Introduction
Pivotal moments in history are always interesting to pinpoint. Major wars often emerge as top contenders, but not always. They could also be some great tragedy or moment of radical change. The assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand comes to mind. Late in his comprehensive and fascinating history, Russians, Jews, and the Pogroms of 1881-1882, author John Klier finds another such moment: the emancipation of the Russian serfs in 1861. After this moment, nothing in Western history would ever be the same again.
He writes:
Prior to the acquisition of personal freedom, the peasant had the protection of the feudal system, which at least safeguarded their personal property. Now, the livestock, tools, and the very homes of peasants were threatened by Jewish depredations. This was especially the case where the Jews put down roots in the countryside. Then peasants watched with hatred as Jewish malefactions went unpunished. The explosion of 1881 was a direct consequence: The peasants destroyed Jewish property because they saw it as goods stolen from them.
Yes, you read that correctly. John Klier, writing for the Cambridge Press in the early 2000s, does not so much justify the famous anti-Jewish pogroms of the 1880s as validate their reasons. This will be quite shocking for those of us raised on the widespread Jewish narrative of universal gentile culpability. As the story goes, pogroms sprung mainly from brutish peasants who got drunk and took out their frustrations on a vulnerable and easily identifiable alien presence. Of course, no pogrom can be complete without deeper, more systemic causes which implicate all gentiles. Thus, these peasants had been encouraged behind the scenes by sympathetic Russian authorities and a Russian middle class which couldn’t compete economically with Jews. This is the narrative which dominated the twentieth-century in the West. Fortunately for us in the twenty-first, John Klier has blasted it into shrapnel.
In his work, he make three main points:
- Neither the Tsar nor the Russian government desired, incited, or tolerated pogroms. Indeed, they made vigorous efforts to punish the guilty, protect potential victims, and deter Russian peasants from engaging in such atrocious acts.
- Powerful Jewish propagandists in the West wildly exaggerated the damage caused by the pogroms in order to discredit the Russian government and inflict real harm upon it on the world stage.
- Anti-Jewish grievances, commonly dismissed as anti-Semitic tropes, were at least partially based in fact. Jews did exploit the Russian peasant, mostly through usury and the alcohol trade, to say nothing of the kahal, an intra-ethnic governing body which enabled Jews to out-compete gentiles in the free market.
In this review, I seek to address the 1880s pogroms, as filtered through Klier, as a cautionary tale to describe what happens when ethnocentric concerns are ignored or downplayed, and genetically distinct peoples are crowded together in the same geographic area. It can be argued that many of the twentieth century’s great conflicts, disasters, and atrocities—as well as Western man’s overarching view of the world—came as a result of the Russian pogroms of 1881 and 1882.............
.......So which is it? Are Jews innocent victims of persecution? Or are they genuine vampires? Was it Klier speaking in these passages? Or was he merely using evocative prose to embody the voices of people from the past? It’s hard to say. But what isn’t hard to say is that Klier is quite evenhanded in his approach and, if anything, provides more real estate on the page to the Russian perspective than the Jewish one.
This is highly unusual, especially for a work of history dealing with such an explosive topic as the Jewish Question. Yes, Klier explicitly establishes points 1 and 2 described in Part 1 of this series. He exonerates the Russian leadership of inciting or encouraging pogroms, and he uncovers Jewish mendacity in their atrocity reporting. Thanks to research from people like Klier, these have become matters of fact rather than opinion. If the blurbs on the back cover of Russians, Jews, and the Pogroms of 1881-1882 are any indication, Jewish historians seem to agree—which is a very good thing. But one wonders if these Jewish historians had read to the final two pages of the book in which Klier compares the false mythology surrounding the pogroms to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This is hitting the mainstream narrative of the pogroms where it hurts, which is also a very good thing, not least because it puts Klier in the same camp as those who are skeptical of the lugubrious narrative of Jewish victimhood to begin with. This is where you will also find today’s Dissident Right.
As for point 3 and the veracity of Jewish exploitation, Klier is much hard to pin down. Did the Jews really exploit the Russian peasantry enough to incur their violent hatred? Were they really that corrupt and malevolent? Well, the Russians certainly thought so. And with four million Jews living inside their borders, it’s not like they were speaking out of ignorance like many in the West. Regardless of John Klier’s personal opinions on the matter and whatever conclusions he had hoped to draw in his wonderful Russians, Jews, and the Pogroms of 1881-1882, the fact that the Russian perspective emerged out of good faith concern for the peasantry comes through loud and clear.
For most of us searching for a clearer understanding of the Jewish Question, that’s all we need.
Read full text: https://www.unz.com/article/john-doyle-kliers-russians-jews-the-pogroms-of-1881-1882/
