On August 30, 1918, in Moscow, terrorist Fanny Kaplan shot the leader of the Russian revolution, Vladimir Lenin. Over the past hundred years, this assassination attempt has become overgrown with so many speculations and myths that it can claim to be one of the most complicated political cases in Soviet history.
Fans of piquant details when talking about a terrorist attack for some reason remember Kaplan’s acquaintance with the brother of the Soviet leader Dmitry Ulyanov, although even if their relationship had romantic overtones, they did not have any influence on the decision to kill Ilyich. Conspiracy theorists in the spirit of Nikolai Starikov will persistently search for a large-scale conspiracy with a potential foreign trace. And journalists and publicists, pleased with the variety of theories, will be happy to emphasize that the assassination attempt on Lenin still remains a “dark and mysterious” page of history.
Having understood the five main misconceptions that most often come up when discussing this plot, we come to the conclusion that today there are no fundamental secrets left in it.
The first misconception. Kaplan did not shoot Lenin
This alternative hypothesis is the most popular in mass journalism. She completely changes our view of the assassination attempt and makes us look at Fanny Kaplan as an accidental victim of circumstances. The version was substantiated in emigrant literature and then became widespread in the perestroika and modern press. The most common argument in it is the fact that the terrorist has very poor eyesight. Indeed, how can an almost blind woman shoot another person accurately?
Fanny Kaplan became involved in terrorism during the years of the first Russian revolution. A young Jewish girl came to the attention of the police in 1906 due to the accidental explosion of a homemade bomb that she and her friend Viktor Garsky kept in a hotel room in Kiev. The passport in the name Kaplan, by the way, was fake, but it was with this name that the girl was sent to Nerchinsk hard labor. During the explosion, she was injured and as a result, already in Siberia three years later, she became completely blind.
Prison photograph of Fanny Kaplan in Chita. Photo from 1907
A doctor visiting the penal servitude found that the pupils of the blind woman still responded to light and treatment was possible. Kaplan’s vision returned thanks to the efforts of local doctors, and after the revolution she underwent an additional course of treatment at the Kharkov eye clinic. According to the testimony of the Socialist Revolutionary Pyotr Sokolov, in the summer of 1918, Fanny Kaplan was a very good shooter: during exercises, she hit the target 14 times out of 15 possible. Thus, there is no evidence of Kaplan’s poor vision in the last year of her life.
An amnesty in 1917 freed the revolutionary. Thanks to her acquaintance in hard labor with Maria Spiridonova and other Socialist Revolutionaries, her views were finally determined in the mainstream of this party. Let us recall that the Socialist Revolutionary Party more than once practiced individual terror, the ideological foundations of which can be found in the populist movement. A sharp rejection of Bolshevik politics against the background of the Socialist Revolutionary tradition led Kaplan to the obvious idea - to kill Lenin.
The situation was complicated by the fact that after 1917, supporters of terror did not constitute a majority in the leadership of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. (Here and below we are talking about the right Socialist Revolutionaries.) Nevertheless, the party could authorize an individual act, which in this case should not be carried out on behalf of the party, and in general the terrorist could not declare his party affiliation. This is exactly the permission Kaplan received from party Central Committee member Dmitry Donskoy at the end of August 1918.
Re-enactment of the assassination attempt on Lenin. Investigative photo On August 30, near the Mikhelson plant, Vladimir Lenin, leaving after a rally surrounded by a crowd, was twice wounded by the shooter Fanny Kaplan. Almost immediately she was detained and, under investigation, adhered to the position adopted by the Socialist Revolutionaries regarding the individual act:
“I shot at Lenin because I considered him a traitor to the revolution, and his continued existence undermined faith in socialism.<…>I consider myself a socialist; now I do not identify myself with any party.<…>I don’t think it necessary to say which socialist group I belong to now.”
Perhaps, being in the crowd, she was not the one who ended up shooting? When supporters of this opinion refer to interrogated people who did not directly see the shooter, they forget that out of 17 testimonies we have 7 testimonies that talk about a woman shooting. Some of them leave no doubt at all that the shooter and the detained woman are the same person. Worker Semyon Titov showed:
“When Comrade Lenin arrived at the rally, then the woman who shot comrade. Lenin, arrived at Mikhelson’s plant about five minutes later than Comrade. Lenina and stood next to me and for about ten minutes very strictly watched Comrade. Lenin...<…>But when Comrade Lenin began to put his hand on the handle of the car, at that time the woman I was watching crouched down and began to shoot. Then the audience scattered in all directions. I also ran to the side and started watching her, where she would run. At this time, a gentleman ran up to her, knocked out the revolver from her and began to lift Comrade. Lenin, and she walked away ten steps, and we immediately detained her and took her to the Zamoskvoretsky Military Commissariat.”
The second misconception. Poisoned bullets were used to shoot
In the summer of 1922, a trial of the leaders of the Right Socialist Revolutionaries took place. Among many charges, they were accused of involvement in the assassination attempt on Lenin. According to the official version of the Soviet authorities, some members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party directly helped Kaplan organize the terrorist attack. Grigory Semyonov and Lydia Konopleva admitted this, mentioning, in particular, bullets poisoned with curare poison. According to them, the poison did not work because it loses its properties at high temperatures during the shot.
The 1918 investigation did not establish the fact of poisoning. The bullets, however, were cut, but this was done in makeshift conditions, so the proper explosive effect did not follow. Lenin was generally lucky: two wounds did not affect vital organs, and already in mid-September, having gotten to his feet, he asked the doctors not to bother him again with calls and questions.
V.N. Pchelin “Attempt on V.I. Lenin in 1918." (1920s) At the trial four years later, Professor Shcherbachev concluded that curare poison does not cease to act even at temperatures above 100 degrees Celsius. In addition, no complications of Lenin’s condition that could indicate poisoning were simply discovered. However, the image of the insidious Socialist Revolutionaries putting poison in bullets was so beautiful that official Soviet propaganda could not ignore it. The misconception about poisoned bullets still appears in journalism to this day.
Misconception number three. The assassination attempt was organized by the Socialist Revolutionary Party
In world history, almost every attempt on the life of a political figure was accompanied by versions that it was carried out by some political organization. This story was no exception.
The testimonies of Semenov and Konopleva fit perfectly into the ideological scheme that was laid down in the appeal of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, published the day after the assassination attempt. In it, the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Yakov Sverdlov, stated: “We have no doubt that traces of the right Socialist Revolutionaries, traces of British and French hirelings will be found here too.” The obvious benefit of such confessions for the devastating process of 1922 forces us to pay attention to the personalities of their authors.
Fanny Kaplan. Sketch for the painting by V.N. Pchelin “Attempt on V.I. Lenin in 1918." Semenov and Konopleva were arrested in the fall of 1918, but there was no talk of any involvement in Kaplan’s assassination attempt. A few months later they were released, and, as researchers rightly note, from that time their cooperation with the Cheka began. In 1921, both joined the ranks of the RCP (b).
Soon Semyonov published in a separate brochure incriminating materials about the terrorist activities of the Socialist Revolutionaries after the October Revolution, and Konopleva confirmed them in writing. Their testimony at the trial against the Socialist Revolutionaries contained a number of inconsistencies, not to mention poisoned bullets and other clearly fictitious facts. In this regard, one should trust their direct statements very carefully - it is not easy to figure out where they are true and where they are fiction.
The version that the Socialist Revolutionaries were responsible for the assassination is contradicted by many cases when the Party Central Committee after the revolution directly spoke out against the tactics of terror, believing that the murder of Lenin or Trotsky would bring down the wrath of the working class on them. The permission for an individual act given by Kaplan Donskoy did not formally contradict party policy, but even this decision was made by him personally and was unlikely to receive collective approval. For example, the Socialist Revolutionary Boris Babin-Koren, according to his wife, believed that Donskoy should have reported to the Central Committee about Kaplan’s intentions, established surveillance of her and, if possible, isolated her.
