Why during the Civil War were St. Petersburg residents afraid to wear good clothes, but often used cocaine, how did the city live after the 1917 revolution, and why were the Bolsheviks able to retain power?

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

Arrest of policemen in disguise in Petrograd, 1917. In the foreground is a group of students from the Technological Institute, members of the civilian militia.

- 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 some legitimacy in the public understanding. Partly thanks to the State Duma, a body of the old government that took a direct part in the formation of the new one. Partly due to the abdication of the tsar, 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, since 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 who is considered the legitimate government and who - a rebel.

Is it possible to identify any other main reasons for the war? Or was it precisely the Bolshevik struggle for absolute power?

Complex issue. It seems to me that one cannot say that one person gave up and people started killing each other. The causes of the Civil War lie not only in the actions of the Bolshevik Party. This is a large complex issue that affects all spheres of society: everyday, national, social, economic, and so on. For example, a reason that is often overlooked is the First World War as a socio-psychological phenomenon and its role in the 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 dropped greatly. 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 became a normal everyday occurrence for them and was no longer perceived as something out of the ordinary - morality fell, morals became coarser. That is why in 1917 society so easily switched to a violent solution to political problems.

We used to say that the overthrown classes, landowners and 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 Lenin, even during the First World War, called for turning the imperialist war into a civil war. This flowed from his understanding of Marxism.

However, no matter how much he wanted, he could not single-handedly start a civil war in 1914, 1915, or 1916. It broke out at the moment when many reasons came together. At the same time, it is worth recognizing that the October Revolution served as a trigger - after October 25, the resolution of political contradictions finally moved to the military plane. Lenin himself said at the VII 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 average person 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 breakdown of everything old. Some even learned about the Revolution only a few days later. For many, it went unnoticed. People went to work just the same 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 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 units 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 cadet uprising took place, the scale of which is also often underestimated. The Junkers, for example, managed to arrest one of the government members, Antonov-Ovseenko. There were urban battles, artillery fired directly at the Vladimir cadet school on the Petrograd side.

- Did ordinary residents somehow participate in these events?

The fighting took place in different parts of the city: in those areas, people, of course, tried to keep a low profile. Otherwise, the majority of the townspeople lived an ordinary life: they also went to work or anywhere else they needed to go. But even if earlier the revolution did not particularly influence their life, now, purely visually, they have already begun to face its consequences, at least in the form of these battles. Agree, it is difficult not to notice firing artillery pieces within the city.

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

- So the stories about general robbery and looting by the Bolsheviks are true?

It should be taken into account that 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 take the “extra” where they thought it was.

In general, 1918–1919 was not the most pleasant time from the point of view of urban history. Those who walked, for example, in pince-nez could get caught on the street - this was considered something of a bourgeois image accessory. On the street they could have been robbed, they could have been killed, their clothes could have been taken away. It was especially difficult to find clothes in the city, and you could easily lose a fur coat or coat while walking. Therefore, the townspeople tried not to stand out among passers-by with their appearance. Everyone tried to disguise themselves as an average resident of Petrograd, preferably as a worker. It was the safest thing.

- Has this image of the average resident changed much after the Revolution?

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

- Did this situation continue throughout the war?

It was difficult in 1918 and 1919, but it became 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 ranking of the worst periods in the history of our city, then the blockade will be in first place, and the years of the Civil War will be in second place. People did not die from dystrophy, as in the terrible days of the siege, but there was not enough food. People received 30-50% of their daily requirement and died from diseases from which they would have recovered under normal conditions.

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

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

Is it possible to single out any 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 poorly. City services were almost non-existent at that time; there was no one to clear 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 lamp. In addition, the rivers and canals were very polluted at that time. There was so much garbage that ships could only navigate the main channel of the Neva.

A detail from the area of ​​the food problem - people, as later during the blockade, had to invent new ways to feed themselves. Bread was made with various impurities, sawdust - rye flour sometimes made up only 15%. People baked cakes from coffee grounds and potato skins, and ate fish with the 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, and went to theaters in cars, although this was prohibited due to a shortage of gasoline.

Or take the situation with alcohol. With the outbreak of World War I, in 1914, prohibition was introduced, which the Soviet government extended until 1923. It was forbidden to produce and sell alcohol - the city authorities actively fought against this during the Civil War. But one day the commandant of the city of Shatov was caught drunk. There were many similar situations.

- Did the introduction of Prohibition 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 ended up on the black market. They were actively bought. Moonshine brewing was very common. The ban on alcohol also led to people looking for other ways to intoxicate themselves - the use of cocaine and morphine increased in the city. Cocaine was especially widespread in Petrograd. Morphine was largely the province of doctors.

- Against the backdrop of such problems, did people think that things were better under the Tsar?

You see, against the backdrop of such extreme events as the Revolution and Civil War, people think in slightly different categories. Besides, it wasn't all bad. For example, the same workers received more opportunities - housing, an 8-hour working day, participation in elections, the opportunity to receive an education, and 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 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 patient a little. Plus, propaganda played on the fact that we are the first state of workers and peasants. Previously, everyone exploited us, 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?

Some sold everything and left Petrograd, others began to cooperate with the authorities. But overall, 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 get raided. And money is not endless, no matter how much you save.

- These same people owned apartment buildings before the Revolution. How was their housing taken away?

In March 1918, the famous resolution was adopted on the maximum living space - one room for one person or two children. In the houses there were house committees that looked at who borrowed how much, who lived how, and passed this information on to the top. As a result, housing was taken away from some, while others, on the contrary, were given it.

St. Petersburg 100 years ago: how housing was rented and rented before the revolution

Where and how they looked for rooms to rent, where it was fashionable to live, who inhabited the house from basement to 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 in 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 began - 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 left.

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

- Was there any cultural life preserved 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 or electricity, but at the same time there was cultural life in the city. Theatres, museums, concerts. Chaliapin performed. Although a large number of theaters had to be closed due to lack of fuel, the Mariinsky and Alexandrinsky worked. The authorities especially tried to introduce workers to culture.

Separately, it is necessary to say about education. Despite all the difficulties, many educational institutions continued to operate. Of course, the number of students has decreased significantly, but those who wanted to study studied. But scientists and teachers found themselves in a terrible situation during the Civil War. They were not classic “bourgeois”, they did not have a lot of money, but at the same time visually they looked the same: they wore ties, some wore pince-nez, and in general they dressed “bourgeois”. It was very difficult for them. 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 difficult, but they tried to work. Considering the conditions, this was quite a feat.

You have already said several times that people were robbed and killed on the streets. How did this happen? Were gangs roaming the streets openly?

Of course, there was rampant crime. This always happens when central power is weakened - everything that could not come out before comes out. In addition, we have already talked about the general decline in morality. The crime situation in the city was difficult. It was 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 on the street and robbed. If this could happen to one of the most prominent Bolshevik functionaries, then what was it like for ordinary people? On the other hand, society responded to the rampant street crime in Petrograd with frequent cases of lynching in these years. The crowd could simply catch some criminal themselves and tear him 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 certainly 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 - as they say, they could come to them.

The further from October 1917, the more dangerous it was to express opposition views. It is clear that Maxim Gorky could say whatever he thought. 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 essence they had no rights and could face a situation where the arbitrariness of even the lowest boss could put them in a very difficult life situation. To cause trouble, it was enough to simply dislike 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 Bolsheviks' intentions, joined the party - some ideologically, and some guided by everyday motives.

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

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

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

The terror in Petrograd had both a national dimension, associated with the introduction of the Red Terror and the assassination attempt on Lenin, and a regional dimension, associated with local events. For example, the murder of the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, Moisei Uritsky, or the complexity of the military-political situation in the north-west.

In the second half of 1918, the 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 shootings were covered by the city's daily newspapers, but not all. It is known that Gleb Bokiy, deputy chairman of Uritsky’s Petrograd Cheka and chairman after his murder, in October 1918 named the figure of more than six thousand arrested and about 800 killed. It seems that this figure is far from complete.

Juncker on Palace Square, 1917

- Is it true that whites were supported by the upper strata of society?

This is a very strong simplification. The idea that all the former elite were 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 a significant part of it traditionally adheres to left-wing views. Not communist, of course, but leftist. Often the intellectual was closer to the Bolsheviks, whom he may not have liked, than to the conventional Kolchak. Often, especially at the initial stage of the Civil War, the intellectual chose a politically passive life under the Bolsheviks rather than an active fight against them, even if he internally disagreed with them.

On the other hand, it is equally impossible to say that all the workers of Petrograd were Bolsheviks. I think it would be fair to say that a significant part of the classical proletariat still did not sympathize with whites. 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 specific steps, or the poor food situation. Workers are not a monolithic class. In Petrograd, too, there were highly skilled workers who received a lot of money before the Revolution and could rent not just “corners,” but entire houses. It is difficult to imagine such a worker advocating equalization.

- Did white supporters have any other options other than fleeing Petrograd?

It was possible to stay. In Petrograd at first there were many anti-Bolshevik underground organizations. True, for most of them it is difficult to say whether they carried out any real activity. But some, for example, took a direct part in organizing the White Army in Pskov.

It was still possible to go to the Soviet authorities and carry out subversive work. For example, there was an entire regiment for the protection of Petrograd, the commanders of which, as we now know, from the very beginning were opponents of Soviet power 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 in full force with the orchestra.

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

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

Many who made up the city's non-working population left the city. Representatives of the elites left, some of the intelligentsia left. Peasants who had not yet completely transformed into proletarians and had not lost contact with the village also left. Therefore, over time, the number of the working population in relation to the rest increased. The city became more working-class than it was before the revolution. Overall, general social behavior in the city has averaged out. City dwellers often imitated workers, even if in reality they were not: some hid their origins, others followed fashion. Workers' slang could be heard more often on the streets, and the interests of 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 is, naturally, 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 location of the concentration of power structures. If previously it was located in the area of ​​the Winter Palace, it has now moved to Smolny. When the capital was moved to Moscow, Smolny ceased to be an all-Russian center, but remained a city center. And this continues to this day.

As for urban life, the move of the capital brought our city to some extent to the political periphery: the uprising of the left Socialist Revolutionaries, the assassination attempts on Lenin - in a word, important events on a national scale now took place in Moscow.

- The city did not become poorer because of this?

The city became poorer 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 Civil War there were many separatist movements. In Petrograd there were no utopian projects of separation from Russia?

In the sense of separatism, there is no. But in the first years after the Revolution, regionalism was strong within the framework of Soviet Russia as a federation. In the RSFSR, Petrograd for some time was the capital of a regional union of several provinces (Arkhangelsk, Petrograd, Olonetsk, 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 maintain at least some metropolitan status for Petrograd. I didn’t want to become an ordinary provincial center.

If we talk about national separatism, there was a problem with the Ingrian Finns. One part of them in 1919 gathered into the Ingermanland Regiment and tried to fight for the creation of the Ingermanland Republic, fighting against the Bolsheviks on the southern shore 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 did not particularly trust them 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 at the Krasnaya Gorka fort, a rather acute conflict arose between the Whites and the Intermanlanders, as a result of which the Whites were unable to provide assistance to the rebel fort in time and the uprising failed. This is perhaps the only episode when the Ingrians were able to come to the forefront of the struggle between the whites and reds for Petrograd.

The Ingrians on the other side 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.

“They have branded us as separatists”: why Ingrian Finns and regionalists from “Free Ingria” are not the same people

How did the contradiction arise between Finns and regionalists and why activists advocating autonomy for St. Petersburg go to protests under the flag of Ingria

- Is it possible to identify the key events in the Civil War that led to the victory of the Bolsheviks?

If we talk about our city, then I think it was 1919, when the whites were very close to taking Petrograd. They were on the very approaches. But whether they had real chances is a debatable question. They could take Petrograd, but it would be difficult to hold it. Petrograd is a large city with a large working population who had little sympathy for 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 it is also necessary to maintain order in it - even the Soviet government had to have at least 6-7 thousand police officers. But the Whites could take the city under a fortunate combination 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 shine of the dome in the rays of the sun. Kuprin described this best in his story “The Dome of St. Isaac of Dalmatia.” They had a feeling that Petrograd was about to be taken. They even managed to think in advance about how they would feed the population of the former capital: large cargoes of food were ordered from the American company. But it didn’t work out.

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

- If taking Petrograd was a real possibility, could the Whites have won the war as a whole?

It seems to me that a chance for this could arise only if the Whites attacked simultaneously on all fronts. In reality, the offensives happened 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 “Everyone to fight Kolchak!” was implemented, then - “Everyone to fight Denikin!”

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

It must be said that the degree of foreign interference in Soviet times was greatly exaggerated. There was simply not 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 never have organized themselves. For example, near the same Petrograd, a white army was formed in Pskov, occupied by German troops, while the Germans gave the whites money, weapons and equipment. The British played a large role in creating the hotbed of the Civil War in the north. The Czecho-Slovak rebellion 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 there is restlessness in Finland, then the White Guards are attacking. In 1920, the city found itself far from the main fronts, but at the beginning of 1921 there was a new test - the Kronstadt rebellion. That is, almost all the time the city was close to 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 came to life and began to reach pre-revolutionary levels.

