It is known that the anti-Semitic agitation in Russia has taken hold
of only a small proportion of the Russian people among the
semi-criminal population of the cities and towns. It is notorious that
the pogroms were often organised and carried out by the secret police
and the cossacks, and that in other instances they were executed by
bands of a few hundred bribed toughs, called by educated Russians "the
black hundreds." This social element is what we would ordinarily call
in America the "mob," and it certainly does not constitute one per
cent. of the population in Russia or in any other country. Gorky
refers to it as "the populace": "In addition to the people, there is
also the 'populace,' something standing outside of social classes and
outside of civilisation, and united by the dark sense of hatred
against all that surpasses its understanding and is defenceless
against brute force. I speak of the populace which thus defines itself
in the words of Pushkin:
"'We are insidious and shameless,
Ungrateful, faint-hearted and wicked;
At heart we are cold, sterile eunuchs,
Traducers, born to slavery.
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