Russians, Jews, and the Pogroms of 1881-1882 by John Doyle Klier (review)

Anti-Jewish violence was no novelty in the Russian Empire of the nineteenth century, but the extraordinary surge of attacks that broke out in 1881-82 became a watershed, both for imperial policy and for the Jewish response. Though these events seem to anticipate disorders and brutality of later decades, John Klier argues that they were distinctive, warranting attention on their own terms. He meticulously reviews primary and secondary sources to produce a comprehensive chronicle and critique both of the pogroms and of the reactions they provoked.

The violence of 1881-82 bore some resemblance to worker and peasant unrest of this era. It was, moreover, directed more against property than persons. Spread by rumours, pogroms occurred in waves, spreading through the country along recently-built railway lines. When confronted, rioters claimed that their actions were sanctioned by official proclamation. In at least one instance a “pretender” appeared, inciting violence in the name of the tsar.

A central argument here is that these pogroms — in contrast to those of 1905 and after — were not instigated or encouraged by tsarist officials. Klier follows the lead of such authors as Hans Rogger and Michael Aronson in questioning what he calls the legend of an official pogrom policy. Unquestionably, anti-Jewish prejudices were deep and strong through much of the Russian bureaucracy, but in 1881 the fear of mass violence trumped those feelings. Like the flames of arson, social unrest could too easily spread from one target group to another. In the words of Count M.Kh. Reutern, “Today they bait and plunder the Jews. Tomorrow it will be the turn of the so-called kulaks, who are Jews in a moral sense… then will come the turn of the merchants and the landowners… [leading to] the rise of the most horrible socialism.” (p. 219)

Pogroms, by this reasoning, must be avoided or punished. Local authorities who failed to prevent or control them put their own careers at risk. Hence hundreds of perpetrators were arrested, and some severely punished. In Elizavetgrad a portion of stolen Jewish property was recovered. This did not, however, keep officials from inculpating Jews themselves for the attacks. Jews were stereotyped as money-lenders and exploiters, blamed for their prominence in the liquor trade, and resented when a few of their number (like the Brodskii sugar dynasty of Kiev) achieved wealth. “Neither the Russian governing elite nor [privileged] society wanted pogroms,” Klier argues, “but they believed that they understood them and they certainly empathized with them” (p. 89).

Once order was restored, tsarist officials sought to prevent a recurrence of violence. Principal responsibility fell to the newly-appointed minister of internal affairs, Count N.P. Ignatiev, a divisive figure whose mendacity and anti-Jewish prejudices were notorious. Ignatiev appointed a series of local commissions, some including token Jewish representation, to produce policy recommendations on the “Jewish question.”

On some topics Jews and Judeophobes agreed: The Jewish population was alienated from Russian society, and its economic role was exploitative and harmful. Jews attributed these conditions to Russia’s laws that constrained and segregated them both geographically and economically. Their antagonists put the blame on innate Jewish character, but disagreed about how to address it. Some favoured confining Jews more closely to the Pale of Settlement, while others urged abolition of the Pale in order to dilute the Jewish “poison” through a wider territory. Some thought Jews should be encouraged to emigrate, others thought this should be forbidden. Some wanted to exclude Jews from the liquor trade, but others feared this would jeopardize tax revenue.

Ignatiev condensed these discussions by proposing to exclude Jews from rural areas in four respects: residing, purchasing land, erecting buildings, or engaging in the spirit trade there. To his consternation, the Council of Ministers rejected these proposals, though it later passed them as temporary measures. These May Laws, reinforced in later legislation, remained in effect until 1917. But Ignatiev, for reasons...