History of the Jews in Russia and Poland Volume II Part 19

[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 had withdrawn after the death of his father.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, a.s.sumed in the eyes of the reactionary party the proportions of a dangerous "const.i.tution," 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 ma.s.ses must be s.h.i.+elded 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 G.o.d 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 Const.i.tution" which was bestowed upon Russia in August, 1881, under the name of "The Statute concerning Enforced Public Safety."

[Footnote 1: A manifesto is a p.r.o.nouncement 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 Const.i.tution" of 1881 has survived the civil sham Const.i.tution 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 pus.h.i.+ng 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 att.i.tude 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 a.s.sured 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 pa.s.sed since these events, it has not yet been possible to determine the particular agency which carried on this pogrom agitation among the Russian ma.s.ses. 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 circ.u.mstance 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 Pa.s.sover, called out a small detachment of soldiers. In consequence, the first days of the festival pa.s.sed 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 Pa.s.sover 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 pa.s.s 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, a.s.sisted by the troops, managed somehow to disperse the rioters. But on the second day the pogrom was renewed with greater energy and better leaders.h.i.+p, 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 doc.u.ments:

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 finis.h.i.+ng 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 att.i.tude of the military, the turbulent mob, which was demolis.h.i.+ng 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 ma.s.ses.

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 a.s.sured his townsmen that the central Government had given orders to ma.s.sacre 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 a.s.sistance 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 a.s.saults on Jewish pa.s.sers-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 a.s.sembling 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 partic.i.p.ated in the last Russo-Turkish war of the manner in which the Bas.h.i.+-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 pa.s.sion. 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 pa.s.s 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 princ.i.p.al 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 b.u.t.t 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 gymn.a.z.ium 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 fas.h.i.+on 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sembled 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 a.s.surance 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 a.s.sembly.]

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 a.s.sumed 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 a.s.sailants, 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.