.

Similar condemnations of Judaism came from the governors-general of
Odessa, Vilna, and Kharkov, although they disagreed as to the dimensions
which this repression should assume. Totleben, the master of the Vilna
province, who had refused to countenance the perpetration of pogroms in
Lithuania, nevertheless agreed that the Jews should henceforth be
forbidden to settle in the villages, though he was generous enough to
add that he found it somewhat inconvenient "to rob the whole Jewish
nation of the possibility of earning a livelihood by its labor." The
impression prevailed that militant Judaeophobia was determined to
deprive the Jews even of the right of securing a piece of bread.

The Government was well aware beforehand that the labors of the
gubernatorial commissions would yield results satisfactory to it. It,
therefore, found it unnecessary to wait for their reports and
resolutions, and proceeded to establish in St. Petersburg, on October
19, "a Central Committee for the Revision of the Jewish Question." The
committee was attached to the Ministry of the Interior, and consisted of
several officials, under the chairmanship of Assistant-Minister
Gotovtzev. The officials were soon busy framing "temporary measures" in
the spirit of their patron Ignatyev, and, as the resolutions of the
gubernatorial commissions were coming in, they were endeavoring to
strengthen the foundations for the projected enactment. In January,
1882, the machinery for the manufacture of Jewish disabilities was in
full swing.

This organized campaign of the enemies of Judaism, who were preparing
administrative pogroms as a sequel to the street pogroms, met with no
organized resistance on the part of Russian Jewry. The small conference
of Jewish notables in St. Petersburg, which met in September in secret
session, presented a sorry spectacle. The guests from the provinces, who
had been invited by Baron Guenzburg, engaged in discussions about the
problem of emigration, the struggle with the anti-Semitic press, and
similar questions. After being presented to Ignatyev, who assured them
in diplomatic fashion of the "benevolent intentions of the Government,"
they returned to their homes, without having achieved anything.

The only social factor in Jewish life was the press, particularly the
three periodicals published in Russian, the _Razsvyet_ ("the Dawn"), the
_Russki Yevrey_ ("the Russian Jew"), and the _Voskhod_ ("the
Sunrise"), [1] but even they