tism increased. At the same time there arose among the surrounding peasantry an opposition and a rebellious movement against the communistic Soviet regime. In the neighboring village of Listopadovo (two versts from Zlatopol) the peasants were armed, and threats came from there against the town. The holiday of May 1 was the occasion for the pogrom. The local intellectuals (young students and gymnasium boys) wanted to parade with the Ukrainian flag. But the Executive Committee would not allow it. The May-day manifestation took place; many Jews, artisans and apprentices, took part. The day passed without disturbance, but on the next day there appeared armed groups from the direction of Listopadovo, which opened fire and entered the town. Some of the Jewish inhabitants hurriedly fled to Novo-Mirgorod; the rest hid in cellars and garrets. They began to shoot all the Jews they met, and on the next day began a general pogrom and pillaging, which lasted a whole week. The Executive Committee and all officials, without difference of nationality, had already fled in the morning (May 2). About sixty Jews were killed. They set fire to the whole market square and to several houses, expecting that the whole town would burn up. But fortunately there came a rain so heavy that the other houses were saved. The local bourgeoisie and part of the intellectuals took part in the pogrom and the looting. The pogrom stopped "of itself," since everything was looted and all the inhabitants had fled to Novo-Mirgorod. After about a week the inhabitants began to return. There remained in town the head of Kotzyr's band, who had set up a government, in the expectation that Grigoriev's uprising would succeed. When a pogrom broke out later in Novo-Mirgorod (May 17), the pogrom was repeated also in Zlatopol on the same day. With the suppression of Grigoriev's uprising Kotzyr disappeared from Zlatopol. The narrator is an inhabitant of Zlatopol, where he practised medicine. He also escaped to Novo-Mirgorod, and on his return found his entire apartment, his chemical-biological laboratory, and all his instruments, plundered. Certain instruments were found on the premises of the local hospital, from which he infers that the hospital staff took part in the pillaging.
II. Extract from Report on the Town of Zlatopol by the Instructor of the Government of Kiev, Comrade Romsen
INFORMATIONAL PART
Until the revolutionary overturn, Zlatopol had not been touched by any pogrom outbreaks, even in the year 1905, when
UKRAINE
a wave of pogroms broke out all around. It did not reach Zlatopol; and this was not accidental. As far as can be explained, these relations with the peasantry were based on mutual confidence and solidarity, and with the intellectuals there existed a bond based on culture and enlightenment. But the revolution broke out, and the population triumphantly reacted to that joyous sound. The Jewish inhabitants also took open part in the festivity. Soon the local intellectuals and the nearby landowners, seeing before them dangerous rivalry in the persons of capable and intelligent Jewish workers, united with the ruined landowners. They stood in opposition to the changes that were being carried out. They adopted the usual methods, playing upon the ignorance of the peasant masses, inflaming them with various calumnies. They said the revolution, speculation, high prices, everything was the handiwork of the Jews, and the only way out was repression. The agitation grew, and the village teacher in the country, and the priest and the intellectuals in the town, at markets, at peasant gatherings, in the co-operatives — everywhere the work went on. And soon its harvest appeared in the form of individual outbreaks of looting of wares belonging to shopkeepers and Jews.