Notwithstanding these pleas, the Government was slow in realizing even the moderate reforms which had been outlined in the imperial ukase. In the meantime the representatives of Russian Jewry had decided to place before it their own more comprehensive demands. In February, 1905, several mass petitions, demanding equal rights for Jews, were addressed to Witte. A petition signed by thirty-two Jewish communities--St. Petersburg, Vilna, Kovno, Homel, Berdychev, and others--began with these words:
The measures adopted for the last twenty-five years toward the Russian Jews were designed with the deliberate end in view to convert them into a mass of beggars, deprived of all means of sustenance, and of the light of education and human dignity. Consistency and comprehensiveness marked the system of oppression and violence which was skilfully planned and carefully executed.... The entire machinery of the state was directed to one end--that of making the life of the Jews in Russia impossible.
The petition repudiates the idea, voiced in the ukase of December 12, 1904, of a gradual amelioration of the position of the Jews, and of a few "mitigations"; for "the insulted dignity of man cannot be reconciled to half measures; it demands the complete removal of rightlessness."
All the Jews of Russia are permeated at the present moment by one thought: that the cruel system of endless restrictions and disabilities undermines the very basis of their existence, that it is impossible to continue such a life.... Worn out by all they have had to go through, and filled with grave anxiety about their future destinies, the Jews are waiting at last for their entire enfranchisement; they are waiting for a radical repeal of all restrictive laws, so that, enjoying freedom and equality with all others, they may, shoulder to shoulder with the other citizens of this great country, work for its welfare and prosperity.
A memorandum couched in more resolute terms was sent by twenty-six Jewish communities--Moscow, Odessa, and others--and by the radical groups of the communities which had signed the first petition.
We declare--the memorandum states--that we look upon the attempt to satisfy and appease the Jewish population by any partial measures of improvement as doomed to failure. We expect equal rights, as human beings in whom the feeling of human dignity is alive, as conscious citizens in a modern body politic.