Why during the years of the Civil War did Petersburgers fear to wear good clothes, but often used cocaine, how did the city live after the 1917 revolution, and why were the Bolsheviks able to hold on to power?

Senior Lecturer at St Petersburg University, historian Nikolai Bogomazov talks about the causes of the Civil War, the battles for Petrograd and the life of ordinary citizens against the backdrop of the revolution.

Arrest of disguised policemen in Petrograd, 1917. In the foreground is a group of students of the Technological Institute, members of the civil police.

- Do you think the Civil War was inevitable after the Revolution?

Certainly. When the monarchy fell in February 1917 and the Provisional Government came to power, it had a certain legitimacy in the public understanding. Partly thanks to the State Duma - the body of the old government, which took a direct part in the formation of the new one. Partly because of the abdication of the king, and then his brother Mikhail Alexandrovich, who called for submission to the Provisional Government.

But when the Bolsheviks took power in October, they no longer had any legitimacy. They had to conquer it by force, as many began to challenge their power. Including the former leader - [Chairman of the Provisional Government Alexander] Kerensky. The Menshevik Nikolai Sukhanov, one of the best chroniclers of the events of 1917, in his "Notes on the Revolution", in my opinion, rightly noted that since the head of the old government did not resign, then formally the country could make a choice of whom to consider as legitimate power, and who - a rebel.

Is it possible to single out some other main causes of the war? Or was it precisely the struggle of the Bolsheviks for absolute power?

Complex issue. It seems to me that one cannot say that one person waved his hand and people went to kill each other. The causes of the Civil War lie not only in the actions of the Bolshevik Party. This is a big complex issue that affects all spheres of society: domestic, national, social, economic, and so on. For example, the reason that is often overlooked is the First World War as a socio-psychological phenomenon and its role in subsequent tragic events in our country.

Imagine: about 15 million people were drafted into the ranks of our army and went through the crucible of war. They saw death almost daily, saw their comrades die. The value of human life in the eyes of these people has fallen dramatically. But these were young people - almost 50% were young people under 30 years old and another 30% were men from 30 to 39 years old. The most passionate part of society! Death has become a normal everyday occurrence for them and is no longer perceived as something out of the ordinary - morality has fallen, mores have coarsened. Therefore, in 1917, society so easily switched to a violent way of solving political problems.

It used to be said in our country that the overthrown classes, the landlords and the bourgeoisie, who tried to regain power by force, were to blame for the outbreak of the Civil War. And then they began to say that the Bolsheviks and Lenin were to blame. As trivial as it may sound, the truth really lies somewhere in the middle. It is no secret that even during the First World War, Lenin called for turning the imperialist war into a civil one. This stemmed from his understanding of Marxism.

However, no matter how much he wanted to, he could not single-handedly unleash a civil war, neither in 1914, nor in 1915, nor in 1916. It broke out at the moment when many causes came together. At the same time, it is worth recognizing that the October Revolution served as a trigger - after October 25, the solution of political contradictions finally turned into a military plane. Lenin himself said at the 7th Party Congress in March 1918 that the Civil War became a fact immediately - on October 25, 1917.

- How did the life of Petrograd and its population change after the Bolsheviks came to power?

The layman did not always perceive the October events as we see them now. He did not understand the scale, did not understand that this was a sharp demolition of everything old. Some even found out about the Revolution only a few days later. For many, it went unnoticed. People went to work the same way as before.

But gradually the life of Petrograd began to change quite dramatically. The change of power in the city itself was not at all as painless as it is commonly believed. Kerensky, unlike Nicholas II and his brother Mikhail Alexandrovich, was not going to give up without a fight. He went to Pskov - to the headquarters of the Northern Front - to seek support from the army. Together with parts of the 3rd cavalry corps and their commander, General Krasnov, they approached the city itself, to the Pulkovo heights, where they were stopped: the battle took place in the area between Aleksandrovskaya and the observatory.

And the city itself was restless. On October 29, a Junker uprising took place, the scale of which is also often underestimated. Junkers, for example, managed to arrest one of the members of the government - Antonov-Ovseenko. There were urban battles, artillery fired direct fire at the Vladimir cadet school on the Petrograd side.

- Did ordinary residents somehow participate in these events?

Fights were going on in different parts of the city: in those areas, people, of course, tried not to stick out. For the rest, the townspeople, for the most part, lived an ordinary life: they also went to work or somewhere else where they needed to go. But even if earlier the revolution did not particularly affect their life, now, purely visually, they have already begun to face its consequences, at least in the form of these battles. Agree, it's hard not to notice firing artillery guns within the city.

It is also worth noting that almost immediately the revolution touched those who are called "former" - representatives of the elite, the nobility, wealthy people, former officials. They were the first to feel everyday discomfort because of the new government.

- That is, the stories of wholesale robbery and looting by the Bolsheviks - is this true?

It should be taken into account that already by 1917 a very difficult food situation had developed in Petrograd. Often there was not enough food, and people survived as best they could. Sometimes trying to pick up the "extra" where they thought it was.

In general, 1918-1919 is not the most pleasant time in terms of urban history. On the street, those who walked, for example, in pince-nez, could get in - this was considered something like a bourgeois fashion accessory. On the street they could rob, they could kill, they could take away clothes. With clothes in the city it was especially difficult, and on a walk you could easily lose a fur coat or coat. Therefore, the townspeople tried not to stand out among the passers-by with their appearance. Everyone tried to disguise themselves as an average resident of Petrograd, preferably a worker. This was the safest.

- Has this image of the average citizen changed a lot since the Revolution?

Certainly. This follows from the general socio-economic situation in the city. All the memoirists of those years noted that people in the city looked terrible. Clothes and shoes are very worn out. During the Civil War, the appearance of the townspeople was very unsightly.

- This situation continued throughout the war?

It was difficult in 1918 and 1919, it got a little better in 1920. The main problem of those years was the food situation due to the war and the constant change of power in the regions. If you try to make a sad rating of the worst periods in the history of our city, then the blockade will be in the first place, and the years of the Civil War will be in the second. People did not die of dystrophy, as in the terrible blockade days, but there was not enough food. People were getting 30-50% of their daily allowance and were dying from illnesses from which they would have recovered under normal conditions.

In addition, the sewerage did not work, because in winter the pipes froze and burst. The city switched to stove heating. The stove "potbelly stove" is just an invention of that time. To heat the stoves, people dismantled wooden houses and pavements.

There were many other problems. There was almost no electricity in the city. Many enterprises stopped, trams almost did not run. Almost nothing could be bought from clothing. Plus, at that time there was very high inflation, and there were many types of money in circulation - both Kerenki, and royal rubles, and so on. Therefore, even if you had money, it was not always possible to buy something with them. Natural exchange has become widespread in life.

Is it possible to single out some scenes described in the memoirs that most clearly show the life of the city in those years?

There is a vivid scene showing that after the Revolution the city began to be cleaned very badly. City services then almost did not work, there was no one to remove the snow. One memoirist recalled that there was so much snow that one could climb onto a snowdrift and light a cigarette from a gas lantern. In addition, the rivers and canals were then very polluted. There was so much rubbish that ships could only navigate along the main channel of the Neva.

A detail from the field of the food problem - people, as well as later in the blockade, had to invent new ways to feed themselves. Bread was made with various impurities, sawdust - sometimes rye flour was only 15%. People baked cakes from coffee grounds and potato skins, ate fish with a head and bones, grinding them. No spoiled food was thrown away. With all this, the Bolshevik bureaucracy was in a completely different position - it was supplied with food much better.

Abuses by the new government began almost immediately. The city bureaucracy began to actively use its privileges: they ate normally when the city lived from hand to mouth, drove to theaters in cars, although this was prohibited due to a shortage of gasoline.

Or take the situation with alcohol. With the outbreak of the First World War, in 1914, a dry law was introduced, which the Soviet government extended until 1923. It was impossible to produce and sell alcohol - the city authorities actively fought against this during the years of the Civil War. But once the commandant of the city of Shatov was caught drunk. There were many similar situations.

- Did the introduction of dry law in general greatly change the life of the city?

People were looking for alcohol all over the city. Many pharmacies were closed due to the ban on private trade, and some drugs from there entered the black market. They were actively bought. Moonshine was very common. The prohibition of alcohol also led to the fact that people were looking for other ways to intoxicate themselves - the use of cocaine and morphine jumped in the city. Cocaine was especially widespread in Petrograd. Morphine was more the lot of physicians.

- Against the backdrop of such problems, people did not think about what was better under the king?

You see, against the backdrop of such extreme events as the Revolution and the Civil War, people think in slightly different categories. And it wasn't just bad. For example, the same workers received more opportunities - housing, an 8-hour working day, participation in elections, the opportunity to get an education, go to the theater. In those years, the city had a rationing system, and workers received first-class rations.

Another important point: the concept of building a future just society dominated the minds. People were told that now, of course, it’s bad, but a world revolution will come, we will defeat everyone and live. You just need to be a little patient. Plus, propaganda played on the fact that we are the first state of workers and peasants. We used to be exploited by everyone, but now we make our own decisions.

- But those who lived well before the Revolution clearly did not think so. How did they survive in such conditions?

Someone sold everything and left Petrograd, someone began to cooperate with the authorities. But on the whole, of course, it was difficult for them. They were often squeezed into housing or even kicked out of their own homes. They were given the worst rations and the only way out was the black market. But buying on the black market was also dangerous - you could fall under a raid. Yes, and money is not endless, no matter how much you save up.

- These same people before the Revolution owned tenement houses. How did they get their homes?

In March 1918, the famous decree was adopted on the maximum living space - one room for one person or two children. There were house committees in the houses, which looked at who borrowed how much, who lived how, and passed this information upstairs. As a result, someone's housing was taken away, while someone, on the contrary, was given.

Petersburg 100 years ago: how they rented and rented housing before the revolution

Where and how they looked for rooms to rent, where it was fashionable to live, who inhabited the house from the basement to the attic, and what “a good apartment for the middle class” meant at the beginning of the 20th century.

But in general, in Petrograd, the seizure of housing did not acquire such a scale as, for example, in Moscow. First of all, because the population of the city has greatly decreased. If in 1914 there were a little more than 2 million, and during the First World War it grew to almost 2.5 million, then with the beginning of the revolution, a sharp decline begins - during the Civil War, 600-700 thousand people lived in the city. People simply left amid all the events, and there was a lot of free living space.

In most cases, the expansion of living space was required by workers who had previously lived in barracks (dormitories) or rented corners. They lived not far from the factories and factories where they worked, that is, as a rule, on the outskirts of the city. At the same time, the “bourgeois” living space, confiscated or empty, on the contrary, was almost always located in the city center, where the workers were not at all eager to move - it was too far to go to work. In addition, transport in those years did not actually work normally.

- Did any cultural life survive in Petrograd?

Petrograd after the Revolution is a very non-standard city. There was almost nothing of what we are now accustomed to. There was practically no transport, heating and electricity, but at the same time, cultural life was conducted in the city. Theatres, museums, concerts. Chaliapin spoke. Although a large number of theaters had to be closed due to lack of fuel, the Mariinsky and Alexandrinsky continued to work. Especially the authorities tried to accustom the workers to the culture.

Separately, it should be said about education. Despite all the difficulties, many educational institutions continued to work. Of course, the number of students has decreased significantly, but those who wanted to, studied. But scientists and teachers found themselves in a terrible position during the Civil War. They were not classic "bourgeois", they did not have a lot of money, but at the same time they visually looked the same: they wore ties, some wore pince-nez, in general they dressed "bourgeois". They had a very hard time. In Petrograd, several prominent scientists and teachers died during the Civil War. Someone survived, but was subjected to arrests and everything connected with it. It was very hard, but they tried to work. Considering the conditions, it was quite a feat.

You have already said several times that people were robbed and killed in the streets. How did it happen? Gangs walked the streets openly?

Of course, there was rampant crime. This always happens when the central power is weakened - everything that could not get out before gets out. In addition, we have already talked about the general drop in morale. Criminogenic situation in the city was heavy. It multiplied by the difficult food situation and the inability of the young government to restore order. All this led to the fact that the streets were unsafe. In the dark it was better to stay at home.

A striking example of what is happening can be the case of Uritsky, the future head of the Petrograd Cheka. In March 1918, he was attacked in the street and robbed. If this could happen to one of the most prominent Bolshevik functionaries, then what happened to ordinary people? On the other hand, society responded to rampant street crime in Petrograd with frequent cases of lynching in those years. The crowd could simply catch some criminal and tear it to pieces on the spot, without trial or investigation.

- How many residents of Petrograd supported the whites against the backdrop of everything that was happening on the streets?

There was definitely some support. True, many of those who sympathized with the Whites tried to get out of the city, to flee to Finland or Pskov, which at that time was under German occupation. Of course, it was not easy for those disloyal to the Soviet regime, especially if the Bolsheviks had any suspicions - they, as they say, could come to them.

The further from October 1917, the more dangerous it was to express oppositional views. It is clear that Maxim Gorky could say whatever he thinks. Although his newspaper "New Life" was soon closed. But ordinary people, for the most part, still tried to hide disagreement, if there was any.

The townspeople tried once again not to attract the attention of the authorities, because, in fact, they were powerless and could face a situation where the arbitrariness of even the most grassroots boss could put them in a very difficult life situation. To bring trouble, it was enough just not to like some local commander or boss.

There was another trend: after the Revolution, the number of the RCP(b) began to grow rapidly, including in Petrograd. People, sensing the seriousness of the intentions of the Bolsheviks, joined the parties - some ideologically, and some guided by everyday motives.

- Could people remain neutral after the Revolution? Or was it necessary to take a side?

I think this was a common occurrence. Personally, I have a feeling that most of the former subjects of the Russian Empire just did not take an active position. Many tried to remove themselves from all the horrors, tried to survive on their own and save their loved ones in difficult conditions. A minority of the population fought actively. This does not mean that there were few such people - just less than those who were politically passive.

How then to be with the theme of the Red Terror during the Civil War? Is it known how widespread it was in Petrograd?

Terror in Petrograd had both a national plane, associated with the introduction of the Red Terror and an attempt on Lenin, and a regional one, associated with local events. For example, the assassination of the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, Moses Uritsky, or the complexity of the military-political situation in the northwest.

In the second half of 1918, a policy of terror was actively pursued in Petrograd. Some were arrested, some were shot. In my opinion, we do not have exact reliable figures. Some of the executions were covered by the city's daily newspapers, but by no means all. It is known that Gleb Bokiy, deputy chairman of the Petrograd Cheka of Uritsky and chairman after his assassination, in October 1918 called the figure of more than six thousand arrested and about 800 killed. This number appears to be far from complete.

Junkers on Palace Square, 1917

- Is the point of view that whites were supported by the upper strata of society correct?

This is a very strong simplification. The opinion that the entire former elite was white is not entirely true. It is a widely known fact that there were more former officers in the Red Army than in all the White armies combined. In addition, if we take, for example, the intelligentsia, then it traditionally largely adheres to left-wing views. Not communist, of course, but the left. Often the Bolsheviks, whom he may not have loved, were closer to the intellectual than the conditional Kolchak. Often, especially at the initial stage of the Civil War, an intellectual rather chose a politically passive life under the Bolsheviks than an active struggle against them, even if he internally disagreed with them.

On the other hand, it is just as impossible to assert that all the workers of Petrograd were Bolsheviks without exception. I think it is fair to say that a significant part of the classical proletariat did not sympathize with the whites after all. But at the same time, a worker could be a Socialist-Revolutionary, could be a Menshevik. He might not like the style of the Bolshevik leadership, some concrete steps or the poor food situation. Workers are not a monolithic class. In the same Petrograd, there were highly skilled workers who received a lot of money before the Revolution and could rent not "corners", but entire houses. It is difficult to imagine that such a worker advocated leveling.

- Did the supporters of the whites have other options than to flee from Petrograd?

You could have stayed. In Petrograd at first there were many anti-Bolshevik underground organizations. True, it is difficult to say about most of them whether they were engaged in any real activity. But some, for example, were directly involved in organizing the White Army in Pskov.

You could also go to the Soviet authorities and carry out subversive work. For example, there was a whole regiment for the protection of Petrograd, whose commanders, as we now know, from the very beginning were opponents of the Soviet regime and recruited people into the regiment accordingly. For a long time they managed to hide from the authorities the openly anti-Bolshevik mood of a significant part of the personnel. As a result, when this regiment went to the front against the Whites in 1919, it actually went over to their side with an orchestra.

Someone tried to establish contacts with the intelligence services of our former allies, primarily Great Britain, and act with their help. And the Social Revolutionaries continued to do what they knew best - to carry out acts of political terrorism against the current government.

- In general, during the Civil War, Petrograd became a “city of workers” to a greater extent than before?

Many who made up the non-working population of the city left the city. Representatives of the elites left, the intelligentsia partly left. The peasants also left, who had not yet completely melted into proletarians and had not lost touch with the countryside. Therefore, over time, the number of the working population in relation to the rest increased. The city became more workers than it was before the revolution. In general, the overall social behavior in the city has averaged out. The townspeople often mimicked the workers, even if they were not in reality: someone hid their origin in such a way, someone followed the fashion. Workers' slang could be heard more often on the streets, and the interests of the workers in many ways became citywide.

- How did the transfer of the capital to Moscow in 1918 affect the life of Petrograd?

First of all, this, of course, is the departure of the central authorities. In general, it is interesting that after the Revolution, the center of power in the city changed, that is, the place of concentration of power structures. If earlier it was located in the area of ​​the Winter Palace, now it has moved to Smolny. When the capital was moved to Moscow, Smolny ceased to be an all-Russian center, but remained an urban one. And it still persists.

As for urban life, the relocation of the capital brought our city to some extent to the political periphery: the uprising of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, the assassination attempt on Lenin - in a word, important events on a national scale were now taking place in Moscow.

- The city did not become poorer because of this?

The city became poor because of the military-political situation around it, and not because of the transfer of the capital. This was not at all the main cause of the city's problems.

Burning of royal symbols, photo: Karl Bulla

During the years of the Civil War, there were many separatist movements. Were there any utopian projects of secession from Russia in Petrograd?

In the sense of separatism, no. But in the first years after the Revolution, regionalism was strong within Soviet Russia as a federation. In the RSFSR, Petrograd for some time was the capital of a regional association of several provinces (Arkhangelsk, Petrograd, Olonets, Vologda, Novgorod, Pskov and several others) - the Union of Communes of the Northern Region. To a certain extent, this was an attempt by the city leadership to preserve at least some capital status for Petrograd. I did not want to become an ordinary provincial center.

If we talk about national separatism, then there was a problem with the Ingrian Finns. One of them in 1919 gathered in the Ingermanland regiment and tried to fight for the creation of the Ingermanland Republic, fighting against the Bolsheviks on the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland, together with the Whites and the Estonian army. They fought as if on the side of the whites, but at the same time they were not particularly trusted and feared them no less than the reds. It all ended with the fact that in the summer of 1919, during the so-called spring-summer offensive of the whites on Petrograd, during the days of the anti-Bolshevik uprising on the Krasnaya Gorka fort, a rather sharp conflict arose between the whites and the Intermanlanders, as a result of which the whites could not provide timely assistance to the insurgent fort and the rebellion failed. This is perhaps the only episode when the Ingrians were able to enter the forefront of the struggle between the Whites and the Reds for Petrograd.

