THE ACCESSION OF ALEXANDER III. AND THE INAUGURATION OF POGROMS
1. THE TRIUMPH OF AUTOCRACY
On March 1, 1881, Alexander II. met his death on one of the principal
thoroughfares of St. Petersburg, smitten by dynamite bombs hurled at him
by a group of terrorists. The Tzar, who had freed the Russian peasantry
from personal slavery, paid with his life for refusing to free the
Russian people from political slavery and police tyranny. The red
terrorism of the revolutionaries was the counterpart of the white
terrorism of the Russian authorities, who for many years had suppressed
the faintest striving for liberty, and had sent to gaol and prison, or
deported to Siberia, the champions of a constitutional form of
government and the spokesmen of social reforms. Forced by the
persecutions of the police to hide beneath the surface, the
revolutionary societies of underground Russia found themselves compelled
to resort to methods of terrorism. This terrorism found its expression
during the last years of Alexander II. in various attempts on the life
of that ruler, and culminated in the catastrophe of March 1.
Among the members of these revolutionary societies were also some
representatives from among the young Jewish _intelligenzia._ They were
in large part college students, who had been carried away by the ideals
of their Russian comrades. But few of them were counted among the active
terrorists. The group which prepared the murder of the Tzar comprised
but one Jewish member, a woman by the name of Hesia Helfman, who,
moreover, played but a secondary role in the conspiracy, by keeping a
secret residence for toe revolutionaries. Nevertheless, in the official
circles, which were anxious to justify their oppression of the Jews, it
became customary to refer to the "important role" played by the Jews in
the Russian revolution.
It was with preconceived notions of this kind that Alexander III.
ascended the throne of Russia, a sovereign with unlimited power but with
a very limited political horizon. Being a Russian of the old-fashioned
type and a zealous champion of the Greek-Orthodox Church, he shared the
anti-Jewish prejudices of his environment. Already as crown prince he
ordered that a monetary reward be given to the notorious Lutostanski,
who had presented him with his libellous pamphlet "Concerning the Use of
Christian Blood by the Jews." [1] During the Russo-Turkish war of 1877,
when as heir-apparent he was in command of one of the Balkan armies, he
allowed himself to be persuaded that the abuses in the Russian
commissariat were due to the "Jewish" purveyors who supplied the army.
[2] This was all that was known about Judaism in the circles from which
the ruler of five million Jews derived his information.
[Footnote 1: See p. 203.]
[Footnote 2: The business firm in question was that of Greger, Horvitz,
and Kohan, of whom the first was a Greek, and the second a converted
Jew. See above, p. 202, n. 1.]
In March and April, 1881, the destinies of Russia were being decided at
secret conferences, which were held between the Tzar and the highest
dignitaries of state in the palace of the quiet little town of Gatchina,
whither Alexander III. had withdrawn after the death of his father. Two
parties and two programs were struggling for mastery at these
conferences. The party of the liberal Minister Loris-Melikov,
championing a program of moderate reforms, pleaded primarily for the
establishment of an advisory commission to be composed of the deputies
deputies of the rural and urban administrations for the purpose of
considering all legal projects prior to their submission to
the Council of State. This plan of a paltry popular representation,
which had obtained the approval of Alexander II. during the last
days of his life, assumed in the eyes of the reactionary party the
proportions of a dangerous "constitution," and was execrated
by it as an encroachment upon the sacred prerogatives of autocracy.
The head of this party was the procurator-general of the Holy Synod,
Constantine Petrovich Pobyedonostzev, a former professor at
the University of Moscow, who had been Alexander III.'s tutor in the
political sciences when the latter was crown prince. As the
exponent of an ecclesiastical police state, Pobyedonostzev contended
that enlightenment and political freedom were harmful to Russia,
that the people must be held in a state of patriarchal submission to
the authority of the Church and of the temporal powers, and that the
Greek-Orthodox masses must be shielded against the influence of
alien religions and races, which should accordingly occupy in the
Russian monarchy a position subordinate to that of the dominant
nation. The ideas of this fanatic reactionary, who was dubbed "The
Grand Inquisitor" and whose name was popularly changed into
_Byedonostzev_ [1] carried the day at the Gatchina conferences. The
deliberations culminated in the decision to refrain from making any
concessions to the revolutionary element by granting reforms, however
however modest in character, and to maintain at all cost the regime of a
police state as a counterbalance to the idea of a legal state
prevalent in the "rotten West."