If we do not take into account 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, there remains art in all its diversity. The same propaganda posters are still considered very powerful works. I constantly see fonts clearly copied from them, especially in advertising. Literature, of course: “Heart of a Dog” is probably the best portrait of the era, even if it doesn’t depict Petrograd.

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

Funeral of those killed during the February Revolution on the Champ de 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 decisions: for example, the village of Strugi Belye, which was called that even before the Revolution, when no White Guards existed. After the Revolution, it was renamed Strugi Krasnye only because it was occupied for some time by white troops. It is still called that way now.

There are many things left over from those years that we still use without thinking. The railway line to Veliky Novgorod, passing through Novolisino. Nowadays electric trains and summer residents travel along it, 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 planned to build the Petrograd-Orel railway, bypassing Moscow. But they only managed to build the section to Veliky Novgorod.

Nothing much remains of the architecture from the Civil War period in the city. There was no major 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? The cruiser Aurora, of course. True, this is essentially a remake, but it stands in the place where [Aurora] actually stood.

- Why do you think a lot of books and works are published about the Revolution, but 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 very few works are published about the civil war. Little is published in our region, in the north-west, but in the south and east there is a lot of literature. There is a lot of science - unfortunately, not always of high quality. If the era is interesting, but there is no desire to read dry scientific Talmuds, then I urge everyone to turn to memoir literature. I assure you that Denikin and Trotsky will give any modern publicist a head start.

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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MOSES URITSKY:
ROBESPIERRE OF REVOLUTIONARY PETROGRAD? During the spring and summer of 1918. M.S. Uritsky, the head of the Petrograd Cheka (PChK), became for opponents of the Bolsheviks the personification of terror and a kind of Robespierre of revolutionary Petrograd. However, the facts that will be analyzed below refute this idea. Among his party comrades and even many former prisoners, he enjoyed a well-deserved reputation as a moderate man who disapproved of extremes in repression. The Bolshevik leaders’ description of Uritsky as “Trotsky’s man” is also not entirely correct. In this essay about Uritsky’s activities in 1918, I will try to show that he pursued his own, well-defined political line, uncompromisingly and firmly defending it if necessary. Moses Solomonovich Uritsky was born in 1873 near Kyiv in 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 pre-war years, Uritsky was a left Menshevik, politically close to Trotsky, whose 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 the same 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 board of the NKVD. In addition, as a Bolshevik commissar for the re-established All-Russian Commission for Elections to the Constituent Assembly, Uritsky was responsible for its opening and work, so its dissolution in the perception of society was firmly associated with his name. An ardent left communist during the internal party disputes about the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty, unlike many other leftists, he was among those who, after the ratification of the peace treaty, stopped fighting to continue the revolutionary war. Short, plump, with a slow, swaying gait, Uritsky was a man of phlegmatic, if not gentle, character. Always dressed in a three-piece suit, with a constant pince-nez on his nose,

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in 1918 he looked more like a university professor than a radical revolutionary. In the original composition of the Council of People's Commissars of the Petrograd Labor Commune (SNK PTK), formed on the night of March 10, 1918, simultaneously with the move of the central government to Moscow, the most influential figure was Trotsky. He headed the Military Revolutionary Commissariat, which combined the functions of the internal affairs and military commissariats 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 board 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 Commissioner of Internal Affairs of the Council of People's Commissars of the PTK. However, this structure also turned out 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, held in Petrograd on April 26-29, a coalition Bolshevik-Left Socialist Revolutionary government was formed - the Council of Commissioners of the Union of Communes of the Northern Region. (SK KSSO), which lasted until the so-called left-SR rebellion in early July. Even before the formation of this government, the PCHK, the abolition of which the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries insisted on 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 Revolutionary Security of Petrograd. The influential left Socialist Revolutionary P.P. became Commissioner of Internal Affairs. Proshyan. Already on the first day of his tenure as head of the Military Revolutionary Commissariat of the SNK PTK, Trotsky announced his intention to “destroy from the face of the earth counter-revolutionaries, pogromists, and White Guards who are trying to sow confusion and disorder in the city.” Such pompous rhetoric was consistent with Trotsky’s character. 2 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 such an order was quite unusual for him, and it must be assessed in the context of the rapidly deteriorating political situation, which had seriously worsened after the disorderly evacuation of the central government. In fact, Uritsky had 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 final decision. In a word, the PChK was supposed to exist as a subordinate structure to 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 the commission’s employees were evacuated there, “without leaving a soul,” and all the investigative cases opened in Petrograd were also transported. Chairman of the Cheka F.E. Dzerzhinsky left Uritsky several hundred prisoners held at the Cheka headquarters on 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 indicated that, having left Petrograd, the leadership of the Cheka considered it unnecessary to worry about any long-term activities of the Cheka. Therefore, one of the most urgent problems facing Uritsky was the problem of finding new employees. On March 12, the very next day after the government fled to Moscow, the Petrograd Committee of the Bolshevik Party resolved

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pitched "to attract people from the districts to the commission, entrusting them with the further organization of work." Having announced additional mobilization in district party committees, the city party leadership, as it did in other similar cases, refused to bear responsibility 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 restrained attitude towards political repression, was appointed Uritsky's deputy. At the same time, other party veterans took leadership positions in the PCCHK. The leadership, secretariat and 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 soon as it got back on its feet, the PCHK began arresting those suspected of counter-revolutionary activities and profiteering. However, judging by the reports of the non-Bolshevik press, many of those detained were soon released. At the same time, Uritsky strictly adhered to the principle of the inadmissibility of releasing prisoners on bail or guarantees from influential persons. Already in early April, his stubborn defense of this principle in the face of growing pressure from high-ranking Bolsheviks in Moscow, as well as from Zinoviev, caused an unprecedented public controversy. As Uritsky himself explained in an official statement dated April 6, at the first meeting of the Human Rights Committee in mid-March, it was decided “for the sake of fairness” not to release those arrested on bail. Therefore, he called on his colleagues in the government to refrain from such petitions. However, this call was constantly ignored. PTC commissioners systematically petitioned him “on behalf of 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, having refused to comply with the direct order of the People's Commissar Podvoisky to release one of the arrested, organized by a certain Petrograd party functionary, and forced to submit to another such demand coming from the chairman of the presidium of the Petrosovet Zinoviev, decided to make this problem public. Uritsky's official message ended with a repeated demand to stop such petitions. The Human Rights Watch, he added, investigates cases and releases detainees whenever possible, and requests for release only delay this process. Zinoviev responded by publishing a statement, which said that just a few weeks earlier the Presidium of the Petrograd Soviet had released the famous Menshevik R. Abramovich under its guarantee and had the right to continue to do so in the future. However, this case, in turn, Uritsky insisted, cannot have precedent significance for the Cheka, since Abramovich was released before the Cheka moved to Moscow. I was unable to find out how this public controversy ended. However, in this context, what is more important is that it illustrates Uritsky’s firmness on issues 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 those arrested continued in Petrograd, carried out not by the Cheka, but by other bodies of the new government (the Cheka began practicing 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 in the city increased sharply, and very often the criminals posed as security officers. Wild, indiscriminate executions also became more frequent, most of which were carried out by drunken Red Army recruits, Red Guards and anarchists19. Every night, many bodies picked up on the streets were delivered to the main Petrograd hospitals. Often the killers escaped by stripping the victims of their clothes. Most of the corpses remained unidentified in the morgues for several weeks, and then they were disorganized.

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but they buried them in mass graves. But the bodies identified by relatives were also left in morgues. Cruelty flourished in Petrograd. Finding himself at the head of the PCHK, Uritsky from the very beginning refused to sanction the 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 authorities, and 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 reflected already in his first orders. On March 15, 2 days after the Petrosovet approved Uritsky in office, he issued a preliminary instruction aimed at strict control over the investigation and the detention of corrupt security officers, as well as criminals posing as representatives of the PCHK. Noticeable was the exclusion of Red Army soldiers from the bodies authorized to conduct the investigation. A week later, an order was promulgated giving city residents 3 days to surrender unregistered weapons, and those who violated it were to be tried by a military tribunal (they were not threatened with execution). At the same time, district councils were ordered to increase street patrols to confiscate all unregistered weapons. On April 4, Nikolai Krestinsky was appointed Commissioner of Justice of the Council of People's Commissars of the PTC. Like Uritsky, he had a legal education and extensive experience in revolutionary activities, was on the side of the left communists during the disputes over the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty and established himself as 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 did not allow him to read. Combined with pressure from Uritsky, this appointment apparently forced the Petrograd government to apply appropriate legal procedures to arrested political opponents (it should be added that the authorities at this time were very concerned about showing their “human face” ", to win popular support). Another reason, obviously, was the urgent need to reduce the number of prisoners overcrowding city prisons, whom the authorities were unable to feed, house, and treat for rapidly spreading infectious diseases (typhoid was especially rampant in prisons). In addition, the Kronstadt sailors increasingly expressed their reluctance to accept on their territory detainees who no longer fit in the Petrograd prisons. Their position was expressed in an editorial article in Izvestia of the Kronstadt Council: “Individuals and entire groups of arrested persons were and are being sent to Kronstadt... Moreover, with most of them, even materials are not forwarded and no instructions are given as to what exactly should be done.” to do with them. Such an ugly understanding of the role of Kronstadt must end. 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 would be synonymous with prison and executioner." A few days after his appointment, Krestinsky was authorized to streamline the placement of detainees and speed up investigations and trials in their cases. As formulated in the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the PTC, "The [Petrograd] Council of People's Commissars considers it absolutely necessary that those prisoners whose cases cannot be brought before the court by the relevant authorities are immediately released. For this purpose, the Council of People's Commissars provides the Commissioner of Justice with the broadest powers -chiya" . These efforts were reinforced by the May Day amnesty for many categories of criminal and political prisoners, initiated by the government on April 27. Pre-approved by the Council of People's Commissars of the PTC, 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, it covered political prisoners, all categories of prisoners over 70 years of age, and criminals sentenced to up to 6 months (the terms of imprisonment for those guilty of more serious crimes were reduced by half).
Commenting in the press on his position on 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 previous 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 in the same way as is customary in all imperialist and monarchical states." Before the City Council, which approved the amnesty, Zinoviev boasted that the question of it was raised in Petrograd independently of Moscow. And so it was. It is characteristic that when the board of the People's Commissariat of Justice, headed by P. Stuchka, learned about the scale of the Petrograd amnesty, it demanded that the Investigative Committee of the SKSO annul those points of this decision, according to which “patented counter-revolutionaries” were subject to the amnesty. Nevertheless, a little later, Krestinsky proposed to release three of the most odious representatives of the highest tsarist bureaucracy held in Petrograd - S.P. Beletsky, I.G. Shcheglovitova and A.N. Khvostova. The board cast a decisive veto on this project and decided to make the case public. At the same time, the restriction on executions imposed by the PCHK was expanded. On April 16, the Petrograd Council of People's Commissars received a report from Uritsky on limiting the powers of the Committee for Revolutionary Security of Petrograd to investigative functions. Neither the details of this report nor any comments about it appear to have been recorded in the documents. However, the report apparently led to a comprehensive discussion of the question of which city bodies have the right to execute executions (the Committee for Revolutionary Security, after the relocation of the Cheka 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 “develop a draft (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 PTC announced that from now on “not a single institution in the city of Petrograd has the right to execute people.” This ban applied to the PCHK, the Committee for Revolutionary Security, revolutionary tribunals, the Red Guard, units of the Red Army 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 peace, a sharp increase in unemployment, a chaotic evacuation and a catastrophic shortage of food. In Moscow, such protests ended in the undeclared “Red Terror,” carried out primarily by the Cheka. In Petrograd, such a policy was not pursued, which was to a large extent explained by the position of Uritsky, supported by Krestinsky and Proshyan. The discontent of the masses here led to the creation of a short-lived Extraordinary Assembly of authorized factories and factories in Petrograd. Until its dissolution in July 1918. this organization enjoyed significant support from workers36. As far as I know, although its leaders were persecuted, they were not arrested.
The discontent of the masses was also reflected in pogroms in which workers were participants, and in a sharp increase in open and aggressive anti-Semitism. The last phenomenon