The Ingrians on the other part of the Gulf of Finland, on the border with Finland, achieved more and were even able to proclaim the creation of their own state - the Republic of Northern Ingria, but this state entity was quickly liquidated.

“We were labeled separatists”: why Ingrian Finns and regionalists from Free Ingria are not the same people

How did the contradiction between the Finns and the regionalists arise and why activists who advocate the autonomy of St. Petersburg take to the streets under the flag of Ingermanland

- Is it possible to single out the key events in the Civil War, because of which everything ended with the victory of the Bolsheviks?

If we talk about our city, then I think that this is 1919, when the Whites were very close to taking Petrograd. They were on the very outskirts. But whether they had real chances is a debatable issue. They could take Petrograd, but it would be hard to keep it. Petrograd is a large city with a large working-class population that had little sympathy for the whites. And the North-Western Army at the peak of its power had only about 20 thousand bayonets in service. With such an army, it is difficult to defend the city. And yet it is necessary to maintain order in it - even the Soviet government had to have at least 6-7 thousand policemen. But the whites could take the city under a successful set of circumstances.

In the memoirs of the White Guards there is a symbol that wanders from one book to another - the dome of St. Isaac's Cathedral. The whites were so close to the city that they could see through their binoculars the gleam of the dome in the sun. This was best described by Kuprin in his story "The Dome of St. Isaac of Dalmatia." They had the feeling that Petrograd was about to be taken. They even had time to think in advance about how they would feed the population of the former capital: large cargoes of food were ordered from an American company. But it didn't work out.

An important role was played by the fact that the Whites failed to cut the Petrograd-Moscow railway line in the Tosno region, and reinforcements constantly arrived at the Reds. I think that, from a military point of view, it was a turning point at the front. Having lost their offensive initiative and stopped, they found themselves in an increasingly difficult situation every day, since the numerical superiority of the Red troops was constantly growing.

- If there was a real opportunity to take Petrograd, then could the Whites win the whole war?

It seems to me that a chance for this could appear only if the whites attacked on all fronts simultaneously. In reality, the offensives took place at different times, and the Reds, occupying the central region, managed to transfer troops to the front where the situation became threatening. First, the slogan "Everything to fight against Kolchak!" Was implemented, then - "Everything to fight against Denikin!".

- What role did foreign intervention play in the fact that the war took place and ended that way?

It must be said that the extent of foreign interference in the Soviet era was greatly exaggerated. There was not just such a huge number of foreign soldiers who would carry white power on their bayonets. Almost always it was a very limited contingent.

But, on the other hand, in many places, without foreign intervention, the white armies might not have organized themselves. For example, near the same Petrograd, the white army was formed in Pskov, occupied by German troops, while the Germans gave the whites money, weapons and equipment. The British played an important role in creating the center of the Civil War in the north. The Czecho-Slovak revolt served as a match that ignited confrontation in the east of the country. But there can be no doubt that the outcome of the Civil War was decided in the confrontation of the Russian people among themselves.

- When did Petrograd begin to return to normal life after the war?

In 1918 and 1919, Petrograd was a front-line city. He is constantly in close proximity to the fighting. Either the Germans are advancing, then Finland is restless, then the White Guards are attacking. In 1920, the city was far from the main fronts, but at the beginning of 1921, a new test - the Kronstadt rebellion. That is, almost all the time the city was near the front. It is traditionally believed that positive changes in the life of Petrograd began after the introduction of the NEP in 1921. The situation began to slowly improve. By the mid-1920s, the city revived and began to reach pre-revolutionary levels.

If we do not take the historical significance, how much remains in our modern life from the times of the Civil War?

If we talk about what is on the surface, then these are changes in the Russian language, revolutionary newspeak. All abbreviations and abbreviations, and terms of that time in general, which entered our language. In addition, of course, art remained in all its diversity. The same propaganda posters are still considered very strong works. I see typefaces that are obviously based on them all the time, especially in advertisements. Literature, of course: “Heart of a Dog” is probably the best portrait of the era, even if it is not Petrograd depicted on it.

If we go specifically to St. Petersburg, then this is the transfer of the center of city power to Smolny. The Field of Mars, which served under the tsar as a place for military parades, became a revolutionary necropolis. I suspect that young couples who now come there for a photo shoot on their wedding day do not always realize that this is, in fact, a cemetery.

The funeral of those killed during the February Revolution on the Field of Mars

In toponymy we have many names of that time. Not only in the city, but also in the region: for example, the village of Tolmachevo. There are also strange examples of toponymic solutions: for example, the village of Strugi Belye, which was called so even before the Revolution, when there were no White Guards. After the Revolution, it was renamed Struga Red only because it was occupied for some time by white troops. It is still called that now.

Much remains of those years that we still use without hesitation. Railway line to Veliky Novgorod passing through Novolisino. Now electric trains run along it and summer residents ride, but it was built at the very end of tsarist times and partly already in the revolutionary era. During the First World War, to supply the capital and the front, they were going to build the Petrograd-Orel railway, bypassing Moscow. But they managed to build only a section to Veliky Novgorod.

From the architecture of the period of the Civil War, nothing much remained in the city. There was no capital construction in the city, there were no building materials even for repairs. On the contrary, part of the building ceased to exist - especially the wooden one, which was dismantled for firewood. What else is left? Cruiser Aurora, of course. True, this is essentially a remake, but it stands in the place where [Aurora] really stood.

- Why do you think a lot of books and works are published about the Revolution, and much less is said about the Civil War?

Because the Civil War is a thing that split society, and to a certain extent this split has not yet been overcome. Although I would not say that there are so few works about the civil war. Little is published in our region, in the northwest, but in the south and east there is a lot of literature. A lot of scientific pop - unfortunately, not always of high quality. If an era is interesting, but there is no desire to read dry scientific Talmuds, then I urge everyone to turn to memoirs. I assure you that Denikin and Trotsky will give odds to any modern publicist.

In triangular brackets are page numbers. The page number precedes the text printed on it. Note numbers in square brackets. Printed: National history. 2003. N1 . pp. 3-21

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MOISEY URITSKY:
ROBESPIERE OF REVOLUTIONARY PETROGRAD? During the spring and summer of 1918 M.S. Uritsky, the head of the Petrograd Cheka (PCHK), became for the opponents of the Bolsheviks the personification of terror and a kind of Robespierre of revolutionary Petrograd. However, the facts, which will be analyzed below, refute such an idea. Among his party comrades and even among many ex-prisoners, he enjoyed a well-deserved reputation as a moderate, disapproving of extremes in repression. The Bolshevik leaders' characterization of Uritsky as "Trotsky's man" is also not entirely correct. In this essay on Uritsky's activities in 1918, I will try to show that he pursued his own, quite definite political line, uncompromisingly and firmly defending it if necessary. Moses Solomonovich Uritsky was born in 1873 not far from Kyiv into the family of a Jewish merchant. At the age of 13, he decisively rejected the deeply religious upbringing that his mother tried to impose on him. After graduating from high school, Uritsky entered the law faculty of Kyiv University, where he became an active member of the socialdemocratic student circle. In 1897, having completed his studies at the university, he devoted himself entirely to revolutionary work. Political agitation and propaganda, underground activities in Ukraine, Central Russia, the Urals and Siberia alternated in his life with long periods of imprisonment, exile and emigration to Germany, Sweden and Denmark. In the prewar years, Uritsky was a Left Menshevik, politically close to Trotsky, with whom cooperation continued during the war in Paris, and then in the spring and summer of 1917 in Petrograd. At this time, Uritsky enjoyed great influence in the Interdistrict Organization of the RSDLP and played a significant role in its unification with the Bolsheviks at the VI Party Congress in July 1917. Here, as at the VII Congress of the RSDLP (b) in March 1918, he was elected a member of the Bolshevik Central Committee. After the Soviet government moved to Moscow in March 1918 and until his death in August of that year, Uritsky was also a member of the Petrograd Bureau of the Central Committee. During the October Revolution, Uritsky actively participated in the work of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. Soon he also became a member of the presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the collegium of the NKVD. In addition, as a Bolshevik commissar at the reconstituted All-Russian Commission for Elections to the Constituent Assembly, Uritsky was responsible for its opening and work, so his dissolution in the perception of society was firmly associated with his name. An ardent left-wing communist during the internal party disputes about the Brest peace, unlike many other leftists, he was among those who, after the ratification of the peace treaty, stopped fighting for the continuation of the revolutionary war. Short, stout, with a slow, swaying gait, Uritsky was a man of a phlegmatic, if not gentle nature. Always dressed in a three-piece suit, with the same pince-nez on his nose,

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in 1918 he looked more like a university professor than a radical revolutionary. Trotsky was the most influential figure in the original composition of the Council of People's Commissars of the Petrograd Labor Commune (SNK PTK), formed on the night of 10 March 1918, simultaneously with the transfer of the central government to Moscow. He headed the Military Revolutionary Commissariat, which combined the functions of the commissariats of internal affairs and the military, and had unlimited power in maintaining internal order and directing the defense of Petrograd from the rapidly advancing German troops. At the same time, Uritsky, both as a member of the collegium of the Military Revolutionary Commissariat, and as the head of the PChK, was subordinate to Trotsky. However, a few days after the departure of the central government, Trotsky was recalled to Moscow, where he headed the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs, and Uritsky, remaining the first head of the PCHK, became the Commissar of Internal Affairs of the SNK PTK. However, this structure also proved to be short-lived. The organization of the Petrograd government was completed only at the end of April. It was then that at the First Congress of Soviets of the Northern Region, which took place in Petrograd on April 26-29, a coalition Bolshevik-Left SR government was formed - the Council of Commissars of the Union of Communes of the Northern Region. (SK SKSO), which lasted until the so-called left-SR rebellion in early July. Even before the formation of this government, the PChK, on ​​the abolition of which the Left SRs insisted during negotiations with the Bolsheviks, was separated from the Commissariat of Internal Affairs. At the same time, Uritsky retained control over the PChK and the Committee for the Revolutionary Security of Petrograd. The influential left SR P.P. became the commissar of internal affairs. Proshyan. Already on the first day of his tenure as head of the Military Revolutionary Commissariat of the Council of People's Commissars of the PTK, Trotsky announced his intention to "destroy from the face of the earth counter-revolutionaries, pogromists, White Guards who are trying to sow confusion and disorder in the city." Such bombastic rhetoric was in keeping with Trotsky's character. Two days later, Uritsky, as chairman of the PChK, issued an equally harsh-sounding order in which he threatened to shoot those who would offer bribes or attack members of the commission and its employees. But for him, such an order was rather unusual, and it must be assessed in the context of the rapidly deteriorating political situation, which had seriously deteriorated after the disorderly evacuation of the central government. In fact, Uritsky was supposed to organize the PChK from scratch. Before leaving for Moscow, the Cheka began organizing its Petrograd branch. It was decided that all important cases that the PChK would handle should then be sent to Moscow for a final decision. In a word, the PChK was to exist as a subordinate structure of the Cheka until the seemingly inevitable occupation of Petrograd by the Germans put an end to its activities. Accordingly, 2 million rubles, apparently constituting most, if not all, of the financial resources at the disposal of the Cheka, were to be transferred to Moscow. All members of the commission were also evacuated there, "leaving not a soul behind," and all the investigative cases initiated in Petrograd were transferred. Chairman of the Cheka F.E. Dzerzhinsky left to Uritsky several hundred prisoners held at the headquarters of the Cheka at Gorokhovaya 2 and in the famous "Crosses", and not a single document with information about the reasons for their arrest. Moreover, Uritsky did not even receive a list of prisoners. All this testified that, having abandoned Petrograd, the leadership of the Cheka considered it superfluous to take care of any prolonged activity of the Cheka. Therefore, one of the most urgent problems facing Uritsky was the problem of finding new employees. March 12, the very next day after the flight of the government to Moscow, the Petrograd Committee of the Bolshevik Party decided

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fork "to attract people from the districts to the commission, entrusting them with the further organization of work." Having announced additional mobilization in the district party committees, the city party leadership, as it did in other similar cases, refused to be responsible for the activities of the government body (in this case, the PChK). The next day, Gleb Bokiy, who in 1917 was one of the most respected members of the St. Petersburg Committee of the Bolshevik Party, also known for his reserved attitude towards political repression, was appointed Uritsky's deputy. At the same time, other veterans of the party occupied leading positions in the PChK. The leadership, the secretariat and the part of the Red Guard attached to the commission were formed quite quickly. It turned out to be much more difficult to find qualified agents and investigators. A significant part of the latter turned out to be incompetent and/or corrupt as a result. As soon as they got back on their feet, the PChK began to arrest those suspected of counter-revolutionary activities and speculation. However, judging by the reports of the non-Bolshevik press, many of the detainees were soon released. At the same time, Uritsky strictly adhered to the principle of the inadmissibility of releasing prisoners under the guarantee or guarantee of influential persons. As early as early April, his stubborn defense of this principle in the face of growing pressure from high-ranking Bolsheviks in Moscow, as well as Zinoviev, caused an unprecedented public controversy. As Uritsky himself explained in an official communication dated April 6, at the first meeting of the PChK in mid-March, it was decided "for fairness" not to release those arrested on bail. Therefore, he urged his colleagues in the government to refrain from such petitions. However, this call was consistently ignored. PTK commissars systematically interceded with him "for their acquaintances or acquaintances of their acquaintances." Moreover, having received a refusal from the PChK, many of them, through Uritsky's head, turned for support to Moscow or to the Presidium of the Petrograd Soviet. The leadership of the PChK, refusing to comply with the direct order of People's Commissar Podvoisky to release one of the arrested, organized by some Petrograd party functionary, and forced to obey another such demand coming from the chairman of the Presidium of the Petrograd Soviet Zinoviev, decided to make this problem public. Uritsky's official communication ended with a repeated demand to stop such petitions. The PCC, he added, was investigating cases and releasing detainees to the extent possible, and petitions for release were only delaying the process. Zinoviev responded by publishing a statement stating that only a few weeks earlier the Presidium of the Petrograd Soviet had released the well-known Menshevik R. Abramovich under its guarantee and had the right to act in the same way in the future. However, this case, in turn, Uritsky insisted, cannot be a precedent for the PChK, since Abramovich was released even before the VChK moved to Moscow. I have not been able to find out how this public controversy ended. However, in this context, more importantly, it illustrates the firmness of Uritsky in matters that he considered fundamental. Let's not forget that Podvoisky was a member of the central government, and Zinoviev headed the city government of Petrograd. At that time, executions of arrested persons continued in Petrograd, carried out not by the PChK, but by other bodies of the new government (the VChK began to practice such executions at the end of February). First of all, this measure was applied for especially serious criminal offenses. The number of murders and robberies committed by various gangs increased sharply in the city, and very often the criminals pretended to be Chekists. Wild, random executions also became more frequent, most of which were carried out by drunken recruits of the Red Army, Red Guards and anarchists. Every night, many bodies picked up from the streets were delivered to the main Petrograd hospitals. Often the killers hid by removing clothes from the victims. Most of the corpses remained in the morgues unidentified for several weeks, and then their disorderly

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but buried in mass graves. But the bodies identified by relatives were left by them in morgues. Cruelty flourished in Petrograd. Once at the head of the PChK, Uritsky from the very beginning refused to sanction executions. In general, his attention was focused not so much on establishing order through terror, but on specific measures aimed at stopping economic crimes, abuses by the authorities, violence on the streets. This orientation of the chairman of the Cheka, which was strikingly different from the policy of the Cheka in Moscow, was already reflected in his first orders. On March 15, 2 days after the approval of Uritsky by the Petrosoviet, he issued a preliminary instruction aimed at strict control over the investigation and at detaining corrupt Chekists, as well as criminals posing as representatives of the PChK. Notable was the exclusion of the Red Army from the bodies authorized to conduct an investigation. A week later, an order was issued giving residents of the city 3 days to hand over unregistered weapons, and those who violated it were to be tried by a military tribunal (they were not threatened with execution with a crowbar). Simultaneously, the district councils were ordered to increase street patrols to confiscate all unregistered weapons. On April 4, Nikolai Krestinsky was appointed Commissar of Justice of the Council of People's Commissars of the PTK. Like Uritsky, he had a law degree and vast experience in revolutionary activity, was on the side of the left communists during the disputes over the Brest-Litovsk peace, and proved to be an opponent of extreme repressive measures. A member of the Bolshevik Central Committee and the Petrograd Bureau of the Central Committee, he was known among his party comrades for his extraordinary memory, which was said to have developed due to very poor eyesight, which practically prevented him from reading. In combination with pressure from Uritsky, this appointment apparently forced the government of Petrograd to apply appropriate legal procedures to the arrested political opponents (it should be added that the authorities at that time were very concerned that, demonstrating their "human face" ", to win popular support). Another reason, apparently, was the urgent need to reduce the number of prisoners overflowing in city prisons, whom the authorities were not able to feed, maintain and treat for the rapidly spreading infectious diseases (typhoid was especially rampant in prisons). In addition, the Kronstadt sailors increasingly expressed their unwillingness to accept on their territory the detainees who no longer fit in the Petrograd prisons. Their position was expressed in an editorial in Izvestia of the Kronstadt Soviet: “Individuals and whole groups of arrested people have been and are being sent to Kronstadt... Moreover, together with most of them, even materials are not forwarded and no instructions are given as to what should be This ugly understanding of the role of Kronstadt must be put to an end. The big red Kronstadt is not a warehouse of counter-revolutionary elements, not a universal prison and not an all-Russian scaffold ... It cannot and does not want to be some kind of revolutionary Sakhalin; it does not want so that his name is synonymous with prison and executioner. A few days after his appointment, Krestinsky was authorized to streamline the placement of detainees, speed up investigations and trials in their cases. As was formulated in the decision of the Council of People's Commissars of the PTK, "The [Petrograd] Council of People's Commissars considers it absolutely necessary that those prisoners whose cases cannot be brought before the courts by the relevant authorities are immediately released. To this end, the Council of People's Commissars provides the Commissar of Justice with the widest powers -chia" . These efforts were reinforced by the May Day amnesty for many categories of criminal and political prisoners, initiated by the government on April 27th. Pre-approved by SNK PTK, the amnesty was approved without delay

