The Union for the Attainment of Full Equality for the Jewish People

Most middle-class Jews in Kiev were strongly drawn to the liberal movement, and many Jewish professionals joined the liberal activist groups established in the autumn of 1904 such as the Union of Lawyers and the Union of Physicians. Another new organizations that formed a constituent member of the Union of Unions was the Union for the Attainment of Full Equality for the Jewish People in Russia, a number of whose leaders resided in Kiev.29 As even the leftist liberals became more radicalized over the course of 1905, moderates within the Jewish community had to decide whether they could in good conscience call for the overthrow of the autocracy. Surely a constitutional democracy would give Jews full rights, but on the other hand the anarchy that could conceivably follow a coup might be a greater evil than the current regime, however oppressive. The dark days of the October pogrom seemed to prove these fears well founded indeed. The Union for Full Equality decided to call on Jews to take part in the elections for the new Duma, joining forces with Kiev's Kadet (Constitutional Democratic) Party and progressive Polish and Ukrainian Groups.30

The split between liberals and nationalists that was to characterize so much of communal politics in the immediate post-revolutionary years was already evident in the politicking involved in the establishment of the Kiev branch of the Union for Full Equality. In July 1905, leaders of the Union in St. Petersburg wrote to G. B. Bykhovskii, asking for the help of Kievans in expanding the organization.31 By September, there was already an elected provisional committee which, crucially, included both members of the plutocratic establishment such as Lev Brodsky and his associates and of the (mostly) younger generation of nationalists: Max Mandel’shtam, Mark

L’vovich Tsitron (a territorialist), Mark B. Ratner (a leader of the Jewish nationalist socialist SERP party as well as a member of the Union for Equal Rights of the Jewish People and the Russian Social Revolutionary Party), G. E. Gurevich, and others.32 In a letter to Iulii Gessen, Gurevich revealed the nationalists' state of mind when he wrote that "we do not want to submit or to come to an agreement with the plutocracy."33 The primary point of contention was apparently who would put himself forward as candidate for the Duma in the forthcoming elections. The split was aggravated by personal resentments and attempts at self-aggrandizement. The situation deteriorated to the point that leaders of the Union in St. Petersburg sent several telegrams in October, pleading the Kiev activists to unite their efforts in advance of the provincial conference to be held later in the month.34 Some of the rifts were patched over, but others were too serious to be healed: Mandel’shtam and Ratner telegraphed that they could not unite with Brodsky, and a telegram from Brodsky sounded similar: "[I] find unification unsuitable. Doubt success of conference."35

The local branch of the Union for Equality poured most of its energy in the following months into mobilizing the Jewish vote in Kiev province.36 But the feuding did not go away, and—as best as can be judged from the collection of letters and telegrams surviving in the archives—several radicals eventually resigned from the board of the local branch in protest against its heavily establishment character.37 Things went from bad to worse when it became clear that the plutocrats were putting forward their own candidate for Duma representative (apparently the son of prominent industrialist David Margolin) and when a public split appeared between the Union for Equality branch and the new Nonparty Jewish Organization (Vnepartinnaia evreiskaia organizatsiia), with each body competing to mobilize and register Jewish voters in Kiev province.38

The focus on national politics did not preclude discussions of local communal matters; indeed, the strains revealed in the fabric of local Jewish affairs may actually have encouraged a rethinking of communal governance. In May 1906, Gurevich wrote to St. Petersburg that there was now talk of establishing a nonparty organization to manage Jewish political and communal affairs in Kiev. Perhaps mindful of Kiev's past experience with communal governance, while acknowledging that this was an important goal, Gurevich nonetheless stressed that any new organization must not "include any guardians of routine or any abuses that would demoralize the population and lead to the misappropriation of and attempts on communal funds or property."39

As the situation developed, it became clear that both the supporters of the Union for Equality branch and of the Nonparty Jewish Organization wanted their respective organization to form the core of a new communal body for Kiev's Jews. activists within the Union for Equality seemed to see the other organization as a nothing more than a vehicle created to fulfill the aspirations for power of several individuals within the Jewish community who, according to one observer, enjoyed "the patronage of the local authorities" and thus a good deal of clout.40 One of those they were referring to may have been Crown Rabbi Lur’e, a charismatic upstart on the Jewish communal scene in Kiev and a leader of the Nonparty Jewish Organization. We shall have cause to speak again of him soon.

Whatever the biases of the Nonparty Jewish Organization, it was apparently successful in mobilizing Jews to vote and in combating the apathy prevalent among the Jewish masses, a condition that was hardly surprising given that a large number of working-class Jewish men were ineligible to vote in the first stage of the elections because they were not employed in factories or workshops with "fifty or more eligible male workers (the number required for voting at the place of work)."41 The workers' curia in Kiev sent only two electors to participate in the election of the city's Duma representative, while only about 12 percent of Kiev's total population, 29,500 people, were eligible to vote.42 In addition to the fundamental challenge of a wary conservatism based in a traditional religious worldview or in lack of political experience, there were other problems.43 In November 1906 a correspondent reported that many Jews were indifferent to the upcoming elections to the Second Duma because they saw no point in voting. How could elections help them with the most pressing problems: unemployment, sick family members, the threat of pogrom? But the writer acknowledged that—thanks to the Nonparty Jewish Organization—the intelligentsia had managed to transform apathy into enthusiasm in many places, and to increase voter registration throughout the province.44 The result was that two of the Duma representatives elected from Kiev province were Jews (out of a total of twelve Jewish representatives elected empire-wide): M. R. Chervonenkis and S. Frenkel’.