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In this connection, Ignatyev took occasion to characterize the anti-Jewish excesses in the following typical sentences: The movement against the Jews which has come to light during the last few days in the South is a sad example, showing how men, otherwise devoted to Throne and Fatherland, yet yielding to the instigations of ill-minded agitators who fan the evil passions of the popular masses, give way to self-will and mob rule and, without being aware of it, act in accordance with the designs of the anarchists.
The guests from the provinces, who had been invited by Baron Günzburg, engaged in discussions about the problem of emigration, the struggle with the anti-Semitic press, and similar questions. After being presented to Ignatyev, who assured them in diplomatic fashion of the "benevolent intentions of the Government," they returned to their homes, without having achieved anything.
In many villages the right bestowed on the rural communes of ostracising "vicious members" by a special verdict was used as a weapon to expel those Jews who had long been settled there. It will be remembered that Ignatyev had proposed to encourage the peasants officially in the use of this weapon against the Jews, and that the Committee of Ministers had rejected his proposal.
The best Minister of Education Russia had ever had, Ignatyev, was replaced by one of the blackest of all reactionaries. The Czar celebrated the New-Year by issuing an edict retiring the progressive members of the Imperial Council, who had supported the Duma, and appointing in their stead the most reactionary men he could find in the Empire.
To this the Minister had retorted that he could not allow the settlement of Jews except in Central Asia and in the newly conquered oasis of Akhal-Tekke, In obedience to these ministerial utterances, the obsequious financier sharply opposed the plan of a Jewish emigration to foreign lands, and seriously recommended to the conference to consider the proposal made by Ignatyev.
The conference, which had been called by Baron Horace Günzburg, with the permission of Ignatyev, was made up of some twenty-five delegates from the provinces among them Dr. Mandelstamm of Kiev, Rabbi Isaac Elhanan Specter of Kovno and fifteen notables from the capital, including Baron Günzburg himself, the railroad magnate Polakov, and Professor Bakst.
Towards the end of the eighties the plan of promoting Jewish emigration from Russia, which had been abandoned with the retirement of Count Ignatyev, was again looked upon favorably by the leading Government circles. The sentiments of the Tzar were expressed in a marginal note which he attached to the report of the governor of Podolia for the year 1888.
As soon as this was realized, the luckless Minister, who had been the pilot of Russian politics throughout that terrible year, was bound to disappear from the scene. On May 30, Count Ignatyev was made to resign, and Count Demetrius Tolstoi was appointed Minister of the Interior.
The delegates did all they could, but the number of fugitives was constantly swelling, while the process of dispatching them to America went on at a snail's pace. The exodus of the Jews from Russia was due not only to the pogroms and the panic resulting from them, but also to the new blows which were falling upon them from all sides, dealt out by the liberal hand of Ignatyev.
Alexander III. hastened to express his agreement with these views of his Minister, who assured him that the Government had taken "energetic measures" to suppress the pogroms which was only true in two or three recent cases. At the same time he authorized Ignatyev to adopt "energetic measures" of genuine Russian manufacture against those who had but recently been ruined by these pogroms.
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