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I Congress of Soviets of the Northern Region. Judging by the text of the decree published on May 1, political prisoners, all categories of prisoners over 70 years of age and criminal offenders sentenced for up to 6 months fell under it (the terms of imprisonment of those guilty of more serious crimes were reduced by half) .
Commenting in the press on his position on the amnesty, expressed at a meeting of the Bolshevik faction of the congress, Zinoviev tried to emphasize the political significance of this act. According to him, he argued at this meeting that "Soviet power needs to abandon the old methods of fighting political opponents, [that] Soviet power has become so strong that individual political opponents no longer pose a threat to it [and that] workers and soldiers Having defeated them in the economic and political struggle, they do not want to treat them as is customary in all imperialist and monarchist states. Before the city Soviet, which approved the amnesty, Zinoviev boasted that the question of it had been raised in Petrograd independently of Moscow. So it was. It is characteristic that when the collegium of the People's Commissariat of Justice, headed by P. Stuchka, learned about the scope of the Petrograd amnesty, she demanded that the SK NKSO annul those points of this decision, according to which "patented counter-revolutionaries" fell under the amnesty. Nevertheless, somewhat later, Krestinsky proposed to release the three most odious representatives of the highest tsarist bureaucracy, who were kept in Petrograd, S.P. Beletsky, I.G. Shcheglovitov and A.N. Khvostov. The Board imposed a decisive veto on this draft and decided to make the case public. At the same time, the restriction imposed by the PChK on executions was expanded. On April 16, the Petrograd Council of People's Commissars received Uritsky's report on limiting the powers of the Committee for Revolutionary Security of Petrograd to investigative functions. Neither the details of this report nor the comments on it appear to have been documented. However, the report apparently led to a comprehensive discussion of the question of which city bodies have the right to executions (the Committee on Revolutionary Security after the Cheka moved and Uritsky's ban on executions in the Cheka became the main institution that still carried out executions in Petrograd). As a result of this discussion, Krestinsky was instructed to "work out an editorial (a) on the inadmissibility of executions and (b) on cases when weapons should be used" . On April 23, Krestinsky presented his "instructions", after which the Council of People's Commissars of the PTK announced that from now on "not a single institution in the city of Petrograd has the right to be shot." This ban applied to the PChK, the Committee for Revolutionary Security, revolutionary tribunals, the Red Guard, Red Army units and district councils. Thus, in Petrograd, the permission for executions, proclaimed during the German offensive at the end of February, was officially canceled. The spring and early summer of 1918 in Petrograd were marked by a noticeable increase in the political discontent of the masses, caused by unfulfilled hopes for a quick conclusion of peace, a sharp increase in unemployment, chaotic evacuation, and catastrophic food shortages. In Moscow, such demonstrations ended with the undeclared "Red Terror", carried out primarily by the Cheka. No such policy was pursued in Petrograd, which was largely explained by the position of Uritsky, supported by Krestinsky and Proshyan. The dissatisfaction of the masses led here to the creation of a short-lived Extraordinary Assembly of Authorized Factories and Plants of Petrograd. Until its dissolution in July 1918. this organization enjoyed tangible support from the workers. As far as I know, although its leaders were persecuted, they were not arrested.
The dissatisfaction of the masses was also reflected in the pogroms, in which the workers were the participants, and in the sharp increase in open and aggressive anti-Semitism. The last phenomenon

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so characteristic of traditional Russian society was further exacerbated by the fact that many prominent Bolsheviks were Jews. As a rule, anti-Semitism among the workers was fueled and exploited by ultra-reactionary, monarchist organizations. One of these organizations, "discovered" by the PChK, was the "Camorra of the people's massacre." At the end of May, she sent out a leaflet to the chairmen of the house committees of all Petrograd, demanding that they provide the "Camorra" with information about the Bolsheviks and Jews living in their homes with a view to their subsequent destruction. The authors of the leaflet promised to subject all those who withheld this information or reported incorrect data to severe punishment. On May 30, the Petrograd Soviet, concerned about the influence of such propaganda literature on the already embittered workers, warned them "against pogrom leaflets distributed in the name of fictitious organizations by counter-revolutionaries, former leaders of the Union of the Russian People", adding that these leaflets are sowing "the most absurd, pogromist rumors aimed at causing confusion in the ranks of the working people. After 3 days, a special commission with unlimited powers was formed to suppress counter-revolutionary agitation, which "has recently been spreading especially widely due to difficulties in the food supply." The commission included Uritsky, Proshyan and Mikhail Lashevich (chief commissar of the headquarters of the Petrograd Military District). On the same day, the PChK managed to get on the trail of Luka Zlotnikov, the alleged author and main distributor of the Camorra Order. One of the leading investigators of the PChK at that time, Stanislav Baykovsky, acted on the basis of the version that the case of Zlotnikov and the Camorra should be considered part of a vast counter-revolutionary conspiracy of former members of the Union of the Russian People. However, the materials of the investigation file testify that he failed to find evidence of this version. Of the 90 people involved in the case, among whom was the first foreign agent of the Cheka, Alexei Filippov, only five were accused of direct participation in the activities of the Camorra. All of them were shot. Nevertheless, it should be emphasized that their execution took place only with the beginning of the "Red Terror" after the murder of Uritsky. Filippov's fate also deserves attention. Engaged in publishing before the revolution, he became an agent of the Cheka and a personal friend of Dzerzhinsky even before the Cheka moved to Moscow. During the spring of 1918 he continued to work for Dzerzhinsky, periodically traveling to Finland. However, after Filippov turned out to be a suspect in the case of the "Camorra of People's Reprisal", Uritsky, apparently without the knowledge of Dzerzhinsky, ordered his arrest and escorted from Moscow to Petrograd. At the end of July 1918 Dzerzhinsky unsuccessfully tried to secure his release. Filippov remained at Kresty until the completion of the Camorra case in September.
The period of mass unrest also saw the first attempt to abolish the PChK, which was a branch of the VChK, which in turn was created as a temporary institution. It is possible, however, that the already mentioned April report of Uritsky to the Petrograd Council of People's Commissars on changing the functions of the Committee for Revolutionary the security of Petrograd. One way or another, the main protagonists of these attempts were Uritsky, Krestinsky and Proshyan (who became part of the Petrograd government at the end of April), as well as the Petrograd district councils. By mid-June, Proshyan, who had openly expressed his hostility to the PChK from the very moment he joined the SK NKSO, developed a detailed plan for ensuring security in the city. He envisaged the creation of a trained "guard" of the Committee for Revolutionary Security of Petrograd at the city and district levels.

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and periodic mobilization of city residents to perform police duties. Unarmed patrols consisting of citizens were supposed to monitor order in the city around the clock and report "where to" about any manifestations of criminal activity, including political. While unrealistic, this plan obviated the need for ad hoc bodies such as the PHC. As Latsis recalled, initially the leaders of the Cheka also fundamentally rejected the "okhrana methods" - the use of secret agents, provocateurs, etc. and, like Proshyan, they pinned their hopes on being replaced by vigilant workers, becoming the "eyes and ears" of the Cheka. There are serious reasons to believe that Uritsky at that time supported the dissolution of the PChK. One of the reasons for this was that it was inundated with speculators. On April 20, Elena Stasova, then secretary of the Petrograd Bureau of the Central Committee, in a letter to Sverdlov's wife Claudia Novgorodtseva, who was in Moscow, wrote about the Cheka's dissatisfaction in Petrograd: "... If we thought that both commissions were absolutely not have nothing positive, then we would immediately launch an immediate campaign against them and achieve their elimination ... Criticism of the existing is always necessary ... I don’t know how Dzerzhinsky, but Uritsky definitely says that in the sense of fighting they constantly run into the fact that the threads lead precisely to them on Gorokhovaya, which is thus the center of speculation. There were two more reasons why Uritsky apparently did not oppose the idea of ​​dissolving the PChK. The leadership of this organization was deeply unpleasant for him, and relations with the head of the Cheka Dzerzhinsky, more importantly, were extremely tense. These relations initially turned out to be difficult due to the situation in which the Cheka left its Petrograd branch, evacuating to Moscow. Uritsky's demands to hand over to him the cases of the prisoners who remained in Petrograd were ignored by Dzerzhinsky later. But more significant was the fact that Uritsky considered the executions carried out by the Cheka useless, and the methods of interrogation - odious. His sense of distaste for such methods was reflected in an undated letter to Dzerzhinsky, prompted by the testimony of 14-year-old Vsevolod Anosov, who told of the extremely harsh treatment he was treated by Cheka investigators during interrogations in Moscow. Expressing his indignation, Uritsky demanded that Dzerzhinsky conduct an investigation into this incident and punish the guilty named by the boy. Undoubtedly, Dzerzhinsky, for his part, was outraged by Uritsky's unexpected detention of Filippov. Moreover, it seems obvious that the head of the Cheka was concerned about the shift of the Cheka towards moderation and considered Uritsky undisciplined and too soft for his position. Thus, in mid-April, he learned with indignation that some of the detainees whom he had ordered to be exiled by the PChK on suspicion of espionage had been released. His concern about Uritsky indirectly manifested itself on June 12, 1918, during a meeting of the Bolshevik faction at the First All-Russian Conference of Extraordinary Commissions, which met to discuss the most urgent political and organizational problems. The faction approved a tough resolution calling for "the use of secret collaborators; to withdraw from circulation the prominent and active leaders of the monarchist Cadets, right-wing socialist revolutionaries] and Mensheviks; to register and establish surveillance of generals and officers, to take under surveillance of the Red Army, command staff, clubs, circles, schools, etc.; apply the execution measure against prominent and clearly convicted counter-revolutionaries, speculators, robbers and bribe-takers. It is important to note that the faction also voted in favor of proposing to the Central Committee of the party to recall Uritsky from the post of head of the PChK and “replace him with a more steadfast and resolute comrade, capable of firmly and unswervingly pursuing the tactics of ruthlessly suppressing and combating hostile elements, ruining the Soviet power and revolution". Ivan Poluka presided over the meeting. <10>

The ditch is a key figure in the Cheka, the head of its most important department for the fight against counter-revolution. It is extremely unlikely that he could pass any resolution without the consent of Dzerzhinsky. However, the problem was not only in Uritsky. There is evidence that the position of Uritsky and Proshyan on the fate of the PChK was shared by Krestinsky and most members of the Petrograd Bureau of the Central Committee (which may have caused the mentioned correspondence between Novgorodtseva and Stasova). As early as April 13, the bureau discussed the resolution proposed by Adolf Ioffe to recommend to the Central Committee to abolish the Cheka and the Cheka. It said: “In view of the fact that the commissions of Uritsky and Dzerzhinsky are more harmful than useful, and in their activities they use completely unacceptable, obviously provocative methods, the Petrograd Bureau of the Central Committee proposes that the Central Committee petition the Council of People's Commissars for the cashing out of both these co miss this resolution. True, in the end, this resolution was votedshaft only Joffe himself. However, according toit is significant that the bureau decided "temporarilynot to initiate proceedings against beingsthe formation of the commission of Dzerzhinsky and Uritsky in view of the factgo, that's just a beauty with a gesture." Newspaper reports on the June 20 meeting of the leaders of the Commissariat of Justice apparently provide the key to clarifying Krestinsky's position regarding the PChK. As follows from these reports, which have not been refuted either officially or unofficially, the meeting was supposed to discuss the work of the "Uritsky commission" and the reorganization of the investigative department of the Commissariat of Justice. However, in reality, it discussed almost exclusively problems related to the activities of the PChK. After discussing them, the meeting participants made a decision to "liquidate the Uritsky commission." Information about this reached Dzerzhinsky in 2 days, and you can imagine it wow, how outraged he was. In a letter to the Party Central Committee dated April 29, he justified the need to replenish the Cheka with new employees, arguing that the continued existence of Soviet power depends entirely on a powerful and endowed with exclusive powers of the security body, large enough to maintain close ties with the party, the soviets and the working masses. His grandiose vision of the exclusive role of the Cheka in comparison with other organs of law and order and government agencies as a whole was reflected in the decision of the First All-Russian Conference of the Cheka to completely entrust itself with the task of "merciless struggle" against counter-revolution, speculation and corruption throughout the country. It was also reflected in the resolution adopted by the same conference on the need to dissolve all other security agencies, as well as in the declaration that emergency commissions are the highest administrative authorities on the territory of Soviet Russia. While the conference announced the claims of the Cheka to the exclusive role of a body ensuring the security of the country, and declared that the commissions constitute an extremely centralized power vertical independent of anyone, the Cheka of the second most important city in Russia - Petrograd was on the verge of self-dissolution. Having discussed this situation at the collegium of the All-Russian Cheka, Dzerzhinsky sent an official telegram to the head of the Investigative Committee of the NKSO Zinoviev: “There is information in the newspapers that the Commissariat of Justice is trying to dissolve the Uritsky Extraordinary Commission. The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission believes that in this especially aggravated situation on the contrary, the All-Russian Conference of Extraordinary Commissions, after hearing reports from the localities on the political state of the country, came to a firm decision on the need to strengthen these bodies, subject to centralization and harmonization of their work. Giya VChK asks to inform Comrade Uritsky ". But even before the Petrograd authorities responded to Dzerzhinsky's telegram, an event occurred that made the launch of the PChK very doubtful. It was the murder of Moses Goldstein, better known under the pseudonym V. Volodarsky, committed on June 20.

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26-year-old Volodarsky, a former member of the Bund, was a professional revolutionary who enjoyed a reputation among the Petrograd Bolsheviks as an excellent orator and journalist, a man who, with his energy and passion, can inspire and lead the people. In May 1917, upon his return to Russia from New York, where he was in exile, Volodarsky became one of the most influential members of the St. Petersburg Committee of the Bolshevik Party. In the spring and summer of 1918, he headed the Commissariat for Press, Agitation and Propaganda of the SK SKSO. In this position, Volodarsky oversaw a crackdown on the opposition press, especially intensified in May when he was the lead prosecutor in a highly publicized public trial against several non-Bolshevik evening newspapers. In mid-June, he also became the main organizer of the manipulation of the results of the elections to the Petrograd Soviet, as well as the editor of Krasnaya Gazeta, the organ of this Soviet. All this made him, along with Zinoviev and Uritsky, the most prominent figures in the city, arousing hatred and contempt on the part of the enemies of the Bolshevik government. On the other hand, among the workers who were not yet disillusioned with this government, who believed that the Bolsheviks were defending the interests of the proletariat, Volodarsky was still very popular. On the evening of June 20, at about the same time that the issue of liquidating the PChK was discussed in the Commissariat of Justice, Volodarsky was killed by a terrorist who, it should be noted, was never found. This act led to speeches by Petrograd party leaders and radical workers (supported by Lenin) in favor of the immediate application of severe repressive measures against opponents of the Bolsheviks. A little more than 2 months later, in a speech in memory of Uritsky, Zinoviev recalled a heated argument the night after the murder of Volodarsky, during which Uritsky dissuaded him from switching to government terror. According to Zinoviev, "Uritsky immediately poured a tub of cold water on our heads and began preaching composure... You know," added Zinoviev, "that we resorted to the Red Terror, in the broadest sense of the word, when Uritsky was not among us ... " On the night of Volodarsky's murder, the leadership of the PChK met with Zinoviev and other members of the SK SKSO. And here Uritsky's calls for moderation had their effect. If Volodarsky's assassination was conceived as a means to increase anti-Bolshevik sentiment among the workers, then it backfired. Judging by the reports of the non-Bolshevik press (not to mention the Bolshevik newspapers), the news of Volodarsky's death shocked the workers. On June 22, the editorial of Gorky's Novaya Zhizn, entitled "Madness", somewhat unexpectedly expressed grief over the loss of "a tireless agitator ... [and] a socialist leader who gave his soul to the working class", condemned his assassination as "madness" and spoke of concern that this act could lead to further bloodshed. The danger of government terror or rampant spontaneous street violence, or perhaps both at the same time, was indeed great. On the morning of June 21, workers' delegations lined up outside Zinoviev's office in Smolny, demanding immediate reprisals in response to the murder of Volodarsky and declaring that otherwise "the leaders would be killed one by one." The next day, referring to these appeals, Zinoviev declared that "we fought against this mood ... We demand that there be no excesses." Commenting on the situation in the press the day after the murder of Volodarsky, the head of the Revolutionary Tribunal, S. Zorin, thought that this act could be a symptom of the transition of the opposition to new forms of struggle against power, but he immediately added that even if this was so, " the judges of the tribunal will not, of course, have to resort to government terror. Volodarsky's colleagues at Krasnaya Gazeta demanded immediate retribution in the form of mass terror for the murder of their leader. At the same time, the Bolsheviks recorded the anxiety of ordinary members

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party about the unhindered growth in the activity of the enemies of Soviet power and the desire to settle scores with class enemies. On June 21, an emergency meeting of the executive committee of the Petrograd Soviet took place, at which the rapidly growing excitement of the masses was discussed. According to Novye Vedomosti, the meeting agreed that everything possible should be done to counter all forms of lynching. A similar position was also reflected in the resolution proposed by the Bolsheviks and adopted at the emergency plenum of the Petrograd Soviet on June 22. Uritsky informed the audience about the progress of the investigation, saying that the PChK was close to catching the killers. However, this statement of his is not supported by the surviving materials of the case of the murder of Volodarsky. Perhaps he was driven by the desire to moderate the ardor of supporters of government terror and street violence. The resolution approved by the Petrograd Soviet warned against excesses and issued a "final warning" to potential terrorists: excesses. But we declare briefly and clearly to all counter-revolutionary gentlemen, no matter how they call themselves: Cadets, Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, or whatever you like. The enemies of the workers’ revolution will be crushed mercilessly (emphasis added in the document. - A.R. .). To any attempt on the life of any of the leaders of the workers' revolution, we will respond with a merciless red terror. This warning is the last ... "This resolution was adopted unanimously.
A few days later, Lenin learned about the restrictions it imposed. He was literally enraged by the news from Petrograd and immediately sent an indignant telegram to Zinoviev: “Only today we heard in the Central Committee that in St. Petersburg the workers wanted to respond to the murder of Volodarsky with mass terror and that you (not you personally, but St. We are compromising ourselves: even in the resolutions of the Soviet of Deputies we threaten with mass terror, and when it comes down to it, we brake the revolutionary initiative of the masses, which is quite correct. This is impossible! The terrorists will consider us rags. Archival times. We must encourage the energy and mass character of terror against the counter-revolutionaries, and especially in St. Petersburg, whose example decides. And although Uritsky was able to prevent "excesses", Lenin's letter, as will be shown below, had a serious influence on Zinoviev. On the other hand, the murder of Volodarsky seemed to demonstrate that the need for the existence of such powerful specially created security agencies as the Cheka continues to exist. The movement for the abolition of the PChK, which seemed to have almost led to the desired result on the eve of the assassination of Volodarsky, came to naught as a result of this act. In fact, the deceased presidium of the Council of People's Commissars of the PTK had only to answer Dzerzhinsky's letter of June 24 about the impossibility of abolishing the PTK. On July 2, the leadership of the Cheka was informed that the information about the liquidation of the Cheka was false. Although the PChK was carried out after the murder of Volodaroppo suspected arrestspositioners on a much larger scale thanm before, Uritsky found himself inresisting growing pressure and did not authorize executions or the practice established in Moscow thanks to the Cheka of taking hostages from among major political figures who were to be executed in case of further attempts on the Bolshevikssome leaders. So, among those arrested at that time, the PChK turned out to be N.N. Kutler is a major tsarist official, a prominent cadet, deputy of the III and IV State Dumas. Detained June 23 (Tueorichno for six months), he was masteredawake in 3 days. According to newspaper reports,the suspicions of the Chekists were calledus intercepted letters from Kutler abroad. However, Uritsky, after reading these

