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58 accounts for the fact that the Jewish question occupies such a prominent place in Russian social and political life. Here the struggle for general rights coincides with the struggle for national rights. That is why the Jewish problem has come to occupy the centre of our political stage.

I must add that Russian anti-Semitism, as defined above, is a comparatively new phenomenon, in fact, it may be asserted that it is a phenomenon of most recent origin. However ancient may be the instincts on which our anti-Semites try to play, anti-Semitism itself as a political motto, as a movement with a party platform and definite aims, is a new means of political struggle, invented and applied only in late years. Of course, in the past there can be found manifestations—very crude and coarse—of what might be termed "zoological" anti-Semitism. In 1563, Ivan the Terrible conquered Polotzk, and for the first time the Russian Government was confronted by the fact of the existence of the Jewish nationality. The Czar's advisers were somewhat perplexed and asked him what to do with these newly acquired subjects. Ivan the Terrible