Volume II Part 20 (1/2)

The Odessa pogrom, which had resulted in the destruction of several city districts populated by poor Jews, did not satisfy the appet.i.tes 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 ma.s.sacre. 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.

CHAPTER XXII

THE ANTI-JEWISH POLICIES OF IGNATYEV

1. THE VACILLATING ATt.i.tUDE OF THE AUTHORITIES

In the beginning of May, 1881, the well-known diplomatist Nicholas Pavlovich Ignatyev was called by the Tzar to the post of Minister of the Interior. At one time amba.s.sador in Constantinople and at all times a militant Pan-Slavist, Ignatyev introduced the system of diplomatic intrigues into the inner politics of Russia, earning thereby the unenviable nickname of ”Father of Lies.”

A programmatic circular, issued by him on May 6, declared that the princ.i.p.al task of the Government consisted in the ”extirpation of sedition,” i.e., in carrying on a struggle not only against the revolutionary movement but also against the spirit of liberalism in general. In this connection, Ignatyev took occasion to characterize the anti-Jewish excesses in the following typical sentences:

The movement against the Jews which has come to light during the last few days in the South is a sad example, showing how men, otherwise devoted to Throne and Fatherland, yet yielding to the instigations of ill-minded agitators who fan the evil pa.s.sions of the popular ma.s.ses, give way to self-will and mob rule and, without being aware of it, act in accordance with the designs of the anarchists. Such violation of the public order must not only be put down vigorously, but must also be carefully forestalled, for it is the first duty of the Government to safeguard the population against all violence and savage mob rule.

These lines reflect the theory concerning the origin of the pogroms, which was originally held in the highest Government spheres of St.

Petersburg. This theory a.s.sumed that the anti-Jewish campaign had been entirely engineered by revolutionary agitators and that the latter had made deliberate endeavors to focus the resentment of the popular ma.s.ses upon the Jews, as a pre-eminently mercantile cla.s.s, for the purpose of subsequently widening the anti-Jewish campaign into a movement directed against the Russian mercantile cla.s.s, land-owners and capitalists in general. [1] Be this as it may, there can be no question that the Government was actually afraid lest the revolutionary propaganda attach itself to the agitation of those ”devoted to Throne and Fatherland” for the purpose of giving the movement a more general scope, ”in accordance with the d signs of the anarchists.” As a matter of fact, even outside of Government circles, the apprehension was voiced that the anti-Jewish movement would of itself, without any external stimulus, a.s.sume the form of a mob movement, directed not only against the well-to-do cla.s.ses but also against the Government officials. On May 4, 1881, Baron Horace Gunzburg, a leading representative of the Jewish community of St.

Petersburg, waited upon Grand Duke Vladimir, a brother of the Tzar, who expressed the opinion that the anti-Jewish ”disorders, as has now been ascertained by the Government, are not to be exclusively traced to the resentment against the Jews, but are rather due to the endeavor to disturb the peace in general.”

[Footnote 1: John W. Poster, United States Minister to Russia, in reporting to the Secretary of State, on May 24, 1881, about the recent excesses, which ”are more worthy of the dark ages than of the present century,” makes a similar observation: ”It is a.s.serted also that the Nihilist societies have profited by the situation to incite and encourage the peasants and lower cla.s.ses of the towns and cities in order to increase the embarra.s.sments of the Government, but the charge is probably conjectural and not based on very tangible facts.” See _House of Representatives, 51st Congress, 1st Session. Executive Doc.u.ment No. 470, p. 53_]

A week after this visit, the deputies of Russian Jewry had occasion to hear the same opinion expressed by the Tzar himself. The Jewish deputation, consisting of Baron Gunzburg, the banker Sack, the lawyers Pa.s.sover and Bank, and the learned Hebraist Berlin, was awaiting this audience with, considerable trepidation, antic.i.p.ating an authoritative imperial verdict regarding the catastrophe that had befallen the Jews.