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so characteristic of traditional Russian society, was further aggravated by the fact that many prominent Bolsheviks were Jews. As a rule, anti-Semitism among workers was fueled and used by ultra-reactionary, monarchist organizations. One of such organizations, “discovered” by the Human Rights Watch, turned out to be the “Camorra of National Retribution”. At the end of May, she sent out a leaflet to the chairmen of house committees throughout Petrograd, containing a demand to provide the Camorra with information about the Bolsheviks and Jews living in their houses with a view to their subsequent extermination. The authors of the leaflet promised to subject anyone who concealed 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 sow “the most ridiculous, pogrom rumors aimed at causing unrest in the ranks of the working people." Three days later, a special commission was formed with unlimited powers to suppress counter-revolutionary agitation, which “has recently spread especially widely due to difficulties in food supplies.” 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 PCHK investigators at the time, Stanislav Baikovsky, acted on the basis of the theory that the case of Zlotnikov and the Camorra should be considered part of a vast counter-revolutionary conspiracy by former members of the Union of the Russian People. However, the materials of the investigation file indicate that he was unable to find evidence of this version. Of the 90 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. The fate of Filippov 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. Throughout 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 Repression, Uritsky, apparently without the knowledge of Dzerzhinsky, ordered his arrest and transport from Moscow to Petrograd. At the end of July 1918 Dzerzhinsky tried unsuccessfully to achieve his release. Filippov remained in Kresty until the Camorra case was completed in September.
The period of mass unrest also saw the first attempt to abolish the PCHK, which was a branch of the Cheka, which in turn was created as a temporary institution. It is possible, however, that the initial stage of active, albeit chaotic efforts to streamline the system of city public and political security bodies from top to bottom (with the simultaneous abolition of the PCHK) can be considered the already mentioned April report of Uritsky to the Petrograd Council of People's Commissars on changing the functions of the Committee on Revolutionary 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 towards the PCHK from the very moment he joined the KSSO Investigative Committee, developed a detailed plan for ensuring security in the city. He envisioned the creation at the city and district levels of a trained “guard” of the Committee for Revolutionary Security of Petrograd

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and periodic mobilization of city residents to perform police duties. Consisting of citizens, unarmed patrols were supposed to monitor order in the city around the clock and report “to the right place” about any manifestations of criminal activity, including political activity. Although unrealistic, this plan eliminated the need for ad hoc bodies such as the PCHK. As Latsis recalled, initially the leaders of the Cheka also fundamentally rejected the “methods of the secret police” - 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 this time supported the dissolution of the PCHK. One of the reasons for this was that it became overrun with speculators. On April 20, Elena Stasova, at that time secretary of the Petrograd Bureau of the Central Committee, in a letter to Sverdlov’s wife Klavdia Novgorodtseva, who was in Moscow, wrote about the dissatisfaction with the Cheka existing in Petrograd: “... If we believed that both commissions were absolutely not have nothing positive, then we would immediately launch an immediate campaign against them and achieve their liquidation... Criticism of what exists is always necessary... I don’t know about Dzerzhinsky, but Uritsky definitely says that in the sense of fighting profiteering they constantly come across the fact that the threads lead specifically 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. Leading this organization was a deeply unpleasant matter for him, and relations with the head of the Cheka, Dzerzhinsky, which is even more important, 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 transfer to him the cases of the prisoners remaining in Petrograd were ignored by Dzerzhinsky later. But more significant was that Uritsky considered the executions carried out by the Cheka to be useless, and the interrogation methods odious. His sense of disgust at such methods was reflected in an undated letter to Dzerzhinsky, prompted by the testimony of 14-year-old Vsevolod Anosov, who spoke about the extreme cruelty 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 those named by the boy as culprits. 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 to be undisciplined and too soft for the position he held. Thus, in mid-April, he was indignant to learn that some of the detainees whom he had ordered the PCHK to exile 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 employees; to remove from circulation prominent and active leaders of the monarchist-cadets, right-wing socialist-revolutionaries] and Mensheviks; to register and establish surveillance of generals and officers, to put under observation of the Red Army, command staff, clubs, circles, schools, etc.; apply the measure of execution against prominent and clearly exposed counter-revolutionaries, speculators, robbers and bribe-takers." It is important to note that the faction also voted to propose to the Central Committee of the party to recall Uritsky from the post of head of the PCHK and “replace him with a more persistent and decisive comrade, capable of firmly and unswervingly pursuing tactics of merciless suppression and fight against hostile elements, destroying Soviet power and the revolution." The meeting was chaired by Ivan Poluka- <10>

Rov 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 with Uritsky. There is evidence that the position of Uritsky and Proshyan regarding the fate of the PCHK was shared by Krestinsky and the majority of members of the Petrograd Bureau of the Central Committee (which may have caused the aforementioned correspondence between Novgorodtseva and Stasova). Already on April 13, the bureau discussed a resolution proposed by Adolf Joffe to recommend that the Central Committee 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, clearly provocative methods, the Petrograd Bureau of the Central Committee proposes that the Central Committee petition the Council of People’s Commissars for the disposition of both these co mis this". True, in the end this resolution was voted foronly Joffe himself was involved. However, according toIt is significant that the bureau decided to “temporarilydo not initiate cases against entitiesformation of the Dzerzhinsky and Uritsky commission in view ofth that is just the edge with a grim gesture." Newspaper reports about the meeting of the leaders of the Commissariat of Justice that took place on June 20 apparently provide the key to clarifying Krestinsky’s position regarding the PCHK. As follows from these reports, which were not 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 decided to “liquidate the Uritsky commission.” Information about this reached Dzerzhinsky in 2 days, and it is possible let's imagine Boy, how indignant he was. In a letter to the Party Central Committee dated April 29, he justified the need to replenish the Cheka with new employees, citing the fact that the continued existence of Soviet power depends entirely on a powerful security body endowed with exclusive powers, large enough to maintain close ties with the party, the soviets and the working masses. His grandiose idea of ​​the exclusive role of the Cheka in comparison with other law enforcement agencies and government agencies as a whole was reflected in the decision of the First All-Russian Conference of the Cheka to fully take upon itself the task of a “merciless fight” against counter-revolution, profiteering 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 bodies of administrative power on the territory of Soviet Russia. While the conference declared the Cheka’s claims to the exclusive role of a body ensuring the country’s security, and declared that the commissions constitute an extremely centralized power vertical that is 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 board of the Cheka, Dzerzhinsky sent an official telegram to the head of the Investigative Committee of the KSSO, 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 the present particularly aggravated situation, dissolve such a body is in no way acceptable. On the contrary, the All-Russian Conference of Extraordinary Commissions, after hearing reports from the field on the political state of the country, came to a firm decision on the need to strengthen these bodies, subject to centralization and coordination of their work. About the above-mentioned collegiate "The Cheka asks you to inform Comrade Uritsky." But even before the Petrograd authorities responded to Dzerzhinsky’s telegram, an event occurred that made the dissolution of the PCHK very doubtful. This 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, could inspire and lead the people. In May 1917, upon returning 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 KSSO. In this post, Volodarsky oversaw the repression of the opposition press, which intensified in May, when he was the chief prosecutor in a highly publicized trial against several non-Bolshevik evening newspapers. In mid-June, he also became the main organizer of rigging the results of the elections to the Petrograd Soviet, as well as the editor of Krasnaya Gazeta, the organ of this Council. All this made him, along with Zinoviev and Uritsky, the most prominent figures in the city who aroused hatred and contempt from the enemies of the Bolshevik government. On the other hand, among the workers who had not yet been disillusioned with this government, who believed that the Bolsheviks were defending the interests of the proletariat, Volodarsky continued to enjoy great popularity. On the evening of June 20, at approximately the same time when the Commissariat of Justice was discussing the issue of liquidating the PCHK, 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 over 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 to preach composure... You know,” added Zinoviev, “that we resorted to red terror, in the broad 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 KSSO Investigative Committee. And here Uritsky’s calls for moderation had their effect. If the murder of Volodarsky was intended as a means of strengthening anti-Bolshevik sentiments among the workers, then it led to the opposite result. Judging by reports in the non-Bolshevik press (not to mention Bolshevik newspapers), the news of Volodarsky’s death shocked the workers. On June 22, the editorial of Gorky's New Life, entitled "Madness," somewhat unexpectedly expressed grief over the loss of "a tireless agitator ... [and] socialist leader who gave his soul to the working class," condemned his murder 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 will be killed one by one.” The next day, referring to these appeals, Zinoviev stated that “we fought against this mood... We demand that there be no excesses.” Commenting in the press on the current situation the day after the murder of Volodarsky, the head of the Revolutionary Tribunal S. Zorin reflected that this act could be a symptom of the opposition’s transition to new forms of struggle against the authorities, but immediately added that even if this was the case, “ the judges of the tribunal will not have to resort to government terror, of course." 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 concern of ordinary members

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party regarding the unobstructed growth of activity of the enemies of the Soviet government and the desire to settle scores with class enemies. On June 21, an emergency meeting of the executive committee of the Petrograd Soviet was held, at which the rapidly growing agitation of the masses was discussed. According to the Novye Vedomosti report, those gathered agreed that everything possible should be done to counter all forms of lynching. A similar position was 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 Human Rights Watch is close to catching the killers. However, this statement of his is not confirmed by the surviving materials of the case of the murder of Volodarsky. Perhaps he was motivated 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 made a “final warning” to potential terrorists: “No many words are needed. The enemies of the workers’ revolution have switched to counter-revolutionary terror, to murder from around the corner. We warn our comrades against rash steps and excesses. But we declare briefly and clearly to all counter-revolutionary gentlemen, no matter how they call themselves: Cadets, Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, or whatever else you like. The enemies of the workers' revolution will be crushed mercilessly (highlighted in the document. - A.R. .).We will respond to any attempt on the life of any of the leaders of the workers' revolution with 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 Zinoviev an indignant telegram: “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. Petersburg) Tsekists or Pekists) held back. I protest resolutely! We are compromising ourselves: we threaten even in the resolutions of the Council of Deputies with mass terror, but when it comes to action, we are slowing down the revolutionary initiative of the masses, which is completely correct. This is not-possible! There will be terrorists consider us rags. These are arch-war times. We must encourage the energy and mass character of terror against counter-revolutionaries, and especially in St. Petersburg, whose example is decisive." 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 bodies as the Cheka continues to exist. The movement for the abolition of the PCHK, which seemed to almost lead to the desired result on the eve of Volodarsky’s murder, came to naught as a result of this act. In fact, the deceased presidium of the Council of People's Commissars of the PTC could only respond to Dzerzhinsky's letter of June 24 about the impossibility of abolishing the PCHK. On July 2, the leadership of the Cheka was informed that the information about the liquidation of the Cheka was false. Although the Human Rights Watch was carried out after the murder of VolodarArrests of oppo suspectspositionaries on a much wider scale thanm before, Uritsky found himself instanding to resist the growing pressure and did not sanction either 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 the event of further attempts on the life of the Bolshevikswhich leaders. Thus, among those arrested at that time by the PCHK was N.N. Kutler is a major tsarist official, a prominent cadet, deputy of the III and IV State Dumas. Detained June 23 (Tueorically in six months), he was mastereddue in 3 days. According to newspaper reports,the suspicions of the security officers were causedWe are aware of Kutler's intercepted letters abroad. However, Uritsky, having read these

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letters, did not find anything criminal in them and ordered the immediate release of the arrested person. A week after Kutler’s arrest, on June 30, Count V.N. was lifted from his bed, arrested and taken to Gorokhovaya, 2, where he spent more than a week. Kokovtsov is the former prime minister of the tsarist government. This arrest was also caused by intercepted letters, this time the correspondence of some counter-revolutionaries who, without Kokovtsov’s knowledge, discussed the possibility of appointing him head of a hypothetical post-Bolshevik government. Apparently, the release of the former dignitary was delayed by Uritsky’s trip to Moscow at the beginning of July for the V All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Uritsky interrogated Kokovtsov on July 7, a few hours after his return, despite his employment in connection with the “Left Social Revolutionary rebellion.” 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 the arrest, but to his resignation as prime minister in 1914 and memories of Nicholas II.
About the same thing happened to the writer, literary critic and journalist A.V. Amphitheater, who was strongly anti-Bolshevik. He was released after two days of detention on 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 “Plekhanovites”, his views on foreign policy (orientation towards Germany or the Entente), his literary and journalistic activities, and the sources of funding for Novye Vedomosti. Having discussed all these topics, Uritsky announced to Amphiteatrov that he could go home. Of course, all this does not give reason to deny that detention on Gorokhovaya was a terrible and humiliating ordeal or that hundreds of not so significant political prisoners were much less lucky than Kutler, Kokovtsov and Amphiteatrov. 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 of detention in the extremely overcrowded Petrograd prisons, which were real breeding grounds for disease, were much worse than in the improvised 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 In other cities, Uritsky continued to counter the wave of extremism. After the murder of the German ambassador Count Mirbach in Moscow, committed by the left Socialist Revolutionaries on July 6, Uritsky led the emergencymi operations of the Revolutionary Co.Petrograd meeting, trying to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. He was concerned not so much with the raids on the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, who were widelyused by the authorities in Moscow, asto maintaining order and suppressing attempts by right-wing forces touse raskoscrap in the government. The Left Social Revolutionaries and sympathizers (161 people) arrested in this case were soon released, and the case itselfclosed and archived December 18rya. In Moscow, on the contrary, the Cheka eventually shot 12 left Socialist Revolutionaries. True, the Moscow Left Social Revolutionaries really planned and carried out the murder of Mirbach, while the Petrograd ones had nothing to do with itand I. However, Urits behaviorwho once again demonstrated the fundamental difference between him and hand leadership of the Cheka in approaches to repression.

