Читать книгу The Slaughter of the Jews in the Ukraine in 1919 - Elias Heifetz - Страница 7

WITH the occupation of Kiev by the Soviet power,, the so-called internal front was first formed, the rising of the Ukrainian peasants against the Soviet government. The latter extended its power over the large cities (Kiev, Yekaterinoslav, Kharkov, Odessa, Chernigov and others) and the territory covered by the railroads. The localities a few versts away from the railroads were already in revolt. The suppression of these uprisings, which always assumed more intense forms, was the essential characteristic of the Soviet period in the Ukraine, while the history of the peasant uprisings represented at the same time the history of the Jewish massacres in the Ukraine.

The peasants in the Ukraine were armed to the teeth. Even during the German occupation the villages were always provided with arms, not only revolvers and guns, but also machine guns and small cannon. The Soviet power, which always fought against the troops of the Directory, was not able to penetrate into the villages and disarm them. Besides, the army of the Soviet power was unable to exercise sufficient influence and was not sufficiently disciplined. Politically, too, the Soviet power was unable to exercise sufficient influence upon the middle peasants. The difference between city and country in the Ukraine was too great. The Ukrainian village is very rich; and the peasants refused to give up their products and their grain to the indigent city for "Kerensky money" or the Ukrainian "karbovantzy," which they possessed in plenty (there was scarcely a house which did not own bales of worthless paper money); for the peasant could not obtain what he needed for this money; he could get neither agricultural machines nor manufactured goods nor salt. The blockade made it impossible for the city to play the role of the middleman or to obtain its necessities. The Soviet power was therefore compelled to take the grain from the peasants by force of arms. To be sure, the Soviet government had made a decree regulating the exchange of agricultural products for salt and I manufactured goods, a standard of exchange had in fact been established, one pound of salt to equal one pound of flour. This was changed later, and one pound of salt was made equal to 2 poods (1 pood equals 40 lbs.) of flour. In reality, however, there was no possibility of transporting manufactures or salt and bringing them to their destinations, after the internal front made railroad communication in the Ukraine almost impossible by reason of the continual blowing up and damaging of rolling stock and tracks. But the peasants were not willing to give anything away for products "prospective in principle." For they mistrusted the "commune." Not only the rich peasants but the middle peasants, too, regarded the "commune" as a hydra which strove to take everything out of the village without giving them anything in return. The rich Ukrainian village was anarchistic in temper. It recognized every government so long as it left the village undisturbed, and demanded no taxes, agricultural products, recruits, and so on. But the moment any government attempted to make demands for the flat land or to press claims, the village revolted, took out the buried weapons and used them, and finally brought about the fall of the government in question. The Ukrainian village was the sphinx whose riddle could not be solved and which destroyed every power that rose before it. This is the explanation of the cinematographic rapidity with which the various governments followed each other in the Ukraine.

A special peasant phraseology was formed: "We are Bolshevists," said the peasants in the Ukraine, "but no communists. The Bolsheviki gave us land, while the communists take away our grain without giving us anything for it. We will not allow the Red Army to hang the commune about our necks. Down with the commune! Long live the Bolsheviki!"

The attitude of the Ukrainian peasants toward the commune is shown in the following incident, which would be humorous if it were not that it really took place under the tragic circumstances of the pogrom temper. The authorized agent of the Relief Committee of the Red Cross had been commissioned to establish a kitchen in Iskorost for those who had suffered from the pogrom. Rumors of the creation of a common kettle, that terrible common kettle with which the agitators frightened the peasants, were circulated also in the neighboring district of Ushomir. The inhabitants of Ushomir said then that "the Jews had already established the commune," and affirmed that they had seen the Kettle with their own eyes. The peasants of Ushomir threatened the Jewish population with the words, "Why don't you go to Iskorost? There the Kettle is already made." Fearing an accusation of having established the "commune," the Jews of Ushomir asked the agent of the Red Cross not to establish a kitchen after the model of the one in Iskorost, so that they might not be exposed to the danger of being regarded as communists.

The attitude of opposition toward the "city power" led to a rejection of "State power" in general. The anarchistic village needs no government. Of what good is it? The village has its leaders, viz. its "Elders" (Batki). The government is never constant, it always changes. Since the March Revolution the Ukraine has had too many governments to be able to believe in the durability of any kind of State order (the Provisional Government, the Central Rada and its Secretariat, the first period of the Soviet power, the German Occupation, the rule of the Germans, the Directory, the Soviet power again and the armies pressing it from two sides, the army of Petlura and that of the volunteers). Their Ataman (leader), however, their Batko, they always have. He is one of them and they believe in the firmness and unshakenness of the armed regime of the peasants with the Batko at their head. The village rejects every thought of the possibility of an attack on the peasants and their "eternal rights to the land and its products" by the landed proprietors of the White Guard. But in so far as the village sees a danger on the right, in so far as danger threatens the interests of the village and the right of the peasants to the land, they will support the left including the Soviet power, which favors them in this matter.

