NEW MEASURES OF OPPRESSION AND PUBLIC
PROTESTS

1. THE DESPAIR OF RUSSIAN JEWRY

The civil New Year of 1882 found the Jews of Russia in a depressed state
of mind: they were under the fresh impression of the excesses at Warsaw
and were harassed by rumors of new measures of oppression. The
sufferings of the Jewish people, far from stilling the anti-Jewish fury
of the Government, had merely helped to fan it. "You are maltreated,
_ergo_ you are guilty"--such was the logic of the ruling spheres of
Russia. The official historian of that period is honest enough to
confess that "the enforced role of a defender of the Jews against the
Russian population [by suppressing the riots] weighed heavily upon the
the Government." Upon reading the report of the governor-general of
Warsaw for the year 1882, in which reference was made to the
suppression of the anti-Jewish excesses by military force, Alexander
III. appended the following marginal note: "This is the sad thing in
all these Jewish disorders."

Those among Russian Jewry who could look further ahead were not slow in
realizing the consequences which were bound to result from this hostile
attitude of the ruling classes. Those of a less sensitive frame of mind
found it necessary to inquire of the Government itself concerning the
Jewish future, and received unequivocal replies. Thus, in January, 1882,
Dr. Orshanski, a brother of the well-known publicist, [1] approached
Count Ignatyev on the subject, and was authorized to publish the
following statement:

[Footnote 1: See above, p. 238 et seq.]