Chapter 5. After the Murder of Alexander II

The murder of the Tsar-Liberator, Alexander II, shocked the people's consciousness - something the Narodovol'tsi intended, but that has been intentionally or unintentionally ignored by historians with the passing of decades. The deaths of heirs or tsars of the previous century - Aleksei Petrovich, Ivan Antonovich, Peter III, and Paul - were violent, but that was unknown to the people. The murder of March 1^st, 1881, caused a panic in minds nationwide. For the common people, and particularly for the peasant masses it was as if the very foundations of their lives were shaken. Again, as the Narodovol'tsi calculated, this could not help but invite some explosion.

And an explosion did occur, but an unpredictable one: Jewish pogroms in Novorossiya and Ukraine.

Six weeks after the regicide, the pogroms of Jewish shops, institutions, and homes “suddenly engulfed a vast territory, with tremendous, epidemic force."[1] "Indeed, it was rather spontaneous. Local people, who, for the most different reasons desired to get even with the Jews, posted incendiary posters and organized basic cadres of pogromists, which were quickly joined by hundreds of volunteers, who joined without any exhortation, caught up in the generally wild atmosphere and promise of easy money. In this there was something spontaneous. However, even the crowds, fueled by alcohol, while committing theft and violence, directed their blows in one direction only: in the direction of the Jews - the unruliness only stopping at the thresholds of Christian homes."[2]

The first pogrom occurred in Elizavetgrad, on 15 April. "Disorder intensified, when peasants from the neighboring settlements arrived, in order to profit off the goods of the Jews." At first the military did not act, because of uncertainty; finally "significant cavalry forces succeeded in ending the pogrom."[3] "The arrival of fresh forces put an end to the pogrom."[4] "There was no rape and murder in this pogrom."[5] According to other sources: "one Jew was killed. The pogrom was put down on 17 April by troops, who fired into the crowd of thugs."[6] However, "from Elizavetgrad the stirring spread to neighboring settlements; in the majority of cases, the disorders were confined to plundering of taverns." And after a week, a pogrom occurred in the Anan'evskiy Uezd [district] of Odessa Guberniya [province], then in Anan'ev itself, "where it was caused by some petty bourgeois, who spread a rumor that the Tsar was killed by Jews, and that there was an official order for the massacre of Jews, but the authorities were hiding this."[7] On 23 April there was a brief pogrom in Kiev, but it was soon stopped with military forces. However, in Kiev on 26 April a new pogrom broke out, and by the following day it had spread to the Kiev suburbs - and this was the largest pogrom in the whole chain of them; but they ended without human fatalities."[8] (Another tome of the same Encyclopedia reports the opposite, that "several Jews were killed."[9])

After Kiev, pogroms took place again in approximately fifty settlements in the Kiev Guberniya, during which "property of the Jews was subjected to plunder, and in isolated cases battery occurred." At the end of the same April a pogrom took place in Konotop, "caused mainly by workers and railroad hands, accompanied by one human fatality; in Konotop there were instances of self-defense from the Jewish side." There was still an echo of the Kiev Pogrom in Zhmerinka, in "several settlements of Chernigov Guberniya;" at the start of May, in the small town of Smel, where "it was suppressed with arriving troops the next day" ("an apparel store was plundered"). With echoes in the course of May, at the start of summer pogroms still broke out in separate areas in Ekaterinoslav and Poltava guberniyas (Aleksandrovsk, Romni, Nezhin, Pereyaslavl, and Borisov). Insignificant disorders took place somewhere in Melitopol Uezd. There were cases, when peasants immediately compensated Jews for their losses."[10]

"The pogrom movement in Kishinev, which began on 20 April, was nipped in the bud."[11] There were no pogroms in all of Byelorussia - not in that year, nor in the following years,[12] although in Minsk a panic started among the Jews during rumors about pogroms in the Southwestern Krai - on account of a completely unexpected occurrence.[13]

And next in Odessa. Only Odessa already knew Jewish pogroms in the 19^th Century - in 1821, 1859, and 1871. "Those were sporadic events, caused mainly by unfriendliness toward Jews on the part of the local Greek population,"[14] that is, on account of the commercial competition of the Jews and Greeks; in 1871 there was a three-day pogrom of hundreds of Jewish taverns, shops, and homes, but without human fatalities.

I.G. Orshanskiy writes in more detail about this pogrom, and states, that Jewish property was being intentionally destroyed: heaps of watches from the jewelers - they did not steal them, but carried them out to the roadway and smashed them. He agrees that the "nerve center" of the pogrom was hostility toward the Jews on the part of the Greek merchants, particularly owing to the fact, that after the Crimean War the Odessa Jews took the grocery trade and colonial commodities from the Greeks. But there was "a general dislike toward the Jews on the part of the Christian population of Odessa. This hostility manifested far more consciously and prominently among the intelligent and affluent class than among the common working people." You see, however, that different peoples get along in Odessa; "why then did only Jews arouse general dislike toward themselves, which sometimes turns into severe hatred?" One high school teacher explained to his class: "The Jews are engaged in incorrect economic relations with the rest of population." Orshanskiy objects that such an explanation removes "the heavy burden of moral responsibility." He sees the same reason in the psychological influence of Russian legislation, which singles out the Jews, namely and only to place restrictions on them. And in the attempt of Jews to break free from restrictions, people see "impudence, insatiableness, and grabbing."[15]

As a result, in 1881 the Odessa administration, already having experience with pogroms - which other local authorities did not have - immediately put down disorders which were reignited several times, and "the masses of thugs were placed in vessels and dragged away from the shore"[16] - a highly resourceful method. (In contradiction to the pre-revolutionary, the modern Encyclopedia writes, that this time the pogrom in Odessa continued for three days).[17]