A characteristic episode will make clear the attitude of the village to the Soviet power when there is a danger threatening from the right. In the last months of the Soviet government in the Ukraine (July, 1919), there were frequent uprisings among those Soviet troops which consisted of peasant freebooters. Such a regiment stationed near Kiev resolved to march to Kiev, "to slit the bellies of the Jewish commissars, to set aside the commune and re-establish the 'true Bolshevist order' ' They allowed a representative of the Soviet power to have his say, and after hearing him they deliberated and persisted in their former resolution. In full fighting form the regiment marched to Kiev. The political commissar, who was in this case the principal agitator, resolved to hold another meeting in order to heighten the temper of the regiment, for there were a few who hesitated under the impression of the speech of the Soviet representative. The political commissar made a long speech, pointed to the harm that would come from the "commune" and said that the war must be ended altogether. "Let us remove the commune, make peace with Denikin and go home." These words acted like an electric spark, "He invites us to make peace with the landed proprietors, he is a traitor!" The unfortunate speaker was put in chains, handed over to the representatives of the Soviet government, and the regiment was ordered to the Denikin front.

The Batko flesh of the flesh and blood of the blood of the village stands close to the village in his temper, thought, life and character. The Batko is not always an ordinary peasant. As we shall see later, the most important Batki are highly developed persons with European education. But they can put themselves in the position of the village, think its thoughts and ideals, make its desires and moods their own and embody the will of the Ukrainian peasant. They are able to lead the peasant masses, who yield them respect and obedience so long as they give expression to the will of the village. The Batko understands how to take the peasant, and knows how to win him over by social or national motives. The Batko is perfectly familiar with the revolutionary phraseology and adapts it successfully to the level of the peasant. He is primarily a demagogue. In his speeches and proclamations, the Batko expresses himself in favor of the Soviet power without the communists. He demands besides that the Rada be controlled by the village. He is against the bourgeoisie and against the communists, but for the Bolsheviki. Often he expresses himself to the effect that the communists treat the bourgeoisie too gently. The Batko is opposed to a centralized government and its apparatus. He demands a free association of anarchistic peasant communities with the Batki at the head. Socially the program of the Batki is primitively anarchistic: "Rob, requisition, take possession of the cities, take Yekaterinoslav, take Kiev, take Kharkov, the cities belong to you, take away the property of the wealthy classes."

Hand in hand with the anarchistic phrase and the attacks against the Kiev Soviet government, the anti-Semitic pogrom agitation moved through the land. The Soviet power was, according to their idea, a foreign government of Moscovitish-Jewish origin, which the village did not understand. The peasant knew only that they wanted to take everything out of the village and give him in return colored little papers, which were found in the village in plenty. He knew it was a government which proceeded against the village with armed force. In very many cases Jews were the agents of the Soviet government in the villages and districts. They often neglected the interests of the local population and had no regard for them. The mistakes, abuses and offences of the local agents of the Soviet power were noted and utilized in a definite way by the anti-Soviet powers, who represented them as characteristic qualities of the "Jewish nation," which ruled over the "orthodox" peasant. The poison of the anti-Semitic agitation flowed in a wide stream over the whole of the Ukraine. The Batki understood clearly the value of the Jewish pogrom as a political weapon, established by the Directory. They saw the real results of Jew baiting in the unruliness of the mob which was so necessary for them. Giving up the Jewish population to the village as booty seemed to the Batki advantageous in many respects.

In the first place those Jews in the cities and districts who had become rich during the German rule possessed objects which the Ukrainian peasant needed urgently, as for example household articles and, what was most important, clothing, linen and shoes, of which nothing could any longer be found in the village. Even a pair of old shoes of a poor Jew excited the attention of the village population, rich in grain and Kerensky money and poor in everything else. During the pogroms the Jewish population, those who were murdered as well as those who survived, were stripped of everything to the last shirt. The Batki in the neighboring villages successfully vied with each other in popularity by declaring the Jewish possessions as the property of the peasants and by distributing the plundered Jewish goods free of cost to the "most needy" or by instituting "cheap sales." This method of satisfying the needs of the village received wide imitation. In the second place national baiting was a means of uniting to a certain extent the heterogeneous peasantry.

