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THE WORKERS' UNION AND THE JEWS 213Jewishness, as is evident from the first lines of the union's leaflet. Buteven in rage the rioters and their more educated leaders 72 did not loseall sense of discernment. They distinguished wealthy Jews fromwealthy non-Jews, taking pains not to injure the latter and evenapologizing to them at times. On the other hand, even the intentionalassault on non-Jewish property owners which occurred in some placesoutside Kiev did not evolve into a revolt against the existing socialorder, as the revolutionaries had somewhat naively hoped.It is doubtful that protection for "some . . . Brodskii" was providedby the authorities. For obvious reasons, the authorities favored thewealthy Jewish capitalists over the Jewish common people, whom theyabused and persecuted. But as things happened, members of theBrodskii family were hurt in Kiev during the pogrom, and there is noreal evidence that special measures were taken to protect them.The Kiev pogrom did not happen unexpectedly. The first outburstoccurred in April 23, and two days later some officials warned Jews ofthe approaching danger. But the general governor, A. R. Drentel'n,neither took preventive steps nor used force to quell the riots. He tookdecisive action only when ordered to do so by the authorities inSt. Petersburg, who had realized that the disorders could expand intoa serious social and military problem. 73In Kiev, as elsewhere, therioters caught wind of the rumors, purposely spread, that the Jewswere responsible for the assassination of Alexander II, 74and took upthe notion that his heir had ordered revenge. In their fury theyconfused the old accusation against the Jews as the crucifiers of Jesuswith the actual slogan of the time — "the Jews, the assassins of the72Contemporary writers, as well as later historians, believed that an organizedgroup, still not identified, had its hand in the pogroms. For bibliographical data,see Salo W. Baron, The Russian Jew under Tsars and Soviets, 2nd ed. (New Yorkand London, 1976), pp. 355-56.73This was revealed during the trial of the Kiev pogromists. Razsvet (St. Petersburg),no. 18 (2 May 1881), p. 690, and no. 26 (26 June 1881), pp. 1037-1038;Krasnyi-Admoni, Materiały, p. 338.74Even the new tsar, Aleksander III, took action against the pogrom (R. P.Kantor, "Aleksander III о evreiskikh pogromakh, 1881-1883," Evreiskaia letopis[Moscow and Petrograd], 1 [1923]: 149-58), but not out of concern for its victims.On a later occasion (1884), when told about the difficulty of using the military tostop the pogroms because of the soldiers' sympathy with the pogromists, he franklyremarked, "I must admit that I, too, am pleased when they beat them [the Jews]";M. Krichevskii, ed., Dnevnik A. S. Suvorina (Moscow and Petrograd, 1923),p. 167.