Here is a striking example of the powerlessness of individuals in the matter. When Count Witte took office it is obvious by his acts that he tried to come to terms with all parties. He wished to restore order and to obtain a foreign loan. It would therefore be childish to suppose that he can have desired his administration to start off with a series of Pogroms, or that he would not have prevented it, had it been in his power. But now we come to the question of the “Power” behind the throne which is supposed to have organised these massacres. That such a power or powers existed, apart from the Government, working against it obscurely, is a fact. In October 1905 this power consisted, in practice, of a police officer of inferior rank who carried on a work of printing Anti-Jewish propaganda, in which Count Witte was violently abused without the knowledge of his superiors or his colleagues. It is also a fact that they encouraged anti-Jewish riots and attempted to organise them by distributing printed proclamations. But the existence of these powers would not have been sufficient in themselves to cause the massacres. Any one who was travelling in Russia at that moment, as I was, and who is impartial in the matter, will testify to the fact that no organisation was necessary. There existed a spontaneous counter-revolution against the “strikers,” as all the “intellectuals,” and not only the Jews, were then called. That the officials and the police sympathised with this counter-revolution is not surprising, since they represent the thing against which the revolution was being made. Neither General Trepoff nor any one else could, however much he had wished, have created this sporadic counter-revolution, nor could any individual in the central administration have prevented it. The counter-revolution was the logical sequence and the indispensable attendant factor of the revolution. Only the officials who did sympathise with this counter-revolution whenever massacres occurred, took no steps to prevent them, knowing that their inactivity would be approved, even if it was not actually encouraged and directly instigated by the Dark Powers behind or alongside of the Government, and knowing also that the Government itself would be powerless to punish them. They felt they were on the Right side and that, whoever might be blamed, they would be immune. With regard to the Jewish massacres, which took place in the south-west of Russia before the revolutionary movement, there is more to be said. The anti-Jewish riots there are mainly the result of the special legislation to which the Jews are subjected. But I will discuss this matter in the next chapter. PRINCE OUROUSOV’S MEMOIRS[8]