The pre-revolutionary Encyclopedia recognizes, that "the government considered it necessary to decisively put down violent attempts against the Jews";[18] so it was the new Minister of Interior Affairs, Count N.P. Ignatiev, (who replaced Loris-Melikov in May, 1881), who firmly suppressed the pogroms; although it was not easy to cope with rising disturbances of "epidemic strength" - in view of the complete unexpectedness of events, the extremely small number of Russian police at that time (Russia's police force was then incomparably smaller than the police forces in the West European states, much less than those in the Soviet Union), and the rare stationing of military garrisons in those areas. "Firearms were used for defense of the Jews against pogromists."[19] There was firing in the crowd, and [people] were shot dead. For example, in Borisov "soldiers shot and killed several peasants."[20] Also, in Nezhin "troops stopped a pogrom, by opening fire at the crowd of peasant pogromists; several people were killed and wounded."[21] In Kiev 1,400 people were arrested.[22]

All this together indicates a highly energetic picture of enforcement. But the government acknowledged its insufficient preparedness. An official statement said that during the Kiev pogrom "the measures to restrain the crowds were not taken with sufficient timeliness and energy."[23] In a report to His Majesty in June 1881 the Director of the Police Department, V.K. Plehve, named the fact that courts martial "treated the accused extremely leniently and in general dealt with the matter quite superficially" as "one of the reasons for the development and insufficiently quick suppression of the disorders'" Alexander III made a note in the report: "This is inexcusable."[24]

But forthwith and later it did not end without accusations, that the pogroms were arranged by the government itself - a completely unsubstantiated accusation, much less absurd, since in April 1881 the same liberal reformer Loris Melikov headed the government, and all his people were in power in the upper administration. After 1917, a group of researchers - S. Dubnov, G. Krasniy-Admoni, and S. Lozinskiy - thoroughly searched for the proof in all the opened government archives - and only found the opposite, beginning with the fact that, Alexander III himself demanded an energetic investigation. (But to utterly ruin Tsar Alexander III's reputation a nameless someone invented the malicious slander: that the Tsar - unknown to anyone, when, and under what circumstances - said: "And I admit, that I myself am happy, when they beat Jews!" And this was accepted and printed in emigre liberation brochures, it went into liberal folklore, and even until now, after 100 years, it has turned up in publications as historically reliable.[25] And even in the Short Jewish Encyclopedia: "The authorities acted in close contact with the arrivals,"[26] that is, with outsiders. And it was 'clear' to Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana that it was "obvious": all matters were in the hands of the authorities. If "they wanted one - they could bring on a pogrom; if they didn't want one - there would be no pogrom.")[27]

As a matter of fact, not only was there no incitement on the part of the government, but as Gessen points out: "the rise of numerous pogrom brigades in a short time in a vast area and the very character of their actions, eliminates the thought of the presence of a single organizational center."[28]

And here is another contemporary, living testimony from a pretty much unexpected quarter - from The Black Repartition's Worker's Leaflet; that is, a proclamation to the people, in June 1881. The revolutionary leaflet thus described the picture: "Not only all the governors, but all other officials, police, troops, priests, zemstvo [elected district councils], and journalists - stood up for the Kulak-JewsThe government protects the person and property of the Jews"; threats are announced by the governors "that the perpetrators of the riots will be dealt with according to the full extent of the lawThe police looked for people who were in the crowd [of pogromists], arrested them, dragged them to the police stationSoldiers and Cossacks used the rifle butt and the whipthey beat the people with rifles and whipssome were prosecuted and locked up in jail or sent to do hard labor, and others were thrashed with birches on the spot by the police."[29]

Next year, in the spring of 1881, "pogroms renewed but already not in the same numbers and not in the same scale as in the previous year."[30] "The Jews of the city of Balta experienced a particularly heavy pogrom," riots also occurred in the Baltskiy Uezd and still in a few others. "However, according to the number of incidents, and according to their character, the riots of 1882 were significantly inferior to the movement of 1881 - the destruction of the property of Jews was not so frequent a phenomenon."[31] The pre-revolutionary Jewish Encyclopedia reports, that at the time of the pogrom in Balta, one Jew was killed.[32]

A famous Jewish contemporary wrote: in the pogroms of the 1880s, "they robbed unlucky Jews, and they beat them, but they did not kill them."[33] (According to other sources, 6 - 7 deaths were recorded.) At the time of the 1880 - 1890s, no one remembered mass killings and rapes. However, more than a half-century passed - and many publicists, not having the need to delve into the ancient [official] Russian facts, but then having an extensive and credulous audience, now began to write about massive and premeditated atrocities. For example, we read in Max Raisin's frequently published book: that the pogroms of 1881 led to the "rape of women, murder, and maiming of thousands of men, women, and children. It was later revealed, that these riots were inspired and thought out by the very government, which had incited the pogromists and hindered the Jews in their self-defense."[34]

A G.B. Sliozberg, so rationally familiar with the workings of the Russian state apparatus - suddenly declared out-of-country in 1933, that the pogroms of 1881 originated not from below, but from above, with Minister Ignatiev (who at that time was still not Minister - the old man's memory failed him), and "there was nodoubt, that threads of the work of the pogrom could be found in the Department of Police"[35] - thus the experienced jurist afforded himself dangerous and ugly groundlessness.

And yes, here in a serious present-day Jewish journal - from a modern Jewish author we find that, contrary to all the facts and without bringing in new documents: that in Odessa in 1881 a "three-day pogrom" took place; and that in the Balta pogrom there was "direct participation of soldiers and police"; "40 Jews were killed and seriously wounded, 170 lightly wounded."[36] (We just read in the old Jewish Encyclopedia: in Balta one Jew was killed, and wounded - several. But in the new Jewish Encyclopedia, after a century from the events, we read: in Balta "soldiers joined the pogromistsSeveral Jews were killed, hundreds wounded, many women were raped."[37]) Pogroms are too savage and horrible a form of reprisal, for one to so lightly manipulate casualty figures.

There - spattered, basted - is it necessary to begin excavations again?