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The events of early July 1918 and their consequencesled to a significant tighteningstudy of policy towards real and potential opponents of the Bolsheviks in Petrograd. These consequences included the threat (albeit temporary) German approxcupation caused by the murder of Mirbach, youthe PCHK phenomenon has sharply intensifiedongoing activities of counter-revolutionaries, as well ase disappearance of the softening effectthe influence of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries on the Petrograd government (especially important in this regard-<14> nii was the loss of Proshyan, who was forced to hide after the death of the German ambassador). The lack of qualified employees in the PCHK became even more noticeable, since the majority of the left Socialist Revolutionaries fell into the category of “enemies” of Soviet power, and the number of Bolsheviks leaving Petrograd and going either to the front or as part of food detachments in search of bread was constantly growing. In an atmosphere of worsening crisis, the idea of ​​mass terror, officially approved on July 5 by the V All-Russian Congress of Soviets, became increasingly attractive to the most radically minded 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 the threatening reports about the rapid growth of the activity of counter-revolutionary organizations in the Vasileostrovsky region. According to them, about 17 thousand officers, many of whom considered themselves monarchists, were planning a counter-revolutionary conspiracy. No details of the plot are mentioned in the recording of the PC meeting, but it was apparently taken very seriously. The committee adopted a resolution condemning the “laxness” of government policy towards the political opposition and proclaiming the need to “use red terror against attempts by counter-revolutionaries to actually revolt.” Intending 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 supposed 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 “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 tougher prison regime in order to free up space for new prisoners. Pyotr Palchinsky, an outstanding engineer and senior official of the Provisional Government, who had already been sitting in a cell on Gorokhovaya for more than a month, escaped this fate partly thanks to the intercession of his colleagues, who convinced Zinoviev to release him on the grounds that his research was vital for the Soviet government. At the beginning of August, Zinoviev, under pressure from the scientific community, turned to the PCHK with a petition for the release of Palchinsky as a “bourgeois specialist.” In a response dated August 10, Varvara Yakovleva, who signed the letter for the head of the Human Rights Watch, recognized the scientific significance of the arrestee’s research. Refusing to release him, she agreed to make some special concessions that should facilitate the continuation of these studies. The document said: “In response to your letter about Palchinsky, the Extraordinary Commission brings to your attention that upon receipt of it, Count Palchinsky, who was listed as a hostage, was immediately interrogated again by members of the presidium of the Extraordinary Commission. The interrogation established that Palchinsky was indeed a major scientist, geologist... He did not interrupt his scientific work, which was of very great empirical and technical significance, even in prison.But at the same time, the Extraordinary Commission had to take into account the fact that Palchinsky, fulfilling his duties under Kerensky mayor in Petrograd, strangled the workers' press, being Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, he, together with Skobelev, waged a fierce campaign against factory committees, fought against workers' control and, with his laws, as well as with his practical activities, brought about there is no regulation of economic life.The revolutionary workers of Petrograd would greet with indignation and indignation the release of such a major political figure hostile to them. On the list of hostages throughout Russia, Palchinsky undoubtedly and rightfully occupies one of the first places. Besides that-<15> Well, during the interrogation it turned out that Palchinsky’s political views have not changed at all and he still continues to think that the Bolsheviks have always been German agents, and the events that occur are carried out 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 prison, providing him with a number of benefits, namely: 1) increasing the duration of his walk, 2) transferring to a hospital position, 3) allowing visits with technicians, 4) providing him with lighting services beyond normal hours and 5) the provision of some amenities that are not provided 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 Cheka’s claims to 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 famous comrade of Lenin. But most interesting is the unexpected appearance of Yakovleva as a key figure in the Human Rights Watch. A prominent Moscow Bolshevik, in May she, together with Latsis, was transferred from the NKVD board to a leadership position in the Cheka. Both of them quickly turned into fanatical security officers. The official motive for Yakovleva’s business trip to Petrograd in early August was to coordinate the investigation into the case, which 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 was given tasks broader than the investigation of this important case. Obviously, her main task was to bring the position of the Cheka regarding the “Red Terror” in accordance with the policy of the Cheka. At the beginning of August, it became increasingly obvious that Uritsky was gradually losing ground under the pressure of supporters of the “Red Terror”a" in the IC KSSO, as well as in the leadershipstavity PCHK. The concept of class antagonism, navyaespecially called uncompromisingbut Bolshevik-minded, including the editorial board of Krasno th newspapers", commu nists in the regions 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 first one, anThe ral congress, where relatively moderate sentiments prevailed, was ra resident nom. The nature of both congresses was equally different. The first was a truly business meeting, at which the Bolsheviks and leftistse Socialist Revolutionaries discussed the most important issuesproblems and worked out compromise solutions. WTOthe swarm looked more like polytic rally, reminiscent of what it turned intoby that time the plenarymeeting of the Petrograd Soviet. The number of delegates to the congress wasmuch smaller number of presencewho fought on it, among which were the Petrograd and Kronstadt Soviets in full force; delegates of work conferences organized by district councils; members of the Central Council of Trade Unions, Red Army and Navy Committees, as well as central and regional committeesetov railway workers. Brought to youincendiary to a state of extreme excitementgreat speeches of Sverdlov and Trotskowho specially came from Moscow for this occasions, the congress participants approved the reresolution “On the Current Situation,” which contained a program for an immediate transition to mass terror. It said: “The Soviet government must secure its rear by taking control of the bourgeoisie [as a class and] carrying out mass terror against it.” The resolution ended with the words about “the 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 extrajudicial executions, which had been practiced by the Cheka since February. Considered already the “master” of the city, Zinoviev, by his own admission, became a supporter of the “red terror” immediately after the murder of Volodarsky,<16> however, Uritsky and, in all likelihood, Proshyan and Krestinsky were restrained from putting his view into practice. As already mentioned, the moderating influence of Proshyan and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries in general was nullified after the murder of Mirbach. Krestinsky was summoned to Moscow in mid-August, 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 Human Rights Watch, he found himself increasingly isolated in the KSSO Investigative Committee. The result of Uritsky's weakening influence manifested itself quite quickly. On August 18, at a meeting of the SKSO Investigative Committee, a decree was adopted, authorizedthe awakened PCHK (and only her) raceshoot the counter-revolutionaries with your ownlusty. It read: "Commission CouncilSarov communes of the Northern region declares publicly: the enemies of the people are challenging the revolution, killing our brothers, sowing andchange and thereby force someonemoon for self-defense. The Council of Commissioners declares: for counter-revolutionary agitation calling on Red Army soldiers not to obey the orders of Soviet power, for secret or overt support of one or another foreign government, for recruiting forces for Czech-Slovak or Anglo-French gangs, for espionagein, for bribery, for speculationlation, for robberies 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-Revolutionth and speculation under the Labor Unionvyh communes of the Northern region. Each case of execution is published in newspapers." Uritsky was only able to achieve the adoption of a clause stating that the execution requires a unanimous decision of the board of the Human Rights Commission. The decision to use executions was approved on August 19 at a meeting of the PCHK board. There is no doubt that Uritsky passionately 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 security officer at that time, a member of the PCHK board, who was very aggressive and was a kind of “troublemaker.” He recalled the ongoing pressure on Uritsky before the meetingI am meeting the board on August 19. "Everything isThey began to talk more and more often about the need for executions,” Uralov quotes the words of this security officer. -- Repeatedly in front of Comrade Uritskyd comrades at the official meetingDenmark and in private conversations raised the issue of redm terror." Further transmitted utthe security officer’s assertion that after the decision of the SKSO Investigative Committee to use executions was approved by the board, Uritsky was the only one who opposed it. 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 the will of the majority prevailed. 2 days later, on August 21, they were shot. The composition of this first group of PCHK victims, published in the press on August 22, is very indicative. 9 of them were shot for criminal offenses (including 4 former PCHK commissioners). Most of the rest were charged with conducting counter-revolutionary agitation among Red Army soldiers. Among the latter was former officer Vladimir Pereltsveig, who, along with 6 of his colleagues, was accused of anti-Soviet agitation among cadets of the Mikhailovsky Artillery Academy. The execution of Pereltsweig 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 V Congress of Soviets of the St. Petersburg Province. (the congress took place on August 21-23). "In every village and every district 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, a plenary meeting of the Petrograd Soviet in response to an alleged attempt to ears on Zino Vieva took another step towards the official declaration of “Red Terror” in the city. Alarmed by an unsubstantiated rumor that a suspicious person <17> two days earlier, wanting to kill Zinoviev, he was looking for him in Astoria, the Council adopted a resolution stating that the time for warnings had passed: “If even a hair falls from the heads 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 that was adopted by the Petrograd Soviet on June 22, after the murder of Volodarsky. However, if that one only warned, then this one, adopted in the extremely thickened atmosphere of the end of August, already left little doubt that it would form the basis of the authorities’ policy. On the morning of August 30, Uritsky, heading to hisoffice in the Commissariat internalthem on Palace Square, he was killed. Circumstancesyour murder itself and more dramaticthe successful capture of the one who committed it is completelyclarified in the materials excitedof the Cheka case. In short, Uritsky was shot by 22-year-old Leonid Kannegiser, a former cadet of the Mikhailovsky Artillery Academy, also known in Petrograd literary circles as a talentedthis . Although Kannegieser, according toApparently, he was a member of the People's Socialist Party and ardently supported Kerensky in 1917; during numerous interrogations at the PCHK, he refusedagreed to admit that he belonged toaffiliation with any organization and firmly statedthat he acted alone. PCHK establishedbelieved that after the October Revolution he was holyinvolved with underground counter-revolutionariesonny organizations. However, the conclusion of the Human Rights Commissionaccording to which the murder of Uritzwho was part of a vast conspiracy against Soviet power is not supported by any evidence contained in the case. Kannegieser's close friend was Pereltsweig, who was shot on August 21. Kannegieser had no idea that Uritsky was a strong opponent of executions and, in particular, tried to prevent the execution of Pereltsweig and his comrades. Uritsky's surname appearedappeared in those published in hazeta orders for executions, and, by his own admissionniya Kannegiser, he took revenge for hisyour friend's underwear. According to Aldanov, “the death of a friend made him a terrorist.” Kannegiser was executed. However, to the indignation of KGB investigators, 144 other detainees 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 indicate that Uritsky was neither the Robespierre of revolutionary Petrograd, as it seemed to opponents of the Bolsheviks, nor “Trotsky’s man,” as some Bolshevik leaders believed. From the very beginning of his activities as head of the Human Rights Watch, Uritsky undoubtedly acted without regard for anyone. Taking advantage of the supportth Krestinsky, Proshyan, and inoeven when Zinoviev, he successfully opposedexecutions and other extrememothers of repression and violence against political opponents at a time when in Moscow they became the norm. Its moderating roleespecially important after murdersVolodarsky, when sleep pressure increased sharplyIzu in favor of the Cheka implemented byPolitics of the "Red Terror". It was no less important insecond half of July, whenYes, the demand for decisive measures against counter-revolutionaries was made by the St. Petersburg Committee of the RCP (b) and from Moscow by Lenin. At the same time, Uritsky’s independence and firmness in upholding his principles, like nothing else m, reflect brightly was in his refusal to release the detainees on surety or bail, despite persistent demands from his comrades and Moscow leaders. It is much more difficult to answer the question of why Uritsky, who was a staunch and radical revolutionary throughout his life, was such an ardent opponent of the “Red Terror.” Of course, he was not at all like David Ryazanov, who, regardless of the circumstancesconsidered any violation arbitraryfundamental civil rights, even if they arekilled the most furious enemies of Soveterinary power. Retelling the already mentionedunpublished memoriesa bad