directing the enthusiasms of Orthodoxy against ‘Christ-killers’, fever dreams of blood-drinking Jews, icons and eschatology and mysticism in the service of depravity
on the Black Hundreds
Prominent in the Zhitomir attack were the Black Hundreds, an umbrella name for various cells of proto-fascist ultra-reactionaries, which sprang up out of authoritarian outrage at the 1905 revolution. They are apt to sprinkle a few populist calls, such as for land redistribution, atop fervour for an…
That evening, Gapon, his world view shattered, ‘red hot’, Krupskaya will recall, ‘from the breath of the revolution’, fulminates to a crowd of survivors: ‘We have no Tsar!’
on Bloody Sunday (Jan 9, 1905)
It is in the twenty-second session of that gathering that a chasm opens between the delegates, a split remarkable not only for its depth, but also for the seeming triviality of its catalyst. The question is whether a party member should be one who ‘recognises the party’s programme and supports it b…
