Troubled Waters: The Origins of the Anti-Jewish Pogroms in Russia (review)

130 SHOFAR Fall 1992 Vol. 11, No. 1 towards Romanians, the consequences of which cannot be measured by Western standards. But there was no industrialized genocide, or assemblyline killings. This reviewer feels uneasy with adjectives like "Levantine," etc. If a great power does something dishonorable (usually for its selfinterest ), that is called "renversement des alliances" or "change of policy"-even "a great move"; if a small country tries to assure its survival, that becomes a "Levantine," "cowardly," "treacherous," or "pusillanimous " polity. Such opinions are not exhaustive. Finally, all Romanian antisemitic intellectuals expressed in their opinions about "the quality" ofJews a preference for the Sephardim, as opposed to Ashkenazic Jews. They missed the point. For every Sephardic Jew in Romania there were 30 to 40 Jews from the "Pale of Settlement." And Sephardim (this reviewer being one) do not demand praise, but equity and human dignity for all. Nicholas M. Nagy-Talavera Depanment of History California State University, Chico Troubled Waters: The Origins of the Anti-Jewish Pogroms in Russia, by I. Michael Aronson. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990. 286 pp. Michael Aronson, in his new book, Troubled Waters: The Origins of the 1881 Anti-jewishPogroms in Russia, convincingly disproves the widely held assumption that the Russian government, or elements within it or close to it, supponed the pogroms of 1881. Aronson, in his careful review of the documentary evidence, concludes that while the pogroms were triggered by the assassination of Alexander II, their origins must be understood in the larger historical context. Aronson's work is a response to traditionalist historians whose views dominated our interpretation of Russian anti-Jewish violence. The traditionalist view argued that popular Russian antisemitism was encouraged by the Imperial Government. Traditionalists believe that the regime used pogroms to diven the hostilities of the Russian muzhik away from itself and toward Jews. Simon Dubnov, the elder statesman of RussianJewish history, described the pogroms of 1881-1883 as "an era of systematic pogroms." The lack of spontaneity and what Dubnov believed to be the purposeful p~anning of the 1881 pogroms led him to write: "From above a hidden hand pushed the masses of people to a great crime Book Reviews 131 ..." and "in hundreds of cities the carefully concealed army of counterrevolutionaries , evidently obeying a pre-arranged signal, crawled out from beneath the ground to indulge in an orgy of blood ..." and again "the anti-Jewish disorders were prepared by organized and disciplined persons of those classes of society that stood higher than the common people." Dubnov's analysis became.the standard argument and explanation for pogroms. Almost every book that dealt in any measure with Russian Jewish history repeated this interpretation. The traditional school, or the, conspiracy school as Michael Aronson calls it, was committed to establishing a causal relationship between the central government and the pogroms. Traditionalists told the story from the point of view of Jews as victims. These scholars were also advocates forJewish rights and freedoms, and thus used their scholarship to promote their views. As advocates, Dubnov and others of the traditional school arrived at assumptions that merit reexamination. Aronson is a revisionist and is unconvinced that the regime employed antisemitism as a conscious and deliberate policy. According to Aronson the contrary is the case. Russian officialdom, mired by bureaucratic ambivalence and incompetence, never formulated a coherentJewish policy. Impressionistic accounts and antisemitic government officials do not constitute sufficient evidence to conclude that the government was involved in an anti-Jewish conspiracy. Official tsarist policies towards Jews were characterized by inconsistency and uncertainty, not by well-thoughtout and deliberate plans. Aronson also disputes the idea that the central government was the organizing element behind the violent anti-Jewish pogroms. He clearly points out that the government was more concerned with repressing acts of popular violence than encouraging street demonstrations, even in the form of pogroms: "... the government's main concern in regard to the pogroms of 1881 was to reinstitute order, while at the same time avoiding any measures that might dispel the mob's originally loyalist inclinations" (p. 234). The author's strength is his discussion of government officials. In developing his argument Aronson points out that the officials ofthe...