This was especially important at those moments when the middle peasants vacillated between the right and the left under the pressure of the danger threatening from the right. When the political program of the Batki at this or that moment did not correspond to the temper of the peasants, national baiting had to fill the lacuna in its reciprocal relations.

In the third place the identification of Jews and communists (which, however, did not hinder them from at the same time declaring the Jews to be bourgeois and thus summoning the population to murder and pillage) made it possible for them to carry on the fight against their dangerous enemies, the Soviet power. "Down with the communists, down with the Jewish commissars!" This was the motto of Shtogrin, a member of the left wing of the Ukrainian Social Revolutionists, who carried on simultaneously an anti-Soviet and a pogromophile agitation in Uman. At the hearing before the Extraordinary Commission he was charged with anti-Semitic propaganda. Asked if he did not know that he might have caused a Jewish pogrom, he replied that he had in fact incited the peasants to make pogroms, "for otherwise it was impossible to get the peasants to rise." Order No. i for the city of Uman which was issued after the pogrom and signed by Klimenko, the chief commander of the rebellious troops, says among other things, "The rule of the Jews has fallen, and the insurgents are instructed to pay no heed to Jewish agents and police spies."

Kummelman reports from the district of Matusovo (Government of Kiev) as follows: The peasants distrusted the Soviet power, they did not take them seriously and regarded them as a foreign power, almost as much as the rule of the Germans. This distrust of the new government was artificially kept awake by the local intelligentzia. From the first day they took an attitude of opposition to the new government. The local Ukrainian intelligentzia, like the postmaster, the seminary students and the teachers, openly agitated against the Soviet power. They 'played the national question as the main trump. "The government of Petlura," the postmaster Kulik impresses upon the peasants, "is our real native Ukrainian government, but the government of the Bolsheviki is a Jew government." "I was in Cherkassy," the teacher Palega assures the peasants, "in the Commissariat for the Enlightenment of the People, and what have I seen there? Nothing but Jews, the whole Commissariat filled with Jews."

The social position of the Batko is various. There are various grades, from the Batko who controls a village, a district and sometimes several districts up to the Batko who rules over entire Governments (provinces) and plays a great political role, like Grigoriev and Makhno. The last named are leaders of the Ukrainian peasants, able men with clear political purpose. Batki like Zeleny, Struk, Angel, Yatzenko, Tiutiunik, Klimenko, Popov are peasants who have no independent policy, but are instruments of the leaders who know how to comprehend and formulate the dissatisfaction of the middle peasants. Every Batko has his sphere of activity. Struk worked north of Kiev, in the district of Chernobyl. Sokolovsky carried on his activity west of Kiev, in the district of Radomysl and in the neighboring part of the circuit of Zhitomir. South of Kiev, in the district of Tripolie on the Dnieper, Zeleny had his field of activity. In the precincts of Tarascha were Yatzenko, Golub and others. In the district of Brussilov we find the group of Mordylev; in Lipovetz the association of Sokolovsky; in the district of Uman the bands of Klimenko, Tiutiunik and Popov; in the district of Gaisin, Volynetz, and in the region of Bakhmach, Angel. Almost all these "small" Batki are former followers of Petlura (whom the Directory gave object lessons in political fighting, which they have put to good use) and work always within the limits of their homes.

Struk is a twenty-three year old peasant from the village of Grini near Gornostaipol; Sokolovsky comes from the village Gorbulevo, nineteen versts from Radomysl, and is the son of a deacon of the village. Zeleny lives in Tripolie, is a son of a local cabinet maker and attained the rank of corporal in the war. Mordylev comes from the village Zabylachy, not far from Brussilov. Sokolovsky was formerly a lower official of the agrarian administration of Lipovetz. Volynetz was born in the village Karlovka near Gaisin. He is a peasant of 23, former clerk of the Forestry administration. Yatzenko was born in the village Kershan, three versts from Tarascha. He is about 24 years old, attended a school of two classes in Tarascha, became a follower of Petlura in March and initiated his activity with Jew baiting. "The Jews are all communists, they defile our churches and change them into stables."

