Preventing pogroms: Patterns in Jewish politics in early twentieth-century Russia

The word pogrom was very popular in Rus sia at the beginning of the twentieth century. Starting on 6 April 1903, when a sudden and cruel pogrom broke out in Kishinev (Chişinǎu), this word did not cease to be an important and frequent element in Jewish po liti cal discourse. And indeed, the first years of the century witnesseda terrible wave of pogroms: from Kishinev and Gomel in 1903, through 43 pogroms during the conscription campaigns for the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, and the 50-odd pogroms between January and mid-October 1905. This rising tide of violence culminated in the "October Days" of 1905, during which almost 3,000 Jews were reported to have perished in a total of 660 pogroms. A return to quiet was punctuated by disorders in Białystok (June 1906) and Siedlce (September 1906)-both characterized by massive participation of army troops.1 Between autumn 1906 and 1914, there were no pogroms in tsarist Rus sia, but the threat and fear of them remained present until the fall of the empire in 1917.