but one Jewish member, a woman by the name of Hesia Helfman, who,
moreover, played but a secondary role in the conspiracy, by keeping a
secret residence for toe revolutionaries. Nevertheless, in the official
circles, which were anxious to justify their oppression of the Jews, it
became customary to refer to the "important role" played by the Jews in
the Russian revolution.

It was with preconceived notions of this kind that Alexander III.
ascended the throne of Russia, a sovereign with unlimited power but with
a very limited political horizon. Being a Russian of the old-fashioned
type and a zealous champion of the Greek-Orthodox Church, he shared the
anti-Jewish prejudices of his environment. Already as crown prince he
ordered that a monetary reward be given to the notorious Lutostanski,
who had presented him with his libellous pamphlet "Concerning the Use of
Christian Blood by the Jews." [1] During the Russo-Turkish war of 1877,
when as heir-apparent he was in command of one of the Balkan armies, he
allowed himself to be persuaded that the abuses in the Russian
commissariat were due to the "Jewish" purveyors who supplied the army.
[2] This was all that was known about Judaism in the circles from which
the ruler of five million Jews derived his information.

[Footnote 1: See p. 203.]

[Footnote 2: The business firm in question was that of Greger, Horvitz,
and Kohan, of whom the first was a Greek, and the second a converted
Jew. See above, p. 202, n. 1.]

In March and April, 1881, the destinies of Russia were being decided at
secret conferences, which were held between the Tzar and the highest
dignitaries of state in the palace of the quiet little town of Gatchina,
whither Alexander III. had withdrawn after the death of his father. Two
parties and two programs were struggling for mastery at these
conferences. The party of the liberal Minister Loris-Melikov,
championing a program of moderate reforms, pleaded primarily for the
establishment of an advisory commission to be composed of the deputies
deputies of the rural and urban administrations for the purpose of
considering all legal projects prior to their submission to
the Council of State. This plan of a paltry popular representation,
which had obtained the approval of Alexander II. during the last
days of his life, assumed in the eyes of the reactionary party the
proportions of a dangerous "constitution," and was execrated
by it as an encroachment upon the sacred