Jewish boys and men virtually all had beards until the time the Russian Czar, in his quest to secularize a Russia that until then (in the mid-1800s) had been a very religious country – in order to bring it closer to Western European norms, passed and enforced oppressive laws forbidding citizens (both Jewish and Orthodox Christians) from publicly being seen as openly religious.
This included forbidding men from having beards, women covering their hair, wearing long jackets (kapote), wearing religious hats (shtreimals), etc.