Every intelligent and educated Jew in Russia knew that the real source of
the brutal anti-Semitism which characterized the rule of the Romanovs was
Prussian and not Russian. He knew that it had long been one of the main
features of Germany's foreign policy to instigate and stimulate hatred and
fear of the Jews by Russian officialdom. There could not be a more tragic
mistake than to infer from the ruthless oppression of the Jews in Russia
that anti-Semitism is characteristically Russian. Surely, the fact that the
First Duma was practically unanimous in deciding to give equal rights to
the Jews with all the rest of the population proves that the Russian people
did not hate the Jews. The ill-treatment of the Jews was part of the policy
by which Germany, for her own ends, cunningly contrived to weaken Russia
and so prevent the development of her national solidarity. Racial animosity
and conflict was an ideal instrument for attaining that result. Internal
war and abortive revolutionary outbreaks which kept the country unsettled,
and the energies of the government taxed to the uttermost, served the same
end, and were, therefore, the object of Germany's intrigues in Russia,
equally with hostility to the Jews, as we shall have occasion to note.
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