Moishe Katz: Jewish Self-Defense and “The People’s Judgment”

Blue Thread Communications, an imprint of Jewish Currents, last year published The Generation that Lost Its Fear, a memoir written by Yiddish journalist Moishe Katz about the growth of Jewish self-defense and revolutionary activity in Tsarist Russia, 1905. The memoir was written in the 1950s and translated last year by Moishe Katz’s son, Lyber Katz, a member of our magazine’s editorial board. The Generation that Lost Its Fear is available at the Jewish Currents Marketplace.
I returned to my home city, Nikolayev, at the beginning of November. Although I had left the city in the spring, just a half year ago — for my failed mission to Uman — the city now seemed unrecognizable. Of course, the streets, the homes, the neighbors remained the same as before. The big change had occurred with the people and, naturally, in me too. Those whom I had known from my childhood, who had grown up with me on the school bench and in the street, felt like strangers, behaved like strangers, and displayed a tension in my presence. On the other hand, people with whom I had never or seldom met now became close and dear to me.
One of the first changes I noticed was in my own family. As before, they lived on Moscow Street, in a cellar apartment where my father had his tailoring business. My father, as before, was actively involved in organizational work and, although inclined to Zionism, often helped me with dangerous undertakings for the self-defense. But now he seemed to have lost all interest in his tailoring. Ignoring the fears and pleas of my mother, he often spent his time at innumerable meetings and returned home in a state of confusion. On the other hand, my mother, who previously never showed any signs of cowardice, was now full of fears. She constantly thought and spoke of the pogrom that had taken place — “We all came within a hairbreadth of being killed . . .” — and of pogroms yet to come. She could never get comfortable, but kept insisting that it was impossible to remain there, that we had to leave, but where to go? She had no idea, nor the means to do go. Strange as it seems now, America was never even considered, since at the time it was an impossibility.
My younger brothers and sisters, still children, were interested in me only on the first day of my return to Nikolayev. Then they lost their interest. The reason was clear: What was so interesting about my experiences in the Uman jail and even in the days of freedom there, when everything around them in Nikolayev was so much more exciting, happening in front of their eyes and, one can almost say, with their direct participation? Indeed, for a whole day they would not been seen in the house, but when they returned in the evening it would be filled with news of the meetings that they had sneaked into, or demonstrations they followed.

One day, one of my little brothers came running home and breathlessly related that a people’s trial of pogromists would take place today on the Morskaya (Fleet) Square, not far from the shipyard where warships were under construction. Of course, I immediately went there.
At that time, Nikolayev was one of the large Russian industrial centers in which the spirit of freedom of the October days was still almost unabated, in spite of the efforts of the police to suppress it. Since the ’80’s of the previous century, Nikolayev had been one of the primary Russian naval bases and a center for naval and private shipbuilding. It rated both a special military governor and an autonomous city governor, a military police including a regiment of Don Cossacks, and several squadrons of marines — all this in addition to the regular police and gendarmerie. But Nikolayev also had a large working population, centered mainly on two giant (for that time) shipyards, the French and the Morskoy. In addition, there was a large number of dock workers who worked at loading and unloading ships at the Nikolayev grain yards. The city had a long tradition of revolutionary workers’ movements. The revolt of sailors on the Tsarist battle ships Potemkin in Odessa and Ochakov in Crimea strongly resonated in Nikolayev, because these two ships were built in local navy yards and many of the sailors came from the city and its surroundings.
In those days, one often heard shouts of “These hands built the heroic Potemkin,” or “Much of my blood and sweat is invested in the Ochakov.” Although, following the cessation of the wave of general strikes, the Tsarist government had managed to stifle, or at least severely limit, revolutionary activity in small cities and non-industrial centers, the revolutionary masses in Nikolayev were still fully in control of the streets and felt in charge.
Based on this feeling, for a short time a phenomenon of “people’s courts” began spreading throughout the country after October. People’s courts were open mass meetings at which a revolutionary tribunal judged people accused of informing or spying on workers, of provocations, and of participating in pogroms. Witnesses were called, the assemblage was asked for a verdict, and judgment was carried on the spot. In most cases, the sentence consisted of a demand that the accused publicly admit his crime, explain how he came to commit it, ask the public to forgive him, and promise that his future actions with respect to the working class would expiate his guilt. It also happened that following his apology such a person — especially in cases that involved minor factory-related accusations — would leave the crowd bloodied, black and blue from a beating.
But in the case of provocateurs and pogromists the courts were very strict, sentencing the accused the highest penalty, death. Such was the case I witnessed when my little brother came breathlessly running home with the news that two pogromists were to be tried by a people’s court in Morskaya Square.

I hurried there and faced an extraordinary scene. Beneath the open sky, a crowd of several thousand workers from both shipyards, with a substantial mixture of city inhabitants and peasants from the surrounding villages, filled the square, in the middle of which there was a monument featuring a bronze bust of some young naval officer. We never knew who he was nor why there was a monument honoring him because the metal tablet with the inscription had been missing for a long time. At the side of this monument stood a small but high platform nailed together from boards. On the platform there was a small table covered with red felt tablecloth, and at the table sat three people. I knew one of them. His name was Kolofatti — it seems to me he was a former student, of Greek extraction, a Bolshevik and a popular leader of the Social-Democratic party in Nikolayev. At the side of the table stood two men, their heads bowed. They were the two pogromists that were to be tried.
By the time I managed to get close to the platform, the trial was over. The accused had already been questioned and they admitted that they were professional pogromists and had taken part in pogroms not only in Nikolayev but also in its surroundings.
“What do you, comrades and citizens, think shall be done with these criminals?” Kolofatti asked, and his voice seemed to carry to every corner of the square over the heads of the crowd that quietly seemed to hold its breath.
“Death to the pogromists!” A loud cry rang out near the platform, a cry soon picked up by the rest of the crowd. “Death to the murderers!” “Shoot them like dogs!”
Kolofatti slowly managed to quiet the crowd down.
“Is there anyone here who thinks they are not guilty or that they will reform if we pardon them?” he asked.
An older worker mounted the platform. “How can there be any talk of forgiving them?” he said. “We know them. They were murderers and will remain murderers. Pardon them today and tomorrow they will kill others. Only the grave can straighten out the hunchback. Shoot the bastards!”
And the crowd again took up the chant: “Shoot the bastards!”
The three judges conferred quietly and then signaled to members of the Druzhina, an armed workers’ detachment that protected the meetings. With the crowd completely silent, several of them led the condemned men, who did not try to resist nor beg for mercy, from the platform to some side street. A short while later a shot was heard, followed by a couple of others, and then it became quiet. The volunteers returned alone and stopped in front of the platform. One got onto the platform, stopped in front of the judges, raised his hand to his temple as in a military salute, and in a loud voice announced, “The sentence of the people’s court has been carried out. Enemies of the people have received their punishment.”
That picture was forever etched in my memory. In later years, I more than once revisited the scene in my dreams. Witnessing that, I felt, more than ever before, the strength, the power, of the righteous feeling of the people. But for me there was an added measure of sadness. It wasn’t pity for the pogromists; it was the oppressive feeling that I had not yet reached such resolution and strength, and that revolution can be not only ennobling, but also stern, like death itself.