The most terrible outbreak took place in Zhitomir. In this quiet center of Volhynia the progressive elements of both the Jewish and the Russian population revelled in the joy of their political honeymoon. As had been the case in other large cities, here, too, the "bloody Sunday" of January called forth political strikes on the part of the workingmen, demonstrations on the part of the college youth, and the circulation of revolutionary appeals. The fact that the movement was headed by the Jewish youth was enough to inspire the Black Hundred to embark upon their criminal task. All kinds of rumors were set afloat, such as that the Jews had been firing at the Tzar's portrait on the field behind the city, that they were preparing to slaughter the Christians, and other absurd stories. At the approach of Passover, the pogrom organizers summoned to their aid a group of "Katzaps," Great-Russian laborers, from Moscow. The Jews, anticipating the danger, began to arm themselves in self-defence, and made their preparations openly. A clash between the "Black" and the "Red" was inevitable. It came in the form of a sanguinary battle which was fought on April 23-26, matching by its cruelty the pogrom at Homel, though exceeding it vastly by its dimensions.
In the course of three days, the city was in the hands of the black hordes who plundered, murdered and mutilated the Jews. They were fortified not only by quantities of alcohol, but also by the conviction that they were fighting for the Tzar against the "Sicilists,"[47] who clamored for "freedom" and a "republic." The Jewish self-defence performed prodigies of valor wherever they were not interfered with by the police and military, and died gallantly where the authorities actively assisted the savage work of the infuriated rioters. During the three pogrom days fifteen Jews were killed and nearly one hundred wounded, many of them severely. The casualties were mostly among young workingmen and handicraftsmen. But there were also some students among the victims, one of them a Christian, named Blinov, who stood up nobly for the assaulted Jews. The inhuman fiends fell upon Blinov, shouting: "Though you are a Russian, you are a Sicilist and worse than the Zhyds, now that you've come to defend them." The young hero was beaten to death, and the murderers were actively assisted by soldiers and policemen.
On one of those days, on April 25, a heart-rending tragedy took place in the town of Troyanov, in the government of Volhynia, not far from Zhitomir. Having learned of the massacre that was going on in Zhitomir, fourteen brave Jewish young men from the neighboring town of Chudnov armed themselves with cheap pistols, and proceeded to bring aid to their endangered fellow-Jews. On the way, while passing through Troyanov, they were met by a crowd of peasants and workingmen who had been aroused by a rumor that Jewish "slaughterers" were marching in order to exterminate the Russians. The infuriated mob fell upon the youths, and, in the presence of the local Jews, savagely killed ten of them, while the others were cruelly beaten. The following account of this ghastly occurrence was given by one of the survivors:
There were fourteen of us. We were on the way from Chudnov to Zhitomir. In Troyanov we were surrounded by Katzaps. They began to search us, taking away everything we had, and then started to beat us with hatchets and clubs. I saw my comrades fall down dead one after the other. Before the constabulary appeared, only four had remained alive, I and three other men. The constabulary ordered us to be carried to the hospital at Zhitomir, but on the way we were wrested by the Katzaps from the rural police and were tortured again.... I was roped and dragged to the priest. He begged that I should be left alone. The Katzaps made fun of him, dragged me out again, and started to beat me. The policemen began to tell them that "they would answer for me," since the constabulary had ordered them to get me to Zhitomir. "Well," said the Katzaps, "if that be the case, we will let him go, but before we do this, that hound of a Jew must have a look at his fellow-Zhyds." I was then dragged in an unconscious state to my comrades. I found myself in a pool of water. I had been drenched so as to make me regain consciousness. Then I beheld the dead bodies of my ten comrades.... No matter how long I may live, I shall never forget that sight.... One of them lay with his head chopped off; another with a ripped stomach ... cut off hands.... I fell into a swoon, and found myself here in this bed.
In the cemetery of Troyanov one may still behold the ten graves of the youthful martyrs who unselfishly went to the rescue of their brethren against beasts in human form, and were on the way torn to pieces by these beasts—ten graves which ought to become sacred to the entire Jewish people.
The Government reacted upon the Zhitomir massacre by an official communication in which the facts were deliberately garbled in order to prove that the Jews had called forth the pogrom by their conduct. It was alleged in this communication that, during their shooting exercises in the woods, the Jews had discharged their pistols at the portrait of the Tzar, had hurled insulting remarks at the police escort which was conveying a band of political prisoners, had issued a proclamation in the name of "the criminal party of the Social-Revolutionaries" in which the authorities of Zhitomir were accused of preparing the pogrom, and similar charges. The concrete object of the official communication is betrayed in its concluding part in which the governors are enjoined "to explain to the sober-minded section of the Jewish population that, in the interest of the safety of the Jewish masses, it is in duty bound to inspire their coreligionists who have been drawn into the political struggle with the consciousness of the absolute necessity of refraining from arousing by their behavior the hatred of the Christian population against them." Translated into plain terms, the Government order meant: "If you do not wish to have pogroms and massacres, then keep your hands off the liberty movement; but if you will persist in playing a part in it, then the Christian population will make short work of you, dealing with you as with enemies of the Fatherland."
Caught in the general revolutionary conflagration which flared up with particular violence in the summer of 1905, after the destruction of the Russian fleet by the Japanese near Tsushima, the Jews reacted upon the pogroms by intensifying their revolutionary activity and swelling the number of self-defence organizations. Russian Jewry played an active part in the two wings of the emancipation army, the Constitutional-Democratic as well as the Social-Democratic party, and was represented even in the extreme wing occupied by the Social-Revolutionaries. The majority of these Jewish revolutionaries were actuated by general Russian aspirations, and were often entirely oblivious of the national interests of Judaism. This, however, did not prevent the henchmen of the Tzar from visiting the "sin" of the revolution upon the Jewish masses. A vicious circle was the result of this policy: As victims of the old despotism, the Jews naturally threw in their lot with the revolution which promised to do away with it; thereupon uncivilized Russia vented its fury upon them by instituting pogroms which, in turn, pushed them more and more into the ranks of the revolution.
During the summer months of 1905, a new succession of pogroms took place, this time of the military variety. Wrought up over the defeats of the Russian army in Manchuria, and roused by the vile proclamations of the Black Hundred which pictured the Jews as the inner enemy, soldiers and Cossacks began to wreak their vengeance upon this inner enemy, assaulting and killing or wounding Jews on the streets of Minsk (May 26), Brest-Litovsk (May 29-31), Syedletz and Lodz (June 9). In the first three cities, the soldiers plundered and murdered only the Jews. In Lodz, they fired at a mixed Polish-Jewish demonstration of workingmen. A regular butchery was engineered by the soldiery in Bialystok (June 30). During the entire day, the city resounded with the rifle shots of maddened soldiers who were firing into peaceful Jewish crowds. Fifty dead and a still larger number of wounded were the result of these military exploits.