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letters, did not find anything criminal in them and ordered the immediate release of the arrested. A week after Kutler's arrest, on June 30, Count V.N. Kokovtsov is the former prime minister of the tsarist government. This arrest was also prompted by intercepted letters, this time from the correspondence of certain counter-revolutionaries who, without Kokovtsov's knowledge, were discussing the possibility of appointing him head of a hypothetical post-Bolshevik government. Obviously, the release of the former dignitary was delayed by Uritsky's trip to Moscow in early July for the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Uritsky interrogated Kokovtsov on July 7, a few hours after his return, despite his busyness in connection with the "Left SR revolt." On the same day Kokovtsov was released. In his memoirs, he described this interrogation as a leisurely and polite conversation, devoted not so much to the circumstances of his arrest as to his resignation from the post of prime minister in 1914 and memories of Nicholas II.
Approximately the same thing happened to the writer, literary critic and journalist A.V. Amfiteatrov, sharply anti-Bolshevik. He was released after two days of detention at Gorokhovaya. In Novye Vedomosti, the newspaper in which he then worked, Amfiteatrov wrote that giving evidence to Uritsky was more like a conversation than an interrogation. The head of the PChK was interested in his relations with Grigory Aleksinsky and other "Plekhanovists", his views on foreign policy (orientation towards Germany or the Entente), his literary and journalistic activities, sources of funding for Novye Vedomosti. After discussing all these topics, Uritsky announced to Amfiteatrov that he could go home. Of course, all this gives no reason to deny that the detention on Gorokhovaya was a terrible and humiliating ordeal, or that hundreds of minor political prisoners were much less fortunate than Kutler, Kokovtsov and Amfiteatrov. Even the stories of the last two, who were pleasantly surprised by Uritsky's manner of conducting interrogations, do not give any reason for this. There is no doubt that the conditions in the extremely overcrowded prisons of Petrograd, which were real breeding grounds for diseases, were much worse than in the makeshift cells on Gorokhovaya. I would just like to emphasize the fact that while in Moscow the Cheka widely used extrajudicial executions of "class enemies", and the practical implementation of the "Red Terror" was in full swing not only in Moscow, but also in other cities, Uritsky continued to counteract the wave of extremism. After the assassination in Moscow of the German ambassador, Count Mirbach, committed by the Left SRs on July 6, Uritsky led the emergencymi operations of the Revolutionary Co.meeting of Petrograd, trying to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. He was preoccupied not so much with the raids on the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, who were widelyused by the authorities in Moscow, howto maintaining order and suppressing attempts by right-wing forces intake advantage ofscrap in government. The Left SRs and sympathizers arrested in this case (161 people) were soon released, and the case itself wasclosed and archived 18 Decemberrya . In Moscow, by contrast, the Cheka ended up shooting 12 Left SRs. True, the Moscow Left Socialist-Revolutionaries really planned and carried out the murder of Mirbach, while the Petrograd ones had nothing to do with him.and I. Nevertheless, the behavior of Uritzwho once again demonstrated the fundamental difference between him and hand leadership of the Cheka in approaches to repression.

