educational experiment, which was intended to teach the unhappy Jewish population that they must not destroy "a state that they did not create" and must not "realize the principle of the rule of the people." The pogrom lasted till the 2Oth. Systematically, methodically, step by step, house by house, street by street, the Jewish population was killed, violated and exterminated. Of counter measures there was not a trace. Reports by opposition papers of the participation of the troops in the pogroms were not allowed by the censor. The instigators of the "Kievlianin" and the "Vecherniye Ogni," who incited the troops to violence not merely against the Jewish population in general, but also against the inhabitants of definite streets and houses and against definite persons, were not taken to account in any manner, although their acts were in violation of definite articles of the criminal law. Savenko continued his dirty work and remained in his position as "Chief of Propaganda."
The telegram of Denikin is a typical example of political hypocrisy, a document to mislead foreign opinion.
To summarize, the pogroms instituted by the volunteer army of Denikin took people's breath away by their inevitable necessity, the exactness with which they were carried out and, as is correctly said in the "memorial," by their systematic execution. In this way they are differentiated from the pogroms which were charged to the Directory of Petlura.
The pogroms instituted directly or indirectly by the Directory and their responsible agents did not arise on the ground of hatred for the Jewish masses as such, and are not connected by the representatives of the national Ukrainian movement with the prejudice that grew on the ground of feudalism. The unconscious antipathy against the Jews as such and the instinctive anti-Semitism were, on occasion of need and in consequence of political and in part military circumstances, transformed into an "actual method." The occupation of the Ukraine by the Bolsheviki made of this means an almost uninterruptedly working system. The expulsion of the Bolsheviki from the Ukraine caused the Directory to give up this two-edged weapon and to look for support in the Jewish socialistic party of the right. At the end of August the Rada of the people's ministers as well as the chief Ataman expressed themselves decidedly against pogroms and even took practical measures to combat them, all of which naturally did not exclude the possibility of a renewed use of this terrible fighting instrument in case of political necessity. The victorious national-Ukrainian movement did not take refuge in pogroms.
Quite different must be the political estimate of the pogroms of the volunteer army. They were not merely a political means but also an act of retribution, "for the dishonored and violated Russia." Not only the political leaders, but almost all ordinary officers of the volunteer army were filled with hate and thirst for revenge. The old spirit of caste in the officer corps of the tsarist period was strengthened by the feeling of revenge called forth by the destruction of thousands of persons close and related to them in consequence of the Red Terror, which they ascribed to the "Jewish Extraordinary Commission." The same thing applies to the agitation of the Black Hundred in the official "Osvaga" as well as to journalists like Shulgin and Savenko.
With the increasing power of the volunteer army
UKRAINE
the pogroms gained in extent. Reaction increased as the power of the government grew firmer. The victorious regime of Denikin advanced over the dead bodies of the Jews.
The most terrible thing about the Denikin pogroms was the apparent durability of the government. The institution of the Batko was felt to be the work of robber bands, the attitude of the Directory was regarded as that of a weak and temporary government whose residence was in some out-of-the-way city like Vinnitza or Kamenetz-Podolsk. But a great part of Ukrainian Jewry believed in the permanence of the restoration government, which was based upon international recognition and actual military support by the Entente. This created a completely hopeless and desperate situation. And the more so because the upper as well as the middle classes of Jewry had cherishedj certain illusions with regard to this government as the means of restoring legal order, which would put an end to civil war and make it possible for tortured Ukrainian Jewry to lead a tolerable life.
CHAPTER VI
The Attitude of the Several Groups of the Christian Population to the Pogroms.
THE watchword "Self-defense" played a great role in its day; in the tsarist period it was regarded as revolutionary.