In August the number of pogroms perpetrated by the freebooters and the armies of the Directory was very small. Instead of this wave there arose a new one, the all-Russian reaction of General Denikin. In August the political situation changed completely. As a result of the happenings on the "internal front," the freebooters, the uprising of Grigoriev and the pressure of the volunteer army, the Soviet power was expelled from the Ukraine. Ukrainian cities passed one after another into the possession of the volunteer army, which in the beginning of August occupied Kharkov,
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Yekaterinoslav, Poltava. In the middle of August the Soviet Government had only Kiev in its possession, and this was occupied by Denikin on the 2nd of September. The Directory saw itself faced by another enemy, who also used the method of the pogrom against the Soviet power. Henceforth this method had no further purpose in the hands of the Directory. Besides, this, weapon, which signified the last anchor for the Directory, to which it clung as a drowning man to a straw, appeared infamous in the eyes of West European public opinion.
Simultaneously with the gradual occupation of the Ukraine by Denikin, the Directory, almost entirely driven out of the Ukraine, removed its activity abroad, where it developed a lively diplomatic and agitational propaganda. But rumors and reports of the pogroms had already been circulated in Western Europe. The Directory attempted to deny everything, and the best method of defense was to impute the guilt to others.
The representative of the Petlura government at the Peace Conference, Dr. Margoline, gave to the correspondent of the "Jewish Chronicle" the following explanation of the Ukrainian pogroms:
"There is this difference between the pogroms which have unhappily taken place in the Ukraine and those which occurred under the tsarist regime. Whereas the latter were instigated and connived at by the authorities, the Ukraine government has steadily set its face against the pogroms, and it has had no part in, or responsibility for, them. At the time of Petlura's coup d'etat at the end of November, 1918, I myself read, in numerous towns and villages in the Ukraine, proclamations issued by the government strongly condemning pogroms, explaining to the people that the
Jews were fellow-citizens and brothers who were helping in the evolution of the Ukrainian state, and to whom the fullest rights were due. The proclamations declared that pogroms must tend to discredit the Ukraine in the eyes of the civilized world, and those who took part in them were no friends of the country. Unfortunately, after the Bolshevists took Kiev, and disintegration set in among the ranks of the Ukrainian forces, the worst elements of the army started pogroms. Once more the government disavowed them, sentenced the perpetrators to death, expressed their deepest sympathy with the Jews, and promised the fullest compensation to the sufferers. I must unhappily admit that the last pogroms as to which I have information— those of February and March last — were very bad, thousands of Jews being killed. They were instigated by criminals, Black Hundreds, and Bolshevists, who wished to discredit the Ukrainian government." (Jewish Chronicle, May 16, 1919.)
The explanations of Dr. Margoline do not tally with the facts. At the time of his interview (May, 1919), the pogromists raged through the land with elemental fury. A bitter fight ensued between the Directory and the Soviet power, and thousands of Jews were done to death at the hands of the insurrectionary bands and the armies of Petlura. The Directory had no thought of expressing its sympathy with the Jews. It did not fight against the excesses and issued no proclamations against pogroms. We have quoted above the declarations of different heads of the army. They all bear unequivocally the character of incitements to pogroms. That the excesses were organized, we have already shown. During the second terrible pogrom in Zhitomir, which began and ended by order of the high-
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est military authorities, Petlura, the head of the Directory, came to Zhitomir, and the unfortunate Jewish population turned to him. Nevertheless the pogroms kept on. It is true that the pogrom tactics had so demoralized the army that it contained many criminal elements and followers of the Black Hundred. But the responsible parties were the leaders of the Directory.