This is not only because there are in the Empire six million Jews,
i.e., more than in any other State in the world, and because in the
provinces annexed at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of
the nineteenth centuries, they form as much as 11 per cent. of the
population--but also for the reason that the legal status of the
Russian Jews completely differs from that of other non-Russian
nationalities which go to make the Empire. These nationalities
endeavour to obtain the many rights of which they are deprived. The
most important of these rights is national autonomy, i.e., the right
of a collective unit to preserve and develop its national
individuality. In this manner they desire to protect themselves from
the danger of assimilation, from the possibility of their fusion with
the dominant nationality. Of course the Jews, too, have been striving,
especially in late years, to realise national autonomy and thus
safeguard the rights and aspirations of their collective unit. But
they lack still other rights.
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