Humane executioner Moses Uritsky

29.07.2018

Humane executioner Moses Uritsky

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August 30, 1918 at former capital Russian Empire Chairman of the Petrograd Cheka Moisei Uritsky was killed. His killer, a Socialist Revolutionary (formerly a “people’s socialist”) and student, poet and friend of Sergei Yesenin, Leonid Kanegisser, tried to cunningly escape after the assassination attempt, was captured and shot in October of the same year.

The death of Uritsky and the wounding of V. Lenin in Moscow served as the starting point for the development of the great “Red Terror”. Hostages were taken from a variety of classes and quickly deprived of their lives. The count went to hundreds of ruined souls. According to the statements of the Bolsheviks themselves, this is how the fight against the counter-revolution unfolded.

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

The same Kanegiesser greeted the overthrow of the legitimate government in Russia in February 1917 with delight. And he even wrote quite revolutionary poems:

"Then at the blessed entrance,

In a dying and joyful dream

I will remember - Russia. Freedom.

Kerensky on a white horse."

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

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

Since then, the skillful and heroic struggle of Moisei Solomonovich against counter-revolution and profiteering in Petrograd began.

How many curses, how many accusations rained down on his head during this time! Yes, he was formidable, he brought despair not only with his inexorability, but also with his vigilance. Having united in his hands the extraordinary commission, the Commissariat of Internal Affairs, and in many ways a leading role in foreign affairs, he was the most terrible enemy in Petrograd of the thieves and robbers of imperialism of all stripes and all varieties.

They knew what a powerful enemy they had in him. He was also hated by ordinary people, for whom he was the embodiment of Bolshevik terror.

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

According to Lunacharsky, Uritsky appears to be a revolutionary leader prone to humanism. Which is very unusual for the head of a punitive agency.

Unlike his killer, Moses Solomonovich Uritsky does not seem such a colorful figure. And his biography should be considered ordinary for a revolutionary figure.

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

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

It is interesting that, while in prison, exile, or on stage, Uritsky enjoys the support of criminals. From the memories we can learn that the “political” prisoner achieved this because of his high morale and knowledge of the laws of the Empire. But the truth turns out to be more banal - Uritsky always had money. And he had the opportunity, with their help, to influence both criminals and the prison administration.

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

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

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

In November-December, when major revolutionary events and Uritsky’s clash, however, no longer happened and he no longer had anything to do with the creation of the “Krasnoyarsk Republic”, having left due to fear of “Black Hundred pogroms.”

In October 1917, M. S. Uritsky was a member of the Military Revolutionary Party Center and the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. After the coup, he was appointed to the board of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, and a little later as a commissioner of the All-Russian Commission for the Convening of the Constituent Assembly. So the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly and the bloody reprisal of the demonstration of its supporters, which resulted in the death of about 100 people (although no one counted for sure, there were probably more victims) was also attributed to Comrade Uritsky, after all, he was a member of V. Lenin, I Sverdlov, N. Podvoisky and V. Bonch-Bruevich to a specially created body for the suppression of popular uprisings.

Moisei Uritsky is also responsible for the deportation of Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich to Perm in March 1918.

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

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

In the 21st century, a number of historical works have appeared where they are trying to rehabilitate M. S. Uritsky. For example, they say that he was a categorically opposed to executions without trial. That is, he was distinguished by a kind of revolutionary humanism.

The memoir literature cites the following episode: Uritsky is accused of being “soft-bodied,” to which the latter replies: “I’m not at all soft-bodied. 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 produce positive results.” A good humanist - you can’t say anything! But be that as it may, Moisei Uritsky calmly signed orders for arrests among civilians and execution lists.

But let's return to the attempt on Uritsky himself. There are two main hypotheses: Leonid Kanegisser was a member of the Socialist Revolutionary military organization and carried out the order to liquidate the Soviet head of the punitive organs, or Kanegisser personally took revenge on Uritsky for the execution of his friend Vladimir Pereltsweiger.

The first, in general, does not stand up to any criticism, the murder was so stupid and unprofessional. The second one seems quite likely. But a flurry of questions arises. M. S. Uritsky was a very careful person, and Kanegisser penetrates a guarded building without any problems. Before the assassination attempt, Leonid calls and talks with Uritsky (testimony of M. Aldanov).

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

Why did they point to Kanegiesser? And why did Uritsky show skepticism? There can be only one answer - Uritsky knew his potential killer well and did not believe in Leonid’s ability to harm him.

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

ABOUT personal life Uritsky practically nothing is known from open sources. All information is scanty and unclear. But the following information has been preserved about Kanegiesser: “Leva loved to shock respectable bourgeois, to stun him with contempt for their morality, and did not hide, for example, that he was a homosexual...

