Attempts on Lenin

On January 1, 1918, the first unsuccessful attempt on Lenin took place in Petrograd , in which Friedrich Platten was slightly offended by a bullet. According to one version of the Cheka , the organizer of the assassination attempt on January 1, 1918 was Dmitry Ivanovich Shakhovskaya ^[1] . After several years, Prince I. D. Shakhovskaya, who was in exile, announced that he was the organizer of the assassination and allocated five hundred thousand rubles for these purposes ^[2] . Researcher Richard Pipes also pointed out that one of the former ministers of the Provisional Government, Cadet N.V. Nekrasov , was involved in this attempt, who immediately after the assassination, having changed his surname to Calvary, went to Ufa, then to Kazan. In March 1921 he was arrested, sent to Moscow and in May, after meeting with V.I. Lenin, released.

In mid-January, a second assassination attempt on Lenin broke out in Petrograd: a soldier Spiridonov confessed to MD Bonch-Bruevich , declaring that he was participating in the conspiracy of the Union of St. George Cavaliers and was given the task of eliminating Lenin. On the night of January 22, the Cheka arrested the conspirators in house 14 on Zakharyevskaya Street, in the apartment of “Salova Citizen,” but then they are all sent to the front upon personal request ^{[3] [4]} . At least two of the conspirators, Zinkevich and Nekrasov, subsequently joined the “white” armies ^[3] .

On August 30, 1918, an assassination attempt was committed at the Michelson factory in Moscow , according to the official version, by the half - blind ^[5] Socialist-Revolutionary Fanny Kaplan . As a result of the assassination, Lenin was seriously wounded (the question of the organizers and participants of the assassination, as well as the involvement of Fanny Kaplan, remains unclear to this day ^{[6] [7]} ).

On the morning of August 30, 1918, the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, M. S. Uritsky, was killed in Petrograd . Despite the news of this murder, no additional security measures were taken in Moscow. Scheduled on the eve of the speeches of members of the Council of People's Commissars at factory rallies, scheduled for 6 pm, were not canceled. Lenin was to speak at a rally in front of the workers of the Michelson plant. He left for the factory without security. There was no security at the plant itself ^[5] . Lenin's speech at the rally ended with the words: "We will die, or we will win!" When Lenin left the factory and was already getting into a car, a woman approached him complaining that bread was being confiscated at railway stations. At this moment, Kaplan fired three shots. Lenin’s driver, Stepan Gil , rushed for the unknown, but after a while she stopped herself, was arrested and taken to Lubyanka.

Lenin immediately after the assassination was unconscious; the doctors found he had a dangerous wound in the neck under the jaw, and blood entered the lung. The second bullet fell into his hand, and the third into the woman who was talking to Lenin at the moment the shots started.

The Chekists established that the unknown was a former anarchist Fanny Kaplan , who was involved in the attempt to assassinate the Kiev governor-general before the revolution; in exile she joined the Social Revolutionaries. By his own admission, Kaplan sympathized with the Komuch regime and the Social Revolutionary leader Chernov, and decided to kill Lenin in revenge for breaking up the Constituent Assembly.

I shot Lenin because I consider him a traitor. Due to the fact that he lives for a long time, the onset of socialism is delayed for decades.

Information released by the Soviet government in 1922 during the trial of the Social Revolutionaries

The details of the assassination attempt, or rather, what the authorities decided to report on this matter, became known to the public when, in early 1922, the Bolshevik authorities decided to hold the first open political trial - over the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. At the trial, “repentant” “Socialist-Revolutionary militants” G. I. Semenov-Vasiliev and L. V. Konopleva testified. ^[eight]

In accordance with the testimony of Semyonov-Vasiliev, the militant organization of the party of socialists-revolutionaries resumed their activities in early 1918 and in July liquidated Volodarsky . The next main goal was outlined by Trotsky , as the military leader of Bolshevism. However, Trotsky was constantly moving between the capital and the front, therefore, according to Vasiliev, “for technical reasons”, it was decided at first to liquidate Lenin.

During the training, Semyonov discovered that, independently of him, Kaplan was conducting the same training, which he described as "an unshakable revolutionary terrorist." Kaplan joined the group of Semyonov; She herself, during interrogations in the Cheka, claimed that she acted independently, not representing any party.

The first attempt at the assassination attempt was made by the Socialist-Revolutionaries on August 16 at a meeting of the Moscow Party Committee, but the performer lost their nerves at the last moment. The second, successful attempt was made on August 30. For her, Semenov appointed the on-duty worker Novikov, and the executor Kaplan.