* * *

The events of early July 1918 and their consequencesled to a significant tighteningpolicy towards real and potential opponents of the Bolsheviks in Petrograd. Among these consequences were the threat (albeit temporary) German okbathing, due to the murder of Mirbach, youthe phenomenon of PCHK sharply activatingongoing activities of counter-revolutionaries, as well ase disappearance of the softening effectleft SRs against the Petrograd government (especially important in this respect)<14> nii was the loss of Proshyan, who was forced to hide after the death of the German ambassador). The shortage of qualified personnel in the PChK became even more noticeable, since the majority of the Left Social Revolutionaries fell into the category of "enemies" of Soviet power, and the number of Bolsheviks who left Petrograd and went either to the front or as part of food detachments in search of bread was constantly growing. In the atmosphere of the growing crisis, the idea of ​​mass terror, officially approved on July 5 by the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, became more and more attractive to the most radical Petrograd Bolsheviks. On July 23, the St. Petersburg Committee of the RCP(b) spoke out in favor of the widespread use of political repression. An additional argument in favor of such a policy was threatening reports of a rapid increase in the activity of counter-revolutionary organizations in the Vasileostrovsky district. According to them, about 17 thousand officers, many of whom considered themselves monarchists, were planning a counter-revolutionary conspiracy. No details of the conspiracy are mentioned in the record of the PC meeting, but it was obviously taken very seriously. The committee adopted a resolution condemning the "slackness" of the government's policy towards political opposition and proclaiming the need for "the use of the Red Terror against attempts by counter-revolutionaries to actually insurrection." Assuming to insist on the use of mass terror, the committee decided to organize another meeting in the evening of the same day with the participation of members of the Petrograd Bureau of the Central Committee (Zinoviev, Zorin, Uritsky and Pozern were named among the main participants). It was to take place at the Astoria Hotel, at that time the residence of many Bolshevik leaders, also known as the "Chekist Hotel" because of its proximity to Gorokhovaya 2. It is not known what decisions were made at this meeting. Indirect evidence suggests that the St. Petersburg Committee failed to convince the majority of party leaders of the need to immediately proclaim the "Red Terror" or at least lift the ban on the use of executions, adopted back in April. However, the arrests of suspected oppositionists, most of whom were declared hostages, increased noticeably. The prisoners at Gorokhovaya 2 were immediately transferred to a stricter prison regime in order to make room for new detainees. Pyotr Palchinsky, an eminent engineer and senior official of the Provisional Government, who had already spent more than a month in his cell on Gorokhovaya, escaped this fate in part due to the intercession of his colleagues, who urged Zinoviev to release him on the grounds that his research was vital to the Soviet government. In early August, Zinoviev, under pressure from the scientific community, petitioned the PChK for the release of Palchinsky as a "bourgeois specialist." In a reply dated August 10, Varvara Yakovleva, who signed the letter for the head of the PChK, acknowledged the scientific significance of the arrestee's research. By refusing to release him, she agreed to make some special indulgences that were supposed to facilitate the continuation of these studies. The document stated: “In response to your letter about Palchinsky, the Extraordinary Commission brings to your attention that upon receipt of it, Count Palchinsky, listed as a hostage, was immediately again interrogated by the members of the Presidium of the Extraordinary Commission. The interrogation established that Palchinsky really great scientist, geologist... He did not interrupt his scientific work, which was of great empirical and technical significance, even in conclusion.But at the same time, the Extraordinary Commission had to take into mayor in Petrograd, strangled the workers' press, being Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, he, together with Skobelev, waged a fierce campaign against the factory committees, fought against workers' control and, with his laws, as well as his practical activities, reduced to there is no regulation of economic life The revolutionary workers of Petrograd would have met with indignation and indignation the release of such a major political figure hostile to them. In the list of hostages throughout Russia, Palchinsky undoubtedly and rightfully occupies one of the first places. Besides that-<15> First, during the interrogation it turned out that Palchinsky's political views had not changed at all and he still continues to think that the Bolsheviks were always German agents, and those events that are taking place are taking place contrary to the tactics of the Bolsheviks. On this basis, the Extraordinary Commission rejected the proposal to release Palchinsky and decided to leave him in custody, providing him with a number of benefits, namely: 1) an increase in the duration of the walk, 2) transfer to a hospital position, lighting services outside of normal times and 5) the provision of some amenities that are not required in prison: your own bed, carpet, etc." This letter is significant in several respects. First of all, it follows from it that the practice of detaining prominent political figures for an indefinite period as hostages, which Uritsky successfully opposed in June and July, became a fact in Petrograd in August. Secondly, the claims of the Cheka for a special status, proclaimed at the First All-Russian Conference of the Cheka in June, were clearly reflected in the defiant tone of the letter addressed not to anyone, but to the head of the Petrograd government, a member of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and his Petrograd bureau and a well-known comrade of Lenin. But the most interesting is the unexpected appearance of Yakovleva as a key figure in the PChK. A prominent Moscow Bolshevik, in May she was transferred, together with Latsis, from the collegium of the NKVD to a leading position in the Cheka. Both of them quickly turned into fanatical Chekists. The official motive for Yakovleva's business trip to Petrograd in early August was the coordination of an investigation into a case that later became known as "The Case of the Three Ambassadors" or "The Lockhart Case". However, a letter to Zinoviev, written shortly after Yakovleva's arrival in Petrograd, in which she not only challenged her addressee, but also spoke on behalf of the head of the PChK, suggests that she had tasks that were broader than the investigation of this important case. Obviously, its main task was to bring the position of the PChK in relation to the "Red Terror" in accordance with the policy of the Cheka. In early August, it became more and more obvious that Uritsky was gradually losing ground under the onslaught of supporters of the "Red Terror".a" in the SK SKSO, as well as in the leadershipPHC. The concept of class antagonismcalled especially uncompromisingbut minded Bolsheviks, including the editorial board of Krasno th newspaper", comm nists in the districts and the majority of the St. Petersburg Committee, manifested itself at the II Congress of Soviets of the Northern Region, held in Smolny 1-2August. Contrast with the firstrail congress, where relatively moderate moods prevailed, was a zitel nym. The nature of the two congresses was just as different. The first was a truly business-like meeting at which the Bolsheviks and the Leftse Socialist-Revolutionaries discussed the most importantproblems and worked out compromise solutions. wtothe swarm looked more like a polytic rally, reminiscent of what he turned intoby that time the plenarymeeting of the Petrosoviet. The number of congress delegates wasmuch less attendancewho fought on it, among whom were the Petrograd and Kronstadt Soviets in full force; delegates to work conferences organized by district councils; members of the Central Council of Trade Unions, Red Army and Navy Committees, as well as the Central and District Committeesrailroad workers. broughtto the state of extreme excitation of the igniterspeeches of Sverdlov and Trotskothose who came specially for this occasion from Moscows, the participants of the congress approved the reresolution "On the current moment", which contained a program for an immediate transition to mass terror. It said: "The Soviet government must ensure its rear by taking the bourgeoisie [as a class] under its supervision [and] carrying out mass terror against it." The resolution ended with the words about "massive arming of the workers and the exertion of all forces for a military campaign against the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie with the slogan 'Death or. victory"" . The resolution implied the revival of the extrajudicial executions practiced by the Cheka since February. Considered already the "owner" of the city, Zinoviev, by his own admission, became a supporter of the "red terror" immediately after the murder of Volodarsky,<16> however, he was restrained in putting his view into practice by Uritsky and, in all probability, by Proshyan and Krestinsky. As already mentioned, the moderating influence of Proshyan and the Left SRs in general was nullified after the assassination of Mirbach. Krestinsky, in mid-August, was summoned to Moscow, where he headed the People's Commissariat of Finance. As a result, at the very time when Yakovleva was putting pressure on Uritsky as the head of the PChK, he found himself increasingly isolated in the NK NKSO. The result of the weakening of the influence of Uritsky manifested itself quickly enough. On August 18, at a meeting of the SC SKSO, a decree was adopted,who cleared the PChK (and only her) raceshoot the counter-revolutionaries of their ownlast. It read: "Council of Komissarov communes of the northern region declares to the public: the enemies of the people defy the revolution, kill our brothers, sow andchange and thereby force someonemoon to self-defense. The Council of Commissars declares: for counter-revolutionary agitation calling on the Red Army men to disobey the orders of the Soviet government, for secret or overt support of this or that foreign government, for recruiting forces for the Czecho-Slovak or Anglo-French gangs, for espionagein, for bribery, for specfor looting and raids, for pogroms, for sabotage, etc. crimes perpetrators d are subject to immediate execution. Executions are carried out only by order of the Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolutionand speculation under the Union of Laboroutgoing communes of the Northern region. Each case of execution is published in the newspapers. " Uritsky could only achieve the adoption of a reservation that the execution requires a unanimous decision of the board of the PChK. The decision to use executions was approved on August 19 at a meeting of the board of the PChK. There is no doubt that Uritsky ardently and persistently opposed him. Extremely interesting evidence on this topic was recorded by S.G. Uralov already in the Khrushchev era. It was drawn by him from some unpublished memoirs of an unnamed young Chekist at that time, a member of the board of the PChK, who was very aggressive and was a kind of "troublemaker." He recalled the ongoing pressure on Uritsky before the meetingeat board on 19 August. "All camore and more often they began to talk about the need for executions, - Uralov quotes the words of this Chekist. -- Repeatedly before Comrade Uritskyd comrades at official meetingsDenmark and in private conversations raised the issue of redm terror". Next, ut is transmittedChekist's statement that after the decision of the SK NKSO on the use of executions was approved by the collegium, Uritsky was the only one who opposed him. He argued his position with practical arguments. However, when the board rejected his argument about the futility of executions, he abstained from voting on the fate of 21 prisoners (among them were political opponents of the Bolsheviks and criminals), so that the will of the majority prevailed. 2 days later, on August 21, they were shot. The composition of this first group of victims of the PChK, published in the press on August 22, is very indicative. 9 of them were shot for criminal offenses (including 4 former commissars of the PChK). Most of the rest were charged with conducting counter-revolutionary agitation among the soldiers of the Red Army. Among the latter was former officer Vladimir Pereltsveig, who, along with 6 of his colleagues, was accused of anti-Soviet agitation among the cadets of the Mikhailovsky Artillery Academy. The execution of Perelzweig had very serious consequences, primarily for Uritsky himself. On the night of the first KGB executions, the prevailing spirit of violence against the political opposition in the city was adequately captured in the resolution adopted by the Fifth Congress of Soviets of the Petersburg Province. (The congress was held on August 21-23). "In every village and in every county town, we must carry out a radical cleansingku, it said. -- Counterrevolutionary officers and all White Guards in general who are plotting to return the power of the rich must be destroyed mercilessly. "A week later, on August 28, the plenary meeting of the Petrosoviet in response to an alleged attempt to ears on Zino Vieva took another step towards the official announcement in the city of the "Red Terror". Disturbed by an unsubstantiated rumor that some suspicious individual <17> two days earlier, wanting to kill Zinoviev, he was looking for him in the Astoria, the Soviet adopted a resolution stating that the time for warnings had passed: "If even a hair falls from the head of our leaders, we will destroy those White Guards who are in our hands we will exterminate the leaders of the counter-revolution without exception." This resolution was similar to the one adopted by the Petrograd Soviet on June 22, after the assassination of Volodarsky. However, if that one only warned, then this one, adopted in the extremely thickened atmosphere at the end of August, already left little doubt that it would form the basis of the policy of the authorities. On the morning of August 30, Uritsky, on his way to hisoffice at the Commissariatof them on Palace Square, was killed. circumstancesyour very murder and dramaticthe capture of the one who committed it, completely pexplained in the materials excitednogo Cheka case. In short, Uritsky was shot dead by 22-year-old Leonid Kannegiser, a former cadet of the Mikhailovsky Artillery Academy, also known in Petrograd literary circles as a talented painter.this . Although Kannegiser, apparentlyApparently, he was a member of the People's Socialist Party and ardently supported Kerensky in 1917, during numerous interrogations in the PChK he was refusedconfessed to hisloyalty to any organization and firmly declaredthat acted alone. PCHK installedthat after the October Revolution he was a saintZan with underground counter-revolutionsorganizations. However, the conclusion of the HRC,according to which the murder of Uritzwho was part of a vast conspiracy against Soviet power is not supported by any of the evidence contained in the case. A close friend of Kannegiser was Perelzveig, who was shot on August 21. Kannegiser had no idea that Uritsky was a firm opponent of executions and, in particular, tried to prevent the execution of Perelzweig and his comrades. Surname Uritsky appearedyalas in published in hazetah execution orders, and by his own admissionniyu Kannegiser, he avenged giunderwear of his comrade. According to Aldanov, "the death of a friend made him a terrorist." Kannegiser was executed. However, to the indignation of the Chekist investigators, 144 others detained in this case, including his mother, father, sisters and many friends and acquaintances whose names were found in his notebook, somehow survived the "Red Terror" and were released . The data that formed the basis of this essay testify that Uritsky was neither the Robespierre of revolutionary Petrograd, as it seemed to the opponents of the Bolsheviks, nor the "man of Trotsky", as some Bolshevik leaders believed. From the very beginning of his activity as head of the PChK, Uritsky undoubtedly acted without regard for anyone. Supportand Krestinsky, Proshyan, and otherwhere even Zinoviev, he successfully counteractedexecutions and other extrememothers of repression and violence against political opponents at a time when they have become the norm in Moscow. Its deterrent roletala especially important after the murdersVolodarsky’s property, when the pressure of theizu in favor of the implemented Cheka forpolicy of the Red Terror. She was no less important inthe second half of July, whenYes, the demand for decisive measures against the counter-revolutionaries was voiced by the St. Petersburg Committee of the RCP(b) and from Moscow by Lenin. At the same time, the independence and firmness of Uritsky in upholding his principles, like nothing else m, brightly reflect was in his refusal to release the detainees on bail or bail, despite the insistent demands of his comrades and Moscow leaders. It is much more difficult to answer the question why Uritsky, who throughout his life was a staunch and radical revolutionary, was such an ardent opponent of the "Red Terror". Of course, he was not at all like David Ryazanov, who, regardless of the circumstances,considered arbitrary any violationbasic civil rights, even if they arefought the most violent enemies of Sovet power. Retelling the already mentionedunpublished memoirslogogo Chekist about the last days of Uritsky, S.G. Uralov writes that the head of the PChK<18> was angered by the accusation of "softness" and declared that he opposed executions not because of spinelessness or remorse, but because he considered them inappropriate. This is how Uralov recounts Uritsky's conversation with this unnamed author of the memoirs: "Listen, comrade, you are so young," Uritsky told me, "and so cruel." feelings of personal cruelty, but out of a sense of revolutionary expediency, but you, Moses Solomonovich, are against executions solely because of softness. " Here Uritsky became very angry with me and excitedly answered: "I am not at all soft-bodied. If there is no other way out, I will shoot all the counter-revolutionaries with my own hand and be completely calm. I am against executions because I consider them inappropriate. This will only cause anger and will not give positive results. On the other hand, the personal experience and subsequent testimonies of such political prisoners as Kutler, Kokovtsov and Amfiteatrov, as well as the testimonies of Uritsky's close comrades, suggest that the answer to the above question is more complex, that the duties of the head of the PChK were Uritsky is disgusted and he performed them, obeying the feeling of devotion to the party. All this forces us to assert that the clarification of Uritsky's motivation will be possible only after the opening of the relevant archival files of the FSB. The assassination of Uritsky on the morning of August 30 and the unsuccessful attempt on Lenin's life that evening in Moscow are usually regarded as the immediate causes of the "Red Terror" in revolutionary Russia. However, the above facts make it possible to consider such an interpretation false, since the "Red Terror" in all its forms was used in Moscow and other Russian cities for several months before these events. In Petrograd, the practice of taking political hostages spread from the end of July 1918; August. However, it is indisputable that the murder of Uritsky, together with the failed assassination attempt on Lenin, really led in the former Russian capital to a powerful wave of arrests and a real orgy of executions (carried out not only by the PChK, but also by regional security agencies, numerous groups of soldiers and workers ), which surpassed everything that was before even in Moscow. Not surprisingly, the initiative to unleash the "Red Terror" after Uritsky's death came from the St. Petersburg Committee of the Bolshevik Party. Immediately after receiving the news of this event, a meeting of the city party leadership was scheduled, which took place at 2 pm in "Astorii". The only source offormations about the meeting that I was able to discover are the memories of E.D. Stasova. According to them, at the very beginning of the meeting, Zinoviev, clearly impressed by the scolding received from Lenin after the assassination of Volodarsky, demanded that this time decisive measures against the political opponents of the Bolsheviks be taken without any delay. Among the measures he insisted on was "allowing all workers to deal with the intelligentsia in their own way, right on the street." According to Stasova, the comrades listened to Zinoviev "in embarrassment." Alarmed, she took the floor to object to Zinoviev, who ran out of the room in a rage without listening to her speech. As a result, it was decided to form special "troikas" and send them to the regions to catch "counter-revolutionary elements". That same evening mass arrests and executions began. Most of the executions carried out by the PChK during the "Red Terror" apparently took place in the first few nights after the murder of Uritsky. On September 2, Voznesensky, a deputy of the Moscow Soviet, who had just returned from Uritsky's funeral, informed the council that "500 representatives of the bourgeoisie have already been shot there." If this figure is correct, then it includes almost all (with the exception of 12) executions that were announced in the list of executions by the PChK published by Petrogradskaya Pravda on September 6, and more than 2/3 of those 800 executed by the PChK for the entire period " red terror", which were reported in mid-October by G.I. Boky in his report at the congress of the Cheka of the Northern region. By<19> the irony of fate, the rampage of the "Red Terror" in Petrograd, which Uritsky tried with all his might to avoid, was partly the result of an insistent desire to settle accounts with class enemies, "accumulated" during the time when he led the PChK.Notes
1 Bulletin of the Regional Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the Union of Communes of the Northern Region asti. 1918. N 2. September. S. 61.
2 Ibid. pp. 57, 58, 60, 61, 71; L u n a c h a g s k y A.V. Revolutionary Silhouettes. L., 1967. P. 127; 3 at b about c V.P. The troubled years of Russia. Memories of the Revolution, 1917-1925. Munich, 1968. S. 51.
3 Berezhkov V.I. St. Petersburg procurators: leaders of the Cheka - MGB. SPb., 1998. S. 14.
4 Red newspaper. 1918. March 12. C. 1.
5 CGA St. Petersburg, f. 142, op. 1, d. 28, l. 68. See Proshyan's insightful characterization: A. Razgon. People's Commissar of Posts and Telegraphs P.P. Proshyan // First Soviet Government, M., 1991. pp. 398-420.
6 Petrogradskaya Pravda. 1918. March 15. C. 1.
7 Our century. 1918. March 15. C. 1.
8 L i t v i n A.L. Left SRs and the Cheka. Sat. doc. Kazan, 1996. P. 5 1. See also: Kutuzov A.V., Lepetyukhin V.F., Sedov V.F., Stepanov O.N. Chekists of Petrograd on guard of the revolution. L., 1987. S. 101.
9 L i t v i n A.L. Left SRs and the Cheka. S. 5 1-52.
New Life (Petrograd). 1918. March 14. P. 1. On March 23, the Petrograd Bureau of the Central Committee sent an angry letter to the Central Committee, in which they protested about thestanding central governmentleft him the city. The behavior of the "Dzerzhinsky Commission" aroused particular indignation among the authors of the letter: "He took out the papers, [and] took out the investigators, and left the defendants here." Calling the current situation "outrageous", the Petrograd bureau demanded that Dzerzhinsky "immediately arrive and take measures" (RGASPI, f. 446, op. 1, d. 1, fol. 2-2v.).
11 TsGAIPD St. Petersburg, f. 4000, op. 4, d. 814, l. 83.
12Berezhkov V.I. Decree. op. S. 14.
13 Our century. 1918. March 17. S. 4; Red newspaper. 1918. March 30. C. 3.
14 See, for example, the report on the release of 6 persons recently detained by the PChK: Novye Vedomosti (evening issue). 1918. March 18. S. 5.
15 Ibid. April 6th. C. 1.
16 Our century. 1918. April 7th. C. 1.
17 Ibid. 11 April. C. 1.
18 Thus, on April 23, on the orders of the Committee for the [revolutionary] security of Petrograd, 3 robbers were shot (ibid. April 26, p. 3).
19 This phenomenon is particularly fully reflected in the minutes of meetings of the Vyborg District Council during this time (TsGA St. Petersburg, f. 148, op. 1, file 51).
20 See: The Horrors of Time// New Vedomosti (evening issue). 1918. April 13. S. 7.
21 A.L. Lytvyn published copies of the minutes of 14 meetings of the Cheka, held in January-May 1918. Despite the fragmentation, these protocols nonetheless clearly indicate the rate of the majority of the leaders of the Cheka on extrajudicial executions as a means of controlling crime and political opposition (see: Litvin A.L. Left Social Revolutionaries and the Cheka. S. 48- 65).
22 Our century. 1918. March 16. C. 1.
23 Collection of decrees and resolutions on the communes of the Northern region. Issue. 1.4. 1 , Pg., 1919. S. 97.
24 CGA St. Petersburg, f. 2421, op. 1, d. 1, l. 142.
25 News of the Kronstadt Soviet. 1918. March 10. C. 2.
26 Banner of Labor, 1918. April 7. P. 6. The text of the decree of the Petrograd Council of People's Commissars, issued in pursuance of this resolution, see: TsGA SPb., f. 143, op. 1, d. 31, l. 126.
27 GA RF, f. 130, op. 2, d. 342, l. 27.
Collection of decrees and resolutions... Vol. 1.4. 1. S. 539-540.
29 New Vedomosti (evening issue). April 29, 1918, p. 6.
30 Our century. 1918. May 1. C. 3.
31 TsGA St. Petersburg, f. 144, op. 1, d. 8, l. 38.
32 Ibid., l. 53,
33
Ibid., d. 1, l. 13 vol.
34 Ibid., f. 143, op. 1, d. 31, l. 163; f. 144, op. 1, d. 1, l. 32; News of the Petrograd Soviet. 1918. April 25. C. 1.
February 21, 1918 written by Trotsky and approved by Leninproclamation "Socialist"City in Danger" was telegraphed to Soviets all over Russia and published in Petrograd from<20> named after the Council of People's Commissars. Point 8 of the proclamation stated that "enemy agents, speculators, thugs, fuckersGhana, counter-revolutionary agitators, German spies are shot at the scene of the crime "(RGASPI, f. 19, op. 1, d. 66, l. 2). The Cheka and other bodies immediately took advantage of the received "mandate". On the significance of Trotsky's proclamation for Cheka, see: Velidov S. Preface to the second edition // Red Book of the Cheka, vol. 1. M"1989. P. 5.
36 On the Extraordinary Assembly, see: R a b i n o w i t c h A. Early Disenchantment with Bolshevik Rule: New Data from the Archives of the Extraordinary Assembly of Delegates from Petrograd Factories //K. McDermott, J.Morris O n (eds,). Politics and Society Under the Bolsheviks. L., 1999. P. 37-46.
37 Archive of the Department of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation for St. Petersburg, N 30377, vol. 3, l. 148.
38 New Vedomosti (evening issue). 1918. May 31. C. 1.
39 Banner of struggle. 1918. June 4. C. 3.
40 Archive of the Department of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation for St. Petersburg, N 30377, v. 4, l. 54.
41 Petrogradskaya Pravda. 1918. October 18. C. 2.
42 A banker from the Cheka // Essays on the history of Russian foreign intelligence / Ed. EAT. Primakov. T. 2. M., 1997. S. 19-24, Letter from Krestinsky to Uritsky with a description of Filippov, dated July 26, see: Archive of the FSB of the Russian Federation for St. Petersburg, N 30377, v. 5, l. 890.
43 In May, several district councils called for the abolition of the PChK. This happened during a discussion on the city's security plan, which took place on May 22 at a meeting of the Interdistrict Assembly, which brought together representatives of district councils (TsGA St. Petersburg, f. 73, op. 1, d. 1, l. 150; TsGAPD St. Petersburg., fund 4000, inventory 1, sheet 165, Novaya Zhizn [Petrograd], 1918, May 23, p. 3). At that time, the district councils were primarily concerned with maintaining control over their own territory, so they were generally hostile to the PChK and to those plans for the restructuring of the Committee for Revolutionary Security, which involved increased centralization.
44 See Proshyan's comments on his plan: Novye Vedomosti (evening edition). 1918. June 18. P. 7. Members of the Presidium of the Committee for Revolutionary Security highly appreciatedwhether its cooperation with ruled by Proshyan Commissariat of Internal Affairs. Simultaneously mAi meetings of the presidium of the reflectiontheir negative attitude towards the PChK is expressed (TsGA St. Petersburg, f. 73, op. 1, d. 4, l. 16, 17, 20-20v., 25).
45 L a c i s M.Ya. Report of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for the four years of its activity (December 20, 1917 - December 20, 1921) Part 1. Organizational part. M., 1921. P. 11. See about this: Leonov S.V. The birth of the Soviet empire. M., 1997. S. 248-249.
46 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 4, d. 11, l. 24-26. At least a few peoplecentury of those who at the end of MayUritsky gave a speech about ensuring security in Petrograd, concluded that he was trying to justify the liquidation of the PChK. See, for example, Sergeev's observation at a meeting of the Presidium of the Committee on olution noah security May 23: TsGA SPb., f. 73, op. 1, d. 3, l. 35.
47 RGASPI, f. 76, op. 3, d. 10, l. 1-1 vol.
48 TsGA St. Petersburg, f. 142, op. 9, d. 1, l. 34.
49 The conference was held in Moscow on June 11-14. Judging by the verbatim reports, neither Uritsky himself nor any of the representatives of the PChK considered it necessary to be present at it (see: TsA FSB, f. 1, op. 3, d. 11).
50 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 4, d. 194, l. 3-3 vol.
51 Ibid., f. 466, op. 1, d. 1, l. 9-10.
52 New life (Petrograd). 1918. June 22. S. 3; New Vedomosti (evening issue). 1918. June 22. C. 3.
53 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 4, d. 194, l. 4 vol.
54 For the decisions of the conference and its guidelines on the organization of the Cheka, see the book: Latsis M.Ya. Decree. op. pp. 38-41.
55 CGA St. Petersburg, f. 143, op. 1, d. 49, l. 50.
56 In a pamphlet published in 1922, G. Semenov (in 1918, the head of the Socialist-Revolutionary fighting group) wrote that the assassination of Volodarsky, which was the primary goal of the groupss, committed by his subordinate, notcue Sergeyev (no other information about the identity of the killer was given). See: Semenov G. Military and combat work of the party of socialist revolutionaries for 1917-1918. M., 1922. S. 28-29. However, comparing this evidence with other known data, one cannot but conclude that it is unreliable. In one of the recent works by A.L. Litvin convincingly shows that at the time of writing the brochure in 1921, Semenov worked for the Cheka and that it itself was published by the GPU as evidence for the show trial of the Social Revolutionaries in the summer of 1922 (L and t in and n A.L. Azef II / / Rodina, 1999, N 9, pp. 80-84).
57 Op. Quoted from U r a l o v S.G. Moses Uritsky. Biographical sketch. L., 1962. S. 110-111.
58 New Life [Petrograd]. 1918. June 21. C. 3.
59 Ibid. June 23rd. S. 3; Petrograd truth. 1918. June 27. WITH . 2.
60 New Vedomosti (evening edition). 1918. June 21. WITH . 4.
61 Il "in-Zhenevsky A.F. The Bolsheviks in Power: Reminiscences of the Year 1918.L., 1984. P. 105. Ilyin-Zhenevsky was at that time a member of the editorial board of Krasnaya Gazeta.<21> 62 Thus, on June 28, the participants in the general meeting of the Bolsheviks of the Vyborg District, after listening to a report about the murder of Volodarsky representative of the Petrograd party committee Zhenya Yegorova, in which she called for calm, vowed to respond to the "white terror" with a merciless class "red terror" (TsGAIPD St. Petersburg, fund 2, inventory 1, file 1, sheet 2).
63 New Vedomosti (evening issue). 1918. June 22. C. 4.
64 The PChK stopped the search for Volodarsky's killer and closed the case in February 1919 (CA FSB, No. 1789, vol. 10, l. 377).
65 Petrogradskaya Pravda. 1918. June 23. S. 5.
66 L e n i n V.I. PSS. T. 50. S. 106.
67 CGA St. Petersburg, f. 143, op. 1, d. 49, l. 49.
68 Kokovtsov V.N. From my past. Memoirs 1903-1919 Paris, 1933, pp. 445-462.
69 Executions carried out by the Cheka were at that time a completely common occurrence in Moscow. The names of those executed were published in the press. So, on July 11-12, 10 former officers were shot, accused of belonging to the Union for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution. After 5 days, the Cheka shot 23 criminals (New sheets (evening issue). 1918. July 13, p. 1; July 18, p. 5).
70 CGA St. Petersburg, f. 143, op. 1, d. 31, l. 57.
71 Collection of decrees and resolutions ... Issue. 1. Part 1. S. 123.
72 Archive of the FSB Department for St. Petersburg, N 8, v. 1, l. 8.
73 This is the official figure published in Izvestia (quoted from: Gazeta Kopeika, 1918, July 16, p. 3).
74 TsGAIPD SPb., f. 4000, op. 4, d. 814, l. 208.
75 This powerful wave of arrests is vividly described in the memoirs of emigrants. See, for example: Kokovtsov V.N. Decree, op. P. 463. Kokovtsov, in particular, wrote that “before July 21, everything was relatively tolerable, but starting from that day mass arrests began everywhere ... Every day I heard that one or another of my acquaintances had been arrested.”
76 CGA St. Petersburg, f. 143, op. 1, d. 51, l. 114. See also the handwritten postscript to this letter. Palchinsky's status as a hostage was confirmed during the "Red Terror" on October 3, 1918. At that time, perhaps, only execution was an alternative to him (Archive of the FSB Department for St. Petersburg, d. 16005, l. 5).
77 This case, in which more and more sources are being introduced into scientific circulation, arose as a result of an unsuccessful conspiracy of agents of the Allied countries, who united in Moscow and Petrograd with counter-revolutionary groups to overthrow the Soviet government, scheduled for September 1918.
78 Northern Commune (evening issue). 1918. August 2. C. 3.
79 Collection of decrees and resolutions ... Issue. 1.4. 1. S. 132.
80 U r a l o v S.G. Decree. op. P. 116. 8 "Ibid.
82 See: Krasnaya gazeta. 1918. August 22. C. 1.
83 Verbatim report on the work of the Fifth Congress of the Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies of the Petersburg Province. Pg., 1918. S. 112.
84 Northern Commune (evening issue). 1918. August 29. C. 2.
85 Central Administration of the FSB RF, N196, vol. 1-11.
86 The personality of Kannegiser is described by Mark Aldanov, who knew him well, see: Aldanov M. Paintings of the October Revolution, historical portraits, portraits of contemporaries, Tolstoy's riddle. SPb., 1999. S. 124-131, 140-144.
87 This is also confirmed by Aldanov. He recalled that in the spring of 1918, in response to the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Kannegiser engaged in amateurish conspiratorial activity, the goal of which was proclaimed to be the overthrow of the Bolshevik government (ibid., pp. 129-130).
88 Central Administration of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, N 196, v. 1, l. 45^19.
89 Aldanov M. Decree. op. pp. 129, 141.
90 Central Administration of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, N 196, v. 1, l. 3-6. In November 1919, the PChK investigator unsuccessfully tried to reopen the Uritsky case. In his opinion, the fact that the killer's friends and relatives were not shot clearly indicated that the case was being mishandled. The second (and also unsuccessful) attempt to revise the results of the investigation was made by irritated Chekists in 1920 (ibid., sheets 12-18).
91 Uralov S.G. Decree. op. S. 116.
92 Stasova E.D. Pages of life and struggle. M., 1988. S. 154-155; her own. Memories. M., 1969. S. 161. As the authors of the biography G.I. Bokiya, who headed the PChK after the death of Uritsky, Zinoviev and in mid-September advocated the general arming of the Petrograd workers and for granting them the right to use the "lynch court" against class enemies (Alekseeva T., Matveev N. Entrusted to defend the revolution (about G.I. Bokiy ), Moscow, 1987, pp. 218-219).
93 Petrogradskaya Pravda. 1918. September 6th. C. 2.
94 Weekly of the Extraordinary Commissions for Combating Counter-Revolutionand speculation. N 6.1918.27 ok October. S. 19.

Humane executioner Moses Uritsky

29.07.2018

Humane executioner Moses Uritsky

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On August 30, 1918, the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, Moses Uritsky, was killed in the former capital of the Russian Empire. His killer, a Social Revolutionary (in the past, a "People's Socialist") and a student, poet and friend of Sergei Yesenin, Leonid Kanegisser, after the assassination attempt, tried to hide unskillfully, was captured and shot in October of the same year.

The death of Uritsky and the wounding of V. Lenin in Moscow served as the starting point for the deployment of the great Red Terror. Hostages were taken from all walks of life and quickly killed. The account went to hundreds of lost souls. According to the statements of the Bolsheviks themselves, this is how the struggle against the counter-revolution unfolded.

However, Leonid Kanegisser and Fanny Kaplan, who shot the "leader of the world proletariat", were not monarchists or even liberals. They also belonged to the revolutionary camp, only to another political corner of it.

The same Kanegisser met the overthrow of the legitimate government in Russia in February 1917 with enthusiasm. And he even wrote quite revolutionary poems:

“Then at the blessed entrance,

In a dying and joyful dream

I remember - Russia. Freedom.

Kerensky on a white horse.

But no one knows now whether Leonid Kanegisser recalled in the fall of 1918 before the execution of Alexander Fedorovich Kerensky on a white horse ...

Commissar of Education A. V. Lunacharsky dedicated the following lines to the memory of the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka: “The February offensive of the Germans broke out. Forced to leave, the Council of People's Commissars made those who remained responsible for Petrograd, which was in an almost desperate situation. “It will be very difficult for you,” Lenin said to those who remained, “but Uritsky remains,” and this was reassuring.

Since then began the skilful and heroic struggle of Moisei Solomonovich against the counter-revolution and speculation in Petrograd.

How many curses, how many accusations fell on his head during this time! Yes, he was formidable, he led to despair not only by his inexorability, but also by his vigilance. Having combined in his hands both the Extraordinary Commission and the Commissariat of Internal Affairs, and in many respects the leading role in foreign affairs, he was the most terrible enemy in Petrograd of thieves and robbers of imperialism of all stripes and all varieties.

They knew what a powerful enemy they had in him. The townsfolk also hated him, for whom he was the embodiment of the Bolshevik terror.

