Black Hundreds - Predecessors

Predecessors

Members of these organizations came from different social strata, such as landowners, clergymen, high and petty bourgeoisie, merchants, artisans, workers and the so-called "declassed elements". "Sovet ob’yedinyonnogo dvoryanstva" (United Gentry Council) 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 by the tsar's motto, 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, 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 their armed wing, the Yellow Shirts.