Page:Michael Farbman - The Russian Revolution & The War (1917).djvu/48

 discord into the ranks of the Revolution. To-day anti-Semitism in Russia is but a poor, shameful remnant of the old régime, impotent and execrated. But now that it has lost power in its native country it has begun to seek asylum in Western Europe.

It is not for me to speak of European anti-Semitism. I only ask your permission to tell you one truth that we in Russia have come to learn through heavy sacrifice. The best men in Russia, from Tolstoy to Gorky, have combated anti-Semitism, not from the humanitarian point of view, not only out of sympathy for its Jewish victims, but because the foul infection of anti-Semitism demoralised the Russian nation at large. Anti-Semitism is a poison that injures the oppressor rather than the oppressed.

With the political crisis of the 3rd of May—the Miliukoff incident—the romantic period of the Revolution came to an end and the period of disillusions began. This was the most difficult moment of the Revolution. It seemed as if the nation