But we, who stood close to him, we know how much generosity was in him and how he knew how to combine the necessary cruelty and strength with genuine kindness. Of course, there was not a drop of sentimentality in him, but there was a lot of kindness in him. We know that his work was not only hard and thankless, but also painful.”

According to Lunacharsky, Uritsky appears as a revolutionary leader inclined towards humanism. Which is very unusual for the head of a punitive body.

Unlike his killer, Moses Solomonovich Uritsky does not seem to be such a colorful figure. Yes, and his biography should be recognized as an ordinary for a revolutionary figure.

He was born in 1873 in the city of Cherkasy, Kyiv province. The Jewish merchant family was quite wealthy, and although the boy lost his father at the age of three, this did not particularly affect his financial situation. In childhood, Uritsky received a religious education, studied the Talmud, and probably prepared for a career as a rabbi. We can observe something similar in the biographies of other revolutionaries and terrorists: Joseph Stalin studied at Orthodox educational institutions, and Felix Dzerzhinsky dreamed of becoming a priest (Catholic priest). However, the rabbinate did not come out of Moses Uritsky. He went on a purely secular path, first graduating from the gymnasium, and then from Kiev University in 1897. Now the legal field seemed attractive to Uritsky. But, precisely, at the university, student Uritsky contacts revolutionary terrorists and socialists, and in 1898 joins the ranks of the Russian Social Democrats.

In 1899, he was arrested for his activities and exiled to Yakutia, where he met Felix Dzerzhinsky.

Interestingly, while in prison, exile or on stage, Uritsky enjoys the support of criminals. From the memories it is possible to learn that this, they say, the "political" prisoner achieved because of the high morale and knowledge of the laws of the Empire. But the truth turns out to be more banal - Uritsky always had money. And he had the opportunity, with the help of them, to influence both criminals and the prison administration.

It is known from history that future revolutionaries are drawn irresistibly, namely, to a legal education. And, if you look and check the lists of the rebellious leaders during the revolution of 1789 in France and February-October in Russia, 1917, it will be found that people who knew national laws perfectly made up at least 70 percent of the instigators of the revolutions. So M. S. Uritsky did not particularly stand out against the general background here either.

In 1905 he took part in revolutionary speeches. In St. Petersburg, he led a group of militants engaged in robberies.

However, Uritsky's revolutionary "work" in Krasnoyarsk was more significant, where he visited in September-October, returning to Central Russia from the Yakut exile. Here he organized strikes, rallies and armed demonstrations of revolutionaries. Moreover, the basis of the rebels were students, officials and railway workers, as well as soldiers of the 2nd railway battalion. And against people who refused to accept the demands of the revolutionaries, methods of moral and physical terror were used. The rebels tried to block the movement of trains through Krasnoyarsk and adjacent stations.

In November-December, when the main revolutionary events and clashes took place in Krasnoyarsk, Uritsky, however, was no longer there and he no longer had anything to do with the creation of the “Krasnoyarsk Republic”, leaving because of the fear of “Black Hundred pogroms”.

In October 1917, M. S. Uritsky was a member of the Military Revolutionary Party Center and the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. After the coup, he was appointed to the collegium of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, and a little later, the Commissioner of the All-Russian Commission for the Convocation of the Constituent Assembly. So the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly and the massacre of the demonstration of its supporters, which resulted in the death of about 100 people (although no one really counted, probably there were more victims) on the account of Comrade Uritsky, He was on a par with V. Lenin, I Sverdlov, N. Podvoisky and V. Bonch-Bruevich to a specially created body for the suppression of popular uprisings.

On the conscience of Moses Uritsky and the expulsion to Perm of Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich in March 1918.

After the flight of the Bolshevik government from Petrograd to Moscow, Uritsky gradually concentrated enormous power in his hands, not only heading the Cheka, but also becoming Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Council of People's Commissars of the Petrograd Labor Commune, and then also Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Council of Commissars of the Union of Communes of the Northern Region.

In these posts, Uritsky "became famous" as the organizer of the terror of the population, a fighter against anti-Semitism and "class enemies."

In the 21st century, a number of historical works appeared, where they try to rehabilitate M. S. Uritsky. For example, they say that he was a categorical opponent of executions without trial or investigation. That is, he was distinguished by a certain revolutionary humanism.

The following episode is cited in the memoir literature - Uritsky is accused of being “soft-bodied”, to which the latter replies: “I am not at all soft-bodied. If there is no other way out, I will shoot all the counter-revolutionaries with my own hand and be completely calm. I am against executions because I consider them inappropriate. This will only cause anger and will not give positive results. Good humanist - do not say anything! But be that as it may, Moses Uritsky calmly signed orders for arrests among the civilian population and execution lists.

But let us return to the assassination attempt on Uritsky himself. There are two main hypotheses: Leonid Kanegisser was a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary militant organization and carried out the order to liquidate the Soviet leader of the punitive organs, or Kanegisser personally took revenge on Uritsky for the execution of his friend Vladimir Perelzweiger.

The first, in general, does not stand up to criticism, the murder was so stupid and unprofessional organized. The second one seems quite probable. But a flurry of questions arises. M. S. Uritsky was a very cautious person, and Kanegisser easily penetrates the guarded building. Before the assassination attempt, Leonid calls and talks with Uritsky (testimony of M. Aldanov).

And further. The investigation officially established the following: “The Extraordinary Commission failed to establish exactly when it was decided to kill Comrade Uritsky, but Comrade Uritsky himself knew that an assassination attempt was being prepared on him. He was repeatedly warned and definitely pointed to Kannegisser, but Comrade Uritsky was too skeptical about this. He knew well about Kannegisser, from the intelligence that was at his disposal.

Why was Kanegisser pointed out? And why did Uritsky show his skepticism? There can be only one answer - Uritsky knew his potential killer well and did not believe in Leonid's ability to harm him.

The emigrant writer Grigory Petrovich Klimov (1918–2007) suggested that Moses Uritsky and Leonid Kanegisser were sexual partners. And the second killed the first out of jealousy.

Practically nothing is known about Uritsky's personal life from open sources. All information is scarce and unintelligible. But the following information was preserved about Kanegisser: “Leva liked to shock the respectable bourgeois, to stun with contempt for their morality, did not hide, for example, that he was a homosexual ...

Leva could calmly utter a vulgar phrase: "So-and-so is too normal and healthy to be interesting." Pose, drawing, coquetry? I admit. But by who a person portrays himself, who he wants to appear, you can also judge his essence. Lyova's monologues about the essence of the flesh, about free morality, about the right to "holy sinfulness" sometimes reminded me of such cheap stuff as Verbitskaya's "Keys of Happiness." (From the memoirs of N. G. Blumenfeld).

However, there is a fourth hypothesis. M. S. Uritsky was laid on the altar of an internal party struggle among the Bolsheviks themselves.

It is impossible not to notice the words of the same Lunacharsky: “Moses Solomonovich Uritsky treated Trotsky with great respect. He said ... that no matter how smart Lenin is, he begins to fade next to the genius of Trotsky. It is unlikely that Ulyanov-Lenin did not know the views of Uritsky. So it was not by chance that Moses Solomonovich was left as the head of the PChK in St. Petersburg, because it was thought that the Germans would enter the northern capital and the murder was organized on the principle of “no one is sorry”, if only there was a reason for unleashing terror on an all-Russian scale. The party struggle went head to head: some push Kanegisser to attack Uritsky, others push Kaplan to assassinate Ilyich.

The true history of the 1917 revolution has not yet been written, and far from all the archives have been opened. So Uritsky's death continues to be a mystery. Only his deeds are one of the black spots on Russian history. And on the streets of our cities there are still signs with the name of M. S. Uritsky. The humane executioner is and is now valued more than people who really served the Fatherland and died for it. Try to calculate how many streets or squares in your city or village are named in memory of the heroes of the Second Patriotic War (1914-1918) and in honor of terrorist revolutionaries. The numbers themselves will speak for themselves...

I. S. Ratkovsky

Petrograd Cheka and the organization of Dr. V.P. Kovalevsky in 1918

Ratkovsky Ilya Sergeevich,

Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor,

Saint Petersburg

state

university

(Saint Petersburg);

Among the most important cases of the Petrograd Cheka in 1918 is the case of the counter-revolutionary organization of Dr. Vladimir Pavlovich Kovalevsky (1875-1918). A brief background on this case is as follows. In June 1918, former officers, mainly guards regiments and the navy, began to arrive in Arkhangelsk from Vologda, Moscow, but primarily from Petrograd. Many of them had in their hands authentic documents issued by the Vologda Military Control or the military organizations of Petrograd, often in order to communicate with General Ovchinnikov. MS Kedrov reported these cases to Moscow1. Similar cases were also discovered in Moscow, where at the Yaroslavl railway station on the train to Vologda, a whole car was occupied by officers who were heading through this city to Arkhangelsk2. The very flow of naval officers to Murmansk and Arkhangelsk in the spring and summer of 1918 was very large. Among those recruited in Murmansk in March 1918 was a well-known cultural figure S. A. Kolbasiev. He will serve as liaison officer on the British cruiser Cochrane.

In early August 1918, near the Plesetskaya station of the Arkhangelsk railway, the Red Army men noticed a suspicious person. Dressed in a warm demi-season coat (it happened in the summer), he stood at the telegraph pole, looking around, obviously waiting for someone. Along with the usual black buttons, a large yellow brass button was sewn onto the coat. He was detained, and during his search a pass was found in the name of Somov, issued by the Vologda Military Control. During interrogation in the investigative commission of the “Kedrov train”, the detainee testified after a while on the condition that his life would be spared. According to the testimony, he was sent from Petrograd by Dr. Kovalevsky to Arkhangelsk to the British. On the trip, he was "led" by members

© I. S. Ratkovsky, 2012

we were the organizations of Kovalevsky, whom he had to recognize at the points of passage by the yellow button on a worn coat, and so on up to Arkhangelsk. In Arkhangelsk, after exchanging a password (password "Dvina", response "Don"), he was instructed to convey a report, and then enter the service of the Whites. He swallowed the report during the arrest. Somov confirmed his testimony at the investigation in the Vologda Cheka (chairman P. N. Alexandrov).

Somov's data made it possible to establish the location of a key crossing point at Dikaya station, near Vologda. Disguised security officers with a symbol in the form of a sewn yellow button soon intercepted the military pilot Ollongren, artillery officers Belozerov and Solminov, and cadet Mikhailov at the station. Subsequent interrogations allowed the Chekists to get on the trail of the former Colonel Kurochenkov. He was arrested on the train at the Chebsara station on the night of August 19-20, 1918. During the train to Vologda, Kurochenkov jumped out of the car at full speed, breaking his arm. Forced to turn to a resident of the village of Anisimovo, a peasant Alexander Savin, Kurochenkov offered him 40 thousand rubles. for reliable shelter and assistance. Savin, under the pretext of a more reliable place to hide, brought Kurochenkov to the Nesvoysky village council, from where he was taken to the Vologda provincial government. Later, M.S. Kedrov ordered to allocate 5 thousand rubles from the confiscated funds. Nesvoi volost for cultural and educational work and declared revolutionary gratitude to Alexander Savin.

Arrests at the station Dikaya continued in the future. In September 1918, Mikhail A. Kurochenkov, former colonel of the 6th Luga Soviet regiment, pilot Ollengren (as in the text, in fact - Colonel Nikolai Aleksandrovich Ollongren), Mikhailov, L. N. Somminov (former chauffeur), E. A. Belozerov (former lieutenant), other defendants in this case in Vologda, more than 30 people, will be shot3. Dr. Grabovsky (according to other sources, Yuri Grybovsky)4 was also among the executed.

In parallel, events developed in Petrograd. Even before the arrest of Kurochenkov, in July 1918, two employees of the investigation commission of the Narva-Peterhof region, Bogdanov and Samoded, applied to the Petrograd Cheka. They reported that the driver of their commission was offered to leave for work in Murmansk, with an advance payment of 400 rubles. and a monthly salary of 500 rubles. Chekists Bogdanov and Samoded, through the mediation of the driver, met with recruiters who gave them an advance payment of 400 rubles against receipt. and gave the address in Murmansk where they were supposed to arrive. The recruiters were detained, but an attempt was made to escape on the street, while one of the recruiters was killed and the second was wounded. During the subsequent interrogation, it turned out that the surname of the killed was Deev, and that of the wounded was Loginov5. The testimony of the latter was uninformative. More successful were the results of the ambush at the recruiters' apartments. Among the detainees was a former officer Rogushin. Thanks to his testimony, it became known about a well-concealed organization engaged in the recruitment of former officers and technical

specialists for the White Guard formations formed in the North and for the collection of espionage information. Rogushin himself was recruited by a member of the underground organization Romanov, a former naval officer.

On August 21, Dr. V.P. Kovalevsky was arrested in Petrograd. During the Russo-Japanese War, he was a military doctor on the Red Cross hospital ship "Mongolia" (he was awarded a badge for the defense of Port Arthur). Subsequently, he served as a senior military doctor on the ships of the Russian navy "Sivuch", "Pallada", "Aurora", "Emperor Paul I" and others, had extensive connections among sailors. The latter circumstance will be important in the formation of an underground organization. After his resignation in March 1917, he worked as a medical officer in the Baltic Fleet. On August 22, the first interrogation of Kovalevsky took place, at which he was personally interrogated by the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, M. S. Uritsky. During interrogation, he confessed that he was acquainted with Colonel Kurochenkov as his patient, as well as with the English naval attache, Captain Francis Allen Cromie, whom he had crossed paths with even before the revolution on official business6. Further arrests and interrogations of the persons involved in this case (about 60 people) made it possible to reveal Dr. Kovalevsky's more extensive and deep military and foreign policy ties.

At the same time, the political events of the end of 1918 made their own adjustments to the course of the investigation. On August 30, 1918, as a result of a terrorist attack in Petrograd, the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, the Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Northern Commune, MS Uritsky, was killed. On the same day, another, third in a row, attempt on the life of V.I. Lenin took place in Moscow. These terrorist acts were the result of a long-standing “hunt” for the leaders of the Bolshevik revolution7. We note, however, that a number of circumstances surrounding the murder of Uritsky and the events that followed it were directly related to the Kovalevsky case.

First, let us point out the existing connection between the murderer of M. S. Uritsky L. A. Kannegiser (1896-1918) with the underground and the organization of Kovalevsky-Kurochenkov. In the memoirs of V. I. Ignatiev, it is said that Kannegiser was one of his employees in the military organization, who was in charge of communications. At the same time, Ignatiev did not deny contacts in Petrograd both with the organization of Dr. Kovalevsky and with the Semyonov terrorist group8.

Secondly, Kannegiser's trip to Vologda in August 1918, recorded in the same memoirs, is of interest. As mentioned above, Vologda was both a transit point on the way to Murmansk-Arkhangelsk and the center of the military organization of Colonel Kurochenkov. One can also note the English trace in the form of financing in Vologda of the Ignatiev organization by the representative of the British mission Gilespi9.

Thirdly, we note Kannegiser's family ties with M. M. Filonenko, as well as their joint underground work. Filonenko led a rather large terrorist group in Petrograd and set as his goal the organization of a number of high-profile terrorist acts. On the possibility of new terrorist acts against prominent party members

and Soviet workers in Petrograd were also warned by an anonymous letter from former members of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party sent by the Council of People's Commissars after the murder of V. Volodarsky. The letter mentioned both the organizers of the planned terrorist attacks: Savinkov, Filonenko, Kolosov, and other Socialist-Revolutionary activists. M. S. Uritsky10 was also familiar with this letter. Shortly before the assassination of Uritsky, Kannegiser met with him under the pretext that he had information about the organization that was preparing the assassination.

Fourthly, there is a number of data on Kannegiser's connection with the British. Investigator E. Otto11 later wrote about the English trace in the Uritsky case.

It is no coincidence that the Petrograd Gubcheka, together with the Cheka, having received news of the murder of M. S. Uritsky and the attempt on the life of V. I. Lenin, carried out an armed seizure of the British Embassy on August 31, 1918. However, the action, which was not properly prepared, had little effect. Naval attache Kromy, firing back from the Chekists, managed to burn all the compromising documents. Cromie himself died in a shootout, thereby cutting off many of the threads leading to him. Nevertheless, the connection of British intelligence with the organization of Kovalevsky was later proved by the investigation, although not in full.

According to N. K. Antipov, who participated in the investigation, the organization was engaged in collecting espionage information for the British, transporting former officers through Petrograd by various routes (Antipov indicates 5 main ones) to Arkhangelsk and partly Vologda, and also preparing a possible armed uprising in Petrograd and Vologda12 . In December 1918, according to Soviet newspaper reports, 13 people were shot in connection with the Kovalevsky case. The first report on the execution was placed by Izvestia of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in the issue of December 8, 1918. The report spoke of the discovery of a British espionage recruiting organization that sent officers to the Murmansk Front, and the execution of 11 of its members. It should be noted that the names of the executed persons were mostly distorted: instead of Rear Admiral Veselkin - Metelkin, Betulinsky - Pevulinsky, De-Simon - Daisimon, Grabovsky - Trambovsky, Plena - Blef, Login - Logvinov, while the patronymic names were given correctly. However, this was the first publication that subsequently raised the question of the reliable date of the execution. On December 20, Petrogradskaya Pravda and Krasnaya Gazeta published reports of the execution of those involved in the Kovalevsky case. The first report spoke of the execution on December 13, 1918, by order of the Cheka for the fight against counter-revolution of the Union of Communes of the Northern Region.

1. Kovalevsky Vladimir Pavlovich - military doctor, head of the organization that connected her with the British mission.

2. Morozov Vladimir Vladimirovich.

3. Tumanov Vladimir Spiridonovich.

4. De Simon Anatoly Mikhailovich.

5. Login Ivan Osipovich.

6. Captivity Pavel Mikhailovich (in 1917 he was also the head of the organization that sent officers to the Don).

7. Grabovsky Alexander Alexandrovich.

8. Shulgina Vera Viktorovna - shareholder and chief organizer of the Goutes cafe / which served as a turnout for the White Guards.

9. Solovyov Georgy Alexandrovich.

10. Trifonov Ivan Nikolaevich.

11. Yury Andreevich Betulinsky (titular adviser, member of the Russian-English repair partnership on Murman).

12. Veselkin Mikhail Mikhailovich - the main organizer of the Russian-English repair partnership on Murman.

13. Rykov Alexander Nikolaevich»13.

Three more were shot, according to the newspaper, in other cases:

"II. Khristik Iosif Pavlovich - a spy who was in the service of the British and French, who repeatedly tried, using false documents, to get into the area where the Anglo-French troops were located in order to establish a personal connection. He committed embezzlement, arson and blackmail.

III. Abramson Kalman Abramovich is a White Guard spy who systematically traveled to Ukraine with forged documents.

IV. Smirnov Ivan Alexandrovich - for armed robbery"14.

Krasnaya Gazeta also reported on the execution of 16 people on December 13, but without details, indicating their full names and emphasizing their social and party status. So, more accurate data were given for Grabovsky (Polish legionnaire), Trifonov (member of the People's Freedom Party), Betulinsky (titular adviser), etc. Some surnames were given differently than in Petrogradskaya Pravda: Khristek instead of Khristik.