The leading Batki often go over from one government to the other. This is true of Grigoriev, for example, who watered a great part of the Ukraine with Jewish blood. Under the Hetman he held a responsible position in the economic department of the administration and came in close contact with the village (he is a native Ukrainian from the city of Alexandria in the Government of Kherson). Going from village to village, he organized groups of insurrectionists, at the head of which he raised the banner of Petlura. The ambition to make a career, the desire to be more conspicuous, the comprehension of the tendencies of the peasants at that time who were attempting a reaction against German rule and wishing for a radical power of the extreme left, induced him to put himself on the side of the Soviet government. Grigoriev placed himself at the head of strong associations of freebooters and in a whirlwind campaign conquered the whole south, including Odessa. But he was not satisfied with being a leader of a Soviet army. He was casting eyes on the position of an independent ruler of South Russia and dreamed of a dictatorship of his own. He systematically encouraged unbridled conduct among his troops, did everything to please their instincts and desires and gave them to understand that they could do anything they liked as long as they were masters of Odessa. It is significant that as long as he had not broken with the Soviet government and had not refused to obey the military commands given to him to go to the Rumanian front, Grigoriev abstained from all national baiting. In Odessa his bands robbed the population under the pretext of fighting the bourgeoisie, but there were no serious excesses or pogroms. After the Soviet government declared Grigoriev an outlaw, he adopted a means that had been long proved in Ukraine to weld together his united bands. He identified the Soviet government with Judaism and preached its destruction.

Grigoriev issued his manifesto of sad memory, "Universal" (addressed to all the people), which has had a very unfortunate significance for the Ukrainian Jews. This manifesto written in revolutionary phraseology demands at the end the removal of the Soviet government, formed of "foreign elements from the ever hungry land of Moscow and the land where Christ was nailed to the cross," and the murder of the Jews. The watchword of Grigoriev found an echo in the Ukrainian village. It was taken up in the several localities by the local Batki as well as by the bands of the Black Hundred in the Ukrainian cities and villages, and especially by the ultra-reactionary anti-semitic intellectuals who are found in plenty in the cities and small towns, and was carried farther. This is extremely characteristic of the period of Grigoriev, which may be regarded in this respect as the forerunner of Denikin. Thus in the country town of Gorodische, in the Government of Kiev, a former officer Gritsai stood at the head of Grigoriev' s men. The pogrom was led by a small group of residents, teachers and students of the local gymnasium and agricultural school. They were not only the instigators and leaders of the pogrom, but also soon took active part in pillage and murder. In the town of Zlatopol (Government of Kiev), the participants in the Jewish massacres were not only the poorer classes, but also a part of the intelligentzia, as far as they belonged to the Black Hundred or sympathized with them. In the town of Stavische, in the same Government, a town of more than one thousand peasant families, there were among the participants in the pogrom many landed proprietors, students, clergy, who openly designated themselves as members of the "White Guard." The terrible massacre in Yelisavetgrad took place under the watchword, "Cut down the Jews, cut down the communists!" The Rabbi of Mirgorod testified at his examination that the soldiers seized him, pointed at him and cried, "You are a communist, you Jewish snout!" In Boguslav it was the peasants who robbed and murdered the Jews on the ground that they were all Bolsheviki and communists. The same thing happened in Tarascha and in dozens and hundreds of places in which Grigoriev's bands instituted pogroms. In Cherkassy the pogromists literally cut down all Jews, saying to them, "You want to rule over us, to use violence against us!" Especially characteristic of the movement instigated by Grigoriev is the fact that the intellectuals in their agitation in the villages used a new motive in addition to the old, namely that the Jews had done violence to the Christian religion (a motive suggested by the phrase in the manifesto, "from the land where Christ was nailed to the cross"). This grouping about Grigoriev not only of the civic elements, but also of the Black Hundred, who dream of the return of the tsarist order, lent to their deeds of horror the particularly gruesome character of an attempt to annihilate and exterminate the Jewish people. The pogroms everywhere followed a prearranged plan. The triumphal procession of the victorious Grigoriev took place under the sign of pogroms instituted by the Ataman himself and his assistants, Uvarov, Tiutiunik and Nechayev.

The Jewish persecutions in May must be attributed to the activity of Grigoriev. Three fourths of them took place in the southeastern projection of the Government of Kiev (the district between Cherkassy and Chigirin). The rest were enacted in the neighboring parts of the Governments of Kherson and Poltava. In a small number of cases the pogroms were instituted not by the bands of Grigoriev but by locally resident elements and under the influence of the above mentioned "Universal" manifesto.

The Jewish massacres followed each other in the following order: Zlatopol, May 2-5; Znamenka, May 3; Lebedin, May 5; Gorodische, May 11-12; Orlovetz, May 12; Zolotonosha, May 12; Rotmistrovka, May 13-14; Matusovo, May 13-14; Belozeria, May 14-15; Smela, May 14-15; Yelisavetgrad, 15-17; Novo-Mirgorod, 17; Cherkassy, 16-21; Raigorod, 20; in the Sablino-Znamenk sugar factory, 20; Alexandria, 22; Chigirin, 25; Alexandrovka, 15-18; Stepanovka, 18; Semyonovka, 18-19; Grosstjlov, 20.

