During the very months when Lur’e was battling the plutocracy to retain his position and his authority, another clash was taking place in a different arena of Jewish communal politics in Kiev, this time within the Kiev Branch of the OPE. Here, too, wealthy men with a long history of involvement with a Jewish institution found themselves fighting upstart nationalist-minded intellectuals and professionals for control of that organization over issues of mass participation and democratization. Indeed, though the plutocrats emerged victorious from the battle with Lur’e, they lost the struggle for control of the Kiev OPE.99
The Kiev branch was established in 1903 on the foundations of an already existing organization, one of the first Jewish charitable organizations to be founded in Kiev—the Jewish Student Fund, an endowment that assisted needy students attending St. vladimir's University.100 As a result, the first members of the board of the branch were those who had contributed most generously to the student fund and had served as its leaders, most notably Baron Vladimir Goratsievich Gintsburg (son of Goratsii) who, according to communal activist E. E. Friedmann, founded the branch after his marriage to the daughter of Lazar’ Brodsky and relocation to Kiev from St. Petersburg.101 As one of their number wrote to Voskhod, they saw themselves, contributors to the cause of needy students, as the most natural pretenders to the leadership of the OPE.102
For several decades after the establishment of the OPE in St. Petersburg in 1863, student aid had been the society's primary undertaking, despite an initial commitment to elementary school reform.103 This was consistent with the organization's stated goal of encouraging the education of Russian Jewry and its integration into Russian society. But in the 1890s, thanks to growing concerns over the alienation of the new generation of Russian Jews from their cultural heritage as well as an influx of nationally minded members into the OPE, the focus of the Society's Central Committee in St. Petersburg shifted to the schooling of Jewish children. The change in the makeup of the OPE membership had also forced the democratization of the organization, resulting in the lowering of dues so a broader constituency could join and the institution of annual conferences at which members could actively take part in determining organizational priorities.104 Before the founding of the Kiev Branch of the OPE, several Kiev Jewish intellectuals were active members of the society, but the focus of the local haute bourgeoisie remained the Jewish Student Fund; the educational priorities of the conservative Kiev Jewish elite had, not surprisingly, remained those of the 1860s and 1870s. Moreover, the plutocrats continued to reserve decision-making power within the fund for themselves, an approach they carried over to the new OPE branch. All these factors, combined with the fact that the OPE's Kiev branch was established in 1903, on the eve of revolution, meant that the organization would, willy-nilly, be plunged into a political maelstrom immediately after its very birth. Indeed, during those months of revolution and turmoil, when educational activists were much more heavily involved in political action than in educational work per se, the OPE as a whole was engaged in a furious debate over the direction of the society.105 The changing focus of the Zionist movement—as exemplified by the decision taken at the 1906 Helsingfors Conference to commit to Gegenwartsarbeit—also contributed to rapidly shifting dynamics in communal activity.106 The stage was set for a struggle for the very soul of the organization, in Kiev as elsewhere. Indeed, an almost identical battle took place within the national executive board of the OPE in St. Petersburg, with representatives of the "old regime" defending their control of the organization against the attacks of "the aspiring new elite" — nationalists and democrats.107 (One of the latter, Mark Ratner, even played a leading a role in the stormy meetings in both St. Petersburg and Kiev.) Before the subject of education could even be broached, however, Kiev Jews committed to the existence of the OPE in their city would have to work out more basic issues of communal and institutional authority and governance.
At one of the new branch's first general meetings, in January 1905, Mark Tsitron voiced his opposition to the management of the society's board, charging that its "inertia and sluggishness" were the reasons why nothing had been accomplished in 1904, the branch's first full year of existence. Tsitron blamed the problems on the centralized and undemocratic nature of the board, which consisted only of the original contributors to the student fund, not of members of the organization. The secretary, a pivotal board position, and members of the branch's various commissions had not been elected but were simply designated by the chairman—a charge that Izrail’ Kel ’berin, former secretary of the branch and close associate of the Brodsky family, denied in a rejoinder published several months later.108 Tsitron left no doubt as to where his political sympathies lay, exulting in the fact that "the demands of the masses" were finally making themselves known. He called for the board to consider itself temporary until it had recruited a sizable number of new members and elected a secretary.109 In other words, Tsitron considered the governance of the OPE as it was presently constituted to be illegitimate.