The amended list of 16 names was also published on December 21 in the newspaper Izvestiya VTSIK, but even here the names were not without distortions, although to a lesser extent.

Previously, a number of people who were on these lists were also listed in the lists of hostages published in Krasnaya Gazeta:

De-Simon Anatoly Mikhailovich - captain of the 2nd rank15.

Tumanov Vladimir Spiridonovich - lieutenant16.

These lists were not complete and their publication was discontinued after the third list.

On December 28, the evening edition of Krasnaya Gazeta published an interview with Antipov about the circumstances of the case. Note that a number of points in the interview need to be clarified. So, V.V. Shulgina was called “the sister of the Duma Shulgin”, in fact, she was the sister of Major General Boris Viktorovich Shulgin, and not the Duma’s Vasily Vitalievich Shulgin. Later, at the beginning of 1919, in Petrogradskaya Pravda, he also published his review of the activities of the Petrograd Cheka in 1918, paying attention to the case of Dr. Kovalevsky17. It was Antipov who laid the foundation for the filing of the Kovalevsky case in Soviet historiography.

At the same time, further clarification of many “positions of the case” began to take place due to the appearance of new materials from the “other” side: the picture began to be supplemented by emigrant memories and testimonies of those arrested in other cases in Soviet Russia, sometimes after a long time.

In 1922 the already mentioned memoirs of V.I. The memoirs were written by Ignatiev during his stay in the Novo-Nikolaev prison. In the same 1922, the memoirs were placed in the 2nd volume of the "Red Book of the Cheka"19. According to Ignatiev's memoirs, in the spring of 1918 there were a number of underground organizations in Petrograd, including those collaborating with the People's Socialist Party. These organizations were closely associated with foreign military missions, including with the British. Ignatiev mentions the organization of General Gerua and another - Dr. Kovalevsky, both associated with the British. The latter “... directs an organization that sends officers to the same English General Poole through Vologda, and has its own representative in Arkhangelsk, working under the name of Thomson, who is in close contact with the English mission there” (Captain Chaplin was hiding under the names of Thomson. - I. R.) 20. From close cooperation with the organization of Kovalevsky (or, possibly, Gerua-Kovalevsky), Ignatiev refused, given their more right-wing orientation, leaving relations at the level of mutual information. He acted in the same way with regard to the Filonen-ko organization. Subsequently, Ignatiev crossed paths with the activities of Chaplin, as a representative of Kovalevsky, in Arkhangelsk. Chaplin received complaints and accusations from members of the Arkhangelsk underground, reproaches for inexperience, Khlestakovism. Ignatiev inquired about Chaplin from Dr. Kovalevsky, who replied, “... that Thomson-Chaplin is indeed somewhat frivolous and adventurous, and he will remove him from Arkhangelsk. However, he failed to do this in view of the coup in Arkhangelsk”22. After the coup, Chaplin took over as commander of the Northern Region. Ignatiev's memoirs, with all the critical attitude towards them, nevertheless give a clear indication of the role of Kovalevsky in the Petrograd underground and his connection with the British, especially since they are confirmed by emigrant memories.

In 1928, in the 4th volume of White Case, the memoirs of Captain I Rank G. E. Chaplin were published. During the First World War, he commanded a destroyer, served in the crew of an English submarine and the headquarters of the Baltic Fleet. In 1917 he was awarded the rank of captain II rank. In his memoirs, he wrote that “... was in close contact with the late English naval agent, Capt. I rank Kromy and other naval and military agents of the Allies. At the beginning of May 1918, Kromy approached him with a project to intensify actions: it was proposed to undermine the ships of the Baltic Fleet (in case of a threat of their transfer by the Bolsheviks to Germany), railways and railway bridges. According to Chaplin, to carry out these tasks they were asked to create a special organization in the Mine Division and on large ships24.

Chaplin himself was by this time at the headquarters of one of the numerous Petrograd underground organizations. In addition to him, the headquarters consisted of three more persons: “a naval doctor (highlighted by the author. - I.R.), a guards colonel and a colonel of the general staff.” The organization, among other things, was engaged in crossing officers to the Don, to the Czechoslovaks on the Volga, and rarely to the allies on Murman. After the May meeting, there was a reorientation of the main direction of sending officers: now their delivery to Arkhangelsk became the main one. The military doctor and the colonel of the General Staff remained in Petrograd to organize the dispatch, the guards colonel was to infiltrate the ranks of the Red Army and be assigned to the Murmansk railway and organize a transfer point there. Chaplin was sent to Arkhangelsk to receive officers and organize a subsequent armed uprising25. Soon Chaplin went to Vologda (where he received the documents of an English citizen and an employee of the British military mission), and later to Arkhangelsk. Here he was engaged in the fulfillment of his goals, and later, according to him, became the organizer of the anti-Bolshevik coup in Arkhangelsk. Thus, Chaplin's memoirs, while clearly emphasizing the significance of his role, confirm the existence of an organization in Petrograd, its leadership by Dr. Kovalevsky, and its close connection with British intelligence. In many ways, they repeat the facts set forth in the memoirs of Ignatiev.

In the same year, 1928, the memoirs of Yu. D. Bezsonov26 were published in Paris. The captain of the dragoon regiment of the personal guard of His Imperial Majesty before the revolution of 1917, a participant in the Kornilov speech and the defense of the Winter Palace in October 1917, he was arrested in August 1918 and some time later, in the second half of September, he was transferred to Petrograd, to Gorokhovaya, 2. Bezsonov himself did not belong to Kovalevsky's organization, but he crossed paths in custody with some of the defendants in this case. In cell No. 96, he met two familiar officers: Ekespare and Prince Tumanov. They were often interrogated before the arrival of Bezsonov, to whom they told that their organization had been discovered and they were required to tell all the details. At the same time, Bezsonov noted with surprise in his memoirs that both

of the arrested, freely presented the circumstances of their case in the cell in the presence of other prisoners, among whom was the head provocateur who worked for the Chekists27. “Ekespare was an athlete. We talked about horse races, about common acquaintances, but most often the conversation turned to their business. He told me that he was in an organization supported by foreign Englishmen and that he believed in success. "If we do not topple the Bolsheviks from within," he said, "the British will come to help from outside."

“Our organization has been deciphered, but there are others, and we will still win,” he argued. They interrogated him, in his words, extremely kindly: cigarettes, an easy chair, breakfast, dinner - everything was at his service. They have great awareness. He himself did not give anything away, but confirmed what they already knew. To their eyes, he scolded the Bolsheviks and communism, declaring that he would fight them. Despite this, he was guaranteed life all the time. I don't know if he was aware of the danger, or believed in the KGB promises, but in any case, he behaved well. With Prince Tumanov there was a somewhat different picture. He was heaped with a lot of accusations. - Relations with foreigners, organization of an armed uprising, etc. They interrogated him rudely, all the time threatened to shoot him, offering to confess to actions that he did not commit. He was completely confused and nervous. For the most part, he denied his guilt. I don't know if he was guilty of anything serious at all. He was just a boy." A little later, in his memoirs, Bezsonov writes that on the evening of the second day of his stay on Gorokhovaya, Tumanov and Ekespare were taken with things (according to Bezsonov, the well-known Chekist A. V. Eiduk led this) to the courtyard of the prison and shot (among the five prisoners) . However, we note that Bezsonov himself did not see the execution, only a scream and a working machine, and pointed to the execution in the basements of the Petrograd Cheka (which were absent in reality)29. More likely is the transfer of prisoners to a new prison. This is also confirmed by the fact that, according to newspaper reports, the former Yesaul von Ekesparre Alexander Nikolaevich was shot on December 29, 1918. On this day, the Petrograd Cheka shot 30 people, including 6 who were part of the “spy organization”. It seems important that these 6 “defendants” were clearly connected with the Kovalevsky case (in addition to von Expar-re, one can mention the former naval officer N. D. Melnitsky, N. N. Zhizhin and others)30. It should be noted that both Vladimir Spiridonovich Tumanov and Anatoly Mikhailovich De-Simon, as already mentioned, were on the published list of hostages (unlike other defendants in the Kovalevsky case)31.

After a week of stay on Gorokhovaya, according to Bezsonov, Eiduk announced his transfer, along with other prisoners, to the Deryabinsk prison (formerly the barracks of the naval disciplinary battalion, then the naval prison; it was located at the corner of Chekushinskaya embankment and Bolshoy Prospekt Vasilyevsky Island, 104) 32. Among the prisoners, Bezsonov met Dr. Kovalevsky here33. Interrogations were still going on at Gorokho-

howl, where he was subsequently returned. Bezsonov was interrogated by Yudin: “...according to the opinions of experienced prisoners, he was one of the gracious investigators”34. After several months, with new transfers from prison to prison, Bezsonov, along with other prisoners, was sent to the Nikolayevsky railway station to be transported to work in Vologda. Ironically, this happened on December 13, 1918, when, according to newspaper reports, Dr. Kovalevsky and other defendants in his organization were shot.

The memoirs of Bezsonov, for all their fragmentaryness in relation to the topic of the article, nevertheless, confirm the participation of the British, the presence of the Kovalevsky organization and the involvement of Prince Tumanov in it, and partly Ekespare (without a clear identification of their role).

Undoubtedly, Pavel Mikhailovich Plen played an important role in the organization. He was born on August 17, 1875 in the village of Seltso Yakushevo, Opochetsky district, Pskov province. He was a participant in the suppression of the boxer uprising in China. During the Russo-Japanese War, he participated in the defense of Port Arthur. He commanded destroyers: "Skoriy", No. 1Z5, No. 1ZZ (1906), gunboat "Manjur", destroyers "Vigilant" (1909), "Strong" (1909-1912), "Don Cossack" (1912-1914), cruiser " Admiral Makarov" (1914-1915), the 5th destroyer division of the Baltic Fleet (1915-1916), the battleship "Glory" (1916-1917). The commander of the battle cruiser "Izmail" (1917) He served as an accounting engineer in the Central People's Industrial Committee (1918). He was distinguished by violent temper and assault on the lower ranks. V. K. Pilkin36 wrote about one of such cases during his command of the cruiser Admiral Makarov in his memoirs. He was seriously wounded in the lung in a duel with the headquarters captain of the L.-Guards. Cavalry Regiment by Prince Murat (13.05.1908)37.

In emigrant memoirs there are direct indications of his participation in the transfer of officers from Petrograd to other regions, even on the eve of 1918. According to the testimony of Captain II rank A.P. Vaksmut, from Admiral M.A. Berens, he received a place to meet with Plen in Petrograd . “.M. A. advised me, without wasting time and with extreme caution, to go to St. Petersburg, find the named cafe on Morskaya, where I would meet Captain 1st Rank P.M. get to Novocherkassk. And indeed, when I arrived at the cafe, I immediately saw P. M. sitting at a table in a civilian dress. For those who did not personally know him, a conventional sign was given. P. M. Plen gave me his address and asked me to come in the next day for documents and a pass. Arriving at the appointed time, I found two young officers there: Lieutenant S. and midshipman I. from the destroyer Izyaslav. P. M. gave the three of us a certificate that we were workers and were going to the Caucasus to build some kind of road. The documents were with all the necessary seals of the Soviets. Where on the train platforms, where on horseback, and often on foot along the sleepers, the fugitives reached Novocherkassk and, on the evening of January 1, 1918, appeared at No. -

by our sailors"38. This memory testifies to the participation of Plen in the organization of recruiting and crossing points in Petrograd. There is some evidence of Plen's activity in the spring of 1918.

Later Plen participated in various underground organizations in Petrograd; including, was in the organization of Dr. Kovalevsky. On the night of August 6, 1918, he was arrested by the Petrograd Cheka at his apartment (he lived at the address: Mokhovaya St., 5, apt. 3) together with Admiral M.K. Bakhirev as a hostage39. Then they were moved to the Deryabinsky prison (like Kovalevsky). In the later published diary of V.K. Pilkin (who was in Finland at that time) there are several echoes of the Kovalevsky case. The entry dated February 2, 1919 is characteristic: “Lodyzhensky and Yurison were having dinner. The latter defected from St. Petersburg on January 19. He says that there is no hope for an uprising in Petersburg. It is as if everyone is too depressed, everyone has too little strength - both physical and moral. (But I still hope for an uprising in St. Petersburg itself.) They say that in the [Soviet] army and navy, 1,500 people dine in the public [canteen]. They are fed so badly and expensively [that] even these frightened and tormented people were indignant. Then some one stood on a chair in the dining room and made a threatening speech, promising to immediately shoot the dissatisfied. “We have enough machine guns,” and the 1,500-strong crowd humbly listened to the insolent little tyrant. I was most interested in Bakhirev, with whom Yurison was lying together in the prison infirmary. Bakhirev, according to Yurison, is starving, no one else wears anything to him. He got older, thinner, thinner. With what delight I would drive up to the Deryabinsky barracks in a "tank" and take out the gates of this modern Bastille and let Bakhirev out. I suffer for him like for my own. Captivity, Veselkin and Kovalevsky were indeed shot,

and, what attracts attention, the news of this appeared a few days earlier in the newspapers than the fact itself. And since newspapers are allowed into prisons, the “suicide bombers” could read about their fate in advance”40. The last remark is obviously connected with the fact that the execution was first published on December 8, 1918 in Izvestia of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, and later in the Petrograd newspapers the date of the execution appeared on December 13 (see above). In the investigation files of Kovalevsky, Veselkin, Trifonov, Morozov, Login, Solovyov, the date of the decision to execute was December 4th. In the investigative files of Shulgina and Rykov - December 7th. Obviously, the absence of the mentioned persons in the first list of Izvestia of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee is connected with this.

Emigration left evidence of another participant in the Kovalevsky case - I. N. Trifonov. An essay about him in a collection dedicated to the memory of the members of the Kadet Party who died at the hands of the Soviet regime was compiled by B. G. Katenev41. According to the essay, I. N. Trifonov, a young talented scientist, a physicist by profession, was an active member of the People's Freedom Party. After October, he actively participated in the election campaign of the Cadets.

in Petrograd, in organizing rallies in memory of Kokoshkin and Shingarev. He was introduced to the National Center by K. K. Chernosvitov. “At the beginning of the winter of 1918, I.N. was arrested by a check, and, moreover, without any relation to his activities. He was accused of helping, as if he had rendered his cousin, who, in turn, was accused of going to flee to Arkhangelsk to join the northern "whites". At one time it seemed that this accusation fell away. In any case, after several weeks of detention, I.N. was released at the beginning of December. But after a very short period of time, he was completely unexpectedly arrested again, and 2-3 days AFTER that, without presenting him with any new charges, he was shot. It was said that he had read in Izvestia about his alleged execution that had already taken place a few hours before the actual execution.

Commenting on this message, one should keep in mind the winter of 1918-1919. and amend to use the old system of reckoning. According to the materials of the investigation, I. N. Trifonov, born in 1895, at the time of his arrest, was listed as the head of the financial sub-department in the Commissariat of Municipal Economy. His twenty-year-old cousin V.V. Morozov, who was involved in the same case, was a cadet in the past. During the investigation, he repeatedly stated about his illness: "This illness consists in the fact that I often have nervous attacks, convulsions and twitching." However, both brothers were shot. According to the investigative data cited in V. I. Berezhkov’s study, Ivan Nikolaevich Trifonov, a lecturer in the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at Petrograd University, was shot for “refusing to report on the work of the cadets in sending officers to the Don and to the British”43.

Separately, it is worth stopping at V. V. Shulgina. In 1918, she kept a cafe-confectionery on Kirochnaya Street, on the corner from Znamenskaya. This cafe, along with a gastronome cafe at the corner of Basseinaya and Nadezhdinskaya streets (contained by the General Staff Lieutenant Colonel V. Ya. Lyundekvist, the future chief of staff of the 7th Army, later exposed as a traitor), was a recruiting point for the organization of her brother General Shulgin, a meeting place. The organization focused initially on the French, then the Germans, and then the British (with whom Lundekvist was associated). Those who have materials on her, and in general on the defendants in the Kovalevsky case, supplement the data of the investigative cases of the early 1930s. in USSR. During the activities to identify former officers in Leningrad, those arrested during the “purges” will testify about Shulgin’s organization and his sister, confirming the existence of the organization and Shulgina’s participation in it44.

Characteristically, for a long time after her arrest on August 24, she was not interrogated. The first time she was interrogated by investigator S.A. Baykovsky was only on October 17, about which she wrote a statement addressed to S.L. Geller45. In it, she also stated that during her detention she had been deprived of medical assistance; meanwhile, she had a stomach ulcer. Shulgin

denied all connections with the underground, recognizing only the fact of renting a room to officer Solovyov and acquaintance with several persons involved in the case or their relatives. At the same time, she could not explain the presence of the letterheads of the 6th Luga Regiment and the letters of the 1st Vasileostrovskiy Regiment. The last circumstance was decisive, since it was in these parts that the conspirators were exposed. The testimonies of other detainees also testified against her. Her participation in the maintenance of a cafe on Kirochnaya, 17, in which B.V. Shulgin's organization recruited officers, was also revealed. According to the investigation file, Shulgina was "the right hand of her brother, Major General B.V. Shulgin." The verdict was signed by Antipov, Baykovsky and investigator P. D. Antilovsky.

Of the other defendants in the case, we note A. N. Rykov and Rear Admiral M. M. Veselkin46. Both are well-known naval officers, members of the Russian-Murmansk Repair and Shipbuilding Association. The latter organization, among other things, was also engaged in hiring and sending people to Murmansk to the British. In this, the testimony of N. M. Telesnin testified against them, according to which they “sent their people to the North and, together with the Anglo-French, worked out a plan for the occupation of the Northern Region”47. It should be noted that Rykov was arrested on August 4 under M.S. Uritsky, but was released by him on August 848. Both will be shot, in spite of Rykov's disability (in 1905 he received a severe leg injury, which resulted in the removal of the leg above the left knee).

Yu. A. Betulinsky adjoins these defendants. A graduate of the Katkov Lyceum and the French Diplomatic School in Paris, he was an assistant chief secretary of the Senate in the past, he was also a close relative of Admiral Veselkin. Obviously, his work in the Russian-Murmansk Repair and Shipbuilding Partnership was also connected with this.

His wife and two children crossed the border into Finland. There, in exile, his daughter became a famous singer, composer, author of "The Song of the Partisans" by A. Yu. Smirno-voi-Marley. In her memoirs, she wrote very briefly about this: “I was born in Petrograd, as the present St. Petersburg was then called, in October 1917. Alas, the revolution began, and my father, Yuri Andreevich Betulinsky, and uncle, Admiral Veselkin, were arrested and both were shot. Mom was left with two girls in her arms and with a nanny. In order to somehow cover us, they put on some sheepskin coats and went with us on foot through Petrograd, through the forest - to the Finnish border. In Finland, they boarded a steamer and landed in the north of France”49. Some additions are in her later newspaper interview. In it, she also names a more precise date of execution - December 10, 1918, and mentions the fact of a short-term arrest by the Cheka, along with her father, of her mother50.

