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214 м. MisHKiNSKYFather-Tsar." 75The outbreak of the pogrom occurred around theEaster holidays, surely a contributing influence.News of the "disorders" seared through government circles inSt. Petersburg at the same time that it buoyed hopes among therevolutionaries. There were many descriptions of the clashes betweenthe security forces and the rioters, which happened in defiance of thetsar's orders and instructions. The riots spread from Kiev to all theregion, largely, government documents show, because of the deliberaterestraint of the local administration, especially Governor-Generalvon Drentel'n. The pogromists took the restraint to be silent permissionfrom above and continued to riot as an expression not of rebellion,but of obedience and loyalty to the government. After thesecurity forces finally intervened, there were instances of the rioters'rage against the authorities for spilling Christian blood to protect Jews,but this was not what the revolutionaries aspired to. Actually, the trialof the pogromists in May became a stage for blatant anti-Jewishrhetoric by the prosecutor, Strelnikov. That was only one manifestationof the harsh anti-Jewish measures taken by the authorities, whichincluded explusion as well as harrassment and persecution of Jews whoremained in the city. Rising above all other measures were the generalanti-Jewish "May laws" issued by Ignatev, minister of internal affairs,in 1882.The appeal of the Southern-Russian Workers' Union against thepogrom was not reflected in what actually happened. Clinging in anyway to the "point of departure" of the pogrom — namely, as an attackon a "Brodskii" — and trying to turn it into an attack against allexploiters, was thoroughly artificial. The hope that it would be thebeginning of an all-out assault on the capitalists was illusory, at best.A disturbing element is the apparent discrepancy between the toneand attitude of the union's leaflet of January 30, which were anti-Jewish, and those of the appeal on April 27, which were essentiallyanti-pogrom. One possible explanation is that Pavlo Ivaniv, an ardentexponent of agitation in the village (derevenshchik), had a moredifferentiated and sophisticated view of Jews living in the city than ofJews in the countryside. But why did the union's intervention, in theform of Ivaniv's appeal, come only on the fifth day after the outbreak75The phrase occurred repeatedly throughout the reports of Loris-Melikov, theminister of internal affairs, to the tsar; see Kantor, "Aleksander III."