Vladimir Lenin. Sketch for the painting by V.N. Pchelin “Attempt on V.I. Lenin in 1918." Even if Donskoy himself was sympathetic to terrorist ideas and decided at his own risk to push Kaplan to carry out the assassination attempt, the boundaries of his responsibility for the events of August 30, 1918 remain vague. On the one hand, there are facts that he ordered Semenov to provide assistance to Kaplan, but what the extent of this assistance should be, Semenov could understand in his own way. On the other hand, Donskoy testified at the trial against the Socialist Revolutionaries that he even reprimanded Semyonov for giving Kaplan a revolver.
Researchers will have to understand the small details of the background of the assassination attempt for a very long time. But we can say for sure that the Right Socialist Revolutionary Party did not plan or sanction the assassination of Lenin.
Misconception four. A “Kremlin trace” can be found in the assassination attempt
The assumption that the real organizers of the assassination attempt were Lenin’s closest associates goes side by side with the misconception that Kaplan was not involved. If Fanny Kaplan did not shoot and is an innocent victim, then who could want Lenin’s death? His possible heirs are, for example, Yakov Sverdlov.
The formal head of the Soviet state, in the very first hours after the assassination attempt, blamed the Socialist Revolutionaries and abroad for it, and a few days later he himself authorized Kaplan’s death sentence and proposed personnel changes in the country’s leadership. Collaboration with the Cheka of Semenov and Konopleva fits into this picture: it becomes clear why the confessed participants in the attempt on Lenin were not brought to justice - because they were already working for Dzerzhinsky, who, in turn, helped Sverdlov. True, there is no evidence that these two Socialist Revolutionaries began to collaborate with the security officers before their arrest in the fall of 1918, but you can always think of the opposite.
Browning No. 50489. Study for the painting by V.N. Pchelin “Attempt on V.I. Lenin in 1918." The coherent concept of the “Kremlin conspiracy” against Lenin is based solely on speculation. Note that it already appeared in late emigrant literature, when several generations of people had changed. This is not accidental, since such a version would have seemed implausible to contemporaries of the revolutionary era. After the formation of the Stalinist system of government and the idea that the Soviet regime was a regime of the sole power of the leader, it is difficult for us to understand that the Bolshevik Party acted as a collective during the revolution.
The redistribution of power in 1918 was simply not necessary. Lenin did not try to squeeze out Sverdlov, Dzerzhinsky, or Trotsky from the leadership, which is why it was pointless for them to eliminate their leader. The loss of such a major political figure during the Civil War was completely dangerous. In addition, the psychology of perceiving “friends” as comrades-in-arms continued to work in the revolutionary environment. Even ten years later, during a tough internal party struggle, Stalin did not physically eliminate the authoritative Trotsky. And in the first months after the revolution, it is very difficult to imagine a secret conspiracy within the Bolshevik leadership for the purpose of murder.
A.M. Gerasimov “Shot at the People” (1960) Sverdlov’s drastic actions, without any conspiracy theories, are explained by the unexpectedness of the assassination attempt itself. Lenin's death would inevitably lead to the question of his deputy, and therefore some reshuffles could be discussed in advance. And the search for the “internal enemy” and the quick execution of Fanny Kaplan had a very obvious goal - to unleash a wave of “Red Terror”.
The fifth misconception. After 1918, Kaplan remained alive
“On my orders, the sentry took Kaplan out of the room in which she was located, and we ordered her to get into a pre-prepared car.
It was 4 o'clock in the afternoon on September 3, 1918. Retribution has been completed. The sentence was carried out. It was performed by me, a member of the Bolshevik Party, a sailor of the Baltic Fleet, commandant of the Moscow Kremlin Pavel Dmitrievich Malkov, with my own hand. And if history were to repeat itself, if again the creature stood before the muzzle of my pistol, raising its hand against Ilyich, my hand would not have wavered, pulling the trigger, just as it did not waver then...”
This is how the memoirs of Commandant Malkov describe the death of Fanny Kaplan. Despite the fact that the death penalty is documented in many sources, even in the early Soviet years, rumors appeared here and there that Kaplan survived. Perhaps this reflected the public's long-standing penchant for stories about unfortunate, forgotten and mysterious prisoners.
B.E. Vladimirsky “Speech by V.I. Lenin at the Mikhelson plant" (1925) The version received a full-fledged factual account already in our century. In 2004, the Ukrainian newspaper Facts and Comments published an interview with a certain Pyotr Vovchik under the headline: “My grandmother, Fanny Kaplan, never shot Lenin!” This meant, of course, my great-aunt:
“In 1936, Fanny sent her sister, my grandmother Anya... news,” Pyotr Matveevich continues his story. “A resident of the village of Chervonnoe came to visit us, who, during dispossession of kulaks, had to wander around the Siberian camps with his family. There he met Fanny. She handed us a tiny piece of paper on which it was written: “I am alive, healthy, not guilty. Pray for me."
<…>
And one woman told me that she sat with Fanny in the camps. This woman claimed that Kaplan died around 1955 in one of the Moscow prisons, where she was transported from... Ulan-Ude!
Unfortunately, it is not possible to establish the sources of these family legends. But even without serious reasons, they were reflected in the popular press and even in an article about Fanny Kaplan on Wikipedia.
The weapon used in the assassination attempt on Lenin. From the album “VChK. Main documents" A review of popular misconceptions about Fanny Kaplan's assassination attempt on Lenin shows that in history there is always a place for searching for sensations and unexpected discoveries. The story of this failed murder, of course, still has its blind spots today. In particular, we do not fully know who and to what extent knew about Kaplan’s intentions and could help her.
But even the possible presence of a “support group” in the form of supporters, accomplices and associates does not cancel the generally accepted version. The assassination attempt on Lenin was an individual terrorist act by Fanny Kaplan. Based on the traditions of the Narodniks and Socialist Revolutionaries, it is much more similar to the terror of Russian revolutionaries of previous years than to the political contract killings of the modern era.
In the spring of 1921, the communist regime in Russia was teetering on the brink of collapse. The country was gripped by a peasant war, workers went on strike in factories, and then the Kronstadt sailors, the most reliable support of Lenin’s party since 1917, rebelled. Why didn't the mass protests of 1921 lead to a new revolution? Could whites and other emigrants have helped the rebel sailors? Was the Bolshevik dictatorship and Stalinist totalitarianism inevitable in Russia, or were there alternative options for exiting the Civil War? Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Faculty of History spoke about this.
Peasants against Lenin
"Lenta.ru": At the beginning of 1921, the Bolsheviks could triumph - the war with Poland was over, Kolchak and Wrangel were defeated. And then suddenly, almost simultaneously, numerous anti-Soviet peasant uprisings broke out throughout the country, and then the Kronstadt uprising. Why did the Bolshevik regime suddenly stagger at that moment?
We still have a not entirely correct idea of the Civil War. It is often depicted solely as a confrontation between the red and white armies. In fact, numerous insurgent movements, primarily peasant ones, played an important role in the Civil War.
That is, a general peasant war was also raging in Russia at that time?
Certainly. The Peasant War became an integral aspect of the Great Russian Revolution. It began back in 1917 and, in various forms, took place in the rear of the white and red armies during large-scale front-line clashes between them in 1918–1920. But at the time, the insurgency was held back by fears that it might unwittingly play into the hands of one of the main parties to the conflict.
And when at the end of 1920 the main forces of the whites were defeated, the peasants could no longer fear that their struggle against the Bolshevik government would be taken advantage of by its opponents?
Of course. At the end of 1920 - beginning of 1921, after the defeat of the white counter-revolution, nothing could stop them from mass armed protest against the Red dictatorship with its surplus appropriation, which was perceived as a robbery of the village. This is the first factor.
Secondly, after the end of the active phase of the Civil War, peasants and workers hoped for a softening of the economic policies of the Bolsheviks. They were immensely tired of “war communism”, of harsh pressure on the countryside, the militarization of labor, and constant supply problems in the context of a trade ban. But everything turned out to be exactly the opposite - instead of giving people a break, the Bolsheviks began to tighten the screws of “war communism” even more. Ultimately, all this caused mass discontent, which was expressed both in the growth of the protest movement and in the strengthening of armed resistance.