[Footnote 1: _Byedonostzev_ means in Russian "Misfortune-bearer," a play
on the name _Pobyedonostzev_ which signifies "Victory-bearer."]
Accordingly, the imperial manifesto [1] promulgated on April 29, 1881,
proclaimed to the people that "the Voice of God hath commanded us to
take up vigorously the reins of government, inspiring us with the belief
in the strength and truth of autocratic power, which we are called upon
to establish and safeguard." The manifesto "calls upon all faithful
subjects to eradicate the hideous sedition and to establish faith and
morality." The methods whereby faith and morality were to be established
were soon made known, in the "Police Constitution" which was bestowed
upon Russia in August, 1881, under the name of "The Statute concerning
Enforced Public Safety."
[Footnote 1: A manifesto is a pronouncement issued by the Tzar on solemn
occasions, such as accession to the throne, events in the imperial
family, declaration of war, conclusion of peace, etc., accompanied, as a
rule, by acts of grace, such as conferring privileges, granting pardons,
and so on. Compare also above, p. 115.]
This statute confers upon the Russian satraps of the capitals (St.
Petersburg and Moscow) and of many provincial centers--the
governors-general and the governors--the power of issuing special
enactments and thereby setting aside the normal laws as well as of
placing under arrest and deporting to Siberia, without the due process
of law, all citizens suspected of "political unsafety." This travesty of
a _habeas corpus_ Act, insuring the inviolability of police and
gendarmerie, and practically involving the suspension of the current
legislation in a large part of the monarchy, has ever since been
annually renewed by special imperial enactments, and has remained in
force until our own days. The genuine "Police Constitution" of 1881 has
survived the civil sham Constitution of 1905, figuring as a symbol of
legalized lawlessness.
2. THE INITIATION OF THE POGROM POLICY
The catastrophe of March 1 had the natural effect of pushing not only
the Government but also a large part of the Russian people, who had been
scared by the spectre of anarchy, in the direction of reactionary
politics. This retrograde tendency was bound to affect the Jewish
question. The bacillus of Judaeophobia [1] became astir in the
politically immature minds which had been unhinged by the acts of
terrorism. The influential press organs, which maintained more or less
close relations with the leading Government spheres, adopted more and
more a hostile attitude towards the Jews. The metropolitan newspaper
_Novoye Vremya_ ("The New Time") [2] which at that time embarked upon
its infamous career as the semi-official organ of the Russian reaction,
and a number of provincial newspapers subsidized by the Government
suddenly began to speak of the Jews in a tone which suggested that they
were in the possession of some terrible secret.
[Footnote 1: The term used in Russia for anti-Semitism.]
[Footnote 2: See above, p. 205.]
Almost on the day following the attempt on the life of the Tzar, the
papers of this ilk began to insinuate that the Jews had a hand in
it, and shortly thereafter the South-Russian press published alarming
rumors about proposed organized attacks upon the Jews of that region.
These rumors were based on facts. A sinister agitation was rife among
the lowest elements of the Russian population, while invisible hands
from above seemed to push it on toward the commission of a gigantic
crime. In the same month of March, mysterious emissaries from St.
Petersburg made their appearance in the large cities of South Russia,
such as Yelisavetgrad (Elizabethgrad), Kiev, and Odessa, and entered
into secret negotiations with the highest police officials concerning a
possible "outburst of popular indignation against the Jews" which they
expected to take place as part of the economic conflict, intimating the
undesirability of obstructing the will of the Russian populace by police
force. Figures of Great-Russian tradesmen and laborers, or _Katzaps,_ as
the Great Russians are designated in the Little-Russian South, began to
make their appearance in the railroad cars and at the railroad stations,
and spoke to the common people of the summary punishment soon to be
inflicted upon the Jews or read to them anti-Semitic newspaper articles.
