[7] See on the meaning of this term, vol. I, p. 25, n. 1. [8] See vol. II, p. 423. [9] See vol. II, p. 424. [10] These barbarities were suspended only for a few days during that year, while the International Congress of Medicine was holding its sessions in Moscow. The police were ordered to stop these street raids upon the Jews for fear of compromising Russia in the eyes of Western Europe, since it was to be expected that the membership of the Congress would include medical celebrities with "Semitic" features. [11] The "Temporary Rules" were not given retroactive force, and those settled in the villages before the promulgation of the law of May 3, 1882, were accordingly permitted to stay there. [See vol. II, p. 311.] [12] See vol. II, p. 428 _et seq._ [13] According to the statistics of 1898-1901, some 150,000 Jews in Russia engaged in agrarian pursuits. Of these, 51,539 were occupied with raising corn in the colonies, 64,563 engaged in special branches of agrarian economy, 19,930 held land as owners or lessees, and 12,901 were engaged in temporary farm labor. [14] See vol. II, p. 350. [15] A pro-gymnazium is made up of the six (originally four) lower grades of a gymnazium which embraces eight grades. [16] A contemptuous nickname for Russians customary among the Poles. CHAPTER XXXII THE NATIONAL AWAKENING 1. THE RISE OF POLITICAL ZIONISM For two decades the sledge hammer of Russian reaction had been descending with crushing force upon the vast community of the six million Russian Jews. Yet in the end it was found that the heavy hammer, to use the well-known simile of Pushkin, instead of shattering the national organism of Jewry, had only helped to steel it and to harden its indestructible spiritual self. The Jewry of Russia showed to the world that it was endowed with an iron constitution, and those that had hoped to crush it by the strokes of their hammer were ultimately forced to admit that they had produced the opposite result. At first it seemed as if the effect of these blows would be to turn Jewry into a shapeless mass. There were moments of despair and complete prostration, when the approaching darkness threatened to obliterate all paths. This stage was followed by a period of mental haziness, marked by dim yearnings for regeneration, which were bound to remain fruitless because unaccompanied by organizing energy. This transitional state of affairs lasted throughout the eighties and during the first half of the nineties. But by and by, out of the chaos of these nebulous social tendencies, there emerged more and more clearly the outlines of definite politico-national doctrines and organizations, and new paths were blazed which, leading in different directions, converged toward one goal--that of the regeneration of the Jewish people from within, both in its national and social life.