Was this resistance widespread or did it take on the character of local foci?
By the beginning of 1921, large rebel formations were operating everywhere. They covered Siberia, the Volga region, Ukraine, Don, Kuban and many other territories. In the Tambov province alone, a 50,000-strong army operated under the command of. These uprisings further aggravated the socio-economic crisis in the country and made it difficult to supply large cities.
Soon there began unrest among workers, dissatisfied with the reduction of rations, assignment to factories, and the prohibition of free exchange of goods with peasants (special barrage detachments were stationed at the entrances to cities). The mass protests of workers in Petrograd in February 1921 were especially critical for the authorities. The combination of peasant resistance and workers' protests was quite capable of demolishing the Bolshevik regime.
By that time, communist power had almost lost its support in the countryside, and was now losing control over the cities. An explosive situation arose when several crises combined simultaneously: food, fuel and transport. Moreover, during the February unrest of 1921, workers put forward not only economic, but also political demands of a democratic nature.
Mutinous sailors
And against this background, an uprising broke out in Kronstadt.
Yes, it was a spontaneous performance. It turned out to be most directly connected with the workers’ protests in Petrograd in February 1921, which was directly mentioned in the KGB reports. The Kronstadt sailors had previously reacted very painfully to the plight of the peasantry - they constantly kept in touch with their village relatives and knew about what was happening in the village. But the situation was sharply aggravated by the news of mass strikes of Petrograd workers, about which the Bolshevik government tried in every possible way to keep silent. Therefore, the sailors of Kronstadt decided to come out in support of the Petrograd proletariat.
It must be said that there was nothing unusual in this for that time - dissatisfaction with the Bolshevik policies was also brewing in the Red Army. And there are many examples of this - the uprising of division commander Alexander Sapozhkov in 1920 in the Volga region or the uprising of brigade commander Grigory Maslakov in 1921, who went over to the side of the Makhnovists, as well as other lesser-known protests in the troops.
But what were the sailors of the Baltic Fleet, who since the summer of 1917 were considered the most reliable support of the Bolsheviks, dissatisfied with in 1921?
It's true - the Kronstadt sailors not only helped Lenin and his party come to power in October 1917, but also actively participated in the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly. It was not for nothing that Trotsky then called them “the beauty and pride of the Russian revolution.”
But by the spring of 1921, they too had become disillusioned with the Bolsheviks. The Kronstadters accused them of betraying the ideals of the October Revolution, retreating from their original slogans, usurping power and establishing a commissar state.
What it is?
This word was used by the rebel sailors of Kronstadt to refer to the new Bolshevik bureaucracy, which replaced the former elite: security officers, commissars, and various kinds of managers. Therefore, the main demand of the Kronstadters was the return of the revolution to its October origins. The backbone of the rebels were the crews of the battleships Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol - old-time sailors who actively participated in the events of 1917.
Is it true that some Bolsheviks sympathized with the rebel sailors and were even ready to support them?
If we talk about the Kronstadt Bolsheviks, then this is so. At the time of the uprising, the Kronstadt party organization was in deep crisis. It was the result of crisis and unrest in the entire Bolshevik party, where disappointment and discontent also spread. About 40 percent of the Kronstadters left it immediately before the uprising, and after it began, out of two and a half thousand party members, over 900 people left it and joined the rebels.
At the 10th Congress of the RCP(b), which took place in parallel with these events, the following figures were cited: approximately 30 percent of the Kronstadt party organization supported the rebels, another 30 percent opposed them, and about 40 percent remained neutral. After the suppression of the uprising, members of the Provisional Bureau of the RCP (b), created by those who did not leave the party, but did not actively fight the rebels, were arrested and shot.
“Defense is the death of armed uprising”
Were there any sympathizers with the demands of the Kronstadt sailors in the leadership of the Bolshevik Party?
No, there weren't any. At that time, there was a fierce internal struggle among the Bolshevik elite: a discussion about trade unions, confrontation between various factions. The “labor opposition” and “democratic centralism” factions sharply criticized the authoritarian-bureaucratic course of the party leadership, but immediately rallied around it during the Kronstadt uprising. For all of them, the preservation of the one-party dictatorship of the Bolsheviks was more important than internal contradictions.
It is not for nothing that representatives of all opposition groups were included in the combined detachment of delegates to the X Congress of the RCP (b), which participated in the storming of Kronstadt. Although at the congress itself, some speakers pointed out the connection between the political crisis and incorrect party policies. For example, the leader of the “workers’ opposition” Alexander Shlyapnikov directly stated that “the causes of discontent lead to the Kremlin.”
Why didn’t the rebels blow up the ice in front of Kronstadt to make it difficult to storm it?
It is difficult to say how technically this was even possible. The most powerful icebreaker of the Baltic Fleet, Ermak, was in Petrograd at that time. The land mines probably would have helped, but due to general confusion the rebels did not take advantage of this opportunity. The ice was partially blown up around only one of the forts, but this did not prevent it from being captured during the assault.
But why did the rebels behave so passively?
This is true - the Kronstadt sailors did not use offensive tactics at all. But, as Lenin put it, “defense is the death of armed uprising.” But there is an explanation for this. When the Kronstadters adopted their famous resolution demanding free elections to the Soviets and a return to the true ideals of the Russian revolution, they never imagined that their action would end in violent bloodshed.
Did the Kronstadt sailors really seriously hope that Lenin would come to an agreement with them?
Yes, initially the Kronstadters really hoped for a peaceful resolution of the conflict, since they did not put forward any demands that ran counter to the official declarations about the power of the Soviets and the protection of the interests of the working people. There was an expectation that, under pressure from below, the Bolshevik leadership would agree to negotiations and some kind of compromise. By the way, many Bolsheviks thought similarly. The famous revolutionary Viktor Kibalchich (Victor Serge), who then lived in Petrograd and worked in the apparatus of the Comintern, later left interesting memories about this.
He wrote that when Lenin and Trotsky officially declared the Kronstadt uprising the result of a conspiracy by the French secret services and white generals, few of the Bolsheviks believed it. Everyone understood that in fact the cause of the rebellion was not the intrigues of Western spies and the machinations of the counter-revolution, but the desperate discontent of the sailors and workers. Therefore, the ruthless suppression of the uprising and the subsequent brutal repressions against its participants, when more than two thousand people were shot, caused bitterness and shock to many ordinary Bolsheviks.
Kronstadt ice
I read that General Wrangel tried to come into contact with the rebels of Kronstadt through Finland and even offered to send Don Cossacks stationed on the island of Lemnos to help them.
Leaders of the white emigration made similar statements, but the Kronstadters categorically rejected any attempts at political negotiations with the forces of counter-revolution. For them this was unthinkable, and even the Kronstadt sailors seemed too right. When the leader of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, Viktor Chernov, who was in exile, offered to help them, the rebels politely refused his services.
It must be understood that the rebels did not consider themselves opponents of Soviet power. On the contrary, they put forward the slogan “Power to the Soviets, not to the parties!” It is sometimes mistakenly interpreted as a call for “Soviets without”, but there was no such wording. In 1951, the Menshevik Rafail Abramovich, reflecting on those events in the emigrant magazine Socialist Messenger, described them as follows: “It was an uprising against the Bolshevik dictatorship by the very part of Bolshevism.” The Kronstadt sailors claimed that they were fighting for the real power of the Soviets, but against the Bolshevik commissar state.
There is an episode in the series “Trotsky” when, after the suppression of the uprising, he comes to Kronstadt and wanders confusedly among the corpses. Is it true that Trotsky later organized a military parade there in honor of the victory over the rebel sailors?