On May 11, the audience took place in the palace at Gatchina. Baron Gunzburg voiced the sentiments of ”boundless grat.i.tude for the measures adopted to safeguard the Jewish population at this sad moment,” and added: ”One more imperial word, and the disturbances will disappear.” In reply to the euphemistic utterances concerning ”the measures adopted,”

the Tzar stated in the same tone that all Russian subjects were equal before him, and expressed the a.s.surance ”that in the criminal disorders in the South of Russia the Jews merely serve as a pretext, and that it is the work of anarchists.”

This pacifying portion of the Tzar's answer was published in the press.

What the public was not allowed to learn was the other portion of the answer, in which the Tzar gave utterance to the view that the source of the hatred against the Jews lay in their economic ”domination” and ”exploitation” of the Russian population. In reply to the arguments of the talented lawyer Pa.s.sover and the other deputies, the Tzar declared: ”State all this in a special memorandum.”

Such a memorandum was subsequently prepared. But it was not submitted to the Tzar. For only a few months later the official att.i.tude towards the Jewish question took a turn for the worse. The Government decided to abandon its former view on the Jewish pogroms and to adopt, instead, the theory of Jewish ”exploitation,” using it as a means of justifying not only the pogroms which had already been perpetrated upon the Jews but also the repressive measures which were being contemplated against them.

Under these circ.u.mstances, Ignatyev did not see his way clear to allow the memorandum in defence of Jewry to receive the attention of the Tzar.

It is not impossible that the pacifying portion of the imperial reply which had been given at the audience of May 11 was also prompted by the desire to appease the public opinion of Western Europe, for at that time European opinion still carried some weight with the bureaucratic circles of Russia. Several days before the audience at Gatchina, [1] the English Parliament discussed the question of Jewish persecutions in Russia. In the House of Commons the Jewish members, Baron Henry de Worms and Sir H.D. Wolff, calling attention to the case of an English Jew who had been expelled from St. Petersburg, interpellated the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Sir Charles Dilke, ”whether Her Majesty's Government have made any representations to the Government at St.

Petersburg, with regard to the atrocious outrages committed on the Jewish population in Southern Russia,” Dilke replied that the English Government was not sure whether such a protest ”would be likely to be efficacious.” [2]

[Footnote 1: On May 16 and 19=May 4 and 7, according to the Russian Calendar.]

[Footnote 2: The Russian original has been amended in a few places in accordance with the report of the parliamentary proceedings published in the _Jewish Chronicle_ of May 20, 1881.]

A similar reply was given by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Granville, to a joint deputation of the Anglo-Jewish a.s.sociation and the Board of Deputies, two leading Anglo-Jewish bodies, which waited upon him on May 13, [1] two days after the Gatchina audience. After expressing his warm sympathy with the objects of the deputation, the Secretary pointed out the inexpediency of any interference on the part of England at a moment when the Russian Government itself was adopting measures against the pogroms, referring to ”the cordial reception lately given by the emperor to a deputation of Jews”

[Footnote 1: May 25, according to the European Calendar. From the issue of the _Jewish Chronicle_ of May 27, 1881, p. 12b, it would appear that the deputation was received on Tuesday, May 24.]

Subsequent events soon made it clear that the Government, represented by Ignatyev, was far from harboring any sympathy for the victims of the pogroms. The public did not fail to notice the fact that the Russian Government, which was in the habit of rendering financial help to the population in the case of elemental catastrophes, such as conflagrations or inundations, had refrained from granting the slightest monetary a.s.sistance to the Jewish sufferers from the pogroms. Apart from its material usefulness, such a.s.sistance would have had an enormous moral effect, inasmuch as it would have stood forth in the public eye as an official condemnation of the violent acts perpetrated against the Jews--particularly if the Tzar himself had made a large donation for that purpose, as he was wont to do in other cases of this kind. As it was, the authorities not only neglected to take such a step, but they even went so far as to forbid the Jews of St. Petersburg to start a public collection for the relief of the pogrom victims. Nay, the governor-general of Odessa refused to accept a large sum of money offered to him by well-to-do Jews for the benefit of the sufferers.

Nor was this the worst. The local authorities did everything in their power to manifest their solidarity with the enemies of Judaism. The street pogroms were followed by administrative pogroms _sui generis_.