erial
ukase decreed the pillage and slaughter of the Jews, and the muzhiks,
obedient to the behests of the "little father," and smarting under the
pain of disappointment, vented their venom on their Jewish compatriots.
Before the new czar had been on his throne three months, Russia was
drenched with Jewish blood. There began saturnalia of rape, plunder, and
murder, the like of which had been witnessed nowhere in Europe. For half
a year the pogroms which began in Yelisavetgrad (April 27, 28) swept
like a tornado over southern Russia, visiting more than one hundred and
sixty communities with fire and sword, resulting in outrages on women,
in the murder of old and young, in the ruin of millions of dollars of
property. The Black Hundreds of the nineteenth century put to shame the
Haidamacks of the eighteenth and the Cossacks of the seventeenth. In the
words of the Bishop of Canterbury to Sir Moses Montefiore, it looked "as
if the enemy of mankind was let loose to destroy the souls of so many
Christians and the bodies of so many Jewish people."

But it would be a vain attempt, and out of keeping with the object of
this work, to describe in detail the "bloody assizes" and the infernal
tragedies that ensued upon the accession of Alexander III; the moral
degeneracy and the economic ruin that spread over the mighty empire; the
shudder that passed over the civilized world, and was expressed in
indignation meetings held everywhere, especially in Great Britain and in
the United States (February, 1882), to protest, "in the name of
civilization, against the spirit of medieval persecution thus revived in
Russia." Suffice it to say that even when the mob, tired of carnage,
ceased its work of extermination, the bloodthirstiness of those in
authority was not assuaged. Such a policy was inaugurated against the
Jews as would, according to Pobyedonostsev, "force one-third of them to
emigrate, another third to embrace Christianity, and the remainder to
die of starvation." With this in view, his Majesty the Emperor,
"prompted by a desire to protect the Jews against the Christians," was
graciously pleased to give his assent to the Resolutions of the
Committee of Ministers, on the third of May, 1882, i.e. to the notorious
"temporary measures," or "May laws," framed by Ignatiev, against the
will of the Council of the Empire.

These "temporary measures" have remained in force to this day. With them
was resuscitated all the inimical legislation o