Black Hundred in Russia essays

Black Hundred in Russia essays The Black Hundred was an extreme right wing party which emerged at the turn of the twentieth century in Russia. Favoring tsarism and autocracy instead of a parliamentary government, the Black Hundred were the perpetrators of many Jewish pogroms in Russian cities such as Odessa, Kiev, Yekaterinoslav and Bialystok (Horowitz 703). This group of radicals increased in popularity before the beginning of the Russian Revolution when tsarism was in decline. The Black hundred believed that "all Jews were revolutionaries and all revolutionaries were Jews, all Jews were capitalists and all capitalists were either Jews or tools in the hands of Jews." (Laqueur 17). This view of Jews was a distortion of the truth. In fact, the Jews in most parts of Russia were desperately poor, making barely enough money to support themselves. Only a small fraction of Jews were capitalists. Jews were a minority in most Russian cities. However, their absence did not alter the mindset of the Black Hundred. A ccording to them, "the Jew was the Anarchist, absent and yet omnipresent, a powerful myth helping to mobilize ignorant masses." (Obraztsov 10) The first organization of the Black Hundred was the Russkoye Sobraniye (Russian Association), which was established in 1900. Existing for several years without much action toward the Jews, the Russkoye Sobraniye made its first major anti-Semitic step in 1905. At this time, the Sobraniye issued a manifesto which demanded anti-Jewish laws "in view of the Jewish hostility to Christianity and the Non-Jewish nations as well as their aspirations to world power." (Obraztsov 7). In October of the following year, a major right wing organization called Soyuz Russkovo Naroda (SRN) was established. Dr. Dubrovin was named head of the SRN and took political action by preaching Russian patriotism. At this time, Tsar Nicholas II was a perpetual supporter of the SRN, giving approximately 150,000 rubles in total to its af...