ntelligenzia_
and the Government.

The ideal of Russification was marked by different stages, beginning
with the harmless acquisition of the Russian language, and culminating
in a complete identification with Russian culture and Russian national
ideals, involving the renunciation of the religious and national
traditions of Judaism. The advocates of moderate Russification did not
foresee that the latter was bound, by the force of circumstances, to
assume a radical form, while the champions of extreme Russification saw
no harm for Jewry in following the example of complete assimilation set
by Western Europe. To the former all that Russification implied was the
removal of the obnoxious excrescences of Judaism but not the demolition
of the national organism itself. Progressive Jewry was rightly incensed
against the obsolete forms of Jewish life which obstructed all healthy
development; against the fierce superstition of the hasidic environment,
against the charlatanism of degenerating Tzaddikism, against the
impenetrable religious fanaticism which was throttling the noblest
strivings of the Jewish mind. But this struggle for freedom of thought
should have been fought out within the confines of Judaism, by means of
a thorough-going cultural self-improvement, and not on the soil of
assimilation, nor in alliance with the powers that be, which were aiming
not at the rejuvenation but at the obliteration of Judaism, in accordance
with the official program of "fusion."

At any rate, the league between the new Jewish _intelligenzia_ and the
Government was an undeniable fact. The "Crown rabbis" [1] and school
teachers from among the graduates of the rabbinical schools of Vilna and
Zhitomir played the role of Government agents who were apt to resort to
police force in their fight against orthodoxy. Feeling secure beneath
the protecting wings of the Russian authorities, they often went out of
their way to hurt the susceptibilities of the masses by their
ostentatious disregard of the Jewish religious ceremonies. When the
communities refused to appoint rabbis of this class, the latter obtained
their posts either by direct appointment from the Government or by
bringing the pressure of the provincial administration to bear upon the
electors.

[Footnote 1: See above, p. 176, n. 1.]

Needless to say, the "enlightenment" propagated by these Government
underlings did not win the confidence of the orthodox masses who
remembered vividly ho