Leva could calmly utter a vulgar phrase: “So-and-so is too normal and healthy to be interesting.” Posture, panache, coquetry? I admit it. But by who a person pretends to be, who he wants to appear to be, one can also judge his essence. Leva’s monologues about the essence of the flesh, about free morality, about the right to “holy sinfulness” sometimes reminded me of such cheap stuff as “The Keys of Happiness” by Verbitskaya.” (From the memoirs of N. G. Blumenfeld).

However, there is a fourth hypothesis. M. S. Uritsky was placed on the altar of an intra-party fight among the Bolsheviks themselves.

It is impossible not to notice the words of the same Lunacharsky: “Moses Solomonovich Uritsky treated Trotsky with great respect. He said... that no matter how smart Lenin was, he began to fade next to Trotsky’s genius.” It is unlikely that Ulyanov-Lenin did not know Uritsky’s views. So it was no coincidence that Moisei Solomonovich was left as the head of the PCHK in St. Petersburg, because it was thought that the Germans would enter the northern capital and the murder was organized according to the principle of “whoever you care about,” if only there would be a reason to unleash terror on an all-Russian scale. The party struggle went head-to-head: some pushed Kanegiesser to attack Uritsky, others pushed Kaplan to assassinate Ilyich.

The true history of the 1917 revolution has not yet been written and not all archives have been opened. So Uritsky’s death continues to remain a mystery. Only his deeds lie like one of the black spots on Russian history. And on the streets of our cities there are still signs with the name of M. S. Uritsky. The humane executioner turns out to be and is now valued more than the people who actually served the Fatherland and died for it. Try to count how many streets or squares there are in your city or town named in memory of heroes II Patriotic War(1914–1918) and in honor of revolutionary terrorists. The numbers themselves will speak for themselves...

On the occasion of the 95th anniversary of the creation of the state security service in the city, NV talks about little-known facts from the life of the Petrograd Cheka and its employees

The FSB Directorate for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region celebrates the 95th anniversary of the creation of its service. Over the years, state security agencies have been renamed more than once. And although the department bore its first name - the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission - for less than five years, even its current employees proudly call themselves “chekists.” NV found out several little known facts from the life of the Petrograd Cheka.

How Gorokhovaya became Komissarovskaya

The famous building on Gorokhovaya was first occupied by the Tsar’s secret police, and then by its opponents

The Petrograd Cheka was created on March 10, 1918. The commission was located in the building of the former royal secret police on Gorokhovaya, 2, which in December 1917 was occupied by the Cheka apparatus under the leadership of Felix Dzerzhinsky, who moved to Moscow along with the Soviet government on March 9, 1918. The Petrograd commissars lived in the buildings next door. So it is not surprising that in the same 1918 the street was renamed Komissarovskaya. A few years later, it became obvious that the commission, which was initially conceived as a temporary body until the expected very early victory of the Bolsheviks over the counter-revolution, would have to exist for a long time and become firmly entrenched in the history of the country. Therefore, in 1925, after the Cheka was renamed into the GPU, Felix Dzerzhinsky ordered the opening of the first departmental museum at Gorokhovaya, 2. All members of the CPSU(b) had the right to visit it. Some of its exhibits are included in the modern exhibition of the department of the Museum of Political History of Russia, now located on Gorokhovaya, 2. Well, at the end of 1932, the St. Petersburg security officers moved to a specially built building on Liteiny, 4, which was popularly called the “Big House”.

You can’t shoot, you can’t release

Before the height of the “Red Terror,” the internal enemy was dealt with mainly through educational measures

The first tasks that the security officers faced were the fight against counter-revolution and profiteering. However, from the very first days of the existence of the PCHK, detainees were brought to Gorokhovaya, 2 for a variety of crimes. In the history hall of the FSB Directorate for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, a registration journal from 1918 has been preserved, in which Petrograd security officers entered information about detainees and their offenses, and also recorded the data of the commissars who were entrusted with this or that case.

The first to be delivered to Gorokhovaya, 2, was a certain Joseph Donatovich Mokretsky, who arrived in Petrograd from Yamburg. They took him on March 14, 1918 for counter-revolutionary agitation. However, they were released on March 19 - in the first months of the Cheka’s existence, death sentences were practically never handed down. On the same day, a certain Baltic Fleet sailor Nikolai Vladimirov visited Gorokhovaya, who was detained for attacking a passerby on Nevsky Prospekt. He was also released after an explanatory conversation and spending the night in a cell.

Gradually, the range of tasks for the security officers expanded. Soon they were tasked with fighting profiteering, then with “crimes in office and through the press.” In the structure of the PCHK, railway, nonresident, and military departments appeared, and from January 1921, security officers were sent to fight child homelessness.