security officer about the last days of Uritsky, S.G. Uralov writes that the head of the PCHK<18> was angry at being accused of being “soft” and said that he opposed executions not because of spinelessness or remorse, but because he considered them inappropriate. This is how Uralov retells Uritsky’s conversation with this unnamed author of the memoirs: “Listen, comrade, you are so young,” Uritsky told me, “and so cruel.” “I, Moses Solomonovich, insist on executions not from feelings of personal cruelty, but out of a sense of revolutionary expediency, but you, Moisei Solomonovich, are against executions solely because of softness." Here Uritsky became very angry with me and excitedly replied: "I’m not at all soft. If there is no other way out, I will shoot all the counter-revolutionaries with my own hands and will 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 testimony of such political prisoners as Kutler, Kokovtsov and Amphiteatrov, as well as the testimony of Uritsky’s close comrades, indicate that the answer to the question posed above is more complex, that the duties of the head of the PCHK were Uritsky was disgusted and he carried them out, obeying a sense of devotion to the party. All this leads us to assert that clarification of Uritsky’s motivation will be possible only after the opening of the relevant FSB archival files. The murder of Uritsky on the morning of August 30 and the unsuccessful attempt on Lenin, committed the same evening in Moscow, are usually considered as the direct causes of the “Red Terror” in revolutionary Russia. However, the facts stated above allow us 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, Uritsky’s ban on carrying out executions was canceled by the PCHK on August 19 (after which 21 arrestees were shot), and the “Red Terror” was officially announced at a plenary meeting of the Petrograd Soviet on 28 August. However, it is indisputable that the murder of Uritsky, together with the failed attempt on Lenin’s life, 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 Human Rights Watch, but also by regional security agencies, numerous groups of soldiers and workers ), which surpassed everything that had happened before even in Moscow. It is not surprising that the initiative to unleash the “Red Terror” after the death of Uritsky came from the St. Petersburg Committee of the Bolshevik Party. Immediately after receiving news of this event, a meeting of the city party leadership was scheduled, which took place at 2 o'clock in the afternoon in Ast.oriya". The only source of informationformations 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 under the impression of the scolding received from Lenin after the murder 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 rushed 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 capture “counter-revolutionary elements.” That 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, Moscow Council deputy Voznesensky, 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 executed PCHKs, published by Petrogradskaya Pravda on September 6, and more than 2/3 of those 800 executed by PCHKs for the entire period." red terror", which was reported in mid-October by G.I. Bokiy in his report at the congress of the Cheka of the Northern Region. By<19> Ironically, the rampage of the “Red Terror” in Petrograd, which Uritsky tried with all his might to avoid, was partly the result of a persistent desire to settle scores with class enemies, “accumulated” during the time 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. No. 2. September. P. 61.
2 Ibid. pp. 57, 58, 60, 61, 71; L u n a with h a g s k at A.V. Revolutionary Silhouettes. L., 1967. P. 127; 3 u b o in V.P. The difficult years of Russia. Memories of the Revolution, 1917-1925. Munich, 1968. P. 51.
3 Berezhkov V.I. St. Petersburg prosecutors: leaders of the Cheka - MGB. St. Petersburg, 1998. P. 14.
4 Red newspaper. 1918. March 12. S. 1.
5 TsGA SPb., f. 142, op. 1, d. 28, l. 68. For an insightful description of Proshyan, see: Razgon A. People's Commissar of Posts and Telegraphs P.P. Proshyan // First Soviet Government, M., 1991. pp. 398-420.
6 Petrogradskaya Pravda. 1918. March 15. S. 1.
7 Our century. 1918. March 15. S. 1.
8 L i tv i n A.L. Left Social Revolutionaries and the Cheka. Sat. doc. Kazan, 1996. P. 5 1. See also: Kutuzov A.V., Lepetyukhin V.F., Sedov V.F., Stepanov O.N. Petrograd security officers guard the revolution. L., 1987. P. 101.
9 L i tv i n A.L. Left Social Revolutionaries and the Cheka. P. 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, which expressed protest about the way in whichstanding central governmentleft him the city. The authors of the letter were especially indignant at the behavior of the “Dzerzhinsky Commission”: “He took away the papers, [and] took out the investigators, but left the defendants here.” Calling the current situation “outrageous,” the Petrograd Bureau demanded that Dzerzhinsky “come immediately and take action” (RGASPI, f. 446, op. 1, d. 1, l. 2-2 vol.).
11 TsGAIPD SPb., f. 4000, op. 4, d. 814, l. 83.
12Berezhkov V.I. Decree. op. P. 14.
13 Our century. 1918. March 17. S. 4; Red newspaper. 1918. March 30. S. 3.
14 See, for example, the report on the release of 6 persons recently detained by the PCHK: Novye Vedomosti (evening edition). 1918. March 18. S. 5.
15 Ibid. April 6. S. 1.
16 Our century. 1918. April 7. S. 1.
17 Ibid. 11 April. S. 1.
18 Thus, on April 23, by order of the Committee for [Revolutionary] Security of Petrograd, 3 robbers were shot (ibid. April 26, p. 3).
19 This phenomenon is especially fully reflected in the minutes of meetings of the Vyborg District Council during this time (Central State Administration of St. Petersburg, f. 148, op. 1, d. 51).
20 See: Horrors of the Time // New Gazette (evening edition). 1918. April 13. P. 7.
21 A.L. Litvin published copies of the minutes of 14 meetings of the Cheka, held in January-May 1918. Despite their fragmentation, these protocols nevertheless clearly indicate that the majority of the leaders of the Cheka rely on extrajudicial executions as a means of controlling crime and the political opposition position (see: Litvin A.L. Left Socialist Revolutionaries and the Cheka. P. 48- 65).
22 Our century. 1918. March 16. S. 1.
23 Collection of decrees and resolutions on the communes of the Northern region. Vol. 1.4. 1, Pg., 1919. P. 97.
24 TsGA SPb., f. 2421, op. 1, d. 1, l. 142.
25 News of the Kronstadt Council. 1918. March 10. S. 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 St. Petersburg, 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. pp. 539-540.
29 New statements (evening edition). 1918. April 29, p. 6.
30 Our century. 1918. May 1. S. 3.
31 TsGA SPb., f. 144, op. 1, d. 8, l. 38.
32 Ibid., l. 53,
33
Ibid., no. 1, l. 13 rev.
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. S. 1.
February 21, 1918 written by Trotsky and approved by Lenin pr.oklamation "Socialist Ote"quality in danger" was transmitted by telegraph to councils throughout Russia and published in Petrograd from<20> named after the Council of People's Commissars. Paragraph 8 of the proclamation stated that “enemy agents, speculators, thugs, hooligansGhanaians, 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 "mandate" they received. On the significance of Trotsky’s proclamation for Cheka see: Velidov S. Preface to the second edition // Red Book of the Cheka. T. 1. M"1989. P. 5.
36 About the Extraordinary Meeting, see: R a b i n o w i t s 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 Directorate of the FSB of the Russian Federation for St. Petersburg, N 30377, vol. 3, l. 148.
38 New statements (evening edition). 1918. May 31. S. 1.
39 Banner of struggle. 1918. June 4. S. 3.
40 Archive of the Directorate of the FSB of the Russian Federation for St. Petersburg, N 30377, v. 4, l. 54.
41 Petrogradskaya Pravda. 1918. October 18. S. 2.
42 Banker from the Cheka // Essays on the history of Russian foreign intelligence / Ed. EAT. Primakova. T. 2. M., 1997. P. 19-24, Letter from Krestinsky to Uritsky with a characterization 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 spoke in favor of abolishing the PCHK. This happened during a discussion on the city security plan, which took place on May 22 at a meeting of the Interdistrict Assembly, which united representatives of district councils (TsGA SPb., f. 73, op. 1, d. 1, l. 150; TsGAPD SPb., f. 4000, op. 1, l. 165; New Life [Petrograd]. 1918. May 23. P. 3). At that time, district councils were primarily concerned with maintaining control over their own territory, so they tended to be hostile to the PCHK and to the restructuring plans of the Revolutionary Security Committee, which involved increased centralization.
44 See Proshyan’s comments on his plan: New Gazette (evening edition). 1918. June 18. P. 7. Members of the Presidium of the Committee on Revolutionary Security highly appreciatedwhether your cooperation with ruThe Commissariat of Internal Affairs, led by Proshyan. At the same time mai meetings of the presidium of the otratheir negative attitude towards PCHK is compressed (TsGA St. Petersburg, f. 73, op. 1, d. 4, l. 16, 17, 20-20 vol., 25).
45 L a ts i s M.Ya. Report of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for 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. pp. 248-249.
46 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 4, no. 11, l. 24-26. At least several peoplecentury of those who at the end of May hearWhen Uritsky heard Uritsky’s speech about ensuring security in Petrograd, they 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 Revolution olution no security May 23: Central State Administration of St. Petersburg, f. 73, op. 1, d. 3, l. 35.
47 RGASPI, f. 76, op. 3, d. 10, l. 1-1 rev.
48 TsGA SPb., 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 Human Rights Committee considered it necessary to attend it (see: Central Election Commission of the 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 statements (evening edition). 1918. June 22. S. 3.
53 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 4, d. 194, l. 4 rev.
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 TsGA SPb., f. 143, op. 1, d. 49, l. 50.
56 In a brochure published in 1922, G. Semenov (in 1918 - the head of the Socialist Revolutionary combat group) wrote that the murder of Volodarsky, which was the primary goal of the groupss, committed by his subordinate, notcue Sergeev (no other information was provided about the identity of the killer). See: Semenov G. Military and combat work of the Socialist Revolutionary Party for 1917-1918. M., 1922. S. 28-29. However, comparing this evidence with other known data, one cannot help 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 pamphlet in 1921, Semenov worked for the Cheka and that it itself was published by the GPU as evidence for the show trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries in the summer of 1922 (L and tvin A.L. Azef the Second / / Rodina. 1999. N 9. P. 80-84).
57 Quoted. by: U r a l o v S.G. Moses Uritsky. Biographical sketch. L., 1962. S. 110-111.
58 New Life [Petrograd]. 1918. June 21. S. 3.
59 Ibid. June 23. S. 3; Petrogradskaya Pravda. 1918. June 27. WITH . 2.
60 New statements (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, participants in the general meeting of the Bolsheviks of the Vyborg region, having heard a message about the murder of Volodarsky, representative of the Petrograd party committee Zhenya Egorova, in which she called for calm, vowed to respond to the “white terror” with merciless class “red terror” (TsGAIPD St. Petersburg, f. 2, op. 1, d. 1, l. 2).
63 New statements (evening edition). 1918. June 22. S. 4.
64 PChK stopped searching for Volodarsky’s killer and closed the case in February 1919 (CA FSB, N 1789, vol. 10, l. 377).
65 Petrogradskaya Pravda. 1918. June 23. S. 5.
66 Lenin V.I. PSS. T. 50. P. 106.
67 TsGA SPb., 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 quite common in Moscow at that time. The names of those executed were published in the press. Thus, 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 Gazette (evening edition). 1918. July 13, p. 1; July 18, p. 5).
70 TsGA SPb., f. 143, op. 1, d. 31, l. 57.
71 Collection of decrees and resolutions... Vol. 1. Part 1. P. 123.
72 Archive of the FSB Directorate for St. Petersburg, No. 8, vol. 1, l. 8.
73 This is the official figure published in Izvestia (quoted from: Newspaper Kopeyka. 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 tolerant, but starting from that day mass arrests began everywhere... Every day I heard that one or another of my friends had been captured.”
76 TsGA SPb., f. 143, op. 1, d. 51, l. 114. See also handwritten postscript to this letter. Palchinsky’s status as a hostage was confirmed during the “Red Terror”, October 3, 1918. At that time, the only alternative was, perhaps, execution (Archive of the FSB Directorate for St. Petersburg, d. 16005, l. 5).
77 This case, on which more and more sources are being introduced into scientific circulation, arose as a result of a failed conspiracy by agents of the allied countries who united in Moscow and Petrograd with counter-revolutionary groups with the aim of overthrowing the Soviet government, scheduled for September 1918.
78 Northern Commune (evening edition). 1918. August 2. S. 3.
79 Collection of decrees and resolutions... Vol. 1.4. 1. P. 132.
80 U r a l o v S.G. Decree. op. P. 116. 8 "Ibid.
82 See: Krasnaya Gazeta. 1918. August 22. S. 1.
83 Verbatim report on the work of the Fifth Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies of the St. Petersburg Province. Pg., 1918. P. 112.
84 Northern Commune (evening edition). 1918. August 29. S. 2.
85 CA FSB RF, N196, vol. 1-11.
86 Kannegieser’s personality is described by Mark Aldanov, who knew him well, see: Aldanov M. Paintings of the October Revolution, historical portraits, portraits of his contemporaries, the riddle of Tolstoy. St. Petersburg, 1999. pp. 124-131, 140-144.
87 This is confirmed by Aldanov. He recalled that in the spring of 1918, in response to the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Kannegieser engaged in amateurish conspiratorial activities, the goal of which was the overthrow of the Bolshevik government (ibid., pp. 129-130).
88 CA FSB RF, N 196, vol. 1, l. 45^19.
89 Aldanov M. Decree. op. pp. 129, 141.
90 CA FSB RF, N 196, vol. 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 had been mishandled. The second (and also unsuccessful) attempt to revise the results of the investigation was made by irritated security officers in 1920 (ibid., l. 12-18).
91 Uralov S.G. Decree. op. P. 116.
92 Stasova E.D. Pages of life and struggle. M., 1988. S. 154-155; hers. Memories. M., 1969. P. 161. As the authors of the biography of G.I. write. Bokiy, who headed the PCHK after the death of Uritsky, Zinoviev and in mid-September advocated the general arming of Petrograd workers and for giving them the right to use “lynching” against class enemies (Alekseeva T., Matveev N. Entrusted to defend the revolution (about G.I. Bokiy M., 1987, pp. 218-219).
93 Petrogradskaya Pravda. 1918. September 6. S. 2.
94 Weekly of emergency commissions to combat counter-revolutionth and speculation. N 6.1918.27 ok September P. 19.

