class, land-owners and capitalists in general. [1] Be this as it may, there can be no question that the Government was actually afraid lest the revolutionary propaganda attach itself to the agitation of those “devoted to Throne and Fatherland” for the purpose of giving the movement a more general scope, “in accordance with the d signs of the anarchists.”  As a matter of fact, even outside of Government circles, the apprehension was voiced that the anti-Jewish movement would of itself, without any external stimulus, assume the form of a mob movement, directed not only against the well-to-do classes but also against the Government officials.  On May 4, 1881, Baron Horace Guenzburg, a leading representative of the Jewish community of St. Petersburg, waited upon Grand Duke Vladimir, a brother of the Tzar, who expressed the opinion that the anti-Jewish “disorders, as has now been ascertained by the Government, are not to be exclusively traced to the resentment against the Jews, but are rather due to the endeavor to disturb the peace in general.”

[Footnote 1:  John W. Poster, United States Minister to Russia, in reporting to the Secretary of State, on May 24, 1881, about the recent excesses, which “are more worthy of the dark ages than of the present century,” makes a similar observation:  “It is asserted also that the Nihilist societies have profited by the situation to incite and encourage the peasants and lower classes of the towns and cities in order to increase the embarrassments of the Government, but the charge is probably conjectural and not based on very tangible facts.”  See House of Representatives, 51st Congress, 1st Session.  Executive Document No. 470, p. 53]

A week after this visit, the deputies of Russian Jewry had occasion to hear the same opinion expressed by the Tzar himself.  The Jewish deputation, consisting of Baron Guenzburg, the banker Sack, the lawyers Passover and Bank, and the learned Hebraist Berlin, was awaiting this audience with, considerable trepidation, anticipating an authoritative imperial verdict regarding the catastrophe that had befallen the Jews.  On May 11, the audience took place in the palace at Gatchina.  Baron Guenzburg voiced the sentiments of “boundless gratitude for the measures adopted to safeguard the Jewish population at this sad moment,” and added:  “One more imperial word, and the disturbances will disappear.”  In reply to the euphemistic utterances concerning “the measures adopted,” the Tzar stated in the same tone that all Russian subjects were equal before him, and expressed the assurance “that in the criminal disorders in the South of Russia the Jews merely serve as a pretext, and that it is the work of anarchists.”

This pacifying portion of the Tzar’s answer was published in the press.  What the public was not allowed to learn was the other portion of the answer, in which the Tzar gave utterance to the view that the source of the hatred against the Jews lay in their economic “domination” and “exploitation” of the Russian population.  In reply to the arguments of the talented lawyer Passover and the other deputies, the Tzar declared:  “State all this in a special memorandum.”