The causes of those first pogroms were persistently examined and discussed by contemporaries. As early as 1872, after the Odessa pogrom, the General-Governor of the Southwestern Krai warned in a report, that similar events could happen in his Krai also, for "here the hatred and hostility toward Jews has an historical basis, and only the material dependence of the peasants upon Jews together with the measures of the administration currently holds back an indignant explosion of the Russian population against the Jewish tribe." The General-Governor reduced the essence of the matter to economics, as he "reckoned and evaluated the business and manufacturing property in Jewish hands in the Southwestern Krai, and pointed to the fact, that, being increasingly engaged in the rent of landed estates, the Jews have re-rented and shifted this land to the peasants on very difficult terms." And such a causation "received wide recognition in 1881 which was full of pogroms."[38]

In the spring of 1881, Loris-Melikov also reported to His Majesty: "The deep hatred of the local population toward the Jews who enslave it lies at the foundation of the present disorders, but ill-intentioned people have undoubtedly exploited this opportunity."[39]

And thus explained the newspapers of the time: "Examining the causes which provoked the pogroms, only a few organs of the periodical press refer to the tribal and religious hatred; the rest think that the pogrom movement arose on economic grounds; in so doing, some see a protest in the unruly behaviors directed specially against the Jews, in light of their economic dominance over the Russian population". Yet others maintained that the mass of the people, in general squeezed economically, "looked for someone to vent their anger out on" and the Jews fit this purpose because of their having little rights.[40] A contemporary of these pogroms, the cited educator, V. Portugalov, also said "In the Jewish pogroms of the 1880s, I saw an expression of protest by the peasants and the urban poor against social injustice."[41]

Ten years later, Yu. I. Gessen emphasized, that "the Jewish population of the southern Guberniyas" in general was able to "find sources of livelihood among the Jewish capitalists, while the local peasantry went through extremely difficult times" as it did not have enough land, "to which the wealthy Jews contributed in part, by re-renting the landowner's lands and raising the rental fee beyond the ability of the peasants."[42]

Let us not leave out still another witness, known for his impartiality and thoughtfulness, whom no one accused of being "reactionary" or of "anti-Semitism" - Gleb Uspenskiy. At the beginning of the 1980s, he wrote: "The Jews were beaten up, namely because they amassed a fortune on other people's needs, other people's work, and did not make bread with their own hands"; "under canes and lashesyou see, the people endured the rule of the Tatar and the German but when the Yid began to harass the people for a ruble - they did not take it!"[43]

But we should note that when soon after the pogroms a deputation of prominent Jews from the capital, headed by Baron G. Gintsburg, came to Alexander III at the beginning of May 1881, His Majesty confidently estimated that "in the criminal disorders in the south of Russia, the Jews served only as a pretext, that this business was the hand of the anarchists."[44] And in those same days, the brother of the Tsar, the Grand Prince Vladimir Alexandrovich, announced to the same Gintsburg, that: "the disorders, as is now known by the government, have their sources not exclusively agitation against the Jews, but an aspiration to the work of sedition in general." And the General-Governor of the Southwestern Krai also reported, that "the general excited condition of the population is the responsibility of propagandists."[45] And in this the authorities turned out to be well-informed. Such quick statements from them reveal that the authorities did not waste time in the investigation. But because of the usual misunderstanding of the Russian administration of that time, and its incomprehension of the role of publicity, they did not report the results of the investigation to the public. Sliozberg blames that on the central authority in that it did not even make "attempts to vindicate itself of accusations of permitting the pogroms."[46] (True, but after all, it accused the government, as we saw, of deliberate instigation and guidance of the pogroms. It is absurd to start with proof that you are not a criminal.)

Yet not everyone wanted to believe that the incitements came from the revolutionaries. Here a Jewish memoirist from Minsk recalls: for Jews, Alexander II was not a "Liberator" - he did not do away with the Jewish Pale of Settlement, and although the Jews sincerely mourned his death, they did not say a single bad word against the revolutionaries; they spoke with respect about them, that they were driven by heroism and purity of thought. And during the spring and summer pogroms of 1881, they did not in any way believe that the socialists incited toward them: it was all because of the new Tsar and his government. "The government wished for the pogroms, it had to have a scapegoat." And now, when reliable witnesses from the South later indeed confirmed that the socialists engineered them, they continued to believe that it was the fault of the government.[47]

However, toward the start of the 20^th Century, thorough authors admitted: "In the press there is information about the participation of separate members of the party, Narodnaya Vol'ya [People's Will] in the pogroms; but the extent of this participation is still not clear. Judging by the party organ, members of the party considered the pogroms as a sort of revolutionary activity, suggesting that the pogroms were training the people for revolutionary action";[48] "that the action which was easiest of all to direct against the Jews now, could, in its further development, come down on the nobles and officials. Accordingly, proclamations calling for an attack on the Jews were prepared."[49] Today, it is only superficially talked about, like something generally known: "the active propaganda of the Narodniks (both members of Narodnaya Vol'ya and the Black Repartition was prepared to stir rebellion to any fertile soil, including anti-Semitism."[50]

From emigration, Tkachev, irrepressible predecessor of Lenin in conspiratorial tactics, welcomed the broadening pogrom movement.

Indeed, the Narodovol'tsi (and the weaker Chernoperedel'tsi [members of Black Repartition) could not wait much longer after the murder of the Tsar which did not cause instantaneous mass revolution which had been predicted and expected by them. With such a state of general bewilderment of minds after the murder of the Tsar-Liberator, only a slight push was needed for the reeling minds to re-incline into any direction.

In that generally unenlightened time, that re-inclination could probably have happened in different ways. (For example, there was then such a popular conception, that the Tsar was killed by nobles, in revenge for the liberation of the peasants.) In Ukraine, anti-Jewish motives existed. Still, it is possible the first movements of spring 1881 anticipated the plot of the Narodovol'tsi - but right then and there they suggested which way the wind would blow: it went against the Jews - never lose touch with the people! A movement from the heart of the masses - Of course! Why not use it? Beat the Jews, and later we will get to the landowners! And now the unsuccessful pogroms in Odessa and Ekaterinoslav were most likely exaggerated by the Narodniks. And the movement of the pogromists along the railroads, and participation of the railroad workers in the pogroms - everything points to the instigation of pogroms by easily mobile agitators, especially with that particularly inciting rumor that "they are hiding the order of the Tsar," namely to beat the Jews for the murder of his father. (The public prosecutor of the Odessa Judicial Bureau thus emphasized, "that, in perpetrating the Jewish pogroms, the people were completely convinced of the legality of their actions, firmly believing in the existence of a Tsar's decree, allowing and even authorizing the destruction of Jewish property."[51] And according to Gessen, "the realization that had taken root in the people, that the Jews stood outside of the law, and that the authorities defending the Jews could not come out against the people"[52] - had now taken effect. The Narodovol'tsi wanted to use this imaginary notion.)

