People's Freedom" continued for some time to justify theoretically the
utilization of the anti-Jewish movement for the aims of the general
social revolution. Only at a later stage did this section of the
revolutionary party realize that these tactics were not only mistaken
but also criminal. For events soon made it clear that the anti-Jewish
movement served as an unfailing device in the hands of the black
reactionaries to divert the popular wrath from the source of all
evil--the rule of despotism--and direct it towards the most unfortunate
victims of that despotism.


5. THE POGROM AT WARSAW

When the July pogroms were over, it seemed as if the pogrom epidemic had
died out, and no one expected that it would soon break out afresh. The
greater was the surprise when, in December, 1881, the news spread that a
pogrom, lasting three days, had taken, place in the capital of the
Kingdom of Poland, in Warsaw. Least of all was this pogrom expected in
Warsaw itself, where the relations between the Poles and the Jews were
not yet marked by the animosity they assumed subsequently. But the
organizers of the pogrom who received their orders from above managed to
adapt themselves to local conditions, and the unexpected came to pass.
On the Catholic Christmas day, when the Church of the Holy Cross in the
center of the town was crowded with worshippers, somebody suddenly
shouted "Fire!" The people rushed to the doors, and in the terrible
panic that ensued twenty-nine persons were crushed to death, and many
others were maimed. The alarm proved a false one. There was no trace of
a fire in the church, and nobody doubted but that the alarm had been
given by pick-pockets--there were a goodly number of them in Warsaw--who
had resorted to this well-known trick to rob the public during the