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Pleve, Kishinev and the Jewish Question: A Reappraisal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Shlomo Lambroza
Shlomo Lambroza*
Affiliation:
Boston College
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Extract

Reaction and revolution, so much a part of the reign of Nicholas II, became even more prevalent in the opening years of the twentieth century. The foundation of the Russian Empire had begun its erosion process which would topple the autocracy by 1917. Nicholas and his ministers had to act decisively and aggressively if they hoped to stem the process. To fight the wave of revolution and popular discontent in April of 1902, Nicholas appointed Viacheslav Pleve as Minister of the Interior. Pleve was a careerist who was devoutly loyal to the autocracy. In contemporary terms he might be described as an ‘aparatchick,‘ a party man who towed, and at times shaped, the party line. V. I. Gurko, a colleague, characterized him as “a legal clerk … a very superior clerk it is true, but a clerk nevertheless.” Pleve had also earned the dubious honor of being the autocracy's “most famous policeman,” a reflection of fourteen years of service as Director of the Police Department and Assistant Minister of the Interior.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , Spring 1984 , pp. 117 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © 1984 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

1. V. I. Gurko, Features and Figures of the Past, Government and Opinion in the Reign of Nicholas II (Stanford: 1939), III.Google Scholar

2. Hans Rogger, “Russian Ministers and the Jewish Question, 1881-1917,” California Slavic Studies (1975): 38.Google Scholar

3. Genrikh B. Sliozberg, Dela minuvshikh dnei Vol. 3 (Pans: 1934), p. 60.Google Scholar

4. Archives of the Alliance Israelite Universelle (Hereafter cited AAIU), U.S.S.R. dossier Kishinev; also, G. Krasnii-Admonii and S. Dubnow, materially dlia anti-evreiskikh pogromov v Rossi, Vol. I, “Dubossorskoe i Kishinevskoe dela 1903 g.,” (St. Petersburg 1919-1923).Google Scholar

5. The Blood Accusation, the accusation that Jews use the blood of a young Christian boy in the making of the Passover matzoh can be dated back to the First Crusade. Young William of Norwich who died in 1144 was the first supposed victim. Maurice Samuels who wrote about the celebrated Beiliss trial points out that the legend reappeared across the centuries and was particularly prevalent during the 19th century. The most famous accusations were those in Demascus (1860), Saratov, Russia (1857), Kutaiss Affair; Georgian Russia (1879) and Tiszu-Ezzlar, Hungry (1882). For more information see, Maurice Samuels, Blood Accusations (New York: 1966).Google Scholar

6. Michael Davitt, Within the Pale (London: 1903), pp. 98-99.Google Scholar

7. Davitt, pp. 132-133.Google Scholar

8. AAIU, U.S.S.R. Dossier: Kishinev; Also see Bulletin de l'Alliance Israelite Universelle (Paris), [Hereafter cited Bulletin], 1903.Google Scholar

9. Davitt, pp. 99-101.Google Scholar

10. S. D. Urossov, Memoirs of a Russian Governor (London: 1903), p. 80.Google Scholar

11. Cyrus Adler, The Voice of America in Kishinev (Philadelphia: 1904), pp. 241-243. Also William Curtis, Out of Kishinev: The Duty of the American People in Russia (New York: 1903), p. 274.Google Scholar

12. S. M. Dubnow, The History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, Vol. 3 (Philadelphia: 1920), p. 68.Google Scholar

13. Louis Greenberg, The Jews in Russia, The Struggle for Emancipation, Vol. 2 (New Haven: 1944), p. 51.Google Scholar

14. Hans Rogger, “Russian Ministers and the Jewish Question, 1881-1917;” also Hans Rogger, “The Jewish Policy of Late Tsarism: A Reappraisal,” Weiner Library Bulletin 25 (1971): 42-51.Google Scholar

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17. Herzl, 1525.Google Scholar

18. Herzl, 1526.Google Scholar

19. Gurko, 227.Google Scholar

20. Herzl, 1524.Google Scholar

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22. Moslowitch, #53, 7395-7488.Google Scholar

23. Lucien Wolf, “M. DePleve and the Jewish Question,” London Times, Feb. 6, 1904, p. 6.Google Scholar

24. Ibid.Google Scholar

25. Quoted in Lowe, p. 50.Google Scholar

26. Bulletin, April-May (Monthly) 1904, pp. 53-54.Google Scholar

27. Ibid., pp. 22-23.Google Scholar

28. Shlomo Lambroza, “The Pogrom Movement in Tsarist Russia 1903-06” (Ph.D. dissertation Rutgers University, 1981).Google Scholar