A few such revolutionary leaflets are preserved for history. Such a leaflet from 30 August 1881 is signed by the Executive Committee of the Narodnaya Vol'ya and reads straight away in Ukrainian: "Who seized the land, forests, and taverns? - The Yid - From whom, muzhik [peasant], do you have to ask for access to your land, at times hiding tears?…From Yids. - Wherever you look, wherever you ask - the Yids are everywhere. The Yid insults people and cheats them; drinks their blood"and it concludes with the appeal: "Honest working people! Free yourselves!…"[53] And later, in the newspaper, Narodnaya Vol'ya, No. 6: "All attention of the defending people is now concentrated, hastily and passionately, on the merchants, tavern keepers, and moneylenders; in a word, on the Jews, on this local "bourgeoisie," who avariciously rob working people like nowhere else." And after, in a forward to a leaflet of the Narodnaya Vol'ya (already in 1883), some "corrections": "the pogroms began as a nationwide movement, 'but not against the Jews as Jews, but against Yids; that is, exploiter peoples.'"[54] And in the said leaflet, Zerno, the Chernoperedel'tsi: "The working people cannot withstand the Jewish robbery anymore. Wherever one goes, almost everywhere he runs into the Jew-Kulak. The Jew owns the taverns and pubs; the Jew rents land from the landowners, and then re-rents it at three times higher to the peasant; he buys the wholesale yields of crop and engages in usury, and in the process charges such interest rates, that the people outright call them "Yiddish [rates]""This is our blood!" said the peasants to the police officials, who came to seize the Jewish property back from them." But the same "correction" is in Zerno: "and far from all among the Jews are wealthynot all of them are kulaksDiscard with the hostility toward differing peoples and differing faiths" - and unite with them "against the common enemy": the Tsar, the police, the landowners, and the capitalists.[55]

However these "corrections" already came late. Such leaflets were later reproduced in Elizavetgrad and other cities of the South; and in the "South Russian Worker's Soviet" in Kiev, where the pogroms were already over, the Narodniks tried to stir them up again in 1883, hoping to renew, and through them - to spread the Russian-wide revolution.

Of course, the pogrom wave in the South was extensively covered in the contemporary press in the capital. In the "reactionary" Moskovskiye Vedomosti, M.N. Katkov, who always defended the Jews, branded the pogroms as originating with "malicious intriguers," "who intentionally darkened the popular consciousness, forcing people to solve the Jewish Question, albeit not by a path of thorough study, but with the help of "raised fists."[56]

The articles by prominent writers stand out. I.S. Aksakov, a steadfast opponent of complete civil liberty for the Jews, attempted to warn the government "against too daring steps" on this path, as early as the end of the 1850s. When a law came out allowing Jews with higher degrees to be employed in the administration, he objected (1862) saying that the Jews are "a bunch of people, who completely reject Christian teachings, the Christian ideal and code of morality (and, therefore, the entire foundation of Russian society), and practice a hostile and antagonistic faith." He was against political emancipation of the Jews, though he did not reject their equalization in purely civil rights, in order that the Jewish people could be provided complete freedom in daily life, self-management, development, enlightenment, commerce, and even allowing them to reside in all of Russia." In 1867 he wrote, that economically speaking "we should talk not about emancipation for Jews, but rather about the emancipation of Russians from Jews." He noted the blank indifference of the liberal press to the conditions of peasant's life and their needs. And now Aksakov explained the wave of pogroms in 1881 as a manifestation of the popular anger against "Jewish yoke over the Russian local people"; that's why during the pogroms, there was "an absence of theft," only the destruction of property and "a kind of simple-hearted conviction in the justness of their actions"; and he repeated, that it was worth putting the question "not about Jews enjoying equal rights with Christians, but about the equal rights of Christians with Jews, about abolishing factual inequality of the Russian population in the face of the Jews."[57]

On the other hand, an article by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin was full of indignation: "The history has never drawn on its pages a question more difficult, more devoid of humanity, and more tortuous, than the Jewish QuestionThere is not a more inhumane and mad legend than that coming out from the dark ravines of the distant pastcarrying the mark of disgrace, alienation, and hatredWhatever the Jew undertakes, he always remains stigmatized."[58] Shchedrin did not deny, "that a significant contingent of moneylenders and exploiters of various kinds are enlisted from the Jews," but he asked, can we really place blame on the whole Jewish tribe, on account of one type?[59]

Examining the whole discussion of that time, a present-day Jewish author writes: "the liberal, and conditionally speaking, progressive press was defending the thugs."[60] And the pre-revolutionary Jewish Encyclopedia comes to a similar conclusion: "Yet in the progressive circles, sympathies toward the woes of the Jewish people were not displayed sufficiently they looked at this catastrophe from the viewpoint of the aggressor, presenting him as destitute peasant, and completely ignoring the moral sufferings and material situation of the mobbed Jewish people." And even the radical Patriotic Notes evaluated it thus: the people rose up against the Jews because "they took upon themselves the role of pioneers of Capitalism, because they live according to the new truth and confidently draw their own comfortable prosperity from that new source at the expense of the surrounding community," and therefore, "it was necessary that 'the people are protected from the Jew, and the Jew from the people', and for this the condition of the peasant needs to be improved."[61]

In A Letter from a Christian on the Jewish Question, published in the Jewish magazine Rassvet, D. Mordovtsev, a writer sympathetic to the Jews, pessimistically urged the Jews "to emigrate to Palestine and America, seeing only in this a solution to the Jewish Question in Russia."[62]

Jewish social-political journalism and the memoirs of this period expressed grievance because the printed publications against the Jews, both from the right and from the revolutionary left, followed immediately after the pogroms. Soon (and all the more energetically because of the pogroms) the government would strengthen restrictive measures against the Jews. It is necessary to take note of and understand this insult.