I. S. Ratkovsky

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

Ratkovsky Ilya Sergeevich,

Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor,

St. Petersburg

state

university

(Saint Petersburg);

Among the most important cases of the Petrograd Cheka in 1918 was the case of the counter-revolutionary organization of Dr. Vladimir Pavlovich Kovalevsky (1875-1918). A brief background to this case is as follows. In June 1918, former officers, mainly from guards regiments and the navy, began to arrive in Arkhangelsk from Vologda, Moscow, but above all from Petrograd. Many of them had in their hands original documents issued by the Vologda Military Control or military organizations of Petrograd, often for communication with General Ovchinnikov. M. S. Kedrov reported these cases to Moscow1. Similar cases were discovered in Moscow, where at the Yaroslavsky station on a train to Vologda, an entire carriage turned out to be occupied by officers who were heading through this city to Arkhangelsk2. The flow of naval officers to Murmansk and Arkhangelsk in the spring and summer of 1918 was very large. Among those recruited to Murmansk in March 1918 was the future famous cultural figure S. A. Kolbasyev. He will serve as a liaison officer on the English cruiser Cochrane.

At the beginning of August 1918, near the Plesetskaya station of the Arkhangelsk Railway, Red Army soldiers noticed a suspicious man. Dressed in a warm demi-season coat (this happened in the summer), he stood at a telegraph pole, looking around, clearly waiting for someone. Along with the usual black buttons, the coat had a large yellow brass button sewn onto it. He was detained, and during a search, a pass in the name of Somov, issued by the Vologda Military Control, was discovered. During interrogation at the investigative commission of the “Kedrov train,” the detainee later gave testimony on the condition that his life would be spared. According to testimony, he was sent from Petrograd by Doctor Kovalevsky to Arkhangelsk to the British. On the trip he was “guided” by members

© I. S. Ratkovsky, 2012

We know Kovalevsky’s organizations, which he had to recognize at the points of travel by the yellow button on a worn coat, and so on all the way to Arkhangelsk. In Arkhangelsk, after exchanging a password (password “Dvina”, review “Don”), he was instructed to deliver a report and then enter the service of the Whites. He swallowed the report during his arrest. Somov confirmed his testimony during the investigation at the Vologda Cheka (chaired by P.N. Aleksandrov).

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

Arrests at the Dikaya station 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 mechanic-driver), E. A. Belozerov (former lieutenant), other defendants in this case in Vologda, more than 30 people, will be shot3. Among those executed was Doctor Grabovsky (according to other sources, Yuri Grybovsky)4.

Events developed in parallel in Petrograd. Even before Kurochenkov’s arrest, in July 1918, two employees of the investigative commission of the Narva-Peterhof region, Bogdanov and Samoded, contacted the Petrograd Cheka. They reported that the driver of their commission was offered to go to work in Murmansk, with an advance payment of 400 rubles. and a monthly salary of 500 rubles. Security officers Bogdanov and Samoded, through the mediation of the driver, met with the recruiters, who gave them an advance payment of 400 rubles against receipt. and reported the address in Murmansk where they were supposed to arrive. The recruiters were detained, but on the street they attempted to escape, and one of the recruiters was killed and the second was wounded. During subsequent interrogation, it turned out that the surname of the murdered man was Deev, and that of the wounded man was Loginov5. The latter's testimony was uninformative. The results of the ambush at the recruiters' apartments were more successful. Among those detained was former officer Rogushin. Thanks to his testimony, it became known about a well-conspiracy organization engaged in the recruitment of former officers and technical

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

On August 21, Doctor 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 Pavel I” and others, and had extensive connections among sailors. The latter circumstance will prove important in the formation of an underground organization. After his resignation in March 1917, he worked as a medical instructor for the Baltic Fleet. On August 22, the first interrogation of Kovalevsky took place, during which he was personally interrogated by the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, M. S. Uritsky. During interrogation, he admitted that he knew Colonel Kurochenkov as his patient, as well as the English naval attache, Captain Francis Allen Cromie, with whom he had crossed paths even before the revolution on service matters6. Further arrests and interrogations of persons involved in this case (about 60 people) made it possible to reveal more extensive and deep military and foreign policy connections of Dr. Kovalevsky.

At the same time, political events at the end of 1918 made their own adjustments to the course of the investigation. On August 30, 1918, in Petrograd, as a result of a terrorist attack, the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, Commissioner of Internal Affairs of the Northern Commune, M. S. Uritsky, was killed. On the same day, another, third attempt on the life of V.I. Lenin took place in Moscow. These terrorist actions were the result of a “hunt” for the leaders of the Bolshevik revolution that had begun long ago7. We note, however, that a number of circumstances surrounding the murder of Uritsky and the events that followed were directly related to the Kovalevsky case.

Firstly, we point out the existing connection between the murderer of M. S. Uritsky L. A. Kannegiser (1896-1918) with the underground and the Kovalevsky-Kurochenkov organization. In the memoirs of V.I. Ignatiev it is said that Kannegiser was one of his employees in the military organization, in charge of communications. At the same time, Ignatiev did not deny contacts in Petrograd with both the organization of Dr. Kovalevsky and the terrorist group of Semenov8.

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 Colonel Kurochenkov’s military organization. One can also note the English trace in the form of funding in Vologda for Ignatiev’s organization by a representative of the English mission Gilespie9.

Thirdly, let us note Kannegiser’s family ties with M. M. Filonenko, as well as their joint underground work. Filonenko headed a fairly 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

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 murder of Uritsky, Kannegiser met with him under the pretext of information he had about the organization that was preparing the assassination attempt.

Fourthly, there is a number of data about Kannegiser’s connection with the British. Investigator E. Otto later wrote about the English trace in the Uritsky case11.

It is no coincidence that the Petrograd Gubernia Cheka, together with the Cheka, having received news of the murder of M. S. Uritsky and the assassination attempt on V. I. Lenin, carried out an armed seizure of the British Embassy on August 31, 1918. However, the action, which was not prepared accordingly, was ineffective. The naval attaché Cromie, while firing back at the security officers, managed to burn all the incriminating documents. Cromie himself died in the shootout, thereby cutting off many of the threads leading to him. However, the connection between British intelligence and Kovalevsky’s organization was later proven by the investigation, although not in full.

According to information from N.K. Antipov, who participated in the investigation, the organization was engaged in collecting espionage information for the British, transporting former officers through Petrograd along various routes (Antipov points to 5 main ones) to Arkhangelsk and partly Vologda, and was also preparing a possible armed uprising in Petrograd and Vologda12 . In December 1918, according to Soviet newspaper reports on the Kovalevsky case, 13 people were shot. The first message about the execution was published by Izvestia of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in the issue of December 8, 1918. The message spoke about the discovery of a British spy recruitment organization that was involved in sending officers to the Murmansk Front, and the execution of 11 of its members. Note that the surnames of the executed persons were mostly distorted: instead of Rear Admiral Veselkin - Metelkin, Betulinsky - Pevulinsky, De-Simon - Deysimon, Grabovsky - Trambovsky, Plena - Bluff, Logina - Logvinov, while the first names and patronymics were given correctly. However, this was the first publication that subsequently raised the question of the reliable date of the execution. On December 20, reports about the execution of persons involved in the Kovalevsky case were published by Petrogradskaya Pravda and Krasnaya Gazeta. The first message spoke of the execution, by order of the Cheka for the fight against counter-revolution of the Union of Communes of the Northern Region, on December 13, 1918, 16 people, 13 of them “in the case of an organization that set itself the goal of recruiting White Guards to Murman:

1. Vladimir Pavlovich Kovalevsky - military doctor, head of the organization that connected her with the English 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 main organizer of the cafe "Goutes" / which served as a meeting place for the White Guards.

9. Soloviev Georgy Alexandrovich.

10. Trifonov Ivan Nikolaevich.

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

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

13. Rykov Alexander Nikolaevich"13.

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

"II. Khristik Joseph Pavlovich is a spy who was in the service of the British and French, who more than once tried to use forged 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 false documents.

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

The 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. Thus, more accurate data was available for Grabovsky (Polish legionnaire), Trifonov (member of the People's Freedom Party), Betulinsky (titular councilor), etc. Some surnames were given differently than in Petrogradskaya Pravda: Khristek instead of Khristik.

An amended list of 16 names was published on December 21 in the newspaper Izvestia All-Russian Central Executive Committee, but even here the names were distorted, although to a lesser extent.

Previously, a number of persons included in these lists were also included 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. Please note that a number of points in the interview require clarification. So, V.V. Shulgina is called “the sister of the Duma Shulgin”, in fact she was the sister of Major General Boris Viktorovich Shulgin, and not the Duma 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 presenting 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. Ignatiev (member of the Central Committee of the People's Socialist Party, chairman of its Petrograd committee) were published18. The memoirs were written by Ignatiev during his stay in Novo-Nikolaevsk prison. In the same 1922, the memoirs were placed in volume 2 of the “Red Book of the Cheka”19. According to Ignatiev’s memoirs, in Petrograd in the spring of 1918 there were a number of underground organizations, including those that collaborated with the People’s Socialist Party. These organizations were closely associated with foreign military missions, including those with the British. Ignatiev mentions the organizations of General Gerua and another - Dr. Kovalevsky, both associated with the British. The latter “...heads an organization that sends officers to the same English General Poole through Vologda, and has his representative in Arkhangelsk, working under the name of Thomson, who is there in close contact with the English mission” (Captain Chaplin was hiding under the name of Thomson. - I. R.)20. Ignatiev refused close cooperation with Kovalevsky’s (or, possibly, Gerua-Kovalevsky’s) organization, given their more right-wing orientation, leaving relations at the level of mutual information. He did the same with regard to the Filonenko21 organization. Subsequently, Ignatiev intersected with the activities of Chaplin, as a representative of Kovalevsky, in Arkhangelsk. Chaplin received complaints and accusations from members of the Arkhangelsk underground, accusations of inexperience and Khlestakovism. Ignatiev made inquiries about Chaplin from Dr. Kovalevsky, who replied, “...that Thomson-Chaplin is indeed somewhat frivolous and adventuristic and he will remove him from Arkhangelsk. However, he was unable to do this due to the coup that took place in Arkhangelsk.”22 After the coup, Chaplin took over as commander of the troops of the Northern Region. Ignatiev’s memoirs, despite all the critical attitude towards them, still give a clear indication of Kovalevsky’s role in the Petrograd underground and his connection with the British, especially since they are confirmed by emigrant memoirs.

In 1928, in the 4th volume of “White Case”, the memoirs of Captain 1st Rank G.E. Chaplin were published. During the First World War, he commanded a destroyer, served on the crew of an English submarine and on the staff of the Baltic Fleet. In 1917 he was awarded the rank of captain of the second rank. In his memoirs, he wrote that “...was in close contact with the late English naval agent, Capt. I rank Cromie and other naval and military agents of the Allies"23. At the beginning of May 1918, Cromie approached him with a project to intensify actions: it was proposed to blow up the ships of the Baltic Fleet (in the event 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 on the headquarters of one of the numerous Petrograd underground organizations. In addition to him, there were three more people on the staff: “a naval doctor (emphasis added by the author - I.R.), a guards colonel and a colonel of the general staff.” The organization, among other things, was engaged in transporting 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. A military doctor and a colonel of the General Staff remained in Petrograd to organize the dispatch; the guards colonel was supposed to infiltrate the ranks of the Red Army and receive an appointment to the Murmansk railway and organize a transfer point there. Chaplin was sent to Arkhangelsk to receive officers and organize the subsequent armed uprising25. Soon Chaplin went to Vologda (where he received documents as an English citizen and an employee of the English military mission), and later to Arkhangelsk. Here he was engaged in fulfilling his goals, and later, according to him, he 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 out in Ignatiev’s memoirs.

In the same year, 1928, the memoirs of Yu. D. Bezsonov were published in Paris26. Captain of the dragoon regiment of His Imperial Majesty's personal guard before the revolution of 1917, participant in the Kornilov speech and defense of the Winter Palace in October 1917, he was arrested in August 1918 and after some time, in the second half of September, transferred to Petrograd, to Gorokhovaya, 2. Bezsonov himself did not belong to Kovalevsky’s organization, but in prison he crossed paths 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

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 security officers27. “Ekespare was an athlete. We talked about horse racing, about mutual acquaintances, but most often the conversation turned to their business. He told me that he belongs to an organization that is supported by English foreigners and that he believes in success. “If we don’t overthrow the Bolsheviks from within,” he said, “the British will come to the rescue from without.”