At the same time, the Socialist-Revolutionaries nevertheless tried to carry out an attempt on Trotsky, intending to blow up the train on which he was serving at the front. However, at the last moment Trotsky managed to knock them off the track, leaving another train.

Poisoned Pool Version

For a long time there was an opinion that Lenin was wounded by a poisoned bullet ^[9] . In particular, such a statement is given in his work “Bolsheviks in the struggle for power” by historian Richard Pipes , referring to the testimony of Semenov. Semyonov himself claimed that the three bullets had a cruciform incision into which curare poison was introduced. In addition, according to the medical report, the doctors did find a cruciform incision on the bullet removed from Lenin’s neck. However, even assuming that the poison was actually inflicted, its properties were destroyed by the high temperature in the pistol barrel formed during the shot ^[5] .

Subsequently, a debate arose around this version, in which the political opponents of Lenin tried to deny both the poisoned bullets and the presence of the attempt ^{[10] [11]} .

Attempted Results

As a result of the assassination attempts on V.I. Lenin and M.S. Uritsky, the highest organ of Soviet power - the All - Russian Central Executive Committee - under the chairmanship of Ya. M. Sverdlov, announced the beginning of the Red Terror . The Council of People's Commissars - the Soviet Government - on September 5, 1918, confirmed this decision by a special resolution .

Although Lenin’s wound seemed fatal, he recovered very quickly. On September 25, 1918, he left for Gorki and returned to Moscow on October 14, immediately resuming political activity. The first public attempt after the attempt by Lenin took place on October 22, 1918.

On March 11, 1918, the Bolsheviks moved the capital from Petrograd to Moscow, fearing the expected German offensive ( see Transfer of the Russian capital from Petrograd to Moscow ). The move of government bodies took place in difficult conditions: on March 11, the sabotage of railway workers was still not completely broken. To avert their eyes, the move was announced on March 11, but in fact the move began one day earlier, on March 10 at 21 ⁴⁵ , and was guarded by Latvian shooters under the command of O. Berezin.

On the way, the train with Lenin met with the train traveling from the front with armed deserters. At Malaya Vishera station, there was a clash of deserters, numbering up to 400 sailors and 200 soldiers, with the Latvian riflemen numerically superior to them. Latvians disarmed the deserters and blocked the "anarchist train" ^[12] . The historian Richard Pipes in his work “The Bolsheviks in the Struggle for Power” described this incident as follows: “The company traveled by special train guarded by the Latvian riflemen. In the early morning they came across a train filled with deserters, and since the intentions of the latter were unclear, Bonch-Bruyevich ordered the train to stop and disarm everyone. Then the train moved on and arrived in Moscow late in the evening. "

On January 6, 1919, the gang of Koshelkov (Kuznetsov) accidentally robbed a car with Lenin ^{[13] [14]} , who was driving to Nadezhda Krupskaya (according to the version in numerous stories, to the Christmas tree) at the Forest School in Sokolniki. According to the description of A. Balabanova ,

One of them took out a gun and said: “Trick or treat!” Lenin showed his ID and said: “I am Ulyanov-Lenin.” The attackers did not even glance at the document and only repeated: “Wallet or life!” Lenin had no money. He took off his coat, got out of the car and, without giving the robbers a bottle of milk, which was intended for his wife, went on foot.

According to researcher Savchenko V. A., an underground anarchist group led by Nikiforova M. G. (“Marusey”) in the summer of 1919 began to develop plans for the assassination of Lenin and Trotsky. After a series of “expropriations”, the anarchists, under the slogan of the outbreak of “dynamite war with the Council of People's Commissars and the Cheka,” blew up the building of the Moscow Party Committee on September 25, 1919 , in which Lenin’s speech was expected ^[15] . However, Lenin was late for the opening of the plenum of the party committee, and was not injured in any way. At the same time, during the attack, the party committee chairman V.M. and 11 other people were killed, Bukharin , Yaroslavsky and a number of other prominent Bolshevik figures were injured, for a total of 55 people ( see Explosion in Leontief Lane ).

On the October holidays of 1919, the anarchists planned to blow up the Kremlin, but the whole organization was opened by the Cheka and almost completely arrested, seven people were shot. Nikiforova herself (Maroussia) by this time was already hanged by the White Guards in Sevastopol ; presumably she was going to blow up General Denikin’s headquarters.

• The 1917 revolution in Russia
• Kaplan, Fanny Efimovna

• «Покушение на Ленина» Фильм Алексея Пивоварова (НТВ) из серии «Дело тёмное»
• Как Ленина спас автомобиль
• Опубликованные материалы из Президентской библиотеки имени Ельцина от 1918 г., 87 листов.
• Виктор Кириллов «Пять заблуждений о покушении Каплан на Ленина»