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P. MILYUKOV
57

guarantees Jewish rights, and religious and racial differences do not create legal disabilities. Nevertheless, if anti-Semitism is still in existence in the Western countries, the aims it pursues there are political. It continues to be the weapon of political reaction. And its objective, at its extreme, is by no means like the grandiose programme of utter destruction of the Jews which is pursued by the "truly-Russian" theoreticians of our reaction.

Consequently, the Jewish question in Russia means, above all, the legal disabilities of the individual Jews that result from the discriminations made against them as a religious and national entity. It is only one aspect of our general inequality and of our lack of civil freedom. The problem of Jewish equal rights in Russia is the problem of the equal rights of all our citizens in general. That is why the anti-Semitical parties in Russia have a larger political significance and importance than the anti-Semitical parties of the West. In our country they almost coincide with anti-constitutional parties, in general, and anti-Semitism is the banner of the old régime, of which we still struggle in vain to rid ourselves. This