Education did not play a special role

Incomplete secondary education did not prevent Georgy Syroezhkin from becoming an outstanding security officer, a participant in the famous “Trust” and “Syndicate” operations.

In the first months of its existence, the PCHK staff consisted of only about fifty employees. Candidates for responsible service were sent by district councils, which were instructed by the executive committee of the Petrograd Soviet to select the most energetic people devoted to the cause of the revolution. Membership in the CPSU(b) was a great advantage, but there was also a place for sympathizers if they proved their loyalty to the ideals of Bolshevism. Over time, the selection criteria for service became more and more strict, taking into account not only political beliefs, but also origin.

Many of those who came to the Cheka went through the Bolshevik underground and the tsarist courts, that is, they knew well the detective work of the tsarist police and, above all, the security department, which introduced its agents into revolutionary organizations, explains the director of the history hall of the FSB Directorate for St. Petersburg and Leningradskaya region Vladimir Gruzdev. - The Bolsheviks who went through the crucible of such trials were, as a rule, heads of units and were already training their subordinates.

Education did not play a special role in those years. For example, in 1920, out of the total number of Cheka employees, they had higher education 1.3 percent, secondary - 19.1, primary - 69.6, home - 8.4 percent. 1.6 percent of security officers were illiterate.

The Cheka has a woman's face

The first chairman of the Petrograd Cheka was the revolutionary figure Moses Uritsky. Although later opponents of the Bolsheviks called him the “Petrograd Robespierre,” the methods of the first head of the Petrograd Cheka were much more moderate than those practiced by the head of the Cheka, Felix Dzerzhinsky, in Moscow. In particular, largely thanks to Uritsky’s position in Petrograd, there were no serious repressions after the murder of Volodarsky. However, the desire to transfer life in the city to a peaceful direction without unnecessary bloodshed did not save Moisei Uritsky himself - on August 30, 1918, he was shot by the son of a wealthy industrialist, student Leonid Kannegiser, who was part of an underground anti-Bolshevik group.

Uritsky's former deputy, Gleb Bokiy, was appointed the new chairman of the Human Rights Council. The period of his leadership coincided with the height of the famous “Red Terror”. Already in mid-November, Bokiy was seconded to the Special Department of the Eastern Front.

And Varvara Yakovleva stood at the head of the St. Petersburg security officers - the only one in national history a woman who held such a high position in the state security agencies. The daughter of a merchant, she graduated from the Higher Women's Courses with a degree in mathematics. During her studies she participated in student movement, in 1904 joined the RSDLP, joining the Bolsheviks. She was arrested and exiled more than once for her participation in the revolutionary movement. In 1937 she was arrested and shot. The same sad fate in the years Stalin's repressions befell many security officers - from simple investigators to department heads.

I recognize a security officer by his code

The leather jacket that was fashionable after the revolution in the 20s was replaced by security officers for a uniform, and in 1943, shoulder straps returned to the shoulders of the country’s defenders

At first, the security officers in their own way appearance were not much different from the employees of other commissions and councils. There was no uniform as such for many years. Those hired by the Cheka wore the clothes they had. Leather jackets and Mausers in a holster on the belt were favored. Later it became customary to wear military clothing. The first order, which approved the uniform “for special bodies” in 1922, prescribed the Red Army cavalry uniform.

Before the return of shoulder straps, insignia were placed on the sleeves. The type of service was indicated by the color of the buttonholes on the collars of shirts, jackets and overcoats. On the buttonholes there were numbers and letters made of metal, called “ciphers”. They indicated that the wearer of the uniform belonged to one or another OGPU institution. For example, the Petrograd Department was designated on buttonholes as PGPU. Well, the uniform known to many from films with caps with a blue top appeared only in the 1930s.

Think first, speak later

Those coming to serve in the Cheka learned not only intelligence and undercover work, but also rules of conduct and a kind of code of honor, which laid the foundation for the traditions of St. Petersburg security officers, which are still alive today. The memo “What every commissar, investigator, intelligence officer should remember when working on a search”, published in July 1918, has been preserved.

“Always be correct, polite, modest, resourceful,” the document instructed every security officer. - Don’t shout, be gentle, but, however, you need to know where to be firm. You need to think before you speak. During searches, be prudent, skillfully prevent misfortunes, be polite, precise to the point of punctuality. Every employee must remember that he is called upon to protect the Soviet revolutionary order and prevent its violation. If he does this himself, then he is a worthless person and should be expelled from the ranks of the commission.”

As they say, relevant for all times!