Trotsky did not come to Kronstadt. He hosted the military parade of participants in the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising on April 3, 1921 in Moscow. But there Lev Davidovich, always prone to long and fiery speeches, made a very short speech, getting off with stock phrases. In fact, he understood that there was nothing to celebrate - after all, the Bolsheviks shot their own.
Fragment of the series "Trotsky". In the credits of the film, the start date of the Kronstadt uprising is mistakenly indicated as 1918, not 1921
Kino1TV: TV series and films HD / YouTube
Subsequently, having already found himself in the opposition, and then in exile, Trotsky sought in every possible way to downplay his role in the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising. Sometimes, in response to reproaches, he directly denied his involvement in this. In fact, the famous armored train of the Pre-Revolutionary Military Council was located not far from Petrograd, and he personally participated in coordinating the military operations of the Red Army.
Who directly led the assault on Kronstadt?
Tukhachevsky was notorious for his penchant for using chemical weapons. I read that the Kronstadt sailors were also going to be gassed, like the Tambov peasants later.
Yes, it was planned to attack the main rebel battleships with “choking gases and poisonous shells,” but they did not have time to carry out this order from Tukhachevsky. Trotsky set Tukhachevsky the task of immediately taking Kronstadt, using all possible forces and means for this. This rush is understandable. Firstly, the ice in the Gulf of Finland was expected to break up soon, and then Kronstadt would become completely impregnable.
Secondly, the Bolshevik leadership was well aware that delay in Kronstadt could lead to aggravation of the situation in striking Petrograd. Therefore, for Lenin and Trotsky, without the speedy suppression of the Kronstadt uprising, it was difficult to maintain control over Petrograd and the entire country. If an armed uprising in the navy were combined with urban workers' protest, then, as I have already said, the Bolshevik dictatorship in 1921 could well have collapsed.
Lenin in 1917
The February Revolution did not produce gifted leaders either in the Provisional Government - the body of power established by the temporary committee of the State Duma - or in the Petrograd Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, a spontaneously arose entity that claimed to represent "the people." In that revolutionary year, the desire for popular representation grew more and more. As the country disintegrated, local committees and councils mushroomed throughout the former empire as the revolution spread from the capitals to the provinces. The bonds of loyalty, habit and fear that held together the vast multinational empire disappeared as soon as Russia was fragmented into small parts.
Standard descriptions of 1917 by Soviet historians depict increasing anarchy as the backdrop to the activities of V. I. Lenin - a god who literally appeared ex machina - who arrived by train at Petrograd's Finlyandsky Station on the night of April 3 in order to save the revolution from the specter of the restoration of tsarism. Of course, the importance of Lenin's leadership in 1917 cannot be overestimated. The October Revolution is unimaginable without his tactical genius and indomitable energy. However, both should be considered in conjunction with other factors explaining the success of the coup: these are the numerous mistakes of the Provisional Government, the organizational and oratorical gift of Trotsky, who arrived in Petrograd in May and only later formally joined the Bolshevik faction; the effectiveness of the party's military organization - and, of course, simple luck. Moreover, although Lenin made every effort and used all his party power to persuade his supporters to support his position (even if it underwent stunningly rapid changes), he was not always successful - until the very end.
The Bolshevik Party in 1917 was characterized by open polemics. The views of right-wing and moderate Bolsheviks often prevailed - to the detriment of Lenin's. Despite retreats and obvious defeats - both within the party and in the wider arena of revolutionary Russia - Lenin remained confident in his ability to lead the party to the victory of the revolution and powerfully charged those around him with this confidence. Lenin's main strength in 1917 lay in his firm determination to make the best of changing circumstances and in his readiness to adapt his slogans to the fickle demands of the masses. He did not hesitate, for example, to enlist the support of the peasantry in order to speed up the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. With cold-blooded tenacity, he subordinated all means to one goal - the seizure of revolutionary power for the sake of putting into practice his own vision of socialist Russia.
Many times during that eventful year, Lenin's consistent line served as a guide in the chaos of events. As politically fragmented Russia plunged into social turmoil, Lenin's unshakable belief in his own rightness provided an increasingly sharp contrast to the vacillations and vacillations of less strong-willed politicians. What he wrote is striking in its variety of tonality: here there are almost utopian reflections (the book “State and Revolution”), and polemically pointed appeals to his associates, whom he either convinces or shames, trying to persuade them to believe in the need for an armed uprising. Without going into too much exaggeration, we can say that Lenin achieved power because he alone insisted on having it. His eventual triumph over differences that seemed insurmountable later prompted his associates to endow Lenin with almost magical properties, making him an object of cult. Lenin’s tasks, formulated by him in the famous “April Theses,” fully reflected his extreme voluntarism. Although Russia had just entered the "bourgeois" phase of development, Lenin called for the abandonment of all cooperation with the "bourgeois" Provisional Government, insisting that the power it shared with the Soviets should pass to the latter. The theoretical premise of Lenin's speech boiled down to the following: the period of political hegemony of the bourgeoisie in Russia was already coming to an end - after six weeks, while the Social Democrats had allocated several decades to the dominance of the bourgeoisie. Waiting for the end of the bourgeois stage of development meant being present at the introduction of capitalism and the strengthening of parliamentary democracy, knowing for sure that neither he nor his generation would live to see the socialist revolution to which they devoted their lives. What if, moreover, the predictions should not be particularly trusted? How close have Western democracies come to socialist revolution? Is it possible that the process of maturation of a bourgeois republic will actually stop Russia’s movement towards socialism? And if the socialist revolution does not happen soon, who will lead the revolutionary vanguard in thirty to fifty years? Certainly not Lenin. These troubling doubts are clearly discernible in Lenin's articles and speeches over the next seven months. Lenin took an unpopular position of protest against Russia's continued involvement in the war, softening his original (even more unpopular) demand contained in the speech he made to a Bolshevik audience on the night of his arrival in Petrograd - a demand for an immediate cessation of hostilities. Over time, he managed to convince the entire party organization to come over to his side.
On the internal front, the revolution rapidly moved to the left, thanks (as Lenin foresaw) not to the revolutionary vanguard, but mainly as a result of the spontaneous actions of those very elements that Lenin least counted on in his early theoretical constructs: peasants seized estates; soldiers, sailors and workers multiplied the ranks of Bolshevik supporters - especially noticeably since the summer of 1917. The impatient push for immediate and radical social change resulted in an outbreak of violence. On July 3, riots occurred in the capital, which only strengthened the government’s negative attitude towards the Bolsheviks.
The Bolshevik leaders were rightly alarmed by the Provisional Government's appeal to loyal troops and its open threat to expose Lenin's treasonous ties to Germany. Lenin's opponents accused him of treason from the moment he appeared in Petrograd; The campaign of persecution intensified after the failure of the July Days, when Alexander Kerensky, head of the Provisional Government, ordered the arrest of Lenin and other prominent Bolsheviks. Trotsky, Lunacharsky, Kamenev and Alexandra Kollontai - the most famous woman in the Bolshevik party - were imprisoned; Lenin and Zinoviev fled to Finland. The Bolsheviks' chances increased again at the end of August, partly due to their tireless propaganda, but even more due to the attempted mutiny launched by the popular Supreme Commander Lavr Kornilov: the mutiny prompted Kerensky, now in need of Bolshevik support, to release their leaders from prison. In relation to Lenin and Zinoviev, the threat of arrest, however, remained. So, Lenin remained underground, far from the revolutionary events that he longed to lead, right up to the very eve of the revolution, relying, as always, on the pen that controls the course of history.
In August-September, Lenin wrote the book “State and Revolution” - an anarchist pamphlet that accurately reflected the revolutionary process in Russia in those months. At a time when the country was becoming increasingly ungovernable, and power in the villages, in the army, and in factories was transferred to spontaneously emerging committees, Lenin incited readers to destroy the state. The pamphlet opens with a word in defense of the “revolutionary soul” of Marxism, which prophetically outlined the fate of his own theory.
