overthrown. It was Dr. Dubrovin, for example, who year by year carried out the murders of the leading representatives of the Jews in the Duma and who almost succeeded in having Milukov assassinated a few weeks ago. Dubrovin was one of the most important of the sinister forces supported by the money of the German Czarina's court party—which was organised by Baron Fredericks and other notorious Germans masquerading as Russians. The re-birth of Russia which is now taking place cannot be understood apart from the Jewish problem. As Russia's leading Liberal statesman, Prof. Paul Milukov—who is well and favorably known in America because of extended visits here—points out in the article he contributes to the present volume, the anti-Semitic parties coincide with the anti-constitutional parties. At first this seems a strange and unaccountable fact, but a brief glance at the history of other countries will show that the party standing for the persecution of weak foreign neighbours and the oppression of minority races within and without a country has always and everywhere been the party of reaction. As Milukov says, there was no need for an anti-constitutional movement until there was a constitutional movement. As soon as Liberalism appeared, however, and gained support among the masses, it was necessary to fabricate some counter movement, and the governmental bureaucracy fixed upon anti-Semitism as a primitive means of appealing to the masses, and so of bridling them. It may be further pointed out that this systematic propaganda against democracy was almost non-existent in Russia until it had become thoroughly organised and successful in Germany. Both Kovalevsky and Milukov demonstrate in the present volume that anti-Semitism became an important factor in Russian life only after the middle of the Nineteenth Century—that is to say, after the final victory of Prussian Reactionism over German Liberalism in 1849 (a victory which has lasted to the present time)—and still more, after the great military victories of Prussia from 1864 to 1870 had put Prussian militarism in the saddle and had made it the dominating force in the Russian court and Russian bureaucracy. However, the intelligence, energy, and courage of the Russian Liberals has entirely thwarted this scheme to divide the Russian people. The bureaucracy has gained almost no support among any section of the Russian nation, except its own narrow circles, either for its persecution of the Jews or its oppression of the Poles, Finns, Tartars, Armenians and other races. On the contrary, the anti- Semitic propaganda has reacted against its promoters. A considerable number, though by no means a majority, of the Russian Liberals are Jews, and Russian Liberals do not at all endeavour to hide this fact. The consequence is that the union of the Russian Liberals with all the persecuted races has been all the more firmly cemented. And just as all Russian Liberals are ardent supporters of the war against Germany, so practically all the leaders of the Russian Jews are equally patriotic—in spite of the fact that many forms of persecution have remained, and, furthermore, new forms of persecution have been invented since the war. Though the German agitation in America has won over a large part of the Russian Jews in this country to the German cause, this agitation has had no such success in Russia, unless among a relatively small proportion of the Jewish population. It is known that the anti-Semitic agitation in Russia has taken hold of only a small proportion of the Russian people among the semi-criminal population of the cities and towns. It is notorious that the pogroms were often organised and carried out by the secret police and the cossacks, and that in other instances they were executed by bands of a few hundred bribed toughs, called by educated Russians "the black hundreds." This social element is what we would ordinarily call in America the "mob," and it certainly does not constitute one per cent. of the population in Russia or in any other country. Gorky refers to it as "the populace": "In addition to the people, there is also the 'populace,' something standing outside of social classes and outside of civilisation, and united by the dark sense of hatred against all that surpasses its understanding and is defenceless against brute force. I speak of the populace which thus defines itself in the words of Pushkin: "'We are insidious and shameless, Ungrateful, faint-hearted and wicked; At heart we are cold, sterile eunuchs, Traducers, born to slavery.'" The refusal of the Russian people to be either bribed or deceived into hostility to the Jews is clearly enough demonstrated by the feeling of affection on the part of most intelligent Jews towards the Russian people. The only

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