Beilis Case

legal proceedings organized in Kiev in September and October 1913 by the tsarist government and the Black Hundreds against the Jew M. Beilis, a shop assistant in a brick plant, who was slanderously accused of the ritual murder of a Russian boy, A. Iushinskii. The actual murderers were protected from the court with the aid of I. G. Shcheglovitov, the minister of justice.

The investigation of the Beilis case lasted from 1911 to 1913. At a time when there was a revolutionary upsurge in Russia, the Black Hundreds, having launched an anti-Semitic campaign, tried to use the Beilis case to attack democratic forces and to bring about a coup d’etat. Representatives of the progressive Russian intelligentsia, A. M. Gorky, V. G. Korolenko, A. A. Blok, V. I. Vemadskii, and others, exposed the falseness of the accusations against Beilis. Protest strikes were held in a number of cities. In the event of Beilis’ conviction, the Bolsheviks planned to lead a general strike in St. Petersburg. Public figures abroad (the Frenchman Anatole France and others) spoke out in defense of Beilis. Despite the pressure of the government and the Black Hundreds, the jury acquitted Beilis.