There were pogroms at the same time in Fundukeievka, Medvedovka, Kamenka, Teleschino, Station Bobrinsky, Tzvetkovo, Moshny, Glovbin, Kassel, Tomashov, Ivanovka, Vessyolaya Kuta, Vessyolaya Podol, and others.

The following Jewish persecutions during the same month are also closely connected with Grigoriev's manifesto. They all belong to the district of Uman, situated at a greater distance from the places in which Grigoriev's bands resided. Of these massacres the most bloody were in Uman, May 13; Dubovo, 13 and 14; Talnoie, 13; Kristinovka, Ladyzhenka, and the villages, Vyasovok, Mankovka, Ivanka, Buki and others.

The remainder of Grigoriev's bands developed their activity also in the month of June. They destroyed in the Government of Kiev, Stavische, June 15; Tarascha, 16; Volodarka, 20; Ryshanovka, 20; Skvira, 23; on the 27th they instituted a second pogrom in Alexandria (Government of Kherson).

The followers of Grigoriev destroyed a whole line of cities and towns root and branch, put to death or mutilated tens of thousands of Jews and violated thousands of Jewish women and girls, but the political aim of Grigoriev to become the ruler of the Ukraine was not realized. Grigoriev was able to gather the masses about him by the negative side of his program only, the hate against the "Jewish Soviet power," but he had nothing positive to offer. He could undermine the power of the Soviet government and open the gates to Denikin, with whom, as is reliably stated, he tried to get in touch, proposing to proceed in common with him against the Soviet government as well as the Directory. But he was beaten. His bands divided, one part going over to the side of the Soviet government and the other devoting itself to "positive pillage" under the leadership of several insignificant Batki.

Grigoriev himself fell by the hand of another Batko, superior to him, by the name of Makhno. Extremely interesting is the "resolution" passed by the followers of the "ideal Batko" in reference to the murder of Grigoriev.

COPY OF A COPY OF THE RESOLUTION FROM THE PROTOCOL NUMBER 4 OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE COUNCIL OF THE REVOLUTIONARY FREEBOOTERS OF THE GOVERNMENTS OF KHERSON, TAURIDA AND YEKATERINOSLAV IN THE REPORT OF THE MILITARY CORPS ON THE 28TH OF JULY, 1919.

"The assassination of the Ataman Grigoriev on the 27th of July in the village of Septovo, circuit of Alexandria, Government of Kherson, by the ideal leader of the insurrectionists, the Batko Makhno, must be regarded as a necessary and required historical fact, for Grigoriev's policy, acts and aims were counterrevolutionary and had the main purpose of supporting Denikin and other counter-revolutionists, as is proved by the Jewish pogroms and the arming of the thugs. The union of his army with that of Batko Makhno is explained as being necessary in order to take away from him all the honest freebooters, who are fighting for revolutionary ideas and follow him only because of their ignorance.

"We cherish the hope that now no one will be found who will sanction Jewish pogroms, and that the working people will in their honesty rise against the counter-revolutionists like Denikin and others, as well as against the Bolsheviki and communists who are establishing a dictatorship by force with the help of mercenary Magyars, Chinese and Letts. The followers of Makhno regard it as their revolutionary duty to take upon themselves the historical consequences of this assassination. Down with Jewish pogroms! Long live the revolutionary uprising of the Ukraine! Long live the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic! Long live socialism!"

The original is signed by the

President, VITKO MAKHNO,

Secretary, SHEVCHENKO,

Attested by Acting Chief of Staff, MIKHAILOV,

Attested by (signature illegible).

Reading this resolution one might think that the Batko Makhno himself, who had assassinated Grigoriev because he had instituted Jewish pogroms, had not a drop of Jewish blood clinging to his fingers. Far from it! The bands of Makhno were guilty of the maddest excesses, they devastated Jewish cities and towns. Makhno has thousands of murdered and tortured Jews on his conscience, and the complete destruction of almost all the Jewish colonies in the south of the Ukraine is his work. The "ideal Batko" himself was now for, now against pogroms, depending upon the political situation of the moment.

Makhno is an intellectual, a former village schoolmaster once imprisoned for a political offence, a clever and energetic man. During the first phase of the Russian Revolution he was a member of the Yelisavetgrad Executive Committee of the labor deputies. At the time of the German occupation he became a popular personality in the Government of Yekaterinoslav, where he prepared the uprising against the German rule. Makhno was regarded by the village population as one of those "holy fighters'' for the cause of the village who put an end to a regime which atempted to carry everything away from the Ukraine and to establish a terroristic rule upon the flat country. Like the bands of Grigoriev, the insurrectionist bands of Makhno also occupied a whole line of points in the south (on the 18th of March they occupied Berdiansk; on the 31st, Melitopol, Ochakov, Sivash) which went over to the side of the Soviet government. Makhno had not definitely inscribed himself with the Soviet power, therefore they were not so painfully affected by his treason as by that of Grigoriev.

