In this wise were introduced the "Temporary Regulations" of May, 1882, or the May Laws, the main clauses of which are the following:
1. As a temporary measure and until a general revision is made of the legal status of the Jews, they are forbidden to settle anew outside of towns and townlets (boroughs), an exception being made only in the case of existing Jewish agricultural colonies.
2. Until further orders, the execution of deeds of sale and mortgage in the names of Jews is forbidden, as well as the registration of Jews as lessees of real estate situated outside of towns and townlets, and also the issuing to Jews of powers of stewardship or attorney to manage and dispose of such real property.
The May Laws may be regarded as an extension of the general principle underlying the creation of the Pale. Through the first clause they were now to be forbidden free movement even within the Pale. As far as possible, their contact with the peasantry was to be cut off. The second clause aimed to put an end to the ownership by Jews of land in rural districts and the employment of Jews as stewards or managers of estates. A further construction of this clause forbade Jews to be connected with any business directly or indirectly depending upon the purchase of landed property outside of the towns of the Pale, thus debarring them from the utilization of land for industrial and commercial, as well as for agricultural purposes.
In the actual execution of these laws, and in the legal interpretations given them by the highest courts, the effect was far greater. A series of wholesale expulsions from the villages into the towns of the Pale began, on the ground of illegal residence. This was increased by the device, which became normal, of renaming towns as villages—easily possible in Russia where towns are frequently only administrative units—the resident Jews then being expelled as illegal settlers. Again, movement within the villages even on the part of Jews who had the right to live in villages was prohibited.
A further effect of this change in policy was upon the position of the Jews outside of the Pale, who enjoyed the right of residence in the interior of Russia, through the laws of the preceding régime. A stricter interpretation of these laws, added to a change in the administrative policy, had the effect not only of stopping the comparatively slight current of Jewish artisans into the interior of Russia, but also of starting a never-ending series of expulsions from the interior to the Pale. These expulsions have since continued, with individuals, families and whole groups, until they have become a constant phenomenon of Jewish life in Russia and a familiar item of world news.
While the May Laws thus touched to the quick the economic life of the Russian Jews, another series of laws sought to break down their cultural life by barring them from the higher educational and professional institutions. The contrast with the policy of the preceding régime was here as complete as possible. The principle of liberal assimilation with regard to the Jews had dictated the policy of opening wide to them the doors of the secondary schools and universities, and the liberal professions. The new régime, however, not only opposed education generally, and higher education particularly, as the means by which the reform and westernization of Russia was being accomplished, but it regarded the russification of the Jews as a special evil. Culturally as well, the Jews were to be separated from the Russian people.
Hence the introduction of the "percentage rule" in 1886 and 1887, restricting the proportion of Jewish students admitted to the secondary and high schools, and universities, within the Pale, to 10 per cent of the total number of students admitted. Outside of the Pale, the proportion was 5 per cent, except in St. Petersburg and Moscow, where it was placed at 3 per cent. In addition, the Jews were completely barred from a number of these institutions. As the Jews constituted so large a part of the populations in the towns of the Pale and had distinguished themselves in Russia as elsewhere by the eagerness with which they grasped the educational and professional opportunities offered them, the introduction of the "percentage rule" meant that the vast majority of the Jewish youth were to be deprived of the normal chances for education. Thus the "percentage rule", which was extended to institutions founded by the Jews themselves, was almost as great a blow as the May Laws. It threatened the cultural ruin of Russian Jewry. Bound up as the admission to these schools was with the liberal professions and with the opportunity of escaping from the limits of the Pale, it meant that one of the main highways to freedom in Russia had been closed to the Jews.
The most striking method of repression introduced by the new régime and its feudal supporters was that combination of murder, outrage and pillage—the pogrom. The revival of this characteristic expression of the antisemitism of the middle ages was not the result of spontaneous outbreaks of fury on the part of the Russian masses, but a deliberate and calculated awakening of latent racial and religious prejudices, evoked as powerful aids to inflame against the Jews the Russian masses, who are, religiously speaking, a tolerant people and whose relations to the Jews had been marked, on the whole, with friendliness.
The first pogroms began a month after the accession of Alexander III to the throne, and extended in the course of a year to 160 places in Southern Russia. Though the connivance of the local authorities was clearly established, the originators of the pogroms were never found.[36] However, moral support was lent by the government in the promulgation of the May Laws which closely followed. The doctrine that the misery of the peasants was due to their exploitation by the Jews, and that the pogroms were the instinctive expression of the fury of the peasants, was officially sanctioned. The pogroms of 1881-2 served as notice to all Russia and particularly to Russian Jewry, that the old order had given place to the new. Apart from the loss of life and damage to property they left the Russian Jews in a state of stupefaction and horror, with the sense of living on the brink of a precipice.