UKRAINE
incessant attacks and looting. The militia was powerless. A company of guards came to keep order, and the Jewish population assumed the responsibility of feeding and clothing it. But the guard itself took part in the looting. The town suffered especially from the third Gaidamak cavalry regiment, which incessantly terrorized the Jewish population. Owing to the arrival of the Zvenigorod regiment under the command of Pavlovsky, there were no human lives lost in the town; there were only beatings and robberies.
Early in March the bolsheviki took Zvenigorod, but Talnoie at this time still remained in the hands of the Petlurists. The situation on the front was shifting for about two weeks. Approximately on March 19 Talnoie was taken by the 8th Soviet regiment, which also started looting. Two weeks later (after another capture by the Petlurists of Teplik) the withdrawal of the Soviet forces from Uman and Kristinovka began in the direction of Talnoie. On the way many bandits joined the Soviet forces, and for three days plundering in Talnoie did not cease. A part of the Chigirin regiment was stationed here. At the same time the local Revolutionary Committee, in which four out of twelve members were Jews, imposed a contribution of three million rubles on the local bourgeoisie. Requisitions of goods and wares which had escaped the looting were made upon the Jewish population. For non-payment of the contribution the bourgeois were arrested; of these 90 per cent were Jews.
After some time the Chigirin detachment disarmed the Revolutionary Committee and the detachment of the Extraordinary Committee, with cries of "Away with the Jewish regime!" Soon the weapons were returned to the Russian members of the detachment and the Revolutionary Committee was re-established, but Jews no longer occupied prominent places.
On May 7th a peasants' assembly was held, at which the local officers, dissatisfied with the registration of officers and also with the actions of the Revolutionary Committee, with cries of "Away with the Soviet regime, away with the Jews, away with Trotzky," demanded an explanation of the president of the Revolutionary Committee concerning the registration that had been ordered and concerning the lack of articles of prime necessity. On the next day the president of the Extraordinary Committee, Gross, appeared with a detachment to give the explanations, and the assembly asked him to hand over all weapons to a new militia, which was chosen on the spot. Former officers were placed at the head of it, who took a number of rifles away from the detachment. An irregular firing began. The peasants of the assembly dispersed. The ringleaders (Polischuk, Zakhary Oleinik, and others) in the same night rode into the surrounding villages, collected the peasants by the ringing of bells, and told them fabulous inventions of this sort, that the Jews in Talnoie were plundering the church, killing Christians, etc., and that they had had difficulty in escaping from there. This served as the start for a pogrom. On May 13 the rebels began to approach Talnoie under the leadership of former officers and thugs of Talnoie. The Soviet detachment fled. A proclamation was posted that all Jews must hand in their weapons within 24 hours. There was another proclamation that all militiamen should remain in their places, except Jews. A former associate of the Central Rada, Arseni Melnichenko, was named as commandant of the town. No small part in the rebel movement was played by the Ukrainian Left Social Revolutionaries, at the head of whom was Karpov, inspector of the fourth class of the city schools. On May 14 the commandant called an assembly of Jews, at which there appeared and spoke a delegate from the Petlurist army, a representative of the "Greens," and a representative of the local command, Vasili Krivenky. The substance of their speeches was that all communists were Jews, that a commune was injurious to the peasants, and that the Jews must be ordered to give up three machine guns and one mine-thrower. Dr. Vilenkis, Volynetz and Schwarzmann answered them, that all weapons had long since been collected by the preceding regimes. But this did not convince them. A commission of ten Jews was chosen to take part in searches of the Jewish population. After the searches the Jews were driven out on the "Konnaia Torgovitza" (Horse-market Square), and immediately allowed to return home. Next day the same thing was repeated; they rounded up the Jews and demanded the surrender of weapons and of all communists. A list of communists was presented. At the same time the rebels surrounded Jewish dwellings and looted and killed. There were 15 people killed, and about 50 wounded.