It is necessary to thoroughly examine the position of the government. The general solutions to the problem were being sought in discussions in government and administrative spheres. In a report to His Majesty, N.P. Ignatiev, the new Minister of Internal Affairs, outlined the scope of the problem for the entire previous reign: "Recognizing the harm to the Christian population from the Jewish economic activity, their tribal exclusivity and religious fanaticism, in the last 20 years the government has tried to blend the Jews with the rest of the population using a whole row of initiatives, and has almost made the Jews equal in rights with the native inhabitants." However, the present anti-Jewish movement "incontrovertibly proves, that despite all the efforts of the government, the relations between the Jews and the native population of these regions remain abnormal as in the past," because of the economic issues: after the easing of civil restrictions, the Jews have not only seized commerce and trade, but they have acquired significant landed property. "Moreover, because of their cohesion and solidarity, they have, with few exceptions, directed all their efforts not toward the increase of the productive strength of the state, but primarily toward the exploitation of the poorest classes of the surrounding population." And now, after we have crushed the disorders and defended the Jews from violence, "it seems 'just and urgent to adopt no less energetic measures for the elimination of these abnormal conditionsbetween the native inhabitants and the Jews, and to protect the population from that harmful activity of the Jews.'"[63]

And in accordance with that, in November 1881, the governmental commissions, comprised of "representatives of all social strata and groups (including Jewish), were established in 15 guberniyas of the Jewish Pale of Settlement, and also in Kharkov Guberniya.[64] The commissions ought to examine the Jewish Question and propose their ideas on its resolution."[65] It was expected that the commissions will provide answers on many factual questions, such as: "In general, which aspects of Jewish economic activity are most harmful for the way of life of the native population in the region?" Which difficulties hinder the enforcement of laws regulating the purchase and rental of land, trade in spirits, and usury by Jews? Which changes are necessary to eliminate evasion of these laws by Jews? "Which legislative and administrative measures in general are necessary to negate the harmful influence of the Jews" in various kinds of economic activity?[66] The liberal "Palenskaya" inter-ministerial "High Commission" established two years later for the revision of laws on the Jews, noted that "the harm from the Jews, their bad qualities, and traits" were somewhat recognized a priori in the program that was given to the provincial commissions.[67]

Yet many administrators in those commissions were pretty much liberal as they were brought up in the stormy epoch of Tsar Alexander II's reforms, and moreover, public delegates participated also. And Ignatiev's ministry received rather inconsistent answers. Several commissions were in favor of abolishing the Jewish Pale of Settlement. "Individual members [of the commissions] - and they were not few" - declared that the only just solution to the Jewish Question was the general repeal of all restrictions.[68] On the other hand, the Vilnius Commission stated that "because of mistakenly understood notion of universal human equality wrongly applied to Judaism to the detriment of the native people, the Jews managed to "seize economic supremacy"; that the Jewish law permits [them] "to profit from any weakness and gullibility of gentile." "Let the Jews renounce their seclusion and isolation, let them reveal the secrets of their social organization allowing light where only darkness appeared to outsiders; and only then can one think about opening new spheres of activity to the Jews, without fear that Jews wish to use the benefits of the nation, [while] not being members of the nation, and not taking upon themselves a share of the national burden."[69]

"Regarding residence in the villages and hamlets, the commissions found it necessary to restrict the rights of the Jews": to forbid them to live there altogether or to make it conditional upon the agreement of the village communities. Some commissions recommended completely depriving the Jews of the right to possess real estate outside of the cities and small towns, and others proposed establishing restrictions. The commissions showed the most unanimity in prohibiting any Jewish monopoly on alcohol sales in villages. The Ministry gathered the opinions of the governors, and "with rare exceptions, comments from the regional authorities were not favorable to the Jews": to protect the Christian population "from so haughty a tribe as the Jews"; "one can never expect the Jewish tribe to dedicate its talentsto the benefit of the homeland"; "Talmudic morals do not place any obstacles before the Jews if it is a question of making money at the expense of someone outside of the tribe." Yet the Kharkov General-Governor did not consider it possible to take restrictive measures against the whole Jewish population, "without distinguishing the lawful from the guilty"; he proposed to "expand the right of movement for Jews and spread enlightenment among them."[70]

That same autumn, by Ignatiev's initiative, a special "Committee on the Jews" was established (the ninth by count already, with three permanent members, two of them professors), with the task of analyzing the materials of the provincial commissions and in order to draft a legislative bill.[71] (The previous "Commission for the Organization of the Life of the Jews" - that is, the eighth committee on Jews, which existed since 1872 - was soon abolished, "due to mismatch between its purpose and the present state of the Jewish Question.") The new Committee proceeded with the conviction that the goal of integrating the Jews with the rest of the population, toward which the government had striven for the last 25 years, had turned out to be unattainable.[72] Therefore, "the difficulty of resolving the complicated Jewish Question compels [us] to turn for the instruction to the old times, when various novelties did not yet penetrate neither ours, nor foreign legislations, and did not bring with them the regrettable consequences, which usually appear upon adoption of new things that are contrary to the national spirit of the country." From time immemorial the Jews were considered aliens, and should be considered as such.[73]

Gessen comments: "the reactionary could not go further". And if you were so concerned about the national foundations then why you didn't worry about genuine emancipation of the peasantry during the past 20 years?

And it was also true that Tsar Alexander II's emancipation of the peasants proceeded in a confused, unwholesome and corrupt environment.