Based on the available data, we can talk about a real underground organization that existed in Petrograd in 1918 and was engaged in recruiting for Murman and collecting information.

macia in favor of the British. Also, Kovalevsky's organization, along with other organizations, is involved in preparing a performance in the North-West of Russia, including in the Vologda region.

In our opinion, this topic is also important due to the fact that modern archaeological excavations on Hare Island indicate a possible place of their burial. In one of the discovered graves there are remains that can be associated with great certainty with those involved in this particular case. On September 5, 2011, a press conference was held in the Peter and Paul Fortress dedicated to the search and identification of the executed persons on the territory of the fortress. During the press conference, genetic examination data were made public, confirming that one of the discovered skeletons belonged to A. N. Rykov, the person involved in the case of Dr. Kovalevsky.

1 Viktorov I. V. Underground worker, warrior, Chekist. M., 1963. S. 32-43.

2 Essays on the history of the Vologda organization of the CPSU (1895-1968). Vologda, 1969. S. 202.

4 Petrogradskaya Pravda. 1918. September 20; Red newspaper. Evening edition. 1918. September 18.

5 Chekists of Petrograd on guard of the revolution (Party leadership of the Petrograd Cheka 1918-1920) / Kutuzov V. A., Lepetukhin V. F., Sedov V. F., Stepanov O. N. T. 1. L., 1987. S. 155; Smirnov M.A. About Mikhail Kedrov. M., 1988. S. 312.

6 Chekists of Petrograd on guard of the revolution (Party leadership of the Petrograd Cheka 1918-1920) / Kutuzov V. A., Lepetukhin V. F., Sedov V. F., Stepanov O. N. T. 1. L., 1987. S. 157.

7 Ratkovsky I. S. Individual terror during the civil war // Bulletin of St. Petersburg State University. 1995 Ser. 2. Issue. 1. S. 95-100.

8 Red Book of the Cheka. T. 2 / Ed. M. I. Latsis. M., 1922. S. 100.

9 Ibid. pp. 112-113.

10 Artemenko Yu. A. Overview of the Collection "Archive of M. S. Uritsky" (from the funds of the State Museum of Political History of Russia) // Political Russia: Past and Present. Historical readings. SPb., 2008. Issue. V. "Pea, 2" - 2008. S. 27.

11 Working Court. L., 1927. No. 24. - Special issue dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Cheka.

17 Antipov N.K. Essays on the activities of PChK in 1918 // Petrogradskaya Pravda. 1919. 1, 2, 4, 7, 12, 13, 16,

18 Ignatiev V. I. Some facts and results of 4 years of the civil war (1917-1921). Part I (October

1917 - August 1919). Petrograd, Vologda, Arkhangelsk (Personal memories). M., 1922. - Subsequently

Ignatiev's memoirs were republished with abbreviations in the collection: White North. 1918-1920: Memoirs and documents / Comp., ed. intro. Art. and com. cand. ist. Sciences V. I. Goldin. Arkhangelsk, 1993. Issue. 1. S. 99-157.

19 Red Book of the Cheka. T. 2 / Ed. M. I. Latsis. M., 1922. S. 94-130. - In 1990, the "Red Book of the Cheka" was published in the second edition.

20 Ibid. S. 106.

21 Ibid. pp. 106-107.

22 Ibid. S. 111.

23 Chaplin G. E. Two coups in the North (1918) // White North. 1918-1920: Memoirs and documents / Comp., ed. intro. Art. and com. cand. ist. Sciences V. I. Goldin. Arkhangelsk, 1993. Issue. 1. S. 46.

24 Ibid. S. 47.

25 Ibid. pp. 48-49.

26 Bezsonov Yu. D. Twenty-six prisons and escape from Solovki. Paris, 1928.

27 Ibid. S. 18.

28 Ibid. pp. 19-20.

29 Ibid. pp. 20-21.

31 By the decision of the PChK of May 18, 1919, twenty-five-year-old De-Simon Alexander Mikhailovich, a former officer, spy who served in the Red Army, will be shot // Northern Commune. 1919. May 23; Petrograd truth. 1919. May 23.

32 The description of Deryabinsk prison, as well as Gorokhovaya, d. 2 of the specified period, is recorded in the following edition: Cheltsov M. Memoirs of a "suicide bomber" about the experience. M., 1995.

33 Bezsonov Yu. D. Twenty-six prisons and escape from Solovki. S. 22.

34 Ibid. S. 27.

35 Ibid. pp. 33-34.

36 Pilkin V.K. In the White Struggle in the North-West: Diary 1918-1920. M., 2005. S. 486.

38 Kadesnikov N. A brief outline of the White Struggle under the St. Andrew's flag on land, seas, lakes and rivers of Russia in 1917-1922 // Fleet in the White Struggle. M., 2002. - In the notes of S. V. Volkov, it is erroneously indicated that P. M. Plen was shot in 1919. The essay by N. Z. Kadesnikov was first published in the series “Russian Maritime Foreign Library” (No. 79. New York, 1965).

39 Archive of the Memorial Research Center (St. Petersburg). According to the archive, he was convicted for participating in sending officers of the former tsarist army to the Don. There is no information about the execution in the materials of the investigation file.

40 Pilkin V.K. In the White Struggle in the North-West: Diary. 1918-1920 M., 2005. S. 99.

41 Katenev B. G. Ivan Nikolaevich Trifonov // In memory of the dead: Sat. / Ed. N. I. Astrov, V. F. Zeele-ra, P. N. Milyukova, Prince. V. A. Obolensky, S. A. Smirtnov and L. E. Elyashev. Paris, 1929, pp. 63-65.

42 Ibid. S. 64.

43 Berezhkov V.I. Petersburg procurators. Heads of the Cheka-MGB. 1918-1954. SPb., 1998. S. 30.

44 Tinchenko Ya. Yu. Calvary of Russian officers in the USSR, 1930-1931. Moscow societies. scientific fund. M., 2000. - Indication 1931 Zueva D. D.

45 Archive of the Office of the Federal Security Service for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region. Materials of the Investigative Case of VV Shulgina. L. 10.

46 There are erroneous indications of the death of Rear Admiral M. M. Veselkin in the summer of 1918 in Petrograd in response to the murder of M. S. Uritsky (Cherkashin M. Admirals of the rebel fleets. M., 2003. January 1919

47 Berezhkov V.I. Petersburg procurators. Heads of the Cheka-MGB. 1918-1954. SPb., 1998. S. 63-64.

48 Ibid. C.6H.

49 Smirnova-Marley A. Yu. The road home. M., 2004. S. 3. 5G

Ratkovskiy I. S. Petrogradskaya Cheka and Organization of Doctor V. P. Kovalevskiy in 1918.

ABSTRACT: The article examines the activity of Doctor V. P. Kovalevskiy"s organization (group) in Petrograd in 1918. The article gives the analysis of the groups activity and membership. Using its relations with the English, the organization was transporting officers to Murmansk and Archangelsk and collecting the secret information.

KEYWORDS: Petrograd, 1918, Cheka, espionage, Red Terror, officers, Peter and Paul Fortress, V. P. Kovalevskiy, M. M. Veselkin, A. N. Rikov.

1 Viktorov I. V. Podpol "shhik, voin, chekist. Moscow, 1963.

2 Ocherki istorii Vologodskoj organizacii KPSS (1895-1968). Vologda, 1969.

14 Chekisty" Petrograda na strazhe revolyucii (Partijnoe rukovodstvo Petrogradskoj ChK 1918-1920 gg.) / Kutuzov V. A., Lepetuxin V. F., Sedov V. F., Stepanov 0. N. T. 1. Leningrad, 1987.

16 Ratkovskiy I. S. Individual "ny" j terror v gody "grazhdanskoj vojny" // Vestnik SPbGU. 1995 Ser. 2. Vy "p. 1.

17 Krasnaya kniga VChK. T. 2 / Under red. M. I. Lacisa. Moscow, 1922.

18 Artemenko Yu. A. Obzor Kollekcii “Arxiv M.S. Urickogo" (iz fondov Gosudarstvennogo muzeya politicheskoj istorii Rossii) //

Politicheskaya Rossiya: Proshloe i sovremennost". Istoricheskie chteniya. St. Petersburg, 2008. Vyp. V. "Goroxovaya, 2" - 2008.

19 Rabochij sud. Leningrad, 1927. No. 24.

20 Antipov N. K. Ocherki iz deyatel "nosti PGChK v 1918 // Petrogradskaya pravda. 1919. 1, 2, 4, 7, 12, 13, 16, 22 January.

21 Ignatyev V. I. Nekotory "e fact" i itogi 4 let grazhdanskoj vojny" (1917-1921 gg.). Ch. I (Oktyabr" 1917 - August 1919). Petrograd, Vologda, Arxangel "sk (Lichny" e vospominaniya). Moscow, 1922.

22 Bely "j Sever. 1918-1920 gg.: Memuary" i dokumenty " / Sost., avt. vstup. st. i kom. k. i. n. V. I. Goldin. Archangelsk, 1993.

23 Chaplin G. E. Dva perevorota na Severe (1918) // Bely "j Sever. 1918-1920 gg.: Memuary "i dokumenty" / Sost., avt. vstup. st. i kom. k. i. n. V. I. Goldin. Archangelsk, 1993 .Vyp.1.

24 Bezsonov Yu. D. Dvadcat "shest" tyurem i pobeg s Solovkov. Paris, 1928.

25 ChelcovM. Vospominaniya "smertnika" o perezhitom. Moscow, 1995.

26 Pilkin V. K. V Beloj bor "be na North-West: Dnevnik 1918-1920. Moscow, 2005.

28 Kadesnikov N. Kratkij ocherk Beloj bor "by" pod Andreevskim flagom na sushe, moryax, ozerax i rekax Rossii v 1917-1922 godax // Flot v Beloj bor" be. Moscow, 2002.

29 KatenevB. G. Ivan Nikolaevich Trifonov // Pamyati pogibshix: Sb. / Under red. N. I. Astrova, V. F. Zeelera, P. N. Milyukova, kn.

V. A. Obolenskogo, S. A. Smirtnova, and L. E. Elyasheva. Paris, 1929.

30 Berezhkov V. I. Piterskie prokuratory". Rukovoditeli VChK-MGB. 1918-1954. St. Petersburg, 1998.

31 Tinchenko Ya. Yu. Golgofa russkogo oficerstva v SSSR, 1930-1931 god. Mosk. obshhestv. nauch. fond. Moscow, 2000.

32 Cherkashin M. Admiraly "myatezhny" x flotov. Moscow, 2003.

33 Archive of Saint-Petersburg FSB department.

On the next granite slab, the Field of Mars, the names of two people are engraved, whose death occurred with a difference of 14 years. During this time, people changed, the country disappeared from the world maps, but the state, which was destined to endure the most difficult trials in the 20th century and exist until the end of 1991, took huge strides forward and strengthened its position. This time we will tell about the revolutionary figure buried on the Field of Mars Moses Uritsky.

Moses Solomonovich Uritsky was born on January 2, 1873 in the Ukrainian city of Cherkasy. A large Jewish merchant family brought up Moses in a strict religious Jewish spirit. The boy became interested in the Russian language and literature, entered the gymnasium, and then the law faculty of Kyiv University. It was there that his revolutionary activities began. In 1898, Uritsky joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party and became one of the leaders of the Kyiv branch of the RSDLP. A year later, he was arrested and exiled to the Yakutsk province, followed by exile to Vologda and the Arkhangelsk province. In 1908 Uritsky was sent abroad. He lived in Germany, Sweden and Denmark and worked as Georgy Plekhanov's personal secretary. He returned to Russia only in 1912.

At first, Uritsky joined the Mensheviks, but then he made a choice in favor of the Bolsheviks. After February 1917, he returned from Denmark to Petrograd and was immediately elected a member of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b). In August 1917, Moses Uritsky was introduced to the Bolshevik Commission for elections to the Constituent Assembly. A couple of weeks later, he was elected a member of the Petrograd City Duma. At that time he was on the editorial board of several newspapers.

The first People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR Anatoly Lunacharsky recalled Uritsky and highly appreciated him:

« Far from everyone is aware of the truly gigantic role played by the Military Revolutionary Committee in Petrograd from approximately October 20 to the middle of November. The climax of this superhuman organizational work was the days and nights from the 24th to the end of the month. All these days and nights Moses Solomonovich did not sleep. Around him was a handful of people, also of great strength and endurance, but they got tired, took turns, carried out partial work, - Uritsky, with eyes red from insomnia, but still calm and smiling, remained at his post in an armchair, to which all the threads converged and from where all the directives of the then sudden, unorganized, but powerful revolutionary organization diverged.

I then looked at the activities of Moses Solomonovich as a real miracle of efficiency, self-control and quick wits. Even now I continue to consider this page of his life a kind of miracle. But this page was not the last. And even its exceptional brightness does not overshadow the pages of subsequent».

In November and December 1917, Uritsky was appointed a member of the collegium of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs. Then Moses Solomonovich became a member of the Emergency Military Headquarters, which was created to organize the maintenance of order in Petrograd during the days of the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. And already in January 1918, he was among the initiators of the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly.

The Bolsheviks faced the question of making peace in the First World War. Moses Uritsky was sure that peace between the proletarian state and the bourgeoisie was unacceptable. He signed a statement to the group of members of the Central Committee and people's commissars for the meeting on February 22, 1918:

« To the speech of the German imperialists, who openly proclaimed their goal to suppress the proletarian revolution in Russia, the Central Committee of the party agreed to conclude peace on the terms that had been rejected by the Russian delegation in Brest a few days before. This consent, given at the very first onslaught of the enemies of the proletariat, is the capitulation of the vanguard of the international proletariat to the international bourgeoisie. Demonstrating before the whole world the impotence of the proletarian dictatorship in Russia, it deals a blow to the cause of the international proletariat, which is especially cruel at the time of the revolutionary crisis in Western Europe, and at the same time puts the Russian revolution aside from the international movement. The decision to make peace at all costs, taken under the pressure of petty-bourgeois elements and petty-bourgeois sentiments, inevitably entails the loss of the proletariat's leading role within Russia as well. The withdrawals from the sphere of operation of the economic program of the Soviet government, which we will be forced to make when making peace for capital of German origin, will bring to naught the work of socialist construction carried out by the proletariat since the October Revolution. Surrendering the position of the proletariat to the outside inevitably prepares the surrender inside».

According to Lunacharsky:

« Uritsky was an ardent opponent of peace with Germany. This incarnation of composure spoke with the usual smile: "Isn't it better to die with honor?"

But to the nervousness of some left communists, MS answered calmly: "Party discipline comes first!" Oh, for him it was not an empty phrase!».

Despite the fact that the decision to withdraw from the war was not supported by Uritsky, later he nevertheless submitted to party discipline. In March 1918, he was appointed chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, and in April they added the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Northern Region. In these posts, Moses Uritsky became the real embodiment of evil for many people. However, in reality, few knew that Uritsky tried not to allow the death penalty, except as an exceptional measure.

« Having combined in his hands both the Extraordinary Commission and the Commissariat of Internal Affairs, and in many respects the leading role in foreign affairs, he was the most terrible enemy in Petrograd of thieves and robbers of imperialism of all stripes and all varieties.

They knew what a powerful enemy they had in him. The townsfolk also hated him, for whom he was the embodiment of the Bolshevik terror».

The red button for announcing repressions could be June 20, 1918, when the Commissar for Press, Agitation and Propaganda V. Volodarsky was killed in Petrograd. The next day, workers' delegations gathered at the Smolny, demanding precisely this, but Uritsky's words proved to be convincing: he called for moderation. Repression this time was avoided.

At the II Congress of Soviets of the Northern Region, Yakov Sverdlov and Leon Trotsky approved a resolution that allowed extrajudicial executions. Moses Uritsky could not challenge the decision supported by the majority of the delegates.

Uritsky spent the night at home, on the 8th line of Vasilyevsky Island. Got up early. A car was already waiting for him outside the house. The caring hostess of the apartment noticed that Moses Solomonovich did not have breakfast, and literally imposed on him a small bag of sandwiches. Shatov, the commandant of the Petrograd Cheka, was sitting in the car next to the driver. So he brought something important." - Skryabin M.E., Gavrilov P.N. You can shine - only by burning: The Tale of M. Uritsky. - M., 1987 .

The 22-year-old poet Leonid Kanegisser rode a bicycle to the Winter Palace, asked the porter about the possibility of getting an appointment with Uritsky, waited for him in the lobby of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the Petrocommune for about 20 minutes and shot his victim in the head. The young man could have easily left the scene of the murder, but he got nervous and quickly drove on a bicycle with a revolver in his hands instead of getting lost in the crowd. The killer was arrested.

According to one version, Leonid Kanegisser killed Moses Uritsky for the execution of his old friend, according to another, Leonid was a member of an underground anti-Bolshevik group led by his cousin, who maintained close relations with Boris Savinkov. It is likely that it was Savinkov who ordered the assassination of a prominent figure in the new state. As a result, the Bolsheviks declared Kannegiser a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party and shot him in October. Kannegiser's true intentions are still unknown.

On the same day, August 30, 1918, in Moscow, Fanny Kaplan fired several shots at Lenin, who spoke at a meeting of workers at the Michelson plant.

The Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR reads:

« ... in this situation, the provision of rear by terror is a direct necessity; that in order to strengthen the activities of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Profiteering and Crime ex officio and to introduce greater planning into it, it is necessary to send there the largest possible number of responsible party comrades; that it is necessary to secure the Soviet Republic from class enemies by isolating them in concentration camps; that all persons connected with the White Guard organizations, conspiracies and rebellions are subject to execution; that it is necessary to publish the names of all the executed, as well as the reasons for applying this measure to them».

In the fall, the first issue of the "Weekly of the Extraordinary Commissions for the Struggle against Counter-Revolution and Speculation of September 22, 1918" was published, where Graskin wrote:

« The assassination of Comrade Uritsky, the assassination attempt on Comrade Lenin, the conspiracy of the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries with their allies is a clear indication that the above-mentioned groups of individuals, who constitute the oligarchy of their class, are hitting the target, trying to upset and, in the final analysis, to seize the apparatus of state power.

The merciless Red Terror must certainly be directed against these individuals and even groups, as a temporary exceptional measure; but only terror not in words, as it was before, but in deeds, for it is quite obvious that the inveterate ideologists of a class hostile to the proletariat and their henchmen, as people who do not want to voluntarily submit and come to terms with their approaching normal death, these people must be destroyed by the force of the proletarian arms and it would be naive to think that this will happen otherwise».

Thus, the murder of Moisei Uritsky and the assassination attempt on Vladimir Lenin will be the last straw for the beginning of the Red Terror. Later streets, villages, palaces, squares, parks and cinemas were named after Uritsky. Palace Square in St. Petersburg from 1918 to 1944 was called "Uritsky Square". Moses Uritsky was buried on the Field of Mars. In 2014 and 2015, on a plate engraved with the name of a revolutionary, unknown people wrote the word “executioner” with spray paint.

The material was prepared by Nadezhda Drozdova