The chronological order of events preceding the pogrom was as follows. After the Grigoriev forces had occupied the station of Bobrinsky and after the treachery of part of the forces sent by the Executive Committee to fight with them at the station of Belozeria, on the evening of May 10 the Executive Committee gave orders for all the Soviet institutions to abandon the city. But when the latter with their necessary things, property, and money arrived at the station, got loaded into a train, and started off, the train was fired upon and had to stop. A meeting was held, after which a delegation from the garrison was sent out to Smela to the Grigorievists; there were attempts at the station to deal roughly with communistic Jews. The members of the Soviet institutions were compelled to return to town. On the next day at twelve o'clock the members of the Executive Committee, with a detachment of the Extraordinary Committee
CHERKASSY:
(Chrezvychaika), and a small military detachment, left the city on horseback and in carts, going across the strategic bridge towards Zolotonosha. Soon after this the city was occupied without opposition by Grigorievist guerrilla soldiers, with a detachment. The commander of the mobilization division of the Soviet military committee was made commander of the garrison. On the eleventh and twelfth the Grigorievist forces entered Cherkassy. These days were marked by organized attacks on a number of Jewish dwellings. Soldiers under the command of officers, on the pretense of searching, plundered and carried off clothing, money, and other things, taunting the Jews and calling them both bourgeois, and communists or bribers of communists. The feeling on the streets in these days was agitated; groups of petty bourgeois kept collecting, expecting something; people talked of retaliation for the cruelties of the Extraordinary, for the shooting of hostages, for the arrest of priests, etc. On the eleventh I met on the main street a group of Ukrainian agents, who came to me and said they were alarmed by the state of feeling in the city, that they wanted to prevent a pogrom, but did not know how to go about it. I advised them to stay around the headquarters at the station and persuade the commanding powers to restrain the soldiers from excesses in the city. The Ukrainians went to the station, but the results of their conversations with the general staff are unknown to me. On the morning of the 13th a Soviet detachment with some of the members of the Executive Committee returned to Cherkassy. Apparently the Grigoriev forces abandoned the city during the night before. But towards evening on the 16th a hasty evacuation began. I know that the Executive Committee proposed to the trade unions to organize city guards, that a committee was appointed, but received no arms or cartridges from the Executive Committee, since there were not enough even for the troops. Some of the members of the unions, mainly mechanics (needle makers, shoe makers and others), went with the troops to the front, where they fought on the left flank near the sugar factory. When they retired on this flank the workmen were killed almost to a man by the local population. Towards evening on the 16th the Grigoriev forces broke into the town. The soldiers dispersed about the streets and began shooting at crossways, looting and killing in houses, and plundering in shops. The local petty bourgeois, women and children, readily took part in the plundering, pointed out Jewish houses to the soldiers, etc. Late in the evening the pogrom quieted down, but it broke
UKRAINE