“During the lifetime of the great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes paid them with constant persecution, greeted their teachings with the wildest malice, the most frenzied hatred, the most reckless campaign of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to turn them into harmless icons, so to speak, to canonize them, to give them a certain glory name to “consolate” the oppressed classes and to fool them, emasculating content revolutionary teaching, dulling its revolutionary edge, vulgarizing it.”
Lenin strives to revive the militant essence of Marx’s teachings, not at all suspecting that after death he himself will turn into a “harmless icon.” In State and Revolution he aimed to give legitimacy to the call for the total destruction of the old order and its replacement by the dictatorship of the proletariat. In September, he was ready to deliver the decisive blow - to start an armed uprising.
The Bolsheviks now constituted a majority in the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets. Among the soldiers, sailors and workers of both capitals, the Bolsheviks had never before enjoyed such widespread support. This was caused by the inability of the Provisional Government to cope with current problems - to curb inflation, ensure the delivery of food, solve transport difficulties, but also by the tireless propaganda campaign launched by Lenin and his supporters. General anarchy was inevitable: by not taking advantage of the opportunity, the Bolsheviks risked losing the advantage of “spontaneity.” In September, Lenin wrote to the Central Committee calling for immediate preparations for an armed uprising. In Lenin's opinion, the failure of the Kornilov rebellion testified to the army's sympathetic attitude to the Bolshevik seizure of power: the army, in search of enemies of the revolution, had to look to the right and fraternize with those on the left.
Lenin's letters caused general confusion. As in April, Lenin took a position directly opposite to that shared by the majority of the party leadership. The reaction of party comrades was so negative that the Central Committee intended to destroy these letters so that they would not become known to the Petrograd workers and would not incite them to a new uprising, which would inevitably lead to new general arrests. In the end, the letters were preserved, but at the same time reliable measures were taken to prevent appeals to the masses and all preparations for an uprising were canceled. A week later, at a meeting of the Central Committee, Lenin’s call for armed action was not even discussed. Week after week, in letters and articles, Lenin in every possible way won over the members of the Central Committee to his side. He shamed and stigmatized those who - like Zinoviev and Kamenev - were kept from action by fear and sanity. Virtually all of Lenin's associates hesitated and waited in one way or another, considering an armed uprising unnecessary in view of the upcoming Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets (originally scheduled for October 20 and then postponed until the 25th), through which a peaceful transfer of power to a coalition government could be achieved; but only Lenin was convinced that the type of social order he envisioned should be achieved exclusively through an armed revolution. The decisive vote took place in the Central Committee on October 10. By ten votes to two (Zinoviev and Kamenev voted against), the resolution on an armed uprising was adopted. After this, Lenin continued to persistently exhort his comrades to implement the resolution - especially since the rising wave of anarchy was eroding the last supports of the Provisional Government, which was quickly losing the support of the popular masses.
Lenin in October. Throughout Soviet history, countless books, articles, paintings, and films have depicted this dramatic confrontation between man and moment. “And from there, / looking back at these days, / you will see / Lenin’s head / first,” Vladimir Mayakovsky exclaimed pathetically in his epic poem, written by him shortly after Lenin’s death. And indeed: Lenin’s energy and determination, shown in the critical period between the failure of the Kornilov rebellion and October 25, played a decisive role in the success of the coup; they also served as the impetus for the later development of the cult.
All of Lenin's abilities were uniquely suited to this critical moment - most important were his uncanny ability to identify the enemy's most vulnerable spots and a certain emotional mood that combined rage, courage and hysteria. On the evening of October 24, dressed beyond recognition (his cheek was tied with a scarf, his bald head was covered with a wig), Lenin risked leaving the safe house and went to the Bolshevik headquarters at the Smolny Institute. On the morning of October 25, Lenin issued a declaration announcing that the Provisional Government had been overthrown and power had passed into the hands of the Military Revolutionary Committee, the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. Lenin’s signature was missing from the declaration, but now the fate of Russia was determined by his mindset: the power of the pen over minds was reinforced by the army, navy and political police.
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Once, while studying judicial archival materials, I noticed one interesting document. This was a resolution on the selection of a preventive measure, approved by the Deputy Head of the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) of the NKVD of the USSR, Senior State Security Major Kobulov and dated January 16, 1939. Based on the above excerpt from the document, it will become clear why it aroused such interest in me.“I, detective officer of the 2nd department of the 2nd department of the GUGB D. E. Belov,” it was noted in the resolution, “having examined the materials on Pavel Alexandrovich Alexandrov, born in 1866, a native of the former St. Petersburg province, non-partisan, works as a legal adviser in the sugar trust, lives in Moscow, on the street B. Dmitrovka, in house No. 20, apt. thirty.
Alexandrov P. A. for a long time, right up to the October Revolution of 1917, held responsible positions with the tsarist and Provisional governments and led an active struggle against the working class and the revolutionary movement.
In 1894, Alexandrov worked as a forensic investigator at the 1st precinct of the St. Petersburg District Court.
From December 12, 1895, he worked as a companion to the prosecutor of the Mitavsky District Court, and then was transferred to the same position in the Pskov District Court.
From 1897 to 1909 he worked as a judicial investigator for the most important cases of the District Petersburg Special Court, and in 1916 he worked as a judicial investigator for particularly important cases of the same court.
At the beginning of 1917, P. A. Alexandrov was a teacher of espionage investigation techniques at counterintelligence courses at the Main Directorate of the General Staff.
In 1917, under the Provisional Government... Alexandrov was appointed to the commission to conduct an investigation of the leaders and organizers of the Bolshevik Party V.I. Lenin and others...”
The resolution further stated that the commission in which Alexandrov was a member fabricated investigative materials about the so-called “espionage” of Lenin and the Bolsheviks in favor of Germany. Aleksandrov was one of the most active members of the commission and the initiator of interrogations of tsarist secret police agents, counterintelligence officers, provocateurs in the Bolshevik and labor movement, who, of course, gave evidence only that was pleasing to the investigation and Kerensky, who directed this investigation. Personally, the Alexandrovs, according to the drafter of the resolution, ordered the detention of V.I. Lenin. To support his conclusion, GUGB detective Belov cited an excerpt from the interrogation protocol of Aleksandrov more than fourteen years ago, who was summoned to the OGPU for explanations in this case. “The task of our commission,” Lenin’s former accuser testified on July 27, 1925, “was to prove high treason and espionage in favor of Germany on the part of the leaders of the Bolshevik Party... the central and major figure in the investigation, of course, was V.I. Lenin, who was involved in as an accused along with the rest of the Bolsheviks based on the materials of the inquiry..."
The background to this provocation is quite clear. The Provisional Government, in order to explain the failures at the front, and most importantly, to justify itself in internal political and economic troubles and thereby prevent the growth of the revolution, decided to kill two birds with one stone, i.e., to place all the blame for all the troubles on the “traitors” Bolsheviks and settle accounts with potential contenders for power in the country. The personal efforts of Kerensky, who won political dividends for himself and paved the way to dictatorship, are also understandable. The budding lawyer Alexandrov was also not deprived of vanity. Well, as you know, exorbitant greed and ambition most often gave rise to provocations and crimes.
Kerensky's choice of Alexandrov was not accidental. In 1917, having joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party, Kerensky remembered that it was Aleksandrov, during the investigation into the once sensational Kuroshi case, who rendered a significant service to the Socialist Revolutionaries by deflecting serious accusations from them of the assassination attempt on the son of a famous admiral.
It is appropriate to briefly recall the essence of this matter.
Admiral Kuroshi gained fame for his cruelty in suppressing the revolutionary actions of military sailors. His “exploits” were marked with the highest mercy: he received the highest rank and was awarded an order. But soon misfortune befell him. At the admiral's dacha, unknown persons made an attempt on his fifteen-year-old son. True, everything ended with only a gunshot wound. Revenge was evidenced by a note found at the crime scene, which reported on behalf of the Socialist Revolutionaries that young Kuroshi was punished for the bloody deeds of his father.
