I realize I left a bit of this out. The people carrying out pogroms were usually (like 85%) members of the peasantry. The Black Earth area was agricultural (still is). Hence the term. "Black Hundreds" means something like "Hordes of Hicks." :)
--- Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> It was actually a bunch of different groups, the
> main
> one of which was the Union of Russian People, which
> were rough equivalents of the KKK, very prominent in
> the pogroms in the early 20th century and radically
> promonarchy. By the time the Revo rolled around, the
> wind had pretty much gone out of their sails, but
> "Black Hundreds" was still a general term for the
> kind
> of people who run around and lynch Jews and
> intellectuals.
>
Mataiotes mataioteton, eipen ho Ekklasiastes, mataiotes mataioteton, ta panta mataiotes.