Makhno, covered with glory as he was, constantly tried to utilize his popularity among the peasants of the Yekaterinoslav and neighboring governments for an independent policy. He called himself an anarchist, but denied all connection with the party he wanted to be more anarchistic than the anarchists. In general his politics in relation to his own followers as well as the peasants in the neighborhood was characterized by the attempt to distribute among them, especially among the poorest, the property, mainly Jewish, which had been plundered and collected in the small towns. Thus he took possession of salt in the south (a very rare and therefore a very expensive product) and had it distributed free to the peasants. As regards the Soviet power he was the typical representative of the temper prevailing among the middle peasants. He never stood on the side of the Soviet government. During the first period, after the fall of the German rule, he supported the Soviet power because he regarded it as stronger and more consistent than the Directory, but he opposed it as being a city power. At the same time he was an opponent of the volunteer army of Denikin, an oppressor of the peasants and fighter for the reestablishment of the pre-revolutionary order. He defended the Soviet power and at the same time opposed the "Bolsheviki and the communists, who established a dictatorship by force with the help of hired Magyars, Chinese and Letts." When danger threatened from the right, he was ready to fight against Denikin. He fought against Grigoriev and assassinated him. He justified this act by Grigoriev* s anti-revolutionary attitude, which expressed itself in Jewish pogroms, and was even ready to negotiate with the Kiev government. But when Makhno fought against the Soviet government, he summoned his people to murder and exterminate the Jews, using the watchwords which are already familiar to us. As a personality, Makhno is not a typical Batko. He is too individualistic in his make-up. As a politician, however, he is the most typical of them all, for he embodies completely at every moment the interests and desires of the middle peasants of the Ukrainian village.

Interesting but not typical is the third prominent personality on the dark horizon of the Batko institution, Mazurenko, who calls himself in his pronunciamentos and proclamations the chief of the insurrectionists, the oldest among the numerous and small village and circuit Batki. Mazurenko comes from a well-known Ukrainian family, whose members have been active in public and political life. He is an intellectual in the European sense of the word. At the beginning he held responsible positions in the service of the Soviet government. He was the head of the Art Department of the whole Ukraine and member of the Ukrainian Council of Labor Deputies. He belongs to the left wing of the Ukrainian Social Democracy (the Independent Social Democracy), who are trying to democratize the Soviet system in the Ukraine by giving the controlling influence in the Soviet organs to the representatives of the peasants. One can scarcely imagine that the humane Mazurenko later became the author of a whole series of terrible Jew baiting pamphlets, in which he incited the people to pogroms.

We designated above in detail the names and spheres of activity of the most important among the lower Batki. They overran the whole Ukraine and caused terrible devastation in "their" districts. The Jewish population depends entirely upon the temper of the Batki and their bands. There is no escape. The whole Ukraine is divided into a number of such districts, in which cities and railway junctions are, like desert islands, to be met with only rarely, and which the Soviet power is able to hold for a while. But the moment a city gets into the hands of such a band, the Jewish population is plundered and murdered, until the Soviet government succeeds in getting possession of the place again.

From the end of March the bands began a systematic activity. In the precinct of Radomysl the Sokolovsky bands did their work. In April it was mainly Struk who developed a feverish activity covering the precinct of Chernobyl. In the days from the seventh to the twelfth of April, the bands raged in Chernobyl (sic) itself. At the beginning of the following month (May 3) Gornostaipol was destroyed, and the next day (May 4) Ivankov met a similar fate. In the time intervening they did murder and death in a whole line of neighboring villages and settlements, especially on the banks of the Dnieper, where they stopped ships and drowned the Jewish passengers. By the end of August there were thirty-two such places. During the whole month of April Sokolovsky raged in his district. Zeleny's bands too made their appearance hard by Kiev. In the days from the 7th to the 15th of April they devastated Vasilkov, the village Olshanka, and others. In the circuit Tarascha freebooters also appeared on the scene, who did their criminal work in Boguslav between the 4th and 25th of April.

In the following months the bands continued their horrible activity. Radomysl had to suffer again on the 13th of July. On the 15th of June the bands were in Brussilov; on the 20th in Khodorkov; on the 24th in Cherniakhov, then in Kornip. On the 17th of June a pogrom was again made in Dubovo; Obykhov was plundered at the same time, and on the 25th of June, Kagarlyk.