The incident received wide publicity and was discussed in the State Duma. The decision was made to conduct a formal investigation. They assigned him to Aleksandrov, an investigator for particularly important cases, who already had several solved criminal offenses on his record.
Alexandrov experienced considerable difficulties. It was not difficult for him to establish that Kuroshi’s son staged the assassination attempt, wounding himself, and the note “from the Socialist Revolutionaries” was written by his comrade. But the admiral and his influential friends demanded... “an assassination attempt by the socialists” and “legal reprisal” against them. The investigator experienced pressure from high authorities and all kinds of warnings. It is possible that the Social Revolutionaries also worried him, and their threats were more real. It should not be denied that a “progressive lawyer” could share their views. Be that as it may, the “just cause of Admiral Kuroshi” failed and received unwanted publicity for the plaintiff. Risking his career, Aleksandrov did not even think that several years would pass and one of the most influential Socialist Revolutionaries, Kerensky, as a sign of “gratitude”, would demand from him the same thing that Admiral Kuroshi had previously wanted - falsification of the case. This time the investigator did not become stubborn, did not talk about honor, law, and justice. He developed an enviable activity, trying to “obtain” compromising and exposing material against the Bolsheviks. Many facts testify to this. For example, on the same day when Aleksandrov received instructions to begin the investigation, he began interrogating witnesses, and began by calling in dummies who had nothing to do with Lenin or the Bolsheviks. The interrogation protocols, and about two hundred and fifty of them accumulated over a short period of time, amounted to 21 volumes.
Here's an excerpt from one document:
"INSPECTION PROTOCOL
1940 May 11 - 14 days, military prosecutor of the Main Military Prosecutor's Office of the Red Army Voronov, based on the proposal of the prosecutor of the USSR comrade. Pankratyev inspected the “case” initiated in 1917 by the Provisional Government against Vladimir Ilyich Lenin...
Upon examination it turned out:
“Case” with the title “Preliminary investigation into the armed uprising on July 3-5 in Petrograd against state power...” From all the collected materials on the “case” of Lenin and [their] friend, it follows that the entire investigation was concentrated with the investigator for especially important cases of the Petrograd District Court of Aleksandrov, who in this “case” showed exceptional initiative with all his actions, tried in every possible way to artificially create a charge against V.I. Lenin of espionage for Germany.”
Volume No. 1 contained the “Proposal” of the prosecutor of the Trial Chamber dated July 10, 1917, which authorized Alexandrov to “begin the investigation into the case of the armed uprising of July 3-5.” There was also a protocol of the interrogation of ensign Ermolenko of the 16th Siberian Rifle Regiment (known both in the security department and in counterintelligence as a person convenient for use in any provocation), carried out on the same day by Aleksandrov. In his subsequent testimony, Alexandrov, when he already had to bear responsibility, claimed that he had no idea about Ermolenko’s true role. This is hard to believe, since he himself not only used the services of counterintelligence, both in the conduct of the Ulyanov-Lenin case and other cases, not only made inquiries about the defendants and witnesses there, but he himself collaborated in counterintelligence, giving lectures at special courses counterintelligence officers. Moreover, Aleksandrov used the testimony of Ermolenko, who allegedly saw Lenin “leaving German intelligence,” as the basis for the charges against the Bolsheviks.
Volume No. 4 is curious in its content. It contains the decree of investigator Alexandrov, dated July 21, 1917, on bringing Ulyanov-Lenin and other Bolsheviks as defendants. The Bolsheviks were accused of the fact that they, “being Russian citizens, by prior agreement between themselves and other persons in order to assist the states at war with Russia in hostile actions against it, entered into an agreement with the agents of the said states - to promote the disorganization of the Russian army and the rear to weaken the combat ability of the army, for which purpose, using funds received from these states, they organized propaganda among the population and troops calling for the immediate renunciation of military actions against the enemy, as well as for the same purposes in the period from July 3 to July 5, 1917. organized an armed uprising in Petrograd against the supreme power existing in the state, accompanied by a number of murders, violence and attempts to arrest some members of the government, the consequence of which actions was the refusal of some military units to carry out the orders of the command staff and the unauthorized abandonment of positions, which contributed to the success enemy army..."
Volume No. 5 contained testimonies of 27 people, as well as information about Alexandrov’s official announcement of the search for Ya. M. Sverdlov. The investigator also filed here clippings included in the case from publications of the Petrogradskaya Gazeta, which “exposed the betrayal of the Bolsheviks,” for example, the article “Lenin’s long-term provocative behavior.” Here the protocol of the interrogation of Comrade Minister of Internal Affairs Beletsky attracts attention. He outlined the contents of the next denunciation of Roman Malinovsky, one of the prominent figures of the Bolshevik party, a member of the Central Committee and the leader of the Duma faction of the Bolsheviks and at the same time a secret agent of the tsarist secret police. So, this double-dealer, who enjoyed the special trust of Vladimir Ilyich, who rejected any suspicions towards Malinovsky, reported to his police chiefs that “Lenin enjoys the special patronage of the Austrian government.”
Of the 11 interrogation protocols available in the sixth volume, the most noteworthy is the testimony of a certain Burtsev about the provocateur activities of V.I. Lenin in Russia, which he allegedly “had to observe.”
The first 14 pages of volume No. 7 are materials from the search of the apartments of Lunacharsky and Trotsky. Then there are protocols of interrogation of four people and the results of a search at Lenin’s apartment in Elizarov’s house are presented. The last document was compiled by the head of the counterintelligence department, which is convincing evidence of whose help Aleksandrov used. And - again the testimony. Now there are already 14 people, including journalist Zaslavsky. Information about Lenin's espionage activities was required from those interrogated. The hundredth page of the volume is a separate order from Alexandrov, dated July 28, 1917, to the investigator of the Kiev District Court to check in the Kiev bank sums of money that may have been received in the name of Lenin, as well as to establish the facts of the latter’s presence in Kyiv or his detention by the police.
To give “weight” to the investigation. Alexandrov interrogated such witnesses as the Minister of Agriculture Chernov, the editor of the newspaper “Worker's Diary” Benesh, and the Minister of Labor Skobelev. Their testimony is in volume No. 10.
Well, in the next, 11th volume, there are records of the repeated interrogation of the “main witness” - warrant officer Ermolenko and one of his “mentors” - the head of the central counterintelligence department at the Main Directorate of the General Staff of Medvedev. The latter “shared information about German spies known to him - the Bolsheviks.”
Volume No. 12 is also “solid”. It included two interrogations of Plekhanov (September 10–14, 1917), from whom information about Lenin was required. Muranov (editor of the newspaper Pravda) and Martov, as well as 9 other people, had to show the same thing.
The 13th volume exposes not so much the Bolsheviks as Alexandrov himself. It was entirely composed of intelligence material, in particular, it included the protocol of the interrogation of Romana Firstenberg in counterintelligence and lists of “patients who suffered during the Bolshevik uprising.”
The next volume contains copies of telegrams sent at different times to Lenin and his sister Maria, as well as Kollontai, various correspondence, interrogation protocols of Unschlicht and 6 other people.
The materials of Alexandrov's inspection of the operations of the Russian-English and Azov commercial banks formed the basis of the fifteenth and sixteenth volumes.
Looking for materials compromising the Bolsheviks, Alexandrov meticulously studies the Bolshevik press. Thus, the inspection of only one newspaper, “Soldatskaya Pravda,” took 81 pages of volume No. 17. Copies of Pravda’s cash reports were also filed here.
