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The pogroms in the Russian Empire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries gain the Zionist movement adherents among Jews and support from the West.

Zionism represents only a minority of Jews, mostly from Russia but led by Austrians and Germans.

It develops propaganda through orators and pamphlets, creates its own newspapers, and gives an impetus to what is called a “Jewish renaissance” in letters and arts.

The development of the Modern Hebrew language largely takes place during this period.

The Russian central government does not organize pogroms, as is widely believed; but the anti-Semitic policy that it has carried out from 1881 has made them possible.

Official persecution and harassment of Jews has led the numerous anti-Semites to believe that their violence is legitimate, and their belief is strengthened by the active participation of a few high and many minor officials in fomenting attacks and by the reluctance of the government either to stop pogroms or to punish those responsible for them.

The pogrom in Kishinev in Russian-ruled Moldavia in April 1903, although more severe than most, is typical in many respects.

Riots had broken out after a Christian child, Michael Ribalenko, was found murdered on February 16.

Pavolachi Krusheven, the editor of the anti-Semitic newspaper Bessarabetz, and vice governor Ustrugov labeled the incident a ritual murder plot by the Jews, although it was fairly clear that the boy had been killed by a relative.

Beginning on the 19th, mobs, inspired by local leaders acting with official support, kill, loot, and destroy without hindrance from police or soldiers.

Interior Minister Plehve supposedly orders authorities not to stop the rioters.

After three days, when troops are finally called out and the mob dispersed, forty-five Jews have been killed, nearly six hundred have been wounded, and fifteen hundred Jewish homes have been pillaged.

Those responsible for inciting the outrages are not punished.

Despite a worldwide outcry, only two men are sentenced to seven and five years, respectively, and twenty-two are sentenced receive sentences of one or two years.

This pogrom is instrumental in convincing tens of thousands of Russian Jews to leave Russia for the West and for Palestine.

The child's real murderer is later apprehended.

Chaim Nachman Bialik, in his poem "City of Slaughter", chastises the Jews of Kishinev for not defending themselves in the pogrom.

Bessarabia has achieved some prosperity under Russian rule.

The empire forms a good market for Bessarabia's agricultural produce, which is dispatched by river or by the railway system built to link the region with the north-south main line to Odessa.

Chisinau is a relatively flourishing town, though its large Jewish population suffers severely in a pogrom in April 1903.

British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain is aware of the ambitions of the Zionist Organization, which had been on his mind during a trip to East Africa earlier in the year.

Chamberlain notes during his trip that, "If Dr Herzl were at all inclined to transfer his efforts to East Africa there would be no difficulty in finding land suitable for Jewish settlers."

Herzl is introduced to Chamberlain by Israel Zangwill in the spring of 1903, a few weeks after the outbreak of the Kishinev pogroms.

Chamberlain offers thirteen thousand square kilometers (five thousand square miles) at Uasin Gishu (also spelled "Gwas Ngishu"), an isolated area atop the Mau Escarpment in modern Kenya (not Uganda, though the offer is referred to as the Uganda Scheme).

The land is thought suitable because of its temperate hill station-like climate and its relative isolation, being surrounded by the Mau Forest.

The offer is a response to pogroms against the Jews in Russia, and it is hoped the area could be a refuge from persecution for the Jewish people.

Chamberlain had seen the land as he was passing by on the Uganda Railway, although the land was not in fact in Uganda but in the East Africa Protectorate (modern Kenya).

This territory had only recently been transferred from the Uganda Protectorate to the East Africa Protectorate in 1902, as part of the Uganda Railway development plan.

An abbreviated version of the fraudulent The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion appears in Russia from August 28 to September 7, 1903 in the Russian language paper Znamia, edited and published by the notorious Pavolachi Krusheven.

The document purports to be a report of a series of twenty-four meetings held at Basel, Switzerland, in 1897, at the time of the first Zionist congress.

There, Jews and Freemasons are alleged to have made plans to disrupt Christian civilization and erect a world state under their joint rule.

Liberalism and socialism are to be the means of subverting Christendom; if subversion fails, all the capitals of Europe are to be sabotaged.

Another pogrom, allegedly instigated by Plehve, takes place in Gomel on September 1, 1903.

Despite a vigorous defense, twelve Jews are killed and two hundred and fifty homes destroyed.

Thirty-six of the defenders are prosecuted, together with the perpetrators of the pogrom.