Black Hundreds

Black Hundreds
Ideology	Nationalism (Russian), Monarchism, Antisemitism
Political position	Far-right
Colors	Black
Politics of Russia Political parties Elections

Supporters of the Black Hundreds marching during the 1905 Russian Revolution.

A Black Hundred procession, 1907

The Black Hundreds (sometimes The Black Hundred), also known as the black-hundredists (Чёрная сотня, черносотенцы in Russian, or Chornaya sotnya, chernosotentsy) was an ultra-nationalist movement in Russia in the early 20th century. It was a staunch supporter of the House of Romanov and opposed any retreat from the autocracy of the reigning monarch. The Black Hundreds were also noted for extremist Russocentric doctrines, xenophobia, anti-semitism and incitement to pogroms.

Pre-formation

"Svyashchennaya druzhina" (Священнaя дружинa, or The Holy Brigade) and "Russkoye sobraniye" (Русское собрание, or Russian Assembly) in St. Petersburg are considered to be predecessors of the Black Hundreds. Starting in 1900, the two organizations united representatives of the conservative intellectuals, government officials, clergy and landowners. A number of black-hundredist organizations formed during and after the Russian Revolution of 1905, such as:

• "Soyuz russkovo naroda" (Союз русского народа, or Union of the Russian People) in St. Petersburg
• "Soyuz russkikh lyudey" (Союз русских людей, or Union of the Russians) in Moscow
• "Russkaya monarkhicheskaya partiya" (Русская монархическая партия, or Russian Monarchist Party) in Moscow and elsewhere
• "Obshchestvo aktivnoy bor'by s revolyutsiyey" (Общество активной борьбы с революцией, or Society of Active Struggle Against Revolution) in Moscow
• "Belyy dvuglavyy oryol" (Белый двуглавый орёл, or White Two-headed Eagle) in Odessa

and others.

Predecessors

Members of the Black Hundreds organizations came from different social strata - such as landowners, clergymen, the high and petty bourgeoisie, merchants, artisans, workers and the so-called "declassed elements". The Sovet ob’yedinyonnogo dvoryanstva (ru) guided the activities of the black-hundredists; the tsarist regime provided moral and financial support to the movement. The Black Hundreds were founded on a devotion to Tsar, church and motherland, expressed previously by the motto of Tsar Nicholas I: Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and National Character (Pravoslavie, Samoderzhavie i Narodnost). Despite certain program differences, all of the black-hundredist organizations had one goal in common, namely their struggle against the revolutionary movement. The black-hundredists conducted oral propaganda: in churches by holding special services, and during meetings, lectures and demonstrations. Such propaganda provoked antisemitic sentiments and monarchic "exaltation" and caused numerous pogroms and terrorist acts against revolutionaries and certain public figures, performed by the Black Hundreds' paramilitary groups, sometimes known as "Yellow Shirts".

Popularity and power

The Black Hundred movement published newspapers, such as Znamya (The Banner) or Russkoye znamya (Russian Banner), Pochayevsky listok (The Pochayev Page), Zemschina, Kolokol (Bell), Groza (Thunderstorm), Veche and others. Many rightist newspapers, such as Moskovskiye vedomosti (Moscow News), Grazhdanin (Citizen) and Kievlyanin (Kievan), published their materials, as well. Among the prominent leaders of the Black Hundred movement were Alexander Dubrovin, Vladimir Purishkevich, Nikolai Markov, Pavel Bulatzel, Ivan Vostorgov, A. I. Trischatiy, M. K. Shakhovskoy, Iliodor, John of Kronstadt, Bishop Hermogen, and others.

Incitement to violence

File:Sotnja.jpg

Anti-"Black Hundred" satire. A certificate: "The bearer of this document is neither a student nor a member of the intelligentsia, and is thus not subject to beatings" issued by the "Chief Directorate of Black Hundred"

When two Duma delegates, Grigori Borisovich Iollos (Poltava province) and Mikhail Herzenstein (b. 1859, d. 1906 in Terijoki), both from the Constitutional Democratic Party, were assassinated by members of the Black Hundreds, their press organ Russkoe Znamya declared openly that "Real Russians assassinated Herzenstein and Iollos with knowledge of officials, and expresses regret that only two Jews perished in the crusade against revolutionaries."

The Black Hundred and the Ukrainian question

The Black Hundreds denied the existence of a Ukrainian nation, defined Ukrainians as Russians, and attracted the support of ethnic Ukrainian Russophiles who considered themselves Russian. The Black Hundred movement actively campaigned against what it considered to be Ukrainian separatism, as well as against promoting Ukrainian culture and language in general, and against the works of Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko in particular. In Odessa, the Black Hundreds shut down the local branch of the Ukrainian Prosvita society, an organization that was dedicated to spreading literacy in the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian cultural awareness.

All-Russian congresses

The black-hundredists organized four all-Russian congresses with the purpose of uniting their forces. In October 1906, they elected the so-called glavnaya uprava (a kind of board of directors) of the new all-Russian black-hundredist organization "Ob’yedinyonniy russkiy narod" (Объединённый русский народ, or Russian People United). After 1907, however, this organization disintegrated and the whole Black Hundreds movement became weaker with membership rate steadily decreasing. During the February Revolution of 1917, the remaining black-hundredist organizations were officially abolished. After the October Revolution, many leaders and regular members of these organizations fought against the Soviet authorities, although overall their participation was much lower than that of more moderate forces of the White movement.

After emigrating abroad, black-hundredists became the main right-wing critics of the White movement. They blamed the movement for not emphasising monarchism as its key ideological foundation, and being run under the influence of liberals and Freemasons. One former member of the Black Hundreds, Boris Brasol (1885–1963), later emigrated to the United States and befriended Henry Ford, who gave Brasol a job on the The Dearborn Independent. Brasol also helped in the production of The International Jew.

In popular culture

• In Jack London's 1908 novel The Iron Heel, which predicts the rise of a nationalist government in the US, the hired thugs who are loyal to the regime and specialise in attacking labour meetings use the name of the Black Hundreds.
• In Bernard Malamud's 1966 novel The Fixer, which portrays Yakov Bok as a Jewish man from the pogrom moving to Kiev, Yakov changes his last name to sound more Russian and soon becomes employed by a member of the Black Hundred.
• In Edward Rutherfurd's 1991 novel Russka, a young Bobrov (one of the fictional families portrayed in the novel) is beaten in the street by a gang of young Black Hundreds for being Jewish-looking and being the son of a social-democrat.

Further reading

• Laqueur, Walter. Black Hundred: The Rise Of The Russian Extreme Right (1993)
• Donald C. Rawson. Russian Rightists and the Revolution of 1905 (1995)
• Norman Cohn. Warrant for Genocide, The myth of the Jewish world conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

External links

• Black Hundreds Live Again, news article on the celebrations of the Black Hundreds' 100th anniversary in Russia