“Yet the pogrom lasted for three days,” he goes on to state, “and stopped only when all Jewish shops and many Jewish houses had been ransacked. The police were almost entirely absent. The troops walked slowly down the middle of the street while robbery was proceeding on both sides of them. When private persons or officials asked for help from the troops, the answer was always: ‘We have no orders.’ Even the vice-governor, Raffalsky, though in uniform, had this answer from a squad of Cossacks. Generally a shop already ransacked was guarded by a sentinel, who thought it his duty to stand there, paying no attention to the pillage which was going on all around him.”
A bystander and a policeman were told by soldiers that they were only ordered to go up and down the street. One soldier said to a law official: “We are ordered not to mix with the crowd.” A policeman appealed to a patrol which was watching the pillage of a shop; they replied: “We are ordered to see that there is no fighting and that no Russians are hurt.” Some Cossacks told a policeman: “We are here that no one may fire on the pillagers from the windows and balconies, and that they may not quarrel among themselves.” A crown lawyer asked some policemen why they did not take stolen goods from the pillagers; they answered: “Now it is impossible, as the authorities are against it.” An officer of the reserve saw robbers with knives “literally cutting up two Jews”; ten yards away stood a squadron of cavalry “looking on quietly and not moving a step.” “To stop the pogrom was possible without special efforts.” The very soldiers who refused “to break their oath,” that is, to stop the pogrom, on the very next day, obeying orders, fired on the pillagers and arrested them. The pillagers then asked: “Where were you before? Why didn’t you shoot when the Emperor’s pictures were torn down?”
According to numerous eye-witnesses, including officials, some of the policemen and soldiers joined in the robbing and seized goods. “Many ex-soldiers in uniform took an active part”; “a lieutenant of artillery was leading the robbers on the Haymarket.” Police-captain Lyashchenko and his assistant, Pirozhkoff, were in charge of the ward in which most of the sacking took place. “These two,” says a lieutenant of the reserves, “were present during the pillage and took no measures, though policemen and patrols were close at hand.” Some say that on October 31 they shouted “Hit the Jews and rob them.” Two witnesses assert that Pirozhkoff directed the robbers against a certain shop.
Major-general Bezsonoff was in charge of the second district, in which nearly all the outrages took place. He stood nearly all the time in the square before the town-hall “quietly looking on and taking no measures.” “You may wreck,” he said to those near him, “but you may not rob.” The pillagers shouted “Hurrah!” and cheered the General. A shop near the town-hall was being sacked; a detachment of troops stood looking on. Bezsonoff joined them; when asked to interfere, he remarked that he would not allow force to be used against the pillagers, and remained a cold-blooded spectator of the scene (evidence of a crown lawyer). The chief secretary of the governor-general said to him, “Your Excellency, there is a pogrom; no measures are being taken; how will you order me to understand this?” “What pogrom?” said the general; “it is a demonstration.” A woman picked up a cloth thrown from a window. “Do you call that robbery?” said Bezsonoff. “Why, it’s a find.” On November 1 two detectives heard him make a speech to the pillagers. “Boys,” he said, “you have already hit the Jews enough; you have shown that the Russian people know how to stand up for its Czar. Enough of rioting; if you go on wrecking to-morrow, then we will use force.” The robbers shouted “Hurrah!” and set about making the best use of their time. On that day General Karass summoned him and warned him for the last time that he must carry out orders and act with decision. The next day the pogrom was easily stopped.
Simultaneously with this pogrom in Kieff was another in Odessa, carried out along parallel lines.
In both of these cases the Jews were the chief victims. It must be remembered that the Jewish question in Russia is the greatest governmental red herring in history. Whenever a really vital and serious question comes up the government diverts public attention to the Jewish question. But the Jews are by no means the only victims. It will be recalled that in the Caucasus the Armenians are the sufferers, while from time to time in the interior of Russia and in Siberia pure Russians have been massacred—as in Samara on the Volga, where there was a massacre of “intellectuals” in the autumn of 1905.
In January, 1906, the Gomel pogrom occurred. In connection with this affair a secret press for the printing of incitements to violence was discovered in the chief gendarme’s office. A similar press was unearthed in the central police department at St. Petersburg. Prince Urusoff, who was assistant minister of interior under Witte, described this discovery in the course of a speech in the first Duma—a speech which was probably the most important single speech made during the brief life of Russia’s first representative assembly. He said:
In January, 1906, one of the persons occupying a subordinate position in the ministry ... began to receive a large quantity of specimen appeals ... and also anxious protests against the organizing of massacres in Vilna, Bielostok, Kieff, Nikolaieff, Alexandrovsk, and other towns.... He used every means to avert any further massacres, which he also succeeded in doing.... At this time some light, though still of an imperfect nature, was thrown on the ... work of the artificers of massacres. A group of persons, composing a kind of fighting organization of one of our “patriotic clubs,” together with some who were in close touch with the editors of a newspaper—not in St. Petersburg—undertook to combat revolution.... The Russian population (of the frontiers), and in particular Russian soldiers, were invited to settle accounts with the traitors in tens of thousands of appeals with the most agitating contents.... There were strange results if one thinks of the preservation of the unity of authority. An assistant police-master (I merely give an example) circulates the appeals without the knowledge of his chief; ... or again, a police-captain, let us say, of the first ward, was considered worthy of a confidence which was denied to the police-captain of the second ward. Some one serving in the gendarmes’ office, or in the defense section, proved to be supplied with special sums of money. To him certain of the lower people began to resort.... Frightened inhabitants went to see the governor.... Telegrams from the ministry spoke of measures to be taken to secure tranquillity; and such measures were often taken.... In some cases the police quite earnestly supposed that the measures were taken simply for show, for decency, but that they were already acquainted with the real intention of the government; they read between the lines, and thought that they heard, beyond the order of the governor, some voice from far off in which they had greater belief. In a word ... the authorities became completely demoralized.
Meanwhile, in St. Petersburg, as early as the autumn of 1905, and, it would seem, before the October ministry came into office, in No. 16, Fontanka, in some remote room of the police department, a printing-press was at work; it had been purchased for the department by government money. This press was put under the control of an officer of gendarmes in civil dress, one Comisaroff, who, with a few assistants, assiduously prepared the appeals to which I have alluded. The secret of the existence of this “underground” press was so carefully kept, and the conduct of its organizers was so conspirative, that not only in the ministry, but even in the police department, there were but few persons who knew about it. Meanwhile, the work of the Union of Russian Men, whose organ the press was, was already meeting with success; for, when questioned by a person who happened to come upon the track of this organization, Comisaroff answered: “A massacre we can make for you, of any kind you please—if you like for ten men; and, if you like, for 10,000.” I may add that in Kieff a “massacre for 10,000” was arranged for February 20, but it was successfully prevented.
The President of the council of ministers (Count Witte) had, we are told, a serious attack of nervous asthma when the facts I have just narrated were communicated to him. He summoned Comisaroff, who reported to him on what he had done, and on the full powers which he had received. In a few hours the department no longer contained either the press, or the appeals, or the staff; there was left only an empty room.