They further assured them that an imperial ukase had been issued,
calling upon the Christians to attack the Jews during the days of the
approaching Greek-Orthodox Easter.
Although many years have passed since these events, it has not yet been
possible to determine the particular agency which carried on this pogrom
agitation among the Russian masses. Nor has it been possible to find out
to what extent the secret society of high officials, which had been
formed in March, 1881, under the name of "The Sacred League," with the
object of defending the person of the Tzar and engaging in a terroristic
struggle with the "enemies of the public order," [1] was implicated in
the movement. But the fact itself that, the pogroms were carefully
prepared and engineered is beyond doubt: it may be inferred from the
circumstance that they broke out almost simultaneously in many places of
the Russian South, and that everywhere they followed the same routine,
characterized by the well-organized "activity" of the mob and the
deliberate inactivity of the authorities.
[Footnote 1: The League existed until the autumn of 1882. Among its
members were Pobyedonostzev and the anti-Jewish Minister Ignatyev.]
The first outbreak of the storm took place in Yelisavetgrad
(Elizabethgrad), a large city in New Russia, [1] with a Jewish
population of fifteen thousand souls. On the eve of the Greek-Orthodox
Easter, the local Christians, meeting on the streets and in the stores,
spoke to one another of the fact that "the Zhyds are about to be
beaten." The Jews became alarmed. The police, prepared to maintain
public order during the first days of the Passover, called out a small
detachment of soldiers. In consequence, the first days of the festival
passed quietly, and on the fourth day, [2] on April 15, the troops were
removed from the streets.
[Footnote 1: On the term New Russia see p. 40, n. 3.]
[Footnote 2: The Greek-Orthodox Passover lasts officially three days,
but an additional day is celebrated by the populace.]
At that moment the pogrom began. The organizers of the riots sent a
drunken Russian into a saloon kept by a Jew, where he began to make
himself obnoxious. When the saloon-keeper pushed the trouble maker out
into the street, the crowd, which was waiting outside, began to shout:
"The Zhyds are beating our people," and threw themselves upon the Jews
who happened to pass by.
This evidently was the prearranged signal for the pogrom. The Jewish
stores in the market-place were attacked and demolished, and the goods
looted or destroyed. At first, the police, assisted by the troops,
managed somehow to disperse the rioters. But on the second day the
pogrom was renewed with greater energy and better leadership, amidst the
suspicious inactivity both of the military and police authorities. The
following description of the events is taken from the records of the
official investigation which were not meant for publication and are
therefore free from the bureaucratic prevarications characteristic of
Russian public documents:
During the night from the 15th to the 16th of April, an attack was
made upon Jewish houses, primarily upon liquor stores, on the
outskirts of the town, on which occasion one Jew was killed. About
seven o'clock in the morning, on April 16, the excesses were
renewed, spreading with extraordinary violence all over the city.
Clerks, saloon and hotel waiters, artisans, drivers, flunkeys, day
laborers in the employ of the Government, and soldiers on
furlough--all of these joined the movement. The city presented an
extraordinary sight: streets covered with feathers and obstructed
with broken furniture which had been thrown out of the residences;
houses with broken doors and windows; a raging mob, running about
yelling and whistling in all directions and continuing its work of
destruction without let or hindrance, and, as a finishing touch to
this picture, complete indifference displayed by the local
non-Jewish inhabitants to the havoc wrought before their eyes. The
troops which had been summoned to restore order were without
definite instructions, and, at each attack of the mob on another
house, would wait for orders of the military or police authorities,
without knowing what to do. As a result of this attitude of the
military, the turbulent mob, which was demolishing the houses and
stores of the Jews before the eyes of the troops, without being
checked by them, was bound to arrive at the conclusion that the
excesses in which it indulged were not an illegal undertaking but
rather a work which had the approval of the Government. Toward
evening the disorders increased in intensity, owing to the arrival
of a large number of peasants from the adjacent villages, who were
anxious to secure part of the Jewish loot. There was no one to check
these crowds; the troops and police were helpless. They had all lost
heart, and were convinced that it was Impossible to suppress the
disorders with the means at hand. At eight o'clock at night a rain
came down accompanied by a cold wind which helped in a large measure
to disperse the crowd. At eleven o'clock fresh troops arrived on the
spot. On the morning of April 17 a new battalion of infantry came,
and from that day on public order was no longer violated in
Yelisavetgrad.