However: "in government circles there were still people, who did not consider it possible, in general, to change the policy of the preceding reign" ^[74] - and they were in important posts and strong. And some ministers opposed Ignatiev's proposals. Seeing resistance, he divided the proposed measures into fundamental (for which passing in the regular way required moving through the government and the State Council) and provisional, which could by law be adopted through an accelerated and simplified process. "To convince the rural population that the government protects them from the exploitation by Jews, the permanent residence of Jews outside of their towns and shtetls (and the "government was powerless to protect them from pogroms in the scattered villages"), and buying and renting real estate there, and also trading in spirits was prohibited. And regarding the Jews already living there: it granted to the rural communities the right "to evict the Jews from the villages, based upon a verdict of the village meeting." But other ministers - particularly the Minister of Finance, N. Kh. Bunge, and the Minister of Justice, D.N. Nabokov, did not let Ignatiev implement these measures: they rejected the bill, claiming that it was impossible to adopt such extensive prohibitive measures, "without debating them within the usual legislative process."[75]

So much for the boundless and malicious arbitrariness of the Russian autocracy.

Ignatiev's fundamental measures did not pass, and the provisional ones passed only in a greatly truncated form. Rejected were the provisions to evict the Jews already living in the villages, to forbid their trade in alcohol or their renting and buying land in villages. And only because of the fear that the pogroms might happen again around Easter of 1882, a temporary measure (until passing of comprehensive legislation about the Jews) was passed which prohibited the Jews again, henceforth to take residence and enter into ownership, or make use of real estate property outside of their towns and shtetls (that is, in the villages), and also forbade them "to trade on Sundays and Christian holidays."[76] Concerning the Jewish ownership of local real estate, the government acted "to suspend temporarily the completion of sales and purchase agreements and loans in the name of the Jewsthe notarizationof real estate rental agreements and the proxy management and disposal of property by them".[77] This mere relic of Ignatiev's proposed measures was approved on 3 May 1882, under title of Temporary Regulations (known as the May Regulations). And Ignatiev himself went into retirement after a month and his "Committee on the Jews" ceased its brief existence, and a new Minister of Internal Affairs, Count D.A. Tolstoy, issued a stern directive against possible new pogroms, placing full responsibility on the provincial authorities for the timely prevention of disorders.[78]

Thus, according to the Temporary Regulations of 1882, the Jews who had settled in rural regions before the 3^rd of May, were not evicted; their economic activity there was essentially unrestricted. Moreover, these regulations only applied to the "guberniyas of permanent Jewish settlement," not to the guberniyas of the Russian interior. And these restrictions did not extend to doctors, attorneys, and engineers - i.e., individuals with "the right of universal residence according to educational requirement." These restrictions also did not affect any "existing Jewish colonies engaged in agriculture"; and there was still a considerable (and later growing) list of rural settlements, according to which, "in exception" to the Temporary Regulations, Jews were permitted to settle.[79]

After issuance of the "Regulations," inquiries began flowing from the regions and Senate explanations were issued in response. For example: that "journeys through rural regions, temporary stops and even temporary stays of individuals without the right of permanent residence are not prohibited by the Law of 3 May 1882"; that "only the rent of real estates and agrarian lands is prohibited, while rent of all other types of real estate property, such as distillation plants, buildings for trade and industry, and living quarters is not prohibited." Also, "the Senate deems permissible the notarization of lumbering agreements with the Jews, even if the clearing of a forest was scheduled for a prolonged period, and even if the buyer of the forest was allowed use of the underbrush land"; and finally, that violations of the Law of 3^rd May would not be subjected to criminal prosecution.[80]

It is necessary to recognize these Senate clarifications as mitigating, and in many respects, good-natured; "in the 1880s the Senate wrestled with the arbitrary interpretation of the laws."[81] However, the regulations forbidding the Jews to settle "outside the towns and shtetls" and/or to own "real estate" "extremely restricted alcohol distillation business by Jews," as "Jewish participation in distillation before the 3^rd May Regulations was very significant."[82]

It was exactly this measure to restrict the Jews in the rural wine trade (first proposed as early as 1804) that stirred universal indignation at the "extraordinary severity" "of the May Regulations," even though it was only implemented, and incompletely at that, in 1882. The government stood before a difficult choice: to expand the wine industry in the face of peasant proneness [to drunkeness] and thus to deepen the peasant poverty, or to restrict the free growth of this trade by letting the Jews already living in the villages to remain while stopping others from coming. And that choice - restriction - was deemed cruel.

Yet how many Jews lived in rural regions in 1882? We have already come across post-revolutionary estimates from the state archives: one third of the entire Jewish population of "the Pale" lived in villages, another third lived in shtetls, 29% lived in mid-size cities, and 5% in the major cities.[83] So the Regulations now prevented the "village" third from further growth?

Today these May Regulations are portrayed as a decisive and irrevocably repressive boundary of Russian history. A Jewish author writes: this was the first push toward emigration! - first "internal" migration, then massive overseas migration.[84] - The first cause of Jewish emigration was the "Ignatiev Temporary Regulations, which violently threw around one million Jews out of the hamlets and villages, and into the towns and shtetls of the Jewish Pale."[85]

Wait a second, how did they throw the Jews out and an entire million at that? Didn't they apparently only prevent new arrivals? No, no! It was already picked up and sent rolling: that from 1882 the Jews were not only forbidden to live in the villages everywhere, but in all the cities, too, except in the 13 guberniyas; that they were moved back to the shtetls of "the Pale" - that is why the mass emigration of Jews from Russia began![86]

Well, set the record straight. The first time the idea about Jewish emigration from Russia to America voiced was as early as in 1869 at the Conference of the Alliance (of the World Jewish Union) - with the thought that the first who settled there with the help of the Alliance and local Jews "would become a magnet for their Russian co-religionists."[87] Moreover, "the beginning of the emigration [of Jews from Russia] dates back to the mid-19^th Century and gains significant momentum after the pogroms of 1881. But only since the mid-1890s does emigration become a major phenomenon of Jewish economic life, assuming a massive scale" ^[88] - note that it says economic life, not political life.

