RUSSIAN JEW BAITERS.

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 March 1907, Page 3

RUSSIAN JEW BAITERS.

Mr E. Seinenoff has set himself, in "The Russian Government and Massacres : a page of the Russian counte.i. revolution," as translated with an introduction by M. Lucien Wolf (J. Murray( to show that the bureaucratic reactionaries are directly responsible for the wholesale massacre of the Jews. We are told (says the Sydney Herald) how M. Pobiedonoszeff and his friends used their influence with the Tsar in the direction of repressing the reform movement; how this movement became revolutionary ; how the disaster of the Rus-sjo-Japanese war popular discontent, as it increased the sufferings of the people; and how General Ignatieff, when Minister of the Jiierior at tho beginning of Alexander Ill's reign, tried, in a moment «-f evil inspiration, to divert popular animosity from the Government, and to direct it against the Jews. To him belongs the disgrace of inventing the "pogrom," a word which was unknown outside Russia a few months ago, and which is known now to everybody as meaning an organised massacre of Jews under an official auspices. If Ignatieff was the inventor i:f the device. Trepoff and Plehve, of exccrablo memory ,were foremost in applying it. Prince Urusoff openly charged the Government with complicity in the pogroms, and he did so in his place in the Duma. Trepoff's reply was the lie direct, but evidence which M. Semenoff has brought together in this book convicts Trepoff, and not Urussoff, of lying. He spares us indeed a repetition of the horrors witnessed at Kishincff and Gomel, and of the massacres which have since outraged the feelings of all people. He confines himself to the method of organisation. Ho shows us how racial prejudices aro fomented and how tho cupidity of ignorant peasants are worked up into a rago against persons who have property. Tho lies which passed for gospel in the Middle Ages are resurrected for the Benefit of the moujiks.

These are reminded that the Jews crucified our Saviour, and they are assured that every year they shed the innocent blood of Christian children and use it in heir sacrifices and religious rites.-. ""Brothers," says a proclamation published in a paper subsidised by the Government, "in the name of our Saviour, Who save His blood for us, lu the name of bur very pious TsarBatiuchka, who watches over the wants of his people, and alleviates their lot by general^manifesto, let us join on Easter Day with the cry of "Down with the Jews!" Let us mas sacre these monsters who slake their thirst with Russian blood act in such n manner that they will remember the pogrom of Odessa, where the trijops themselves assisted the people. This time again they will aid ns." M. Semenoff shows us that the soldiers are convinced.—it doc's not take much to convince a Cossack—that it ?s the Emperoi-'s wish and command that Jews shall be slaughtered. Official •.Government -newspapers openly urge massacres of Jews, and the Russian League, founded by General Bodganovitch, as openly declares that the Emperor approves of its orogramme of bloodshed. We are told, too, that from a clandestine printing press in the police departmeri there issues a regular stream of pogrom proclamations, and there is evidence distinctly showing from official sources that massacres were deliberately rlanned by officers high in the favour ,v the Emperor, such as Trepoff in his time, and Durnovo and BogdanovitcU Prince Urusoff directly named Komissaroff, a police officer, as being concerned in the drawing up of such proclamation, an as boasting on one occasion that "we are in a position to start a pogrom when and how we nlease, with ten of ten thousand men. M. Semenoff quotes whole documents and gives particulars in every case.