The pogrom activity of the bands assumed a specially dangerous scope in the month of July in the governments of Podolia, Kiev and Volhynia, Kiev suffering most as in the preceding month. It has been exactly established that the number of pogroms in the government of Kiev during the month in question was 26, in Volhynia 8, in Podolia 13. In the Government of Kiev the accursed work was done by the bands, in the two other governments the regular troops of Petlura also participated.

Of new districts which had hitherto been spared, the first to be affected was the circuit Pogrebische, in which pogroms were instituted in Borshchagovka on the 3rd of July; in Dzunkov on the 5th; in Novo-Fastov on the 11th; in Volodarka and a number of neighboring villages on the 2nd, 9th, and 11th. To the west of these places near the boundary of Volhynia, the pogromists were in Priluki on the 4th of July; in Vakhnovka on the 8th; in Turbov on the 9th and in Kalinovka on the 14th. In the district of Sokolov-Roshevo a Jewish massacre took place on the 3rd of July; in Makarov on the 6th; in Brussilov on the 5th; in Kornip on the 9th; in Yassnogorodka on the 15th. In the sphere of activity of the Batko Zeleny, pogroms took place in Rzhischev on the 1st and 13th of July, in Kosin on the I7th; in Pereyaslev (Government of Poltava) on the 15th to the 19th of July. In the circuit Tarascha the pogrom heroes distinguished themselves on the 2nd of July in Boyarki, on the 11th to the 24th in Koshevatoie. Finally at the end of the month, on the 29th of July, a new blood bath took place in Uman.

In the government of Volhynia the pogroms in July are distributed as follows: Kodry (6 and 15), Khamovka (9 and 11), Kamenny-Brod, Kotelnya and Sarubintzy (10), Dombrovitzy (10), Slovechno (10), Ksavrov (10).

In the government of Podolia, pogroms took place in the following localities: Zhmerinka (July 3); Brailov, Pikov, Shenderov, Voronovitzy, Obodin (10); Yanov (10-15); Tulchin (14); Litin (18); NovoKonstantinov, Teplik, Gaisin, Pecheri (20-25).

Many of the places mentioned were visited by the pogromists more than once (Radomysl, Cherniakhov, Kornip, Volodarka, Yelisavetgrad, and others). In some places there were as many as four, five and even ten pogroms until the Jewish population disappeared entirely and no trace of Jewish possessions was left.

In August the number and extent of pogroms was comparatively small. Pereyaslev, in the government of Poltava, was again visited by the bands of Lopatkin. On the 3rd of August Jewish persecutions took place in Vinnitza; on the 4th in Golovanevsk; on the 25th in Bielaia Tserkov.

The watchwords of the bands of the Batki are the same as those of Petlura's men, with variations now and then. In Matusovo the Jews were attacked by the bandits under the motto, "Will you, Jewish rabble, still keep ruling over us?" In Slovechno the massacre was accompanied by the words, "Here is your commune for you, here is your Jewish Empire!" In Chernobyl, Struk's bands rushed into the Jewish houses, shouting and shrieking, "Open, you communist Jews, or we will beat you to death, we will slit your bellies and drown you!" Struk's chieftains explained to their bandits the purpose of their coming as being to plunder and drown the low communists who rob the workmen and peasants. "Low communists" means the Jews. In his proclamations Struk always spoke of the communists and the capitalistic defenders of the Jews. Now and then the motto was enlarged by adding the motive of the independence of the Ukraine. In a popular assembly in Chernobyl, Struk called out to the crowd, "Kill the Jews and save the Ukraine!" In Radomysl Sokolovsky's band forced the Jews, before they were shot, to sing, "The Ukraine is not yet lost."

As stated before, the activity of the bands and of their Batki had terrible consequences for the Jewish population of the Ukraine. The question arises what were the relations between the Batko institution and the Directory. As said before, a whole line of Batki were followers of Petlura. In the school of Petlura and of the Directory they learned the custom and the practice, the inclination and the political wisdom of carrying on the fight against Bolshevism by means of Jewish persecutions. The institution of the Batko supplements the pogrom activity of the Directory. As long as the Batki carried on it was not necessary, except occasionally, to have recourse to military pogroms. The latter demoralize the army, undermine discipline and change the troops into a band of robbers and murderers, which naturally is highly undesirable for the state force. The institution of the Batko is a local phenomenon, which affects mainly the local peasant population and appears irresponsible in respect to public opinion in western Europe. The Batki need not put any restraint upon their activities in persecuting the Jews, in the interest of high politics. Before the Entente the Batki could be designated as "local robbers." At the same time they carry out in splendid fashion the dirty work of intimidating the Jewish population, disorganizing the cities and towns and in this way fighting the Soviet power. The Directory enjoyed the fruit of the Batko institution. The former tried therefore to organize the uprisings, to centralize the efforts of the insurrectionists and to guide their activity in a definite direction. In the army reports are found not only communications concerning the movements on Petlura's front, but also data concerning the aims on the front of the insurrectionists. In August, 1919, Petlura and Denikin approached Kiev simultaneously under cover of the bands of Zeleny and other Batki who had forced their way into the city.