From a global viewpoint Jewish immigration into the United States in the 19^th Century was part of an enormous century-long and worldwide historical process. There were three successive waves of Jewish emigration to America: first the Spanish-Portuguese (Sephardic) wave, then the German wave (from Germany and Austria-Hungary), and only then from Eastern Europe and Russia (Ashkenazik).[89] For reasons not addressed here, a major historical movement of Jewish emigration to the U.S. took place in the 19^th Century, and not only from Russia. In light of the very lengthy Jewish history, it is difficult to overestimate the significance of this emigration.

And from the Russian Empire "a river of Jewish emigration went from all the guberniyas that made up the Jewish Pale of Settlement; but Poland, Lithuania, and Byelorussia gave the greatest number of emigrants";[90] meaning they did not come from Ukraine, which was just experiencing the pogroms. The reason for this was this emigration was the same throughout - overcrowding, which created inter-Jewish economic competition. Moreover, relying on Russian state statistics, V. Tel'nikov turns our attention to the last two decades of the 19^th Century; just after the pogroms of 1881 - 1882, comparing the resettlement of Jews from the Western Krai, where there were no pogroms, to the Southwest, where they were. The latter was numerically not less and was possibly more than the Jewish departure out of Russia.[91] In addition, in 1880, according to official data, 34,000 Jews lived in the internal guberniyas, while seventeen years later (according to the census of 1897) there were already 315,000 - a nine-fold increase.[92]

Of course, the pogroms of 1881 - 1882 caused a shock but was it really a shock for the whole of Ukraine? For example, Sliozberg writes: "The 1881 pogroms did not alarm the Jews in Poltava, and soon they forgot about them." In the 1880s in Poltava "the Jewish youth did not know about the existence of the Jewish Question, and in general, did not feel isolated from the Russian youth."[93] The pogroms of 1881 - 82, in their complete suddenness, could have seemed unrepeatable, and the unchanging Jewish economic pull was prevailing: go settle hither, where less Jews live.

But undoubtedly and inarguably, a decisive turn of progressive and educated Jewry away from the hopes of a complete integration with the nation of "Russia" and the Russian population began in 1881. G. Aronson even concluded hastily, that "the 1871 Odessa Pogrom" "shattered the illusions of assimilation."[94] No, it wasn't that way yet! But if, for example, we follow the biographies of prominent and educated Russian Jews, then around 1881 - 1882 we will note in many of them a drastic change in their attitudes toward Russia and about possibilities of complete assimilation. By then it was already clear and not contested that the pogrom wave was indubitably spontaneous without any evidence for the complicity of the authorities. On the contrary, the involvement of the revolutionary narodniks was proven. However, the Jews did not forgive the Russian Government for these pogroms - and never have since. And although the pogroms originated mainly with the Ukrainian population, the Russians have not been forgiven and the pogroms have always been tied with the name of Russia.

"The pogroms of the 1880s sobered many [of the advocates] of assimilation" (but not all: the idea of assimilation still remained alive). And here, other Jewish publicists moved to the other extreme: in general it was impossible for Jews to live among other peoples, [for] they will always be looked upon as alien. And the "Palestinian Movement began'to grow quickly.'"[95]

It was under the influence of the 1881 pogroms that the Odessa doctor, Lev Pinsker, published his brochure, Auto-Emancipation. The Appeal of a Russian Jew to his Fellow Tribesmen (in Berlin in 1882, and anonymously). "It made a huge impression on Russian and West European Jewry." It was an appeal about the ineradicable foreignness of Jews in eyes of surrounding peoples.[96] We will discuss this further in Chapter 7.

P. Aksel'rod claims that it was then that radical Jewish youths discovered that Russian society would not accept them as their own and thus they began to depart from the revolutionary movement. However, this assertion appears to be too far-fetched. In the revolutionary circles, except the Narodnaya Vol'ya, they did always thnik of the Jews as their own.

However, despite the cooling of attitudes of the Jewish intelligentsia toward assimilation, the government, as a result of inertia from Alexander II's reign, for a while maintained a sympathetic attitude toward the Jewish problem and did not yet fully replace it by a harshly-restrictive approach. After the year-long ministerial activities of Count Ignatiev, who experienced such persistent opposition on the Jewish Question from liberal forces in the upper governmental spheres, an Imperial "High Commission for Revision of the Active Laws about the Jews in the Empire" was established in the beginning of 1883 - or as it was named for its chairman, Count Palen - "The Palenskaya Commission" (so that by then, it became the tenth such 'Jewish Committee'). It consisted of fifteen to twenty individuals from the upper administration, members of ministerial councils, department directors (some were members of great families, such as Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Golytsin, and Speranskiy), and it also included seven "Jewish experts" - influential financiers, including Baron Goratsiy Gintsburg and Samuil Polyakov, and prominent public figures, such as Ya. Gal'pern, physiologist and publicist N. Bakst ("it is highly likely that the favorable attitude of the majority of the members of the Commission toward resolution of the Jewish Question was caused, to certain degree, by the influence" of Bakst), and Rabbi A. Drabkin.[97] In large part, it was these Jewish experts who prepared the materials for the Commission's consideration.

The majority of the Palenskaya Commission expressed the conviction, that "the final goal of legislation concerning the Jews [should be] nothing other than its abolition," that "there is only one outcome and only one path: the path of liberation and unification of the Jews with the whole population, under the protection of the same laws."[98] (Indeed, rarely in Russian legislation did such complicated and contradictory laws pile up as the laws about Jews that accumulated over the decades: 626 statutes by 1885! And they were still added later and in the Senate they constantly researched and interpreted their wording). And even if the Jews did not perform their duties as citizens in equal measure with others, nevertheless it was impossible to "deprive the Jew of those fundamentals, on which his existence was based - his equal rights as a subject." Agreeing "that several aspects of internal Jewish life require reforming and that certain Jewish activities constituted exploitation of the surrounding population," the majority of the Commission condemned the system of "repressive and exclusionary measures." The Commission set as the legislative goal "to equalize the rights of Jews, with those of all other subjects," although it recommended "the utmost caution and gradualness" with this.[99]

