Committee against pogroms

Categories / City Administration/Government Bodies
COMMITTEE AGAINST POGROMS, emergency government authority, established on December 4 (17 New Style), 1917 of the decision of Petrograd Soviet for the cessation of wine pogroms in Petrograd. The Committee was located in Smolny (room No. 75). The chairman was V.D. Bonch-Bruevich. The commissar candidates (bolshevist of left socialist-revolutionary workers) were proposed by factories committees and their appointment was confirmed by district or city committees of Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party (bolshevist) and The Left Socialist-Pevolutionary party. The committee had at its disposal a detachment of 175 workers. On December 5 the Committee declared a state of siege in Petrograd (the state functioned until mid-December, and was re-declared on December 23 due to a new surge of pogroms) and issued an order permitting to fire at pogrom-makers without warning. All the reliable Red Guard detachments were mobilized, and armoured cars patrolled the streets of the city. In Petrogradsky district, a composite detachment of 200 workers was formed; in Vyborgsky district the duty of flying Red Guard squads was set. The seamen of the 2nd Baltic naval depot and Kronstadt took active part in fighting pogroms. The detachments consisting of workers, seamen and soldiers broke up the crowds of pogrom-makers by wine storehouses; often they would open fire. The stocks of alcohol drinks were being liquidated: wine-barrels poured out into the Neva river or drainpipes, bottles crushed. Trustworthy patrols were put beside storehouses with medical alcohol. At the sime time an active propaganda work was conducted among the population, and a large amount of anti-alcohol literature was distributed. Later on the committee co-operated with the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission established on December 7 (20 New Style), 1917. In January of 1918 wine pogroms were stopped in general, and the committee was dissolved.

References: Бонч-Бруевич В. Д. На боевых постах Февральской и Октябрьской революций. М., 1931; Фрайман А. Л. Форпост социалистической революции: Петроград в первые месяцы Сов. власти. Л., 1969.

A. M. Kulegin. Bonch-Bruevich Vladimir Dmitrievich
Бонч-Бруевич В. Д. На боевых постах Февральской и Октябрьской революций. М., 1931
Фрайман А. Л. Форпост социалистической революции: Петроград в первые месяцы Сов. власти. Л., 1969