The battle over the meaning of legitimacy and the desire of the old guard leadership of the Kiev OPE to maintain control over the organization against the designs of current activists and new members who might take it in a different direction were well illustrated by the general meeting of June 1905. Baron Gintsburg, chairing the meeting, declared immediately that only contributors to the Jewish Student Fund would have the right to vote at the meeting, while board member G. B. Bykhovskii added that the primary school teachers who were in attendance—who were apparently representing a new teachers' organization—could not vote either. The teachers, he claimed, had been elected as members and invited to the meeting illegally, while their very organization itself was useless, since the OPE already had a commission on primary education. The upshot of their pronouncements was that despite the appearance of new forces interested in participating in and contributing to the organization, there would be no change in its governance.
Not all board members were in Gintsburg and Bykhovskii's camp: the new secretary, Mark B. Ratner (the SERPist who had been a leading figure in the mass demonstrations of September and October 1905), objected that the definitions of participation and membership could not be changed arbitrarily according to the whim of board members; if they were, the current board would have to be considered illegitimate. (Ratner and board members Mandel’shtam and Gendel’man later resigned from their positions to protest the uncompromising position of the board.)110 Tsitron, now a member of the commission on primary education, added that the wealthy old guard was attempting to alienate the organization's most active members: anyone who was not one of the elite had been denied the right to vote. Not only the OPE, but also the entire Kiev Jewish community, was dominated by the "antisocial. . . representatives of legality, order, and material power"—but soon, warned Tsitron ominously, Jewish communal institutions would be led by other people. The board was furthering its own decay.
Tsitron's revolutionary rhetoric was characteristic of the mood in many Jewish circles. The order (the word was repeated over and again in these debates) of old was slipping away, they felt, and those who continued to identify with its reactionary, top-down politics would be consigned to oblivion along with it. No institution or segment of society was exempt, and soon the OPE, the Kiev Jewish community and its institutions, and indeed all of society, would yield to the democratic impulse and to progress.
But the conservatives refused to agree that a democratic vote in and of itself signified legitimacy. After the assembly had voted to recognize the teachers as members with full rights, Bykhovskii and Gintsburg protested that the meeting, disturbed by outside elements for personal gain, was proceeding illegally; accordingly, they declared it unsanctioned (or unauthorized; neso-stoiavshimsia). As stalwarts of the organization and defenders of the existing order, it seemed clear to them that proceedings taking place against the established rules were illegitimate and not to be tolerated. But Ratner retorted that it was the plutocrats who had come to settle personal accounts, a charge endorsed with cries of "We don't need guardians of order!" and "Obscurantists!"111
That personal conflicts were entering into the political debate was pointed out by a former member of the schools commission, who opined that the bitterness of the confrontation at the meeting was due not to an overall communal split between "old" and "new" camps, but rather to the personalities involved: Bykhovskii's dry formalism versus Tsitron's lack of collegiality and tyrannical leadership style. The goals of the teachers' organization were laudable, he wrote, but Tsitron should not have attempted to impose them forcibly upon the commission.112
Nonetheless, the support demonstrated for Tsitron in the general meetings suggests that there was, indeed, general dissatisfaction with the established leadership. And at the next meeting, on September 20, Tsitron led a successful coup by pushing through a proposal—opposed by the board— according to which new members would be approved by acclamation and not by ballot. Having lost this struggle, the board consequently resigned.113 Newspaper reports on the meeting make it clear that the central issue continued to be the legitimacy of authority: who was sovereign in the Jewish community; in whose hands did the basis for power lie? As Tsitron and his supporters made clear, the Jewish masses were sovereign, and only the "electoral principle" would guarantee that they maintained hegemony in their communal organizations. In practice, this meant the election of all OPE commission chairmen and members, not their designation by the board, as well as autonomy for all OPE commissions, meaning freedom from subjection to board directives. The "democrats" maintained that the unwillingness of the board to allow change, which was tied up with its lack of initiative and "sluggishness," was undermining public faith in the OPE as a whole.114 This, too, marked a significant break with the past. Organizations had previously set their agendas without concern for public support, at times even determining to reshape or reform the Jewish masses against their will. But the Jewish community (and Russian society as a whole) now demanded a broad base of support and faith in a public institution and, indeed, in the very government itself.
