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215 nian town of Chernigov (Chernihiv) held a patriotic demonstration of support and gratitude to the imperial ruler for granting the Manifesto of October 17.1 Similar celebrations were held in many Russian towns after the announcement of the manifesto, and in many of them, as in Chernigov, the demonstration gave way to threats against Jews (who comprised 32 percent of the town)2 and then to open violence against Jewish persons and property. Chernigov Governor Khvostov organized the demonstration and, along with the local police, apparently abetted its turn toward anti-­ Jewish violence. However, the resistance to the pogrom was more concerted and effective than that offered in most other towns. An organized self-­ defense force intimidated the rioters and drove them off a key street, denying them access to half the city. That self-­ defense force of 150 Jews and Christians included members of the normally rivalrous Jewish Bund, Zionist Socialists, and Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party. The city’s duma opposed the governor’s stance by appealing to Prime Minister Witte for aid, organizing a fund to aid pogrom victims, and threatening to form an emergency governing authority. Although troops did not arrive until the next day, they immediately took the situation in hand, denied would-­ be peasant looters access to the city, and decisively ended the pogrom. All told, the pogrom lasted only six or seven hours and cost the Jewish community 45,000 rubles, a relatively small amount compared to other urban pogroms.3 In a season of inflamed prejudice, violence, and tragedy, theevents in Chernigov show what was sometimes possible when positive forces and feelings were properly aligned. They put on display all the key actors in the making and unmaking of pogroms: the provincial representatives of the central authorities— whether governor, governor-­ general, city prefect, or gradonachal’nik (police prefect)—the local police, the rioters and looters, organized self-­ defense, civil society (usually acting through the city duma), and army troops.The success or failure of these forces to act in time or in coordination with one another is what Gerald D. Surh DUTY AND AMBIVALENCE THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND POGROMS, 1903–1906 On October 23, 1905, the mayor of the central Ukrai11 216 : Revolution and War allowed tiny minorities of the worst elements of urban Russia to terrorize Russia ’s Jews and to hold a great plurality of the Russian population hostage with varying degrees of violence and hooliganism for weeks during the fall of 1905. In Chernigov, as elsewhere, the last and decisive act was performed by military force that, once unsheathed, exposed the cowardice and opportunism of the anti-­ Jewish rioters and ended their rampages. The decisiveness of their role in Chernigov begs the questions of why they were not as prompt and decisive in so many other instances and why army troops frequently even encouraged and participated in pogroms. Russia’s pogroms were an organic and inseparable part of the 1905 revolution . They caused the greatest loss of life and property at the hands of anti-­ Jewish rioters in its history up to that time.4 The scale of losses and suffering of Russia’s Jews was commensurate with the scale and magnitude of the revolt against the Russian autocracy—the greatest since the Time of Troubles—and with the magnitude of the resulting upheavals in the structure and beliefs of Russian society. The lawlessness and savagery of the attacks on Jews and other victims of Russia’s thugs and jingoists dampened civic pride and enthusiasm for the reforms promised in the October Manifesto and worsened Russia’s already tarnished international reputation. Most existing studies have dealt well with the historical and political circumstances that underlay the pogroms, but some important aspects have not been carefully examined, among them, the role of army troops in both preventing and provoking anti-­ Jewish violence. In the tumultuous events of 1905, army troops were widely used to restore and maintain order. In the numerous strikes, marches, and demonstrations, small, local police forces often were overwhelmed , and in October this became so widespread as to cause dysfunction in major urban centers. City and provincial governing authorities turned to the military for reinforcements as a matter of course, and in October such requests strained even the army’s resources. Army troops were better armed and disciplined than the police (or any other armed force for that matter), and they did most of the shooting and accounted for a major part, if not the majority, of...

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