“Our organization has been deciphered, but there are others, and we will still win,” he asserted. They interrogated him, he said, extremely kindly: cigarettes, an easy chair, breakfast, dinner - everything was at his service. They have great awareness. He didn't give anything away himself, but he confirmed what they already knew. He cursed the Bolsheviks and communism to their faces, declaring that he would fight them. Despite this, his life was guaranteed at all times. I don’t know whether he was aware of the danger or believed the KGB promises, but, in any case, he behaved well. With Prince Tumanov there was a slightly different picture. He got a bunch of accusations. - Relations with foreigners, organization of an armed uprising, etc. They interrogated him rudely, constantly threatened him with execution, asking him 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."28 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 their things (this was led, according to Bezsonov, by the famous security officer A.V. Eiduk) into the courtyard of the prison and shot (among 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. It seems more likely that the prisoners will be transferred to a new prison. This is also confirmed by the fact that, according to newspaper reports, the former captain von Ekesparre Alexander Nikolaevich was shot on December 29, 1918. On this day, the Petrograd Cheka shot 30 people, including 6 who were members of the “spy organization.” It seems important that these 6 “persons involved” were clearly connected with the Kovalevsky case (in addition to von Exparre, we can mention the former naval officer N.D. Melnitsky, N.N. Zhizhin, etc.)30. Let us note that both Vladimir Spiridonovich Tumanov and Anatoly Mikhailovich De-Simon, as already indicated, were on the published list of hostages (unlike other defendants in the Kovalevsky case)31.

After a week of staying 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 a naval prison; located on the corner of Chekushinskaya embankment and Bolshoy Prospekt Vasilievsky Island, 104) 32. Among the prisoners, Bezsonov met Doctor Kovalevsky here33. Interrogations continued to take place at Gorokho-

howl, where he was later returned. Bezsonov’s interrogations were conducted by Yudin: “...according to the reviews of experienced prisoners, he was one of the merciful investigators”34. After several months, with new transfers from prison to prison, Bezsonov, along with other prisoners, was sent to the Nikolaevsky station to be transported to work in Vologda. Ironically, this happened on December 13, 1918, when, according to newspaper reports, Dr. Kovalevsky and other figures in his organization were shot35.

Bezsonov’s memoirs themselves, despite their fragmentary nature in relation to the topic of the article, nevertheless confirm the participation of the British, the presence of Kovalevsky’s organization and the involvement of Prince Tumanov in it, and partly Ekespare (without clearly identifying their role).

Of course, 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 took part in the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in China. During the Russo-Japanese War he took part in the defense of Port Arthur. Commanded the destroyers: "Skory", No. 1Z5, No. 1ZZ (1906), the gunboat "Manzhur", the destroyers "Bditelny" (1909), "Strong" (1909-1912), "Don Cossack" (1912-1914), the cruiser " Admiral Makarov" (1914-1915), 5th destroyer division of the Baltic Fleet (1915-1916), battleship "Slava" (1916-1917). Commander of the battle cruiser Izmail (1917) Served as an accounting engineer at the Central People's Industrial Committee (1918). He was distinguished by his violent temper and assault on lower ranks. V. K. Pilkin36 wrote about one of these 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 Leningrad Guards. Horse 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. Vaksmuth, from Admiral M.A. Behrens he received a place to meet with Plon in Petrograd . “.M. A. recommended that I, without wasting time and with extreme caution, go to St. Petersburg, find the named cafe on Morskaya, where I would meet Captain 1st Rank P. M. Plen (former commander of the Slava), and he would tell me how to reliably get to Novocherkassk. And indeed, when I arrived at the cafe, I immediately saw P.M. sitting at a table in civilian dress. For those who did not know him personally, a conventional sign was given. P.M. Plen gave me his address and asked me to come the next day for documents and a pass. Arriving at him 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 had all the necessary Soviet seals. 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, they appeared at Barochnaya, No. 2, where hostels were set up, in which, to the general joy, they met with those who had previously arrived -

great sailors"38. This memory testifies to Plena’s participation in the organization of recruitment and transportation points in Petrograd. There is separate evidence of the activities of Plen in the spring of 1918.

Subsequently, Plen participated in various underground organizations in Petrograd; including being a member of Dr. Kovalevsky’s organization. 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. They were then moved to Deryabinsk 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 typical: “Lodyzhensky and Yuri-son had lunch. The latter defected from St. Petersburg on January 19. He says that there is no hope for an uprising in St. Petersburg. It’s 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 a public [canteen]. They are fed so poorly and expensively [that] even these frightened and tormented people were indignant. Then someone stood on a chair in the dining room and made a threatening speech, promising to immediately shoot those who were dissatisfied. “We have enough machine guns,” and the crowd of one and a half thousand humbly listened to the impudent little tyrant. I was most interested in Bakhirev, with whom Yurison was lying together in the prison infirmary. Bakhirev, according to Jurison, is starving; no one brings him anything anymore. He has aged, lost weight, and become haggard. With what delight I would drive up to the Deryabinsk barracks in a “tank” and take out the gates of this modern Bastille and release Bakhirev. I suffer for him as for my own. Captivity, Veselkin and Kovalevsky were indeed shot,

and, what attracts attention, the news of this appeared several days earlier in the newspapers than the fact itself. And since newspapers are allowed into prisons, “death row” prisoners 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 the Izvestia of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, and later in the Petrograd newspaper the date of the execution appeared on December 13 (see above). In the investigative cases of Kovalevsky, Veselkin, Trifonov, Morozov, Login, Solovyov, the date of the decision to execute December 4 appears. In the investigative cases of Shulgina and Rykov - December 7. Obviously, this is due to the absence of the mentioned persons in the first list of Izvestia of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

In emigration, evidence was left about another participant in the Kovalevsky case - I. N. Trifonov. An essay about him in a collection dedicated to the memory of members of the Cadet 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 cadet election campaign

in Petrograd, in organizing rallies in memory of Kokoshkin and Shingarev. It 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 allegedly provided to his cousin, who, in turn, was accused of planning to flee to Arkhangelsk to join the northern “whites.” At one time it seemed that this charge had been dropped. In any case, after several weeks of imprisonment, 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 this, without any new charges being brought against him, he was shot. They said that he read in Izvestia about his allegedly already executed execution a few hours before the execution itself.”42

When commenting on this message, one should keep in mind the winter of 1918-1919. and make adjustments for the use of the old chronology system. According to the investigation materials, I. N. Trifonov, born in 1895, at the time of his arrest was listed as the head of the financial department at the Commissariat of Municipal Economy. His twenty-year-old cousin V.V. Morozov, who was involved in the same case, was a former cadet. During the investigation, he repeatedly declared 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 the study by V.I. Berezhkov, a teacher at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Petrograd University, Ivan Nikolaevich Trifonov, was shot because he “refused 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 ran a café-pastry shop on Kirochnaya Street, on the corner with Znamenskaya. This cafe, along with a cafe-deli on the corner of Basseynaya and Nadezhdinskaya streets (maintained by Lieutenant Colonel V. Ya. Lundekvist of the General Staff, 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 initially focused on the French, later the Germans, and then the British (with whom Lundequist was associated). The materials available on her, and on those involved in the Kovalevsky case in general, complement the data from 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 the organization of Shulgin and his sister, confirming the existence of the organization and Shulgina’s participation in it44.

It is characteristic that she was not interrogated for a long time after her arrest on August 24. The first time she was interrogated by investigator S.A. Baikovsky was only on October 17, about which she wrote a statement addressed to S.L. Geller45. In it, she also indicated that during her imprisonment she was deprived of medical care; Meanwhile, she had a stomach ulcer. Shulgina

denied any connections with the underground, admitting 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 forms of the 6th Luga Regiment and the letters of the 1st Vasileostrovsky Regiment. The last circumstance was decisive, since it was in these units that the conspirators were exposed. Testimonies from other arrestees 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 investigative file, Shulgina was “the right hand of her brother, Major General B.V. Shulgin.” The verdict was signed by Antipov, Baikovsky and investigator P. D. Antilovsky.

Among 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 Partnership. The latter organization, among other things, was also engaged in hiring and sending people to Murmansk to the British. The testimony of N.M. Telesnin testified against them in this regard, according to which they “sent their people to the North and, together with the Anglo-French, developed a plan for the occupation of the Northern region”47. Let us note that Rykov was arrested on August 4 under M. S. Uritsky, but was released by him on August 848. Both will be shot, including Rykov’s disability (in 1905 he received a severe leg wound, which resulted in the amputation of his leg above the left knee).

Yu. A. Betulinsky also joins these figures. A graduate of the Katkovsky Lyceum and the French diplomatic school in Paris, 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, and author of “Song of the Partisans” by A. Yu. Smirno-voy-Marley. In her memoirs, she wrote very briefly about this: “I was born in Petrograd, as present-day 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 a nanny. In order to somehow cover us, they put on some sheepskin coats and walked with us on foot through Petrograd, through the forest - to the Finnish border. In Finland we boarded a ship and landed in the north of France.”49 There are some additions in her later newspaper interview. In it, she names a more precise date of execution - December 10, 1918, and mentions the fact of the short-term arrest of her mother by the Cheka authorities, along with her father50.

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

mations in favor of the British. Also, Kovalevsky’s organization, along with other organizations, is involved in preparing a speech 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. One of the discovered graves contains remains that can be associated with great confidence with the defendants in this particular case. On September 5, 2011, a press conference was held in the Peter and Paul Fortress dedicated to the work to search and identify those executed 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 the person involved in the case of Dr. Kovalevsky - A. N. Rykov.

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

2 Essays on the history of the Vologda organization of the CPSU (1895-1968). Vologda, 1969. P. 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. P. 155; Smirnov M.A. About Mikhail Kedrov. M., 1988. P. 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. P. 157.

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

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

9 Ibid. pp. 112-113.

10 Artemenko Yu. A. Review 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. St. Petersburg, 2008. Issue. V. “Gorohovaya, 2” - 2008. P. 27.

11 Workers' court. L., 1927. No. 24. - Special issue dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Cheka.

17 Antipov N.K. Essays on the activities of the PGChK 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 / Compiled by author. entry Art. and com. Ph.D. ist. Sciences V.I. Goldin. Arkhangelsk, 1993. Issue. 1. pp. 99-157.

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

20 Ibid. P. 106.

21 Ibid. pp. 106-107.

22 Ibid. P. 111.

23 Chaplin G.E. Two coups in the North (1918) // White North. 1918-1920: Memoirs and documents / Compiled by author. entry Art. and com. Ph.D. ist. Sciences V.I. Goldin. Arkhangelsk, 1993. Issue. 1. P. 46.

24 Ibid. P. 47.

25 Ibid. pp. 48-49.

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

27 Ibid. P. 18.

28 Ibid. pp. 19-20.

29 Ibid. pp. 20-21.

31 By the Decree of the Human Rights Committee of May 18, 1919, twenty-five-year-old De-Simon Alexander Mikhailovich, a former officer and spy who served in the Red Army, will be shot // Northern Commune. 1919. May 23; Petrogradskaya Pravda. 1919. May 23.

32 The description of the Deryabinsk prison, as well as Gorokhovaya, no. 2, of the indicated period is recorded in the following publication: Cheltsov M. Memoirs of a “suicide bomber” about his experience. M., 1995.

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

34 Ibid. P. 27.

35 Ibid. pp. 33-34.

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

38 Kadesnikov N. A brief sketch 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 stated 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 National Research Center "Memorial" (St. Petersburg). According to the archives, he was convicted of participating in sending officers of the former tsarist army to the Don. There is no information about the execution in the investigation file.

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

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

42 Ibid. P. 64.

43 Berezhkov V.I. St. Petersburg prosecutors. Leaders of the Cheka-MGB. 1918-1954. St. Petersburg, 1998. P. 30.

44 Tinchenko Y. Yu. Golgotha ​​of Russian officers in the USSR, 1930-1931. Moscow society scientific fund. M., 2000. - Testimony of 1931 Zueva D. D.

45 Archive of the Directorate of the Federal Security Service for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region. Materials of the Investigative Case of V.V. 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. P. 64) or in Arkhangelsk in January 1919

47 Berezhkov V.I. St. Petersburg prosecutors. Leaders of the Cheka-MGB. 1918-1954. St. Petersburg, 1998. pp. 63-64.

48 Ibid. S.6Z.

49 Smirnova-Marley A. Yu. The road home. M., 2004. P. 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. History of the group foundation is examined on the basis of the Cheka documents and memories of witnesses.

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

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29 KatenevB. G. Ivan Nikolaevich Trifonov // Pamyati pogibshix: Sb. / Pod 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.

Crime without punishment: Documentary stories (fb2) | Librusec

The State Archives of the Perm Region has preserved evidence - it’s amazing that something like this has survived! - about how the anniversary of the death of the red saint took place here... three years ago, the poet Leonid Kannegiser shot and killed the head of the Petrograd Cheka, Moses Uritsky.

“Jews... are different...”

Was it a coincidence that the victim of this shot was a Jew? And if you find yourself in Uritsky’s place - Latvian, Georgian, Russian? Or was there some kind of super-task in the killer’s act: to wash away the blood with which the Jewish Bolsheviks stained their people and the history of Russia, with the blood of one of them?

