ABSTRACT
The pogroms of October 1905 differed from those that occurred in 1881–1882, in being more numerous, widespread, and destructive and having a greater impact on Jews, non-Jews, and the Russian state. The 1903–1906 pogroms—of which those in October 1905 formed the apogee—occurred in conditions of much greater political disarray than earlier, although not yet in the state of total collapse that conditioned and produced the even more destructive and costly pogroms during Russia’s Civil War, 1918–1920. Russian Jews were not alone in their growing resentment of the Autocracy’s increased oppression. Other faiths and nationalities within the Russian Empire were also increasingly discriminated against by the Autocracy’s post-1881 policies of Russification. Developments inside Russian Jewish communities in the 25 or so years preceding 1905 provide deeper insight into the resources and deficits with which Jews met and dealt with the increase of anti-Jewish affect and action and its culmination in the explosion of pogroms in 1905.