The news of the "victory" so easily won over the Jews of Yelisavetgrad
aroused the dormant pogrom energy in the unenlightened Russian masses.
In the latter part of April riots took place in many villages of the
Yelisavetgrad district and in several towns and townlets in the
adjoining government of Kherson. In the villages, the work of
destruction was limited to the inns kept by Jews--many peasants
believing that they were acting in accordance with imperial orders. In
the towns and townlets, all Jewish houses and stores were demolished and
their goods looted. In the town of Ananyev, in the government of
Kherson, the people were incited by a resident named Lashchenko, who
assured his townsmen that the central Government had given orders to
massacre the Jews because they had murdered the Tzar, and that these
orders were purposely kept back by the local administration. The
instigator was seized by the police, but was wrested from it by the
crowd which thereupon threw itself upon the Jews. The riots resulted in
some two hundred ruined houses and stores in the outskirts of the town,
where the Jewish proletariat was cooped up. The central part of the
town, where the more well-to-do Jews had their residences, was guarded
by the police and by a military detachment, and therefore remained
intact.
3. THE POGROM AT KIEV
The movement gained constantly in momentum, and the instincts of the mob
became more and more unbridled. The "Mother of Russian cities," ancient
Kiev, where at the dawn of Russian history the Jews, together with the
Khazars, had been the banner-bearers of civilization, became the scene
of the lawless fury of savage hordes. Here the pogrom was carefully
prepared by a secret organization which spread the rumor that the new
Tzar had given orders to exterminate the Jews, who had murdered his
father, and that the civil and military authorities would render
assistance to the people, whilst those who would fail to comply with the
will of the Tzar would meet with punishment. The local authorities, with
Governor-General Drenteln at their head, who was a reactionary and a
fierce Jew-hater, were aware not only of the imminence of the pogrom,
but also of the day selected for it, Sunday, April 26.
As early as April 23 a street fight took place which was accompanied by
assaults on Jewish passers-by--a prelude to the pogrom. On the day
before the fateful Sunday, the Jews were warned by the police not to
leave their houses, nor to open their stores on the morrow. The Jews
were nonplussed. They failed to understand why in the capital of the
governor-general, with its numerous troops, which, at a hint from their
commander, were able to nip in the bud disorders of any kind, peaceful
citizens should be told to hide themselves from an impending attack,
instead of taking measures to forestall the attack itself. Nevertheless,
the advice of the police was heeded, and on the fateful day no Jews were
to be found on the streets. This, however, did not prevent the numerous
bands of rioters from assembling on the streets and embarking upon their
criminal activities. The pogrom started in Podol, a part of the town
densely populated by Jews. The following is the description of an
eye-witness:
At twelve o'clock at noon, the air saddenly resounded with, wild
shouts, whistling, jeering, hooting, and laughing. An immense crowd
of young boys, artisans, and laborers was on the march. The whole
city was obstructed by the "bare-footed brigade." [1] The
destruction of Jewish houses began. Window-panes, and doors began to
fly about, and shortly thereafter the mob, having gained access to
the houses and stores, began to throw upon the streets absolutely
everything that fell into their hands. Clouds of feathers began to
whirl in the air. The din of broken window-panes and frames, the
crying, shouting, and despair on the one hand, and the terrible
yelling and jeering on the other, completed the picture which
reminded many of those who had participated in the last
Russo-Turkish war of the manner in which the Bashi-buzuks [2] had
attacked Bulgarian villages. Soon afterwards the mob threw itself
upon the Jewish synagogue, which, despite its strong bars, locks and
shutters, was wrecked in a moment. One should have seen the fury
with which the riff-raff fell upon the [Torah] scrolls, of which
there were many in the synagogue. The scrolls were torn to shreds,
trampled in the dirt, and destroyed with incredible passion. The
streets were soon crammed with the trophies of destruction.
