f any legislation concerning
the Jews can be no other than its abrogation, a course demanded
equally by the needs of the times, the cause of enlightenment, and
the progress of the popular masses.

The fitness of the Jews for full civil equality, to be attained by
degrees and in the course of many long years, will be the final goal
of the reforms, and will lead at last to the disentangling of that
age-long knot. In saying this, we do not mean to imply that
by that time the Jews will have cast off or transformed all those
obnoxious qualities which are at present responsible for the fight
in which all are engaged against them. But, as in the case of
Europe, this fight can only be terminated by according them full
emancipation and equal citizenship. To place obstacles in the way of
this solution would be nothing more than a fruitless attempt to
check the course of development of human society and Russian civil
life. Unsympathetic as the Jews may be to the Russian masses, it is
impossible not to agree with this axiomatic truth.

Turning now to the execution of its task, the High Commission has up
to the present been able to carry out but a very small part of the
program indicated. It was tied down by that gradation and
cautiousness which it considers an indispensable condition for every
improvement in the status of the Jews.... The principal task of the
legislation, as far as it affects the Jews, must consist in uniting
them as closely as possible with the general Christian population.
It is not advisable to frame a new legislation in the form of a
special "Statute" or "Regulation," since such a course would be
fundamentally subversive of the efforts of the Government to remove
Jewish exclusiveness. _The system of repressive and discriminating
measures must give way to a graduated system of emancipatory and
equalizing laws_. The greatest possible _cautiousness_ and
_gradation_ are the principles to be observed in the solution of the
Jewish question.

3. THE TRIUMPH OF REACTION

With all their moderate and cautious phraseology, the conclusions of the
Pahlen Commission, whose members, as hide-bound conservatives, were
forced to reckon with the anti-Semitic trend of the governing circles,
implied an annihilating criticism of the repressive policy of that very
Government by which the Commission had been appointed. From the loins of
Russian officialdom issued th