In response to the surging revolutionary coalition, Russia’s elites, including the tsar, fought back in two ways: first, by offering concessions, including the creation of a weak multiparty parliamentary system, and second, and simultaneously, by unleashing a virulent campaign of anti-Semitic hate that painted the 1905 revolt as a plot by seditious Jews to rule over Christians. This combination of minor reforms with a major distraction did the trick. Immediately after the reforms were announced, anti-Jewish mobs staged bloody pogroms in 660 towns and cities, with the worst taking place in Odessa.

XREF: Classic divide-and-rule strategy. Connects to other historical cases where elites deflect class/revolutionary unrest onto ethnic scapegoats.

Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, loc. 942