Various groups of OPE members acknowledged the impact of the 1905 Revolution in different ways. (As David Fishman writes of the struggle within the St. Petersburg OPE, "the very divisions and radical impulses that underlay the Russian revolution of 1905 were now being reenacted in microcosm within the confines of the organization.")115 A memorandum submitted by a group of moderate members pointed out that the branch had been founded before 1905, in the era of Plehve and the reign of tyranny— and its governance had thus presumably been characteristic of that period— but now times had changed and the electoral principle had to be introduced throughout the society.116 The organization would be best served by eliminating parochial class-minded thinking and giving everyone the opportunity to participate in communal affairs, continued the document. It recommended initiating programs such as reading rooms and lectures to serve the wider public, and attracting more women to active membership.117 Other, more radical activists, such as SERPist Ratner, demanded that the OPE take on an active role in the revolutionary struggle, standing at the forefront of the movement of Jewish national liberation.118 The Kiev OPE could be the leader of "education and culture as liberation" throughout the Russian southwest, joining forces with other constituents of the liberation movement. One way of achieving this goal would be to lower dues and thereby to attract the proletariat as members, for "education must become an affair of the people"; more generally, the OPE's activities must be designed to "meet the needs of the Jewish masses." As a means toward the end of national liberation, the OPE had to embody the ideals of the democratic future.119
The radical opposition insisted not only that the old guard, creatures and guardians of the old order, would never be able to introduce the reforms needed to transform Kiev's institutions, but also that they were completely unfit to lead the Jewish people in this era of the revival of the Jewish nation and Jewish self-respect. They had always shown themselves too willing to abandon Jewish pride by negotiating and compromising with the "enemy," while real leaders helped Jews "stand erect" and did not engage in "deputations to the executioner."120 The OPE was yet another communal institution that they wished to control through the force of their wealth. Since they lacked any real authority from the people, however, their monopoly over the leadership of Kiev's communal institutions had to be brought to an end. For those who were doubtful that such a "revolution" was in the best interests of the community, the opposition leaders reassured those present that not only would the current conflict bring about a change in leadership, but that it would also attract new energy to the society and revive its activities.121
The issue of membership was a major point of friction. The established leadership was clearly anxious about the impact on the organization of an influx of poorly acculturated teachers and artisans. One member warned that eighty melamdim joining the OPE would not further the cause of enlightenment but possibly hinder it. At the same meeting, the approval of new members by acclamation was proclaimed illegal by certain old-timers who insisted that the board had to authorize the members first. From their perspective, a reluctance to share power was justified: as they saw it, their experience in communal affairs, influence with important officials, and wealth made them the natural leaders of the community. They viewed themselves as guarantors of the stability and well-being of the community, due to their long experience in communal affairs; "by contrast, complete novices" at communal leadership would inevitably fail their constituents.122 The old guard also had a radically different approach to accomplishing organizational priorities from that of the revolution-inspired democrats; they were accustomed and resigned to the fact that, in the undergoverned and bureaucracy-heavy Russian Empire, one could not be impatient with the slow course of any project, no matter how important. As Lev Brodsky counseled at an OPE general meeting, "Time will take care of everything." For these veterans of communal affairs, the coming of a "new era" was greatly in doubt. Nonetheless, change had indeed come to the Kiev Jewish community, and its influence was being felt in all corners, even at the Representation for Jewish Welfare.
World History
