Excerpt from “How They Created the State Duma” (1905)

The Question of the Jews

To fully do justice to the selfless sympathies of the Council of Ministers for the “now numerous class of manufacturing-factory workers”, we must turn our attention to a further episode of the labours of the Council.

According to the initial project of Hofmeister Bulygin, Jews were not to be allowed to participate in the elections “until the laws relating to them have been reviewed”. The Council did not agree with this. “As is well known, reviewing this or that aspect of the Jewish question,” said the Council in its memorandum, not without a certain sense of humour, “has already been dragging on for about a century; it is impossible to predict when it will turn out to be possible to fully resolve it.” In the opinion of the Council, the allegorical response of Hofmeister Bulygin could “furnish grounds (sic!) for accusing the Government of lacking the determination needed to clearly state the negative decision which it had made on this matter.” (ibid. p.26)

With regard to the essence of the question, the Council was of the opinion that depriving Jews of the right to vote “will doubtlessly still further inflame this nationality, a substantial proportion of which, as a result of its economic and legal circumstances, is already currently in a state of unrest …” “In the meantime,” the Council asked itself, “what would be the consequences of giving Jews this right?” And the Council answered: “Given the requirements which need to be met in order to be able to participate in the elections which Hofmeister Bulygin has proposed, the overwhelming mass of Jews will be de facto excluded – its proletariat. … And under such conditions,” concluded the Council, “the proposed exclusion of Jews – an inconvenient measure, judged on the basis of political and practical considerations – does not promise any positive results. Consequently, it falls to be rejected both on the basis of fairness and also according to considerations of political caution.” (ibid. p.27)

Thus, considering that “a substantial proportion” of Jews are in a state of unrest as a result of their economic and legal circumstances, the Council finds, however, that it is impossible to “predict” when these circumstances will be radically changed. The Council proposes that, in order to pacify the aroused elements among the Jews, “it is appropriate to make efforts which employ all possible measures”, including granting the right to vote – and alongside of this the Council comforts itself with the knowledge that the proletariat will nonetheless be de facto excluded from the elections – i.e. precisely that “overwhelming mass of Jews” which is in a state of unrest and which it is appropriate to pacify by all possible means. Such are the astonishing zigzags which are prescribed by the thinking of the legislative bureaucracy!

We have just been witnesses to how sentiments of fairness and sympathy for the proletariat forced it to search for ways (in truth: unsuccessfully) to allow workers’ representatives into the State Duma – and here we see how the bureaucracy, under the pressure of the same sentiments of fairness, allows the Jewish bourgeoisie into the Duma, comforting itself with the knowledge that the Jewish proletariat will be completely excluded from the Duma. Thus does bureaucratic fairness achieve a double triumph – and on each occasion in its own distinctive way.

Translated by Stan Crooke from L. Trotsky, Sochineniya (Collected Works), Volume 2, Part 1, Moscow-Leningrad, 1925.

first published in “Our Revolution”, St. Petersburg, 1906