Anna Kostrova. Photo by Alexander Galperin

I. S. Ratkovsky

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

Ratkovsky Ilya Sergeevich,

candidate historical sciences, assistant 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 navy. 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 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 last 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 Doctor 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 be assigned to 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 Personal Guard Imperial Majesty before the revolution of 1917, a participant in the Kornilov speech and the defense of the Winter Palace in October 1917, he was arrested in August 1918 and after some time, in the second half of September, he was 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 battle cruiser“Izmail” (1917) He 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, without wasting time and with extreme caution, I go to St. Petersburg, find the named cafe on Morskaya, where I will meet Captain 1st Rank P. M. Plen ( former commander"Slava"), and he will tell you how to get to Novocherkassk more reliably. 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 those killed at the hands of Soviet power members of the Cadet Party, 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 more the exact date 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 for and identify executed persons on the territory of the fortress. During the press conference, genetic examination data were made public, confirming that one of the discovered skeletons belonged to 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 State Museum 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 Administration Archive Federal service security in 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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17 Krasnaya book VChK. T. 2 / Pod red. M. I. Lacisa. Moscow, 1922.

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

19 Rabochij sud. Leningrad, 1927. N 24.

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33 Archive of Saint-Petersburg FSB department.

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

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

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

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

« Not everyone knows the truly gigantic role of the Military Revolutionary Committee in Petrograd, starting from approximately October 20 to half of November. The culmination of this superhuman organizational work was the days and nights from the 24th to the end of the month. All these days and nights, Moses Solomonovich did not sleep. There were a handful of people around him too great strength and endurance, but they got tired, took turns, did partial work, - Uritsky, with red eyes from lack of sleep, but still calm and smiling, remained at his post in the chair to which all the threads converged and from where all the directives of the then sudden, unsettled , but a powerful revolutionary organization.

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

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

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

« In response to the speech of the German imperialists, who openly declared their goal to suppress the proletarian revolution in Russia, the Party Central Committee responded by agreeing to conclude peace on the terms that had been rejected by the Russian delegation in Brest a few days before. This consent, given at the very first onslaught of the enemies of the proletariat, is the capitulation of the vanguard of the international proletariat to the international bourgeoisie. Demonstrating to the whole world the impotence of the proletarian dictatorship in Russia, it deals a blow to the cause of the international proletariat, especially cruel at the time of the revolutionary crisis in Western Europe, and at the same time puts the Russian revolution aside from the international movement. The decision to make peace at any cost, made under the pressure of petty-bourgeois elements and petty-bourgeois sentiments, inevitably entails the loss of the leading role by the proletariat within Russia as well. The exceptions from the scope of the economic program of the Soviet government, which we will be forced to make when concluding peace for capital of German origin, will nullify the work of socialist construction done by the proletariat since October revolution. The surrender of the positions of the proletariat outside inevitably prepares the surrender within.».

According to Lunacharsky’s memoirs:

« Uritsky was an ardent opponent of peace with Germany. This embodiment of composure said with his usual smile: “Isn’t it better to die with honor?”

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

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

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

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

The red button for declaring repression could have been June 20, 1918, when the Commissioner for Press, Agitation and Propaganda V. Volodarsky was killed in Petrograd. The next day, workers' delegations gathered at Smolny and demanded exactly this, but Uritsky's words turned out to be convincing: he called for moderation. This time, reprisals were avoided.

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

Uritsky spent the night at home, on the 8th line of Vasilievsky Island. Got up early. A car was already waiting for him near the house. The caring landlady noticed that Moisei Solomonovich did not have breakfast, and literally forced a small bag of sandwiches on him. In the car next to the driver sat Shatov, the commandant of the Petrograd Cheka. It means he brought something important.” – Scriabin M. E., Gavrilov P. N. You can shine only by burning: The Tale of M. Uritsky. - M., 1987 .

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

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

On the same day, August 30, 1918, in Moscow, Fanny Kaplan shot several times at Lenin, who was speaking at a meeting of workers at the Michelson plant.

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

« ...in this situation, securing the rear through terror is a direct necessity; that in order to strengthen the activities of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for the fight against counter-revolution, profiteering and crime in office and to introduce greater systematicity into it, it is necessary to send there possible larger number responsible party comrades; what needs to be provided Soviet Republic from class enemies by isolating them in concentration camps; that all persons connected with White Guard organizations, conspiracies and rebellions are subject to execution; that it is necessary to publish the names of all those executed, as well as the reasons for applying this measure to them».

In the fall, the first issue of the “Weekly of the Extraordinary Commissions for Combating Counter-Revolution and Profiteering dated September 22, 1918” was published, where Graskin wrote:

« The murder of Comrade Uritsky, the attempt on the life of Comrade Lenin, the conspiracy of the right Socialist Revolutionaries with their allies is a clear indicator that the above-mentioned groups of people who make up the oligarchy of their class are hitting the target, trying to upset, and ultimately take over, the apparatus of state power.

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

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

Material prepared by Nadezhda Drozdova