A revolution in modern Jewish politics took place in Russia during the years 1881–2. The inner turmoil engendered by the pogroms starting in April 1881 reached a climax in the months from January to May 1882, when the Jewish people appeared to be living in expectation of an imminent and massive emigration. The image of a new exodus, a going-out from the land of bondage to a promised land, came to dominate, however momentarily, every aspect of Jewish public life in Russia.

The far-ranging enthusiasm for an exodus represented a profound reversal of deeply held attitudes. For the literary intelligentsia–those perhaps two-score writers whose articles now filled the Jewish press in Russia–it meant that what had been considered mythic was now seen as practical, even necessary. That eastern Europe would sooner or later follow the West in granting the Jews equality, although not necessarily fraternity, had long been accepted by them as an unquestioned axiom. In the first months of 1882 this belief remained only as the article of faith of a die-hard minority. The startling new question was whether in its policy to the Jews Russia did not represent the historical norm and the liberal policies of Europe and North America a temporary aberration.

For the student youth, the upsurge in favor of exodus from Russia necessitated an even more traumatic upheaval. Profoundly influenced by the norms of Russian revolutionary populism, they felt compelled to translate the ideological metamorphosis of 1881–2 from thought into action.