In many villages the right bestowed on the rural communes of ostracising "vicious members" by a special verdict [1] was used as a weapon to expel those Jews who had long been settled there.
[Footnote 1: The official term applied to the resolutions passed by the village communes.

Compare p.

310.] It will be remembered that Ignatyev had proposed to encourage the peasants officially in the use of this weapon against the Jews, and that the Committee of Ministers had rejected his proposal.

There were now administrators who did the same thing unofficially.

Prompted by selfish motives, the local _Kulaks_ [1] or "bosses," from among the Russian tradesmen, acting in conjunction with the rural elders, would convene peasant assemblies which were treated to liberal doses of alcohol.