early as 1885 the Jewish
workmen assisted by Jewish university students led the way in the
formation of trades unions. They also became the _colporteurs_ of
western European socialism, and they played an important part in the
organization of the Russian Social Democratic Federation which their
"Arbeiter Bund" joined in 1898 with no fewer than 30,000 members. The
Jewish element in the new democratic movement excited the resentment of
the government, and under the minister of the interior, M. Sipiaguine,
the persecuting laws were once more rigorously enforced. The "Bund"
replied in 1901 by proclaiming itself frankly political and
revolutionary, and at once took a leading place in the revolutionary
movement. The reactionaries were not slow to profit by this
circumstance. With the support of M. Plehve, the new minister of the
interior, and the whole of the bureaucratic class they denounced the
revolution as a Jewish conspiracy, engineered for exclusively Jewish
purposes and designed to establish a Jewish domination over the Russian
people. The government and even the intimates of the tsar became
persuaded that only by the terrorization of the Jews could the
revolutionary movement be effectually dealt with. For this purpose a
so-called League of True Russians was formed. Under high patronage, and
with the assistance of the secret police and a large number of the local
authorities, it set itself to stir up the populace, chiefly the fanatics
and the hooligans, against the Jews. Incendiary proclamations were
prepared and printed in the ministry of the interior itself, and were
circulated by the provincial governors and the police (Prince Urussov's
speech in the Duma, June 8 (21), 1906). The result was another series of
massacres which began at Kishinev in 1903 and culminated in wholesale
butchery at Odessa and Bielostok in October 1905. An attempt was made to
picture and excuse these outbreaks as a national upheaval against the
Jew-made revolution but it failed. They only embittered the
revolutionists and "intellectuals" throughout the country, and won for
them a great deal of outspoken sympathy abroad. The artificiality of the
anti-Jewish outbreak was illustrated by the first Duma elections.
Thirteen Jews were elected and every constituency which had been the
scene of a _pogrom_ returned a liberal member. Unfortunately the Jews
benefited little by the new parliamentary constitution. The privileges
of voting for members of the