Page:The Shield (Knopf, 1917).djvu/95

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P. MILYUKOV
69

so well prepared to appreciate a social argument, even when served in a simplified form. In Russia anti-Semitism is forced to present this argument in an even more popular form, making an appeal to the most elementary passions and instincts. F. I. Rodichev once remarked in the Duma, parodying Bismarck's aphorism to fit it to our conditions, that anti-Semitism is "the patriotism of perplexed people." In fact, anti-Semitism in Russia is a means of creating a nationalism of a definite type in the masses, it is with this aim in view that our anti-Semites play on the racial and religious animosities of the masses.

In spite of this difference, the very means, ways, and methods our anti-Semites use in their striving to mould the popular mind are of distinctly foreign origin. It is enough to collate the arguments expounded in the Duma or printed in the Russian Standard and Zemshchina with the anti-Semitic literature of the West, such as Drumont's books, or similar German works,—and it becomes apparent that in the latter the entire anti-Semitic arsenal of our nationalists is to be found ready-made. It is from thence that mediæval legends