Practically, however, the Commission only succeeded in carrying out a partial mitigation of the restrictive laws. Its greatest efforts were directed of the Temporary Regulations of 1882, particularly in regard to the renting of land by Jews. The Commission made the argument as if in the defense of the landowners, not the Jews: prohibiting Jews to rent manorial lands not only impedes the development of agriculture, but also leads to a situation when certain types of agriculture remain in complete idleness in the Western Krai - to the loss of the landowners as there is nobody to whom they could lease them. However, the Minister of Interior Affairs, D.A. Tolstoy, agreed with the minority of the Commission: the prohibition against new land-leasing transactions would not be repealed.[100]

The Palenskaya Commission lasted for five years, until 1888, and in its work the liberal majority always clashed with the conservative minority. From the beginning, "Count Tolstoy certainly had no intention to revise the laws to increase the repressive measures," and the 5-year existence of the Palenskaya Commission confirms this. At that moment "His Majesty [also] did not wish to influence the decisions of his government on the matter of the increase of repressions against Jews." Ascending to the throne at such a dramatic moment, Alexander III did not hasten either to replace liberal officials, nor to choose a harsh political course: for long time he carefully examined things. "In the course of the entire reign of Alexander III, the question about a general revision of the legislation about the Jews remained open."[101] But by 1886-87, His Majesty's view already leaned toward hardening of the partial restrictions on the Jews and so the work of the Commission did not produce any visible result.

One of the first motivations for stricter control or more constraint on the Jews than during his father's reign was the constant shortfall of Jewish conscripts for military service; it was particularly noticeable when compared to conscription of Christians. According to the Charter of 1874, which abolished recruiting, compulsory military service was now laid on all citizens, without any difference in social standing, but with the stipulation that those unfit for service would be replaced: Christians with Christians, and Jews with Jews. In the case of Jews there were difficulties in implementation of that rule as there were both straightforward emigration of conscripts and their evasion which all benefited from great confusion and negligence in the official records on Jewish population, in the keeping of vital statistics, in the reliability of information about the family situation and exact place of residence of conscripts. (The tradition of all these uncertainties stretched back to the times of the Qahals (a theocratic organizational structure that originated in ancient Israelite society), and was consciously maintained for easing the tax burden.) "In 1883 and 1884, there were many occasions when Jewish recruits, contrary to the law, were arrested simply upon suspicion that they might disappear."[102] (This method was first applied to Christian recruits, but sporadically). In some places they began to demand photographs from the Jewish recruits - a very unusual requirement for that time. And in 1886 a "highly constraining" law was issued, "about several measures for providing for regular fulfillment of military conscription by Jews," which established a "300-ruble fine from the relatives of each Jew who evaded military call-up."[103] "From 1887 they stopped allowing Jews to apply for the examination for officer rank [educated soldiers had privileges in choosing military specialty in the course of service]."[104] (During the reign of Alexander II, the Jews could serve in the officers' ranks.) But officer positions in military medicine always remained open to Jews.

Yet if we consider that in the same period up to 20 million other "aliens" of the Empire were completely freed from compulsory military service, then wouldn't it be better to free the Jews of it altogether, thus offsetting their other constraints with such a privilege? … Or was it the legacy of the idea of Nicholas I continuing here - to graft the Jews into Russian society through military service? To occupy the idle?"

At the same time, Jews on the whole flocked into institutions of learning. From 1876 to 1883, the number of Jews in gymnasiums and gymnasium preparatory schools almost doubled, and from 1878 to 1886 - for an 8-year period - the number of Jewish students in the universities increased six times and reached 14.5%.[105] By the end of the reign of Alexander II they were receiving alarming complaints from the regional authorities about this. Thus, in 1878 the Governor of the Minsk Guberniya reported, "that being wealthier, the Jews can bring up their children better than the Russians; that the material condition of the Jewish pupils is better than that of Christians, and therefore in order that the Jewish element does not overwhelm the remaining population, it is necessary to introduce a quota system for the admission of Jews into secondary schools."[106] Next, after disturbances in several southern gymnasiums in 1880, the Trustee of the Odessa School District publicly came out with a similar idea. And in 1883 and 1885 two successive Novorossiysk (Odessa) General-Governors stated that an "over-filling of learning institutions with Jews" was taking place there, and it is either necessary "to limit the number of Jews in the gymnasiums and gymnasium preparatory schools" to 15% "of the general number of pupils," or "to a fairer norm, equal to the proportion of the Jewish population to the whole."[107] (By 1881, Jews made up 75% of the general number of pupils in several gymnasiums of the Odessa District.[108]) In 1886, a report was made by the Governor of Kharkov Guberniya, "complaining about the influx of Jews to the common schools."[109]

In all these instances, the ministers did not deem it possible to adopt general restrictive solutions, and only directed the reports for consideration to the Palenskaya Commission, where they did not receive support.

From the 1870s students become primary participants in the revolutionary excitement. After the assassination of Alexander II, the general intention to put down the revolutionary movement could not avoid student "revolutionary nests" (and the senior classes of the gymnasiums were already supplying them). Within the government there arose the alarming connection that together with the increase of Jews among the students, the participation of students in the revolutionary movement noticeably increased. Among the higher institutions of learning, the Medical-Surgical Academy (later the Military-Medical Academy) was particularly revolutionized. Jews were very eager to enter it and the names of Jewish students of this academy began already appearing in the court trials of the 1870s.

And so the first special restrictive measure of 1882 restricted Jewish admissions to the Military-Medical Academy to an upper limit of 5%.

In 1883, a similar order followed with respect to the Mining Institute; and in 1884 a similar quota was established at the Institute of Communications.[110] In 1885, the admission of Jews to the Kharkov Technological Institute was limited to 10%, and in 1886 their admission to the Kharkov Veterinary Institute was completely discontinued, since "the city of Kharkov was always a center of political agitation, and the residence of Jews there in more or less significant numbers is generally undesirable and even dangerous."[111]

Thus, they thought to weaken the crescendo of revolutionary waves.