The volunteer army, which was composed principally of officers, admitted Jews also, who from the time of Kornilov were loyally devoted fighters for a democratic order and opposed to a dictatorship of the Bolsheviki. Denikin and his followers regarded themselves as conquerors and resolved to free the army from Jews. In the volunteer bodies anti-Semitism was in full flower. The politically experienced officers saw in the Jews the persons responsible for all the misfortunes of Russia. They imputed to them the responsibility for the Bolshevistic terror under which so many persons near to them had had to suffer. They carried on an anti-Jewish agitation which had but one meaning. The names and pseudonyms of all Jewish Bolshevist commissars were cited to show that the Bolshevist government was a "Jewish government." The responsible positions in the volunteer army were held by members of the Black Hundred and anti-Semites. At the head of the department of propaganda of the volunteer army of Kiev stood the well known leader of the Black Hundred in the time of the tsar, Savenko. The rage against the Jews among the troops was enormous and the high command considered it its duty to exclude Jews from the army. In the above mentioned memorial, handed to Denikin by representatives of the Jewish communities, the following facts are cited: "The commander of the first infantry division sent back thirteen officers who had been assigned to him to the staff of the first army corps with an official note in which he requests that no Jewish officers be sent to him to make up his division. The commandant of the second railroad battalion sent back Corporal Spunt to the head of the army transport with the statement that he 'belonged to the Jewish religion, whose followers, as is well known, are not fit for military railroad service.' The chief commander of Kharkov announced in the newspapers that officers of the Jewish faith would be assigned to a special category and that until further notice they would be free from service." In a memorandum of the Central Relief Committee for Jews injured by pogroms in Russia, which was handed to the Zionist Actions Committee in London and to Dr. Margoline, the representative of the Ukrainian republic in London (the memorandum, by the way, is written with a certain bias), the following credible communication is found:
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
By an order to the volunteer army of the 6th of October, 1919, sub No. 21,322, General Denikin removed all Jewish officers from the army solely because of their race. A deputation of representatives of four communities (Kiev, Kharkov, Poltava, and Yekaterinoslav) respectfully called to the attention of General Denikin that this order would indirectly incite the ignorant masses against the Jews, which might lead to new pogroms (the volunteer army had at that time already perpetrated several pogroms). The General explained to the delegation that the order had been given in the interest of the state, and that he placed the welfare of the fatherland above everything.
The official information bureau of the chief commander of the volunteer army developed an enormous anti-Semitic agitation. Theoretically this agitation found expression in the sanguinary anti-Semitic articles of the well-known follower of the Black Hundred, the able and talented Shulgin, a convinced monarchist and Jew-hater. He was the editor of the official organ of the Denikin government, "Velikaya Rossia" (Great Russia), was a member of the "Dictatorship Conference," a minister without portfolio, and carried on unbridled agitation against the Jews as well as against all democratic elements. We quote below a quite lengthy extract from the "Kievlianin," from which can be seen his attitude to the proclamation of the labor unions, directed against anti-Semitism, as well as his attitude to the events that happened during the period of the pogroms instituted by the volunteer army. In his opinion the original sin of progressive Russia is the first Revolution of February and March. Following is an abstract of the article:
There came accidently into our hands a printed copy of a circular addressed by the Kiev labor union to its members. This circular deserves greater attention than it claims for itself. Even those workmen who recently diagnosed with apparent correctness the class struggle into which their ringleaders and "intensifiers of the Revolution" drew them, must ponder very carefully the contents of the circular. The same holds true of the whole Russian intelligentzia with whom the classconscious laborers now desire to work in common, and also of the government which has reconquered our homes from their destroyers and robbers and is making efforts to build a common house for the whole Russian people and all its classes.