The 18th volume turned out to be very rich. I will quote an excerpt from the protocol of the inspection of this volume by the military prosecutor of the Main Military Prosecutor's Office of the Red Army Voronov: “T. No. 18, the document notes, contains: 1) interrogation of Kollontai on 22.VII.1917; 2) the arrest warrant for Kollontai; 3) [decision] to release Kollontai on bail; 4) interrogations of Zakharov, Rozanov, Rakhya; 5) l [ist] case] 41 - statement of 10.VII.1917 by Trotsky to the Provisional Government that the decree on the arrest of the Bolsheviks, Lenin and others should also apply to him; 6) interrogation 24. VII. 17 Trotsky by investigator Sergievsky; 7) resolution 24.VII. 17 about the arrest of Trotsky; 8) the resolution of investigator Aleksandrov dated January 4, 2017 to change the preventive measure against Trotsky on bail in the amount of 3 thousand rubles, posted by his sister 1; 9) interrogation 24. VII - Raskolnikov; 10) [interrogation] -“- 24. VII. - Roshal-Ilyina; 11) [interrogation] - “- 25. VII. - Lunacharsky; 12) decree on the arrest of Lunacharsky; 13) interrogations of Sakharov; 14) [interrogations] Sumenson; 15) the arrest warrant for Sumenson.”
Even more indicative of Alexandrov’s energetic and fussy work was the 19th volume, which contains interrogation protocols of 46 (I) people.
In the 20th volume, after the testimony of Galperin and 10 other accused and witnesses, a separate demand from investigator Aleksandrov was filed, obliging the criminal police to find Felix Kohn.
I will quote the inspection protocol of the last, 21st volume. It, according to the conclusion of military prosecutor Voronov, contains “interrogations of: 1) Kollontai, Dan, Plyushchevsky, Terekhov, Kusovsky, Kollontai (she refused to testify), Stasova E. - about the meeting of the Central Committee on June 10, 1917; Surits, Stepankovsky, Shimanovsky, Bogdanov, Starinkevich, Zaslavsky, Globachev, Pozner, Pyatositsky, General Alekseev, Foreign Minister Milyukov, A. M. Peshkov-Gorky; 2) the decision of investigator Aleksandrov on the failure to provide the District Court with data on the search for the unidentified Ulyanov and others.”
Alexandrov was taken into custody on January 17, 1939. It must be said that this was not his first arrest. He was first arrested by the Cheka in 1918. But, apparently, not without Lenin’s intervention he was released. It was necessary to give him appropriate explanations to the Soviet law enforcement agencies, as already reported, in 1925. But even then everything turned out well for him. But in 1939-1940. the investigation took his “case” seriously. This was explained by a new outbreak of the anti-Soviet and anti-Leninist campaign of bourgeois politicians, who were trying once again to blame the Soviet Union for the worsening international situation.
During the first interrogations, Aleksandrov showed that he did not wage an active struggle against the working class, did not fabricate false material about V.I. Lenin’s espionage, and gave the order to detain him on the basis of Kerensky’s instructions. In a word, he didn’t seem to see any specific guilt in himself. When he was presented with his testimony given in 1925, as well as the more than twenty-volume case he had created on charges of Lenin and other Bolsheviks, which, presumably, Alexandrov considered dead during the civil war, the tsarist investigator for especially important cases (he was awarded the Order of St. Stanislav, 2nd and 3rd degree, a medal in memory of Alexander III and the Bukhara Order of the Golden Star, 2nd degree) and Kerensky’s resourceful henchman was forced to admit a lot. Thus, during interrogation on March 13, 1939, he agreed that he took an active part in the investigative commission in the Lenin case.
He explained his activity by the fact that the July uprising of the Bolsheviks did not arouse his sympathy. In addition, there were reasons of a purely psychological nature. Alexandrov was irritated by the forced early recall to service from vacation. It was the July events, which frightened the Provisional Government and forced it to hastily look for a way out of the situation, that interrupted Alexandrov’s blissful vacation. He was included in the investigative commission by order of the Minister of Justice Skoryatin (at that time). Aleksandrov named other members of the commission: the prosecutor of the Trial Chamber Korinsky, investigators Sergievsky, Bokitko and Stsepura, district investigators Monsansky and Friddrisberg. Two days later, during the next interrogation, he admitted that he drafted the order for Lenin’s arrest, but it was signed by all members of the commission. He also revealed the main task that the authorities set for the latter - to prove the treason of the Bolshevik leaders and their espionage in favor of Germany. There were other testimonies: about an examination that proved the non-involvement of German capital in the publication of the newspaper Pravda, which was not customary to talk about; about distrust of the “main witness” Ermolenko, to which they also turned a blind eye; on Alexandrov’s order to carry out the forcible arrest of Lenin... on the orders of the prosecutor.
On August 9, 1939, Alexandrov wrote an official statement in which he tried to ennoble his active service to the Provisional Government and Kerensky personally, and to present his own role in a completely different way in the impending reprisal against Lenin and the Bolsheviks. It turned out that during the years of the tsarist reaction he sympathized not only with the socialist revolutionaries, but also with all social democrats, including the Bolsheviks. Moreover, he provided assistance to some of them.
“In total, I worked for about 45 years, of which 23 years under the tsarist regime and 22 years under Soviet power,” Aleksandrov wrote. - During all my judicial activities under the tsarist regime, I did not conduct any political cases and never fought against the working class. On the contrary, he provided services to the old Bolsheviks and political... citizen Bonch-Bruevich (a Bolshevik with 45 years of party experience) and Nogin. In confirmation of this, I ask you to include in the investigation what was given to me by the citizen! Bonch-Bruevich written official] certificate that I “snatched him and the late Nogin from the hands and persecution of the security department and helped them, in defiance of the security department, to live in Leningrad...” 2.
Alexandrov in a statement confirmed the testimony given to OGPU employees about his participation in the investigation of the activities of the Bolsheviks in the July
events of 1917. However, he insisted that he handled the case objectively. At the same time, he referred to “an official letter from one of the main accused, the late People’s Commissar, citizen Lunacharsky, addressed to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on granting me electoral rights.” Pleading guilty to interested zeal with which “with my characteristic experience I began the investigation and collection of evidence exposing the Bolsheviks as espionage,” he claimed that he checked all the evidence. “The main points and evidence,” the statement noted, “were put forward by the inquiry: the participation of German capital in the publication of the newspaper Pravda, the receipt of money from Germany by Lenin for the purpose of espionage, and the presence of a base for espionage - Stockholm. Having accepted this evidence, I examined it and determined that THIS EVIDENCE IS UNSOUNDABLE. THE INVESTIGATION HAS ESTABLISHED THE UNFOUNDABLE ACCUSATION (hereinafter it is emphasized by me. - Author).”
Aleksandrov further reports that the final conclusions he made about the far-fetched nature of the case allowed him, after two or a month and a half, to draw up a resolution “to release every single accused.” This fact, according to Aleksandrov, serves as convincing proof of his objectivity, otherwise he would not have allowed himself to release the accused before the end of the investigation, exposing the prosecution to attack and thereby failing the compromise of the Bolsheviks planned by the Provisional Government.
It was more difficult for Aleksandrov to explain the logic and “objectivity” of the instructions he gave to search for Lenin even after “all the accused were released on a small bail,” because it testified that both the Provisional Government and the investigation needed ONLY LENIN. “When the prosecutor of the chamber Korinsky,” Alexandrov outlined his exculpatory motives, “invited me and invited me to arrest Lenin, I refused, since at that time the accusation was refuted. He sharply told me: “I will force you.” And indeed, a day or two later I received a written order... from Kerensky with a categorical demand for his arrest. I did not fully comply with this either, having written to the local police only about the “drive”, I spoke on the phone with the chief of police (Mokhovaya Street, local), who warned me that this would not be carried out. This calmed me down... In August - more precisely, in September - 1917, I left the commission on the July events...”
Alexandrov’s explanations did not seem entirely convincing to military prosecutor Voronov, and he made the following conclusions: Alexandrov played a primary role in creating a provocative “high treason case” against V.I. Lenin; Aleksandrov himself selected all the incriminating material with special diligence; with the assistance of counterintelligence, he looked for persons “necessary and useful” to the investigation - provocateurs and secret police agents; the order to search and arrest V.I. Lenin was given by Alexandrov; all correspondence with the counterintelligence of the General Staff regarding the “Ulyanov-Lenin case” was conducted personally by him. In May 1940, Voronov, based on these conclusions, drew up an indictment, which, in particular, noted: “On November 17, 1939, Pavel Alexandrovich Alexandrov was arrested by the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR.
