The Union also became the main instigator (through meetings, gatherings, lectures, manifestations and mass public prayers) of the pogroms against Jews (especially in 1906 in Gomel, Yalta, Białystok, Odessa, Sedlets and other cities), in which members of the URP often took an active part. In the wake of the Beiliss Affair, Nicholas II used the large wave of antisemitism in the population, spread and rallied by groups such as the Union of the Russian People, to rally support for his regime. It was one of the first to extreme Rightist groups which had proclaimed a charge of ritual murder in the so-called Beiliss Affair, and supported the anti-Semitic persecution throughout the trial of Menahem Beiliss.