Everywhere fragments of dishes, furniture, household utensils, and
other articles lay scattered about. Barely two hours after the
beginning of the pogrom, the majority of the "bare-footed brigade"
were transformed into well-dressed gentlemen, many of them having
grown excessively stout in the meantime. The reason for this sudden
change was simple enough. Those that had looted the stores of
ready-made clothes put on three or four suits, and, not yet
satisfied, took under their arms all they could lay their hands on.
Others drove off in vehicles, carrying with them bags filled with
loot.... The Christian population saved itself from the ruinous
operations of the crowd by placing holy ikons in their windows and
painting crosses on the gates of their houses.
[Footnote 1: The Russian nickname for a crowd of tramps.]
[Footnote 2: Name of the Turkish irregular troops noted for their
ferocity.]
While the pogrom was going on, troops were marching up and down on the
streets of the Podol district, Cossaks were riding about on their
horses, and patrols on foot and horse-back were moving to and fro.
Here and there army officers would pass through, among them generals
and high civil officials. The cavalry would hasten to a place whence
the noise came. Having arrived there, it would surround the mob and
order it to disperse, but the mob would only move to another place.
Thus, the work of destruction proceeded undisturbed until three
o'clock in the morning. Drums were beaten, words of command were
shouted, the crowd was encircled by the troops and ordered to
disperse, while the mob continued its attacks with ever-increasing
fury and savagery.
While some of the robber bands were "busy" in Podol, others were active
in the principal thoroughfares of the city. In each case, the savage and
drunken mob--"not a single sober person could be found among them," is
the testimony of an eye-witness--did its hideous work in the presence of
soldiers and policemen, who in a few instances drove off the rioters,
but, more often, accompanied them from place to place, forming, as it
were, an honorary escort. Occasionally, Governor-General Drenteln
himself would appear on the streets, surrounded by a magnificent
military suite, including the governor and chief of police. These
representatives of State authority "admonished the people," and the
latter, "preserving a funereal silence, drew back," only to resume their
criminal task after the departure of the authorities.
In some places there were neither troops nor police on the spot, and the
rioters were able to give full vent to their beastly instincts.
Demiovka, a suburb of Kiev, was invaded by a horde of rioters during the
night. They first destroyed the saloons, filling themselves with
alcohol, and then proceeded to lay fire to the Jewish houses. Under the
cover of night indescribable horrors were perpetrated, numerous Jews
were beaten to death or thrown into the flames, and many women were
violated. A private investigation carried on subsequently brought out
more than twenty cases of rape committed on Jewish girls and married
women. Only two of the sufferers confessed their misfortune to the
public prosecutor. The others admitted their disgrace in private or
concealed it altogether, for fear of ruining their reputation.
It was only on April 27--when the pogrom broke out afresh--that the
authorities resolved to put a stop to it. Wherever a disorderly band
made its appearance, it was immediately surrounded by soldiers and
Cossaks and driven off with the butt ends of their rifles. Here and
there it became necessary to shoot at these human beasts, and some of
them were wounded or killed. The rapidity with which the pogrom was
suppressed on the second day showed incontrovertibly that if the
authorities had only been so minded the excesses might have been
suppressed on the first day and the crime nipped in the bud. The
indifference of the authorities was responsible for the demolition of
about a thousand Jewish houses and business places, involving a monetary
loss of several millions of rubles, not to speak of the scores of killed
and wounded Jews and a goodly number of violated women. In the official
reports these orgies of destruction were politely designated as
"disorders," and _The Imperial Messenger_ limited its account of the
horrors perpetrated at Kiev to the following truth-perverting dispatch:
On April 26, disorders broke out in Kiev which were directed against
the Jews. Several Jews received blows, and their stores and
warehouses were plundered. On the morning of the following day the
disorders were checked with the help of the troops, and five hundred
men from among the rioters were arrested.
The later laconic reports are nearer to the facts. They set the figure
of arrested rioters at no less than fourteen hundred, and make mention
of a number of persons who had been wounded during the suppression of
the excesses, including one gymnazium and one university student. Yet
even these later dispatches contain no reference to Jewish victims.
4. FURTHER OUTBREAKS IN SOUTH RUSSIA
The barbarism displayed in the metropolis of the south-west communicated
itself with the force of an infectious disease to the whole region.