If the expectation was for such a reaction, it was partially justified. Here are some responses to the terrorist attack. The writer Amfitheatrov-Kadashev wrote in his diary: “In St. Petersburg, a young man killed Uritsky. Great joy... Jews like Kannegieser, better than all cries about human rights, prove the wrongness of anti-Semitism and the possibility of a friendly union between Russia and Jewry - if even under the old oppression real patriots could appear among the Jews, then the matter is not hopeless.” Aldanov was sure that Kannegiser
inspired not only by an ardent love for the homeland, but also by “the feeling of a Jew who wanted, before the Russian people, before history, to oppose his name to the names of the Uritskys and Zinovievs.” There were, of course, other opinions. “Two righteous men cannot redeem Sodom,” said the popular writer Artsybashev, meaning by “righteous men” Kannegieser and Fanny Kaplan, and by Sodom a disproportionately large percentage of Jews in the ranks of revolutionaries and Bolsheviks. The diversity of opinions has continued to this day.

Zinaida Shakhovskaya recalled the murderer of Uritsky already during Gorbachev’s perestroika: “Let us contrast the names of Jews who loved Russia with the names of Jews who hate it.” And someone could comment on our story like this: a poet and a security officer, or how two Jews did not divide Russia...

Shentalinsky Vitaly Alexandrovich
Crime without punishment: Documentary stories

The security officers demanded his resignation

Uritsky Moisey Solomonovich (1873-30.8.1918). Party member since 1917. Born in Cherkasy. He graduated from the Faculty of Law of Kyiv University in 1897. He took part in the revolutionary movement from the beginning of the 90s. After the Second Congress of the RSDLP - Menshevik. Arrested and sent into exile in 1906. In 1914 he emigrated abroad. After the February Revolution of 1917 he returned to Russia. At the VI Congress of the RSDLP (b), together with the “Mezhrayontsy”, he was accepted into the party and elected a member of the Central Committee, at the VII Congress - a candidate member of the Central Committee. In October 1917, he was a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee, temporary commissar in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Commissioner of the Council of People's Commissars for elections to the Constituent Assembly. In January 1918, during Dzerzhinsky's vacation, he acted as chairman of the Cheka.

Since February 1918 - member of the Committee for the Revolutionary Defense of Petrograd. On March 10, he was appointed chairman of the Petrograd Cheka.

At the same time, Commissar of Foreign and Internal Affairs of the Union of Communes of the Northern Region, from July 1918, after the Left Socialist Revolutionary rebellion, Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee of Petrograd. On all issues of imposing death sentences in the PCHK, Uritsky voted “against” or abstained, and therefore the delegates of the 1st All-Russian Conference of the Cheka in June 1918 demanded his resignation.

Book materials used: V. Abramov. Jews in the KGB. Executioners and victims. M., Yauza - Eksmo, 2005.

In March 1918, Uritsky became chairman of the Petrograd Cheka (since April, combining this post with the post of Commissioner of Internal Affairs of the Northern Region). Here he showed himself to be one of the most sinister figures of the first years of Bolshevik rule. According to Lunacharsky, Uritsky was “an iron hand that really held the throat of the counter-revolution in his fingers.” In fact, the terror launched by Uritsky in Petrograd was aimed at the physical destruction of not only the “counter-revolution” (that is, conscious opponents of Soviet power), but also everyone who, at least potentially, could not support the Bolsheviks. By order of Uritsky, demonstrations of workers outraged by the actions of the new government were shot; officers of the Baltic Fleet and members of their families were tortured and then killed. Several barges with arrested officers were sunk in the Gulf of Finland. The Petrograd Cheka gained a reputation as a truly diabolical dungeon, and the name of its head was terrifying.

For the atrocities committed in the Cheka, Uritsky was shot by the young poet Leonid Kannegiser, who belonged to the Socialist Revolutionary Party. In retaliation for Uritsky, the security officers shot hostages throughout the country from representatives of the “non-proletarian classes” (in Petrograd alone - several hundred people).

This executioner was buried in the center of St. Petersburg, on the Field of Mars, where parades of the Russian army destroyed by the Bolsheviks once took place.

Villages in Yakutia, the Pskov and Oryol regions of Russia, in the Kustanai region of Kazakhstan, streets in Smolensk, Lipetsk, Krasnodar, Bobruisk and other cities are named after him.

The black book of names that have no place on the map of Russia. Comp. S.V. Volkov. M., “Posev”, 2004.

Kannegiser apparently had no accomplices. The Bolshevik investigation failed to find them, despite the extreme desire of the authorities. The official document says about this: “During interrogation, Leonid Kannegiser stated that he killed Uritsky not by order of the party or any organization, but on his own impulse, wanting to take revenge for the arrests of the officers and for the shooting of his friend Pereltsweig, with whom he was familiar about 10 years old. From an interview with those arrested and witnesses in this case, it turned out that the execution of Pereltsweig had a strong effect on Leonid Kannegiser. After the publication of this execution, he left home for several days “his place of stay during these days could not be established.”

Aldanov Mark. Murder of Uritsky

Perestroika in our state opened the eyes of millions of Soviet people to many things. The people have firmly learned that telling the truth does not mean “shaking Soviet power.” On the contrary, only the truth will help clear our house of the rubble of lies that various demagogues have diligently built over the decades.
As sad as it may be, the “glorious fighter” Moisei Uritsky was far from being the “bright genius of the revolution.” His hands are also stained with the blood of innocent people. And is it necessary, continuing the not best traditions of bygone years, to preserve the names of hundreds of streets, squares, plants and factories, even sports clubs (!), bearing the not at all angelic name of M. S. Uritsky?

The rubble needs to be cleared...
Valentin LAVROV.

The purpose of this article is to consider how the murder of MOSES URITSKY is included in his FULL NAME code:

Watch "Logicology - about the fate of man" in advance.

Let's look at the FULL NAME code tables. \If there is a shift in numbers and letters on your screen, adjust the image scale\.

20 37 47 70 81 91 101 114 129 139 157 163 173 191 206 218 233 246 261 275 290 293 303 327
URITSKIY M O I S EY S O L O M O N O VICH
327 307 290 280 257 246 236 226 213 198 188 170 169 154 136 121 109 94 81 66 52 37 34 24

13 28 38 56 62 72 90 105 117 132 145 160 174 189 192 202 226 246 263 273 296 307 317 327
M O I S E Y S O L O M O N O VI C H U R I T S K I Y
327 314 299 289 271 265 255 237 222 210 195 182 167 153 138 135 125 101 81 64 54 31 20 10

327 = REVENGE-109 X 3.

Let's read individual words and sentences:

URITSKY = 101 = BULLET IMPACT, WILL KILL.

MOSES SOLOMONOVICH = 226 = HEAD PERFORMED BY A BULLET.

226 - 101 = 125 = DYING, BRAIN WOUND.

URITSKY MOSES = 173 = SHOOT, HIT A BULLET IN THE HEAD.

SOLOMONOVICH = 154 = SHOT.

173 - 154 = 19 = OG\non-shooting\.

SOLOMONOVICH URITSKY = 255 = LEFT WITH LIFE.

MOSES = 72 = INTO THE HEAD, KILLED, CORPSE, PUNCHED.

255 - 72 = 183 = HEAD DAMAGE, LIFE TERMINATED.

Thus, we received three numbers, from which we will try to make corresponding sentences:

327 = 125-DYING, BRAIN WOUND + 19-OG \not shot \ + 183-LIFE TERMINATE = 144-\ 125 + 19 \SURPRISE, SHOOT + 183-LIFE TERMINATE = 202-\ 183 + 19 \-DEATH GOAL OF BRAIN + 125 -PERISHING.

We see the numbers 202 and 125 in the second table.

DEATH DATE code: 08/30/1918. This = 30 + 08 + 19 + 18 = 75 = BREAKDOWN, BLOOD, DESTINY.

327 = 75 + 252 = 75-PUNCH + 252 \ 70-SKULL + 182-KILLED BY A SHOT \ = 145-PUNCHED BY A SKULL + 182-KILLED BY A SHOT.

We see the numbers 145 and 182 in the second table.

Code FULL DATE OF DEATH = 181-THIRTIENTH OF AUGUST + 37-\ code YEAR OF DEATH = 19 + 18 \ = 218 = BULLET WOUND TO THE HEAD.

327 = 218 + 109-RUIN, EVILITY, DIE, REVENGE = REVENGE-109 X 3.

Code FULL YEARS OF LIFE = 76-FOURTY + 96-FIVE = 172 = FATAL, ENDING = 80-BULLET + 92-KILL.

327 = 172-FORTY-FIVE + 155-LETHAL, IMMENSE, DEATH BY BULLET.

327 = 163-LEONID KANNEGISER + 164-WILL KILL HIM DIRECTLY.

The numbers 132 = DEPARTURE OF LIFE and 195 = \ 89-KILLED + 106-FROM "COLT" \ we see in the second table of the NAME code.

Let's check this entry:

20 42 57 62 72 81 89 99 108 122 132 152 154 164 183 211 221 231 240 251 266 278 307 326 327
CARE OF LIFE + KILLED AND K O L T A
327 307 285 270 265 255 246 238 228 219 205 195 175 173 163 144 116 106 96 87 76 61 49 20 1

In this table we see virtually all of the above:

327 = 72-MOSEY + 255-SOLOMONOVICH URITSKY = 173-URITSKY MOSES + 154-SOLOMONOVICH = 163-LEONID KANNEGISER, DOOMED TO DEATH + 164-WILL KILL HIM OUTSTANDING, SHOOT ON THE POINT.

02 January 1873 - 30 August 1918

Russian revolutionary and political figure, known primarily for his activities as chairman of the Petrograd Cheka

Biography

Born into a Jewish merchant family, at the age of three he was left without a father. He received a traditional religious education, studying at a gymnasium in Cherkassy (the first state city gymnasium) and Bila Tserkva. In 1897 he graduated from the Faculty of Law of Kyiv University.

In the revolutionary movement since the early 90s. Member of the RSDLP since 1898. In 1899 he was arrested and exiled to the Yakut province. After the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP (1903) Menshevik. Participant of the 1905 Revolution in St. Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk. In 1906 he was arrested and exiled to Vologda, then to the Arkhangelsk province. In August 1912, he was a participant in the Social Democratic Conference in Vienna, at the VI Congress of the RSDLP(b) and entered the Central Committee as one of the leaders of the Social Democratic faction of the “Mezhrayontsy”, which was headed by Trotsky.

In 1914 he emigrated abroad. In 1916 he lived in Stockholm. He was a correspondent for the Paris defeatist newspaper Nashe Slovo, edited by Trotsky. He worked at the Institute for the Study of the Social Consequences of War, created by Israel Gelfand (Parvus).

After the February Revolution of 1917, he returned to Petrograd, joined the group of “Mezhrayontsy”, with whom he was accepted into the Bolshevik Party at the 6th Congress of the RSDLP (b); at the congress he was elected a member of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b). In August 1917, the Bolsheviks introduced him to the commission for elections to the Constituent Assembly and became a member of the Petrograd Duma. At the same time, he worked for the Pravda newspaper, the Forward magazine and other party publications.

In the October days of 1917, a member of the Military Revolutionary Party Center for the leadership of the armed uprising, a member of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. After the victory of the revolution, Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then Commissioner of the All-Russian Commission for the Convening of the Constituent Assembly. Organized the dissolution of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly.

In February 1918, a member of the Committee for the Revolutionary Defense of Petrograd. On the issue of concluding the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918, he sided with the “left communists.” At the 7th Congress of the RCP(b) he was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee. From March 10, 1918, Chairman of the Petrograd Cheka. From April 1918 he combined this post with the post of Commissioner of Internal Affairs of the Northern Region.

In March 1918, Uritsky became chairman of the Petrograd Cheka (since April, combining this post with the post of Commissioner of Internal Affairs of the Northern Region). Here he showed himself to be one of the most sinister figures of the first years of Bolshevik rule. According to Lunacharsky, Uritsky was “an iron hand that really held the throat of the counter-revolution in his fingers.” In fact, the terror launched by Uritsky in Petrograd was aimed at the physical destruction of not only the “counter-revolution” (that is, conscious opponents of Soviet power), but also everyone who, at least potentially, could not support the Bolsheviks. By order of Uritsky, demonstrations of workers outraged by the actions of the new government were shot; officers of the Baltic Fleet and members of their families were tortured and then killed. Several barges with arrested officers were sunk in the Gulf of Finland. The Petrograd Cheka gained a reputation as a truly diabolical dungeon, and the name of its head was terrifying.

On the morning of August 30, 1918, he was killed in the lobby of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the Petrocommune (on Palace Square) by Leonid Kannegiser, who stated immediately after his arrest that he did this to atone for the guilt of his nation for what the Bolshevik Jews had done: “I am a Jew. I killed a Jewish vampire who drank the blood of the Russian people drop by drop. I tried to show the Russian people that for us Uritsky is not a Jew. He is a renegade. I killed him in the hope of restoring the good name of Russian Jews." Kannegieser himself belonged to the small party of popular socialists, whose leader, Nikolai Tchaikovsky, had just headed the socialist government in