The investigation into his case established that Aleksandrov...in the summer of 1917 in Petrograd, on the personal instructions of Kerensky, headed an investigative commission, which, with his leadership participation, created a provocative investigative case against V.I. Lenin and the Bolsheviks on charges of “state treason"...
Despite the fact that the examination appointed in the case proved that German capital did not participate in the publication of the newspaper Pravda, and a number of interrogated witnesses proved the absurdity of the accusations leveled by Alexandrov against V.I. Lenin, Alexandrov still without any grounds, basing his testimony specifically framed persons, such as: warrant officer Ermolenko, Aleksinsky, Martov, chief of counterintelligence Medvedev, Colonel Nikitin, staff captain Golenishchev-Kutuzov, Major General Neslukhovsky, director of the police department Beletsky, General Alekseev and others1, 21.VII. In 1917, he wrote a decree to bring Ulyanov-Lenin and others as accused of espionage and high treason.
On the basis of these obtained investigative “data”, the majority of Petrograd newspapers discovered the blatant compromise of V.I. Lenin and other leaders of the Bolshevik Party. This circumstance is sufficiently confirmed by an examination of the investigative “materials” collected by Aleksandrov in the “case” of V.I. Lenin...”
Much is explained when you carefully read the investigation materials. Here's an excerpt from one document:
"PROTOCOL OF INTERROGATION
On the 1st day of June 1940, the military prosecutor of the Main Military Prosecutor's Office of the Red Army, Voronov, interrogated the arrested Pavel Alexandrovich Alexandrov in Butyrka prison, who testified:
Question: Alexandrov, do you understand what you are accused of?
Answer: Yes, I understand well.
Question: What do you plead guilty to?
Answer: I plead guilty to the fact that, being an investigator for particularly important cases under the Provisional Government in 1917, by order of the Provisional Government I was one of the active members of the investigative commission to investigate the case of espionage of Lenin and other Bolsheviks.
Question: Well, have you installed espionage?
Answer: No, I have not installed it. On the contrary, he established that there was no espionage on Lenin’s part. This was confirmed by my examination of the case, which clearly established that German capital did not participate in the publication of the newspaper Pravda.
Question: And on the basis of what data, Alexandrov, did you write a resolution on July 21, 1917 to bring Lenin and others to justice for espionage and high treason?
Answer: I wrote this resolution based on materials received from counterintelligence
Question: What kind of materials were they?
Answer: There were many records of interrogations carried out by counterintelligence.
Question: Did you believe them?
Answer: Yes, at first I believed it, but then I began to double-check.
Question: Alexandrov, why are you telling lies? From the case that you conducted against V.I. Lenin, which I examined, it is clear that you began the investigation on July 10 and on the same day you interrogated Ermolenko?
Answer: Yes, I admit that on the very first day I was assigned the investigation, I interrogated Warrant Officer Ermolenko.
Question: Why did you start an investigation with Ermolenko?
Answer: Because the prosecutor of the chamber, Korinsky, told me that a very important witness would appear before me, whom I needed to interrogate properly.
Question: Who is Ermolenko?
Answer: This, as I learned later, is a well-known provocateur, but in 1917 I did not know about this.
Question: Well, did this Ermolenko give you valuable testimony?
Answer: Yes, he gave me detailed testimony incriminating Lenin of espionage.
Question: Did you believe this testimony?
Answer: At first, yes. but then, when I checked them, I became convinced that these testimonies were false, given by him according to someone else’s instructions, and were in no way confirmed in the investigative materials I had obtained.
Question: It’s not clear, Alexandrov. You say that you have obtained information disproving the espionage of Lenin and others, and an examination of the materials of your investigation into this case has established that you showed exceptional initiative in this case, wrote inquiries about Lenin, tried to detain him, checked all the banks, collected everything in the press, what was against Lenin.
Answer: Yes, I admit that I tried to establish everything. what was possible regarding espionage.
Question: Did you give the order for Lenin’s arrest?
Answer: I did not give an order for Lenin’s arrest, but I did give an order for Lenin to be brought in for interrogation on the basis of a written order from Kerensky.
Question: Why did Kerensky intervene in the investigation?
Answer: The chamber prosecutor suggested that I arrest Lenin, but since I believed that no information about espionage had been obtained, I refused to carry out the order of the chamber prosecutor Korinsky, who reported this to Kerensky, and the latter proposed in writing to arrest Lenin.
Question: Did you carry out Kerensky’s orders?
Answer: No, I did not. I thought that the case had failed, so I cheated a little, I gave the police an order to bring Lenin for interrogation.
Question: Well, if Lenin had been brought in, wouldn’t you have arrested him?
Answer: No, I would not arrest him, I would prove that he is not guilty.
Question: What you are doing is implausible, strange and even naive, Aleksandrov. You wrote a decree to bring Lenin to justice and arrest, received an order from Kerensky to arrest V.I. Lenin, and now you say that you would not have arrested Lenin. Be frank, say that you are showing a lie. You tried hard to find Lenin and arrest him.
Answer: I am telling the truth that I obtained information establishing Lenin’s complete innocence, which is why I would not have arrested him.
Question: But, it is not clear, in all interrogations you especially tried to obtain information about V.I. Lenin’s espionage.
Answer: Yes, I admit that I was an experienced investigator, I tried to conduct the investigation as best as possible, since the task of the investigative commission was to prove high treason and espionage in favor of Germany on the part of the Bolshevik leaders, especially on the part of Lenin.
Question. From your testimony it follows that you and other members of the investigative commission tried to artificially create an accusation against Lenin and others and based the accusation on the testimony of specially dummies like Ermolenko.
Answer: Yes, it is. I showed this back in 1925 at the OGPU.
Question: Did you work in counterintelligence?
Answer: I did not hold any position in counterintelligence, I was not seconded to it, but only gave lectures on investigative techniques. But I included the materials that counterintelligence supplied me with on Lenin’s case to the case.
Question: What do you have to add, Alexandrov?
Answer: I ask you to write down what. When I obtained complete information about Lenin’s innocence, I reported this to the prosecutor of the chamber, Korinsky, and suggested that he drop the case. Korinsky did not agree with the dismissal of the case. I got an appointment with the Minister of Justice Zarudny, reported the whole case, he kept it for 6 days and then told me. that we need to bring it to the end, and then they will decide. I have nothing more to add.”
What else can you add here? Falsification is falsification. And yet it seems that the intention of the Provisional Government to “bring the work of Ulyanov-Lenin to the end” is perceived by some in our time as... an indication decades later. Reviving various “monarchical unions” and “noble societies,” opponents of Soviet power and the Bolsheviks are bending over backwards to discredit the ideas of the October Revolution and, first of all, V.I. Lenin. I hope the above materials will somewhat moderate this false patriotic fervor.
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1 During interrogations, Alexandrov, explaining his diligence in attracting such a large number of witnesses and accused, said that he strived for objectivity. But the facts tell a different story. With this “maneuver” he exerted psychological pressure on Lenin, who, due to his decency, could not calmly accept the fact that many people were suffering because of him, and, as you know, was already ready to appear in court. In this matter, Trotsky did a disservice to Lenin. By his voluntary surrender “into the hands of the law”, by his “noble deed” he. raising his personal authority, he humiliated Lenin’s dignity, forcing him to succumb to the provocation of the Provisional Government, the main director of this “performance” Kerensky and the nimble and unprincipled “sub-director” Aleksandrov. By the way. the latter later justified himself that he did not believe in Lenin’s guilt, but demanded his appearance only to comply with formalities. After the interrogation, he would say... He released Lenin and the others, which is what he did with the rest. The release of all those arrested on bail once again proves that the Provisional Government only needed Lenin for the trial and punishment of him. And it wanted to do this with the hands of a resourceful investigator who falsified the “espionage” case.
2 So in the document.
Colonel of Justice
N. L. ANISIMOV