People who studied in Soviet schools clearly knew that the Black Hundreds were obscurantists and rioters. There was no doubt about this, as well as a desire to look at the people who staged bloody pogroms in Russian cities, especially in Moscow and Odessa, from some other angle.
The ideas of the Black Hundreds are alive even now. A certain segment of the population is interested in them. Our time is remarkable in that you can look at any issue, taking into account different points of view, and try to form your own opinion about this movement.
Eminent figures who sympathized with the Black Hundreds
It is interesting to get acquainted with the program of the Black Hundreds, if only because the wife and daughter of F. M. Among them were Archpriest John of Kronstadt and artist Viktor Vasnetsov. Mendeleev, Michurin, the captain of the Varyag cruiser Rudnev are the Black Hundreds, not to mention 500 members of the Orthodox Church, who were later referred to as “Russian New Martyrs and Confessors”. Among them wasfuture Patriarch Metropolitan Tikhon Bellavin.
He althy Roots
So there was some positive idea in the program of this movement? And what kind of name is this, which over time has acquired such a frightening connotation? Historian Vladimir Mokhnach says that initially “the Black Hundreds are representatives of urban democratic circles.”
Why is that? Because in tsarist Russia, the internal division of the city was called a hundred. There were white hundreds, which included the upper strata of the population, who did not pay taxes to the state, and blacks who did. From the representatives of this urban democracy (merchants, artisans) Kuzma Minin's detachments were formed, which expelled the Poles from the Kremlin and contributed to the end of the Time of Troubles in Russia.
One of the ideologues
And the very reactionary trend of 1900-1917 owes its name to V. A. Gringmuth, one of the main ideologists of the Black Hundred movement. He was such a prominent representative that he remained in history not as a right-wing radical politician, but as a pogromist and obscurantist (obscurantist hostile to science, progress and education), for which he was brought to trial by the tsarist government in 1906.
According to Gringmuth, the Black Hundreds are ardent fighters for the preservation of the inviolability of autocracy, however, on the basis of great-power chauvinism, which resulted specifically in anti-Semitism.
One of the estimates of the movement by a contemporary
At the beginning of the century, this extremely reactionary movement was soactive, which was called the "Black Hundred terror of 1905-1907". At this time, they committed the murders of M. Ya. Gertsenstein and G. B. Iollos (members of the Central Committee of the Cadet Party) and no less resonant attempts on P. N. Milyukov and ex-premier Witte, whom some representatives of the movement (the same Gringmuth) designated as one of their main enemies. S. Yu. Witte, on the other hand, believed that the Black Hundreds were, in essence, representatives of a patriotic organization, whose ideas were based not on reason and nobility, but on passions, and that they were simply unlucky with the leaders, among whom there were many crooks and people with dirty thoughts and feelings. In such a lofty style, he spoke of the pogromists who staged a bloody massacre. Entire Jewish families perished under the slogan "Beat the Jews, save Russia!". But the ex-premier, speaking about the patriotism of the Black Hundreds, obviously had in mind the starting idea of the movement, which is based on the slogans of the Slavophiles about the identity of Russia and its own path of development, different from the West.
Propulsion support
So who are they? The disparate reactionary extreme right organizations in Russia in 1906-1917 are the Black Hundreds. Fortunately, they never managed to unite into one force, which would increase their capabilities many times over. Before the appearance of a common name, disparate parties called themselves "patriots", "truly Russians", "monarchists".
The largest associations of the Black Hundreds were the Union of the Russian People (headed by A. I. Dubrovin), the Russian Monarchist Party (founded byV. A. Gringmuth). V. M. Purishkevich became one of the founders of the clerical-conservative organization “Union of Michael the Archangel”. It must be noted that the activities of the fragmented and often opposing Black Hundred organizations were directed and financed by the "Council of the United Nobility", created in May 1906 with the full support of the tsarist government. It should also be noted that the police of the Russian Empire considered the Black Hundred squads as allies and relied entirely on them in their work. Simultaneously with the "Council of the United Nobility" in Moscow, the Black Hundred organization "Union of Russian People" was formed. The founders and leaders were Counts Sheremetev brothers, princes Trubetskoy and Shcherbatov. Prince Dmitry Pavlovich Golitsyn (Muravlin) was also a member of the Black Hundreds. Such "glorious Russian surnames" were associated with the Black Hundreds. All of them were attracted by the main idea embedded in the program of the movement - the inviolability of the monarchy, the unity of the autocracy with the people.