During the following days, from April to May, some fifty villages and a
number of townlets in the government of Kiev and the adjacent
governments of Volhynia and Podolia were swept by the pogrom epidemic.
The Jewish population of the town of Smyela [1] and the surrounding
villages, amounting to some ten thousand souls, experienced, on a
smaller scale, all the horrors perpetrated at Kiev. It was not until the
second day, May 4, that the troops proceeded to put an end to the
violence and pillage which had been going on in the town and which
resulted in a number of killed and wounded. In a near-by village a
Jewish woman of thirty was attacked and tortured to death, while the
seven year old son of another woman, who had saved herself by flight,
was killed in beastly fashion for his refusal to make the sign of the
cross.
[Footnote 1: In the government of Kiev.]
In many cases the pogroms had been instigated by the newly arrived
Great-Russian "bare-footed brigade" who having accomplished their
"work," vanished without a trace.
A similar horde of tramps arrived at the railway station of Berdychev.
But in this populous Jewish center they were met at the station by a
large Jewish guard who, armed with clubs, did not allow the visiting
"performers" to leave the railway cars, with the result that they had to
turn back. This rare instance of self-defence was only made possible by
the indulgence of the local police commissioner, or _Ispravnik_, who,
for a large consideration, blinked at the endeavor of the Jews to defend
themselves against the rioters. In other places, similar attempts at
self-defence were frustrated by the police; occasionally they made
things worse. Such was the case in the town of Konotop, in the
government of Chernigov, where, as a result of the self-defence of the
Jews, the mob passed from plunder to murder. In the villages the
ignorant peasants scrupulously discharged their "pogrom duty," in the
conviction that it had been imposed upon them by the Tzar. In one
village in the government of Chernigov, the following characteristic
episode took place. The peasants of the village had assembled for their
work of destruction. When the rural chief, or Elder, [1] called upon the
peasants to disperse, the latter demanded a written guarantee that they
would not be held to account for their failure to comply with the
imperial "orders" to beat the Jews. This guarantee was given to them.
However, the sceptical rustics were not yet convinced, and, to make
assurance doubly sure, destroyed six Jewish houses. In various villages
the priests found it exceedingly difficult to convince the peasants that
no "order" had been issued to attack the Jews.
[Footnote 1: The president of the village assembly.]
The series of spring pogroms was capped by a three days' riot in the
capital of the South, in Odessa (May 3-5), which harbored a Jewish
population of 100,000. In view of the immense riff-raff, which is
generally found in a port of entry of this size, the excesses of the mob
might have assumed terrifying dimensions, had not the authorities
remembered that the task entrusted to them was not exactly that of
forming an honorary escort for the rioters, as had actually been the
case in Kiev. The police and military forces of Odessa attacked the
rioting hordes which had spread all over the city, and, in most cases,
succeeded in driving them off. The Jewish self-defence, organized and
led by Jewish students of the University of Odessa, managed in a
number of cases to beat off the bloodthirsty crowds from the gates of
Jewish homes. However, when the police began to make arrests among the
street mob, they drew no line between the defenders and the assailants,
with the result that among the eight hundred arrested persons there
were one hundred and fifty Jews, who were locked up on the charge of
carrying fire-arms. In point of fact, the "arms" of the Jews
consisted of clubs and iron rods, with the exception of a very few
who were provided with pistols. Those arrested were loaded on three
barges which were towed out to sea, and for several days were kept
in that swimming jail.
The Odessa pogrom, which had resulted in the destruction of several city
districts populated by poor Jews, did not satisfy the appetites of the
savage crowd, whose imagination had been fired by stories of the
"successes" attained at Kiev. The mob threatened the Jews with a new
riot and even with a massacre. The panic resulting from this threat
induced many Jews to flee to more peaceful places, or to leave Russia
altogether. The same lack of completeness marked the pogroms which took
place simultaneously in several other cities within the jurisdiction of
the governor-general of New Russia. In the beginning of May the
destructive energy characterizing the first pogrom period began to ebb.
A lull ensued in the "military operations" of the Russian barbarians
which continued until the month of July of the same year.