THE political fight against the Soviet power was carried on not only in the Ukraine, but also in Great Russia, in many cases under the cover of anti-Semitism. The press of the Black Hundred of all shades is never weary of enumerating the Jewish commissars, Jewish Popular commissars, Jewish members of the Central Executive Committee, etc. The Soviet power, they say, is a Jewish power. The Russians who belong to the Soviet Government do so as a result of a misunderstanding, and there are very few Russians in it. As for the Russian masses, the good natured Ivan allows himself to be taken in by the shrewd Jew, who is aiming for world rule. The dull, obtuse and ignorant masses for the moment follow the Jewish leaders, who turn their heads, unchain their passions and show themselves complacent to their lower instincts.
Mamontov in Great Russia, Petlura and Denikin in the Ukraine, together with their followers, drew from this theoretical postulate the practical conclusion that the armed fight against the Soviet power must be supported and strengthened by Jewish pogroms. The Soviet Government was obliged to strike at the root of all anti-Semitic agitation, for such agitation was the unmistakable sign of opposition to the Soviet. The agitations of the anti-Semites were in the great majority of cases the precursors of hostilities against the Soviet power. Anti-Semitic agitation was therefore regarded in Great Russia as a counter-revolutionary act. The guilty were brought to account before the revolutionary tribunal and condemned to severe penalties in the form of hard labor.
To the nightmare of Jewish pogroms in the Ukraine belong also the anti- Jewish excesses and pogroms by bands calling themselves "Reds" and belonging at the moment in question to the Ukrainian Red Soviet army.
In proportion to the entire number of Jewish persecutions the excesses of these people play an insignificant role. They concern themselves mainly with robbery and theft, although, as for example in Theophipol, some deaths must also be laid at their door. Of all the violence done the Jews the following instances only are attributable to them.
i. Pogrom in Rossovo (March 3). After the shameful deeds committed by Petlura's men, the city was occupied by a Bolshevist "mounted advance guard" who freed the city from the bands of Petlura's men. Later Makhno's bands entered the city and robbed and killed the Jews. Makhno's men were followed by the first Ducat cavalry regiment of Zolotonosha. After the cruelties perpetrated by Makhno's men, the Jews did not receive the regiment in a friendly way. The soldiers, however, quieted the population, condemned the conduct of their comrades who had come before, promised a strict investigation of the affair, instituted a search in the houses of suspected persons, took away from them what they had plundered of the Jews and gave it back to their owners. This regiment soon left. Peasants from the neighborhood of Rossovo killed the commander of a certain Red troop. A divis-