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The ringleaders of the pogrom movement were not local residents but itinerant laborers from the Great-Russian governments, who were employed in building a railroad in the neighborhood of the South-Russian city.
The founder of this "Brotherhood" was a local teacher and journalist, Jacob Gordin, who stood at that time under the influence of the South-Russian Stundists as well as of the socialistic Russian Populists. The "Spiritual Biblical Brotherhood" was made up altogether of a score of people.
Wherever he went he saw men who were sober, industrious, enterprising business men, efficient artisans, whose physical weakness was merely the result of insufficient nourishment. His visit to the South-Russian colonies convinced him of the fitness of the Jews for colonization.
Almost on the day following the attempt on the life of the Tzar, the papers of this ilk began to insinuate that the Jews had a hand in it, and shortly thereafter the South-Russian press published alarming rumors about proposed organized attacks upon the Jews of that region. These rumors were based on facts.
This was already realized by Catherine, who admitted them to the South-Russian coast in order to introduce commercial activities and bring life into the country,.... The peculiar nature of their commerce and credit is useful to the State, because they connect the remotest regions by commercial ties and are satisfied with considerably smaller profits than are the Christian merchants....
Not satisfied with the expulsion of the Jews from the towns prohibited to them by law, the authorities contrived to swell the number of these towns by adding new localities which were part of the Pale and as such open to the Jews. In 1887, the large South-Russian cities Rostov-on-the Don and Taganrog were transferred from the Pale of Settlement to the tabooed territory of the Don Army.
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