Unlimited devotion to autocracy
The extreme monarchists, as the Black Hundreds were also called, were the conservative camp of Russia, which, according to some sources, numbered up to 410 thousand people after the defeat of the revolution of 1905-1907. The program of the Black Hundreds was based on the theory of the so-called official nationality, the author of which was the Minister of Education of Russia S. S. Uvarov (first half of the 19th century). He developed a three-term formula, which can be considered as the main idea of Uvarov's theory: Orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality. Unlimited autocracy, like Orthodoxy, which the Black Hundreds considered to be primordially Russian principles, had to remain unshakable, and Russia did not need reforms at all.
Eases allowed by the Black Hundreds
However, some of their programs provided for various freedoms - religion, speech, assembly, press, unions and the untouchability of the person. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the large number of people who sympathize with the Black Hundreds. The agrarian program of the Black Hundreds was also extremely uncompromising, providing for the sale to peasants of only vacant state lands (no confiscation of landlords), the development of the lease and credit systems.
The biggest failure in the program of the Black Hundreds, as it turned out later, was the national question. A united and indivisible Russia, in their opinion, should have been based on great-power chauvinism, which took extreme forms and degenerated into militant anti-Semitism.
Powerful support
The ideas of the Black Hundreds were carried to the masses by such printed publications as Russkoye Znamya and Moskovskiye Vedomosti, Pochaevskiy Listok and Kolokol. As well as "Zemshchina", "Thunderstorm" and "Veche", "Kiev" and "Citizen". Support is more than powerful. They contributed to the fact that the program of the Black Hundreds became close and understandable to a huge number of landowners, representatives of the clergy, merchants, workers and peasants, artisans and representatives of both the small and large urban bourgeoisie, Cossacks and philistines - absolutely all strata of Russian society.
The end of the movement and its leaders
After the brutal pogroms, most of the supporters recoiled from the Black Hundreds, and after 1917 the movement fell into complete decline, and the Soviet government was completely banned. The Black Hundreds, whose leaders and ideologists were recognized as enemies of the people, actively fought against the Soviet government, and during the Second World War they took the side of the Nazis. A. I. Dubrovin, V. M. Purishkevich, V. A. Gringmut, N. E. Markov are among the major figures of this movement. And also P. F. Bulatsel (lawyer), I. I. Vostorgov (priest), engineer A. I. Trishchaty, Prince M. K. Shakhovskoy, monk Iliodor.
Octobrists
As noted above, unity in the ranks of this movement has never been observed, many unions differed from each other not only in names, but also in programs. Thus, the members of the Union of October 17, or the Octobrists-Black Hundreds, occupied a special place among the political parties of Russia - they were located between conservatives and liberals, which is why they were called conservative liberals. A. I. Guchkov, M. V. Rodzianko and V. V. Shulgin headed the party of the big financial and commercial and industrial bourgeoisie.
Their program was based on the tsar's manifesto of October 17, 1905. The Octobrists differed from the far-right Black Hundreds in that they advocated a constitutional monarchy, under which the power of the tsar would be limited by the fundamental law. They differed from the extreme right in that, while advocating an indivisible Russia, they nevertheless recognized the right to autonomy for Finland. And in the peasant question theyadvocated the compulsory alienation of part of the landed estates for redemption.
Cadets
If the Octobrists were on the extreme right wing, then on the left flank of the liberal movement were the Cadets (Constitutional Democratic Party), whose organizer and ideological leader was PN Milyukov. The party of which he was the chief strategist was called the People's Freedom Party. In their program, much attention was paid to the rights and freedoms of citizens. In their opinion, the future state system of Russia was to be a constitutional-parliamentary monarchy. Cadets, Octobrists, Black Hundreds are more or less large parties among dozens of others, such as the Socialist-Revolutionaries, Neo-Narodniks, Mensheviks, Bolsheviks, of which there were dozens in Russia at the beginning of the last century, right up to the revolution. But the Cadets, Octobrists and Black Hundreds were united by their attitude towards the monarchy, the inviolability of which was placed at the head of their programs.
