The Haskalah Movement in RussiaRaisin, Jacob S. (Jacob Salmon)
Religion
The Haskalah Movement in Russia
Raisin, Jacob S. (Jacob Salmon)
Haskalah -- Soviet Union; Jews -- Soviet Union
Those, therefore, who disdained conversion allied themselves with the
secret organizations. "The torrent which had been dammed up in one
channel rushed violently into another." A Hebrew monthly, Ha-Emet
(Truth, Vienna, 1877), devoted to the cause of communism, was started by
Aaron Liebermann ("Arthur Freeman"), in which, in the language of the
oldest and greatest socialists, the doctrines of Karl Marx were
inculcated among the Hebrew-reading public. The more completely
Russified element took a leading part in the activities of the Narodnaya
Volya (Rights of the People), propagating socialism among the Russian
masses, either by word of mouth or as editors and coworkers in the
"underground" publications. Not a few went to Berlin, where, though
opulent, they sought employment in factories, the better to disseminate
socialism among the working classes. Others, like Aaronson, Achselrod,
Deutsch, Horowitz, Vilenkin, and Zukerman, fled to Switzerland, whence,
under the assumed names of Marx, Lassalle, Jacoby, etc., or united in a
League for the Emancipation of Labor, they directed the socialistic
movement in Russia.[25] Chernichevsky's _What to Do_, Gogol's _Dead
Souls_, Turgenief's _Virgin Soil_ and _Fathers and Sons_, the doctrines
of Pisarev and Bielinsky, and of the other writers who then had their
greatest vogue, were eagerly read and frequently copied by Jewish young
gymnasiasts and passed on to their Christian schoolmates. The
revolutionary spirit seized on men and women alike. Women left their
husbands, girls their devoted parents, and threw themselves into the
swirl of nihilism with a vigor and self-sacrifice almost incredible.
When a squad of police came to disperse the crowd clamoring for "land
and liberty" in front of the Kazanskaya Church in St. Petersburg, a
Jewish maiden of sixteen, taking the place of the leader, inspired her
comrades with such enthusiasm that the efforts of the police were
ineffectual.[26] By 1878, Russia became honeycombed with secret
societies. It fell into spasms of nihilism. One general after another
was assassinated. Attempts were made to wreck the train on which the
czar was travelling (1879) and blow up the palace in which he resided
(1880). Finally, on March 13, 1881, after many hairbreadth escapes, the
carefully laid plans of the revolutionists succeeded, and the Liberator
Czar was no more.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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