The Batko of all Batki, Mazurenko, stood very near to the Directory, and it is very probable that he was the connecting link between it and the insurrectionists. There is evidence that the Directory sent special emissaries to the points of insurrection for the purpose of maintaining proper connection between itself and the Batki. But even apart from this, the Directory showed the bloody example and by the political utilization of the terrible weapon, created the conviction throughout the Ukraine that Jewish pogroms were not punished, that the possessions of the Jews might be plundered, that Jewish women might be violated and that there was no prohibition against the annihilation of the Jews.

This conviction created the atmosphere in which the elemental force of the masses, aroused and excited in the process of the revolutionary ferment, could be guided in the direction of annihilating this defenseless nation for the sole purpose of thereby injuring the political enemies of the Directory. The Directory fanned the national hate, drew forth from the depths of the Ukrainian national soul the slumbering distrust and antipathy, planted in the course of historical development, against the Jews as strangers, the Jews as commercial middlemen, the Jews as the former farmers of the lord's estates, who were hanged by the ancestors of the peasant of to-day together with the priest and the Polish "pan" (proprietor of great landed estates). The Directory knew how to awaken this hate and to give it a definite form and direction and a definite political content. No wonder, therefore, that this Machiavellian method bore such fruit. The agitation of the Directory was not merely an incitement of the masses in an indefinite way, it was in actual content an unequivocal instigation to murder the Jews. The lamentations and pharisaic attempts at justification, to the effect that the Directory could not control the bands or the crowds, that the latter had gone further than the Directory had intended, cannot exculpate it in any way, not even legally, not to say morally and politically. It is not merely that it could have foreseen the consequences of its doings, it did foresee them, it desired them, counted on them and took advantage of them. What is known in criminal law as "excess of the executor" does not apply here. Here the executors played the motif whispered to them, with the precision of a virtuoso, and did it to the greatest satisfaction and joy of the instigators.

In August the pogrom crowds became smaller. The political situation changed. The Bolsheviki were driven from the Ukraine. Petlura and his people attained what they wanted the enemy was beaten. The beneficiary of the success, however, was another. Denikin occupied Kharkov, Yekaterinoslav, Poltava, and was approaching Kiev. The changed situation demanded other methods of fighting. The method of Jewish massacres was no longer needed, and so was given up. As already mentioned, the Directory even passed a resolution to fight against pogroms. To be sure there was another element here that must be mentioned. According to communications sent to us from many sides and according to the existing reports of the Ukrainian papers, the standpoint of international politics was also taken into consideration in the pogrom agitation. Not only the heads of the political bodies, but the village intellectuals and to a certain extent even the masses were aware of the significance of the international position of the Ukraine. The Ukrainian flat country had had a thorough object lesson in this matter, such as the German occupation with its stringent regime, the occupation of Odessa and the southern coast by the Allies, the negotiations of the Directory with the Allies through General Grekov, and so on. Suffering from want of the most absolute necessities, manufactured ware, shoes, salt, machines, etc., the Ukrainian village was eager for commercial relations with western Europe. The village intellectuals represented by the priests and teachers (we have seen that they took an active part in the excesses of the bands) carried on their agitation by saying that the Entente desired the destruction of the Bolsheviki. As Jews and communists were the same, Jewish pogroms would represent the gift which the Ukrainian people must present to the Entente, and the latter would not be long in signifying their recognition of the Ukrainian people in return. Now in August the Jewish pogroms as a method of fighting proved themselves not only useless, but, as was said before, harmful for the reason that the vague rumors of the massacres which had penetrated to the West had produced great public indignation. The withdrawal which was now whispered to the regular troops by the Directory was understood by their devoted Batki. . . . The pogroms diminished in violence, they were no longer all-destructive, but like the distant thunder of a past storm, they assumed the innocent form, according to Ukrainian concepts, of pillage of Jewish possessions and occasional acts of violence and murder.

We learned later from a reliable source that Batko Makhno had issued a proclamation to his insurrectionists, in which he ordered them to discontinue Jewish pogroms, for "according to a communication of Batko Petlura, the Entente is very much dissatisfied on that account" a step which seems very likely on the part of the wise and far sighted Makhno.