And they came a few minutes later. On the stroke of twelve all the brandy shops were opened, and already at one o’clock the sanguinary battle began. Everything had been organised beforehand. In all there were about one hundred houses and twenty-five shops plundered and gutted. A crowd of about 150 men did the business: sacked the jewellers’ shops, looted the wares, broke the windows and doors of private houses which were tenanted by Jews, and maltreated the people. They chose the poorest quarters of the city for the scene of their depredations, but they advanced to the centre of the town as well. The unfortunate Jews implored the police to intervene and save them, but these were the replies they received: “Be off to your democrats! Let them help you.” “That will teach you to beat the police.” “You have not been thrashed enough yet; when your throats are being cut we shall see.”
The few Jews who dared to defend themselves were arrested and beaten by the police, who refused to lay a finger upon the hooligans. One witness says: “None of the rioters were arrested; but the police said to them, ‘Lads, that’s enough. Now you can go to another place.’”
Why, it may be asked, did the police behave so cruelly and, one may add, so treacherously towards the Jews? The motives are well known, for the Police Prefect himself avowed them. Among the witnesses whom the writer produces in proof of that statement there is one whose words are well worth noting:
“The Police Prefect sent for me on October 24, and said: ‘You Jews are being beaten on three grounds. In the first place, you sneak off to America, and our Russians have to spill their blood instead of you. Secondly, you are not devoted to the autocracy, and you cry, “Down with the autocracy!” And in the third place, you have no liking for the police, and you beat the members of the force.’”
During the height and heat of the riots a deputation from the Jewish community called upon the Governor, Klingenberg, and respectfully petitioned him to shield the Jews from the rioters. And the Czar’s highest representative made answer: “That sort of thing happens everywhere. I cannot set a soldier to guard every Jew.” And as for the police, the Governor publicly praised their exemplary conduct, and a money gratification was given them! Yet the police were morally bound to save the Jews. Doubly bound, indeed, for, besides their duty to the Czar, they were bribed by the Jews to protect them. Bribed to do their duty!
The accusations made against the Jews, and made especially for foreign consumption, are chiefly these: They sell vodka to the reserve soldiers at exorbitant prices and thus incense these men, who naturally avenge themselves by pillaging Jewish shops and houses. They evade military service, and then Orthodox Russians have to serve in lieu of the Jewish deserters. That, of course, embitters the Christian recruits and explains their conduct. These accusations are serious and would, of course, explain everything except the conduct of the police—if they were true. But they are false, and not false only, but impossible, as every Russian knows.
In the first place, it was not reserves who attacked the Jews, but local loafers and hooligans. In the second place, the Jews could not raise the price of alcohol, nor sell it at all, because it is the Imperial Government which alone sells vodka, having a monopoly of it. In the third place, the Christians have not to serve in the army in lieu of Jews. The latter are bound to provide a certain number of reserves, and for all of them who desert the Jewish community must find members of the same faith. In like manner, Russians must take the place of fugitive Russians, not of Jews.
Lastly, there remains the charge of desertion. Is it true? Yes, quite true; but then it is true of Christians and Jews alike, for the war was very unpopular. The interesting part of the story is that the Christians shirked their duty far more extensively and successfully than the Jews. That can be proved by figures, and the following data are not likely to be challenged by anyone. Before the reserves were called out at all the total of Jews in the Manchurian army was roughly thirty thousand men. In all probability it exceeded that number, the bulk of them serving in Siberian regiments. It is as well, however, to state the case moderately. Now, since the mobilisation of the reserves (in the districts where the Jewish element is largely represented, such as Vilna, Odessa, Warsaw, Kieff), the active Russian army had no less than fifty thousand soldiers of the Jewish faith. And that is an enormous percentage. Indeed, so abnormally great is that percentage of Jews that, if the other nationalities who acknowledge the sway of the Czar, contributed a proportionate number of soldiers, Kuropatkin’s army would have numbered approximately one million!
And the people who thus shed their blood more freely than the Christian Russians would be excusable if they deserted en masse, because the Jews enjoy none of the privileges accorded to the Russians, and they could not therefore be blamed if they refused to look upon Muscovy as their fatherland. But, in spite of the injustice done them by the Czar’s Government, they generously gave their lives to the Czar. And the Czar’s agents in return egged on the hooligans of all Southern and Western Russia to pillage, burn, and destroy Jewish property, and to beat and kill Jewish men and women.[203]
These experiences and the apprehension of massacres on a larger scale have impelled the Jews to form a great revolutionary association for organised resistance to the organised forces of their enemies. A secret society—already notorious as the Bund—arose in Lithuania, whence it spread to Poland and other parts of the Russian Empire. Its aims are to foster Jewish national feeling and to protect Jewish interests. But the protection which this body could afford the victims of deliberate persecution was necessarily limited. If it rescued them from occasional slaughter, it could not defend them against chronic starvation. Consequently, the exodus, especially from the Province of Mohileff, continued: The emigrants were, for the most part, Jewish young people of both sexes, who, not having any means of existence, left the towns and villages. Some villages even became quite deserted. In the town of Mohileff itself, where there are no factories of any kind or industrial or commercial undertakings except shops which are held by Jews, business was quite suspended.[204] Within the next five months no fewer than 75,160 Russian Jews arrived in New York alone.[205]