Why the fighter against tsarism, who planned to destroy Nicholas II, became the enemy of the Bolsheviks: Terrorist and esthete Boris Savinkov

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Even in pre-revolutionary times, the name of Boris Savinkov worried the tsarist secret police, and the imperial gendarmes, not without reason, considered him the first terrorist in Russia. The life path of a revolutionary to the bone marrow is contradictory, as are all the crimes of a national scale that he has committed. The metamorphosis that overtook Savinkov after the October Revolution is also ambiguous, when an implacable fighter against tsarism suddenly turned into the worst enemy of the Soviet regime. And there are several versions of the character's death.

Enemy of the autocracy and revolutionary to the bone

The revolutionary "multi-local" grew up in a prosperous family of an assistant to the Warsaw prosecutor and a journalist, sharing a cloudless childhood with three brothers and a sister. Already in his student years, Boris was expelled from St. Petersburg University for participating in youth riots. By the beginning of the 20th century, Savinkov had numerous arrests for revolutionary activity behind his shoulders. In 1902 he was exiled to Vologda. Having managed to escape from exile, in Geneva Boris joined the Socialist-Revolutionaries and joined the ranks of the fighting wing. Demonstrating decisiveness and pragmatism, Savinkov quickly earns the fame of one of the most dangerous terrorists. He is personally involved in organizing terrorist attacks in Russia.

With the exposure of the leader of the Socialist-Revolutionary militants Azef, Savinkov becomes the new leader. When his group commits the murder of Admiral Chukhnin, Boris is sentenced to capital punishment. But after bribing the guard of the guardhouse, he again flees, this time to Romania. Separated from terrorist activities, Savinkov, under the pseudonym Ropshin, tries himself as a writer-memoirist, publishing the book "Memories of a Terrorist." From the first days of the First World War, he strikes into military journalism, issuing documentary notes to the mountain. But the wings of the emigrant are shackled outside the usual radical activity.

Terrorism Savinkov

In his new role as a writer, Savinkov openly shares his own "exploits" with the reader, philosophizing on the topic of terrorism. An ardent fighter against the autocracy, a radical Socialist-Revolutionary, the leader of a combat group managed to become famous for high-profile attempts on the life of high-ranking tsarist officials and representatives of the imperial family. The service record of the newly-minted writer includes the tsarist minister Plehve, the son of Alexander II, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, killed by the SR explosives. On the account of the Socialist Revolutionary - an attempt on the life of the Moscow Governor-General Dubasov and the organization of the assassination of the famous revolutionary priest Gapon.

Savinkov was also the author of the plan to assassinate Nicholas II, which failed only after the denunciation. The life of a terrorist in constant nervous tension seriously affected Boris' worldview. According to the memoirs of the Russian writer Kuprin, who met Savinkov in French Nice, the revolutionary suffered from a persecution mania. Having crossed the moral Rubicon, he no longer knew obstacles in the struggle for ideology. The accompanying human sacrifice has not been considered a serious argument for a long time.

Reincarnations of a Born Rebel

The unrest in Russia became a breath of clean air for Savinkov. Returning to his homeland in April 1917, in a couple of months he made his way to the post of commissar of the Southwestern Front. And in the summer he became Deputy Minister of War. In the August Kornilov uprising, he even visited the armchair of the military governor of Petrograd and the commander of the troops of the Petrograd military district. Kornilov's ally reacted negatively to the October Revolution, having resigned. By that time, he was expelled from the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and Savinkov quickly migrated to the ranks of the enemies of the party. He created the "Union of Defense of the Motherland and Freedom", planning now anti-Bolshevik uprisings in Moscow, Yaroslavl, Kazan. The organization was quickly disclosed, and Savinkov fled to Ufa, where the Provisional All-Russian Government settled in the territory not controlled by the Bolsheviks. Quickly finding his bearings in the team of new colleagues, Boris went to France for the support of the Entente. Next, he achieved a meeting with Pilsudski and Churchill, the main opponents of Soviet Russia. Under Pilsudski's wing, Savinkov formed Russian units that participated in the Soviet-Polish war, putting several dozen fighters under arms.

The revival of the destroyed "Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom" was an attempt to attach the Russian units that had become unnecessary and another change in the vector. The White movement lost the fight for Russia, and Savinkov thought about his own Socialist-Revolutionary party. Now he opposed the Bolsheviks and monarchists, promising independence to all peoples, and land to the peasants. However, Savinkov's popular revolt failed, Pilsudski lost power in Poland, and the local officials were in no hurry to quarrel with the new Russia. In 1922, Boris Savinkov got into the development of the OGPU.

Prison and a strange outcome

As a result of the professionally designed operation of the Chekists "Syndicate-2" in August 1924, Boris Savinkov was lured to the Soviet Union. His arrest was not long in coming. During the court hearings, the former terrorist and ideologue-organizer of the White movement openly admitted his staunch anti-Soviet activities. The first sentence was execution, but after a while the capital punishment was changed to a ten-year prison term. According to the official version, in May 1925 Boris Savinkov took his own life by jumping out of the window of the prison corridor of the fifth floor.

Traditionally, Solzhenitsyn held a different opinion about the death of a revolutionary leader. In his work "The Gulag Archipelago" the author insisted on the version of the murder of Boris Savinkov by the Chekists. In his statements, Solzhenitsyn referred to the near-death revelations in the camp infirmary of the Latvian NKVD officer Artur Strubel. He allegedly said that he was a member of a group of five colleagues who threw Savinkov out of the window onto the stone flooring of the prison yard with their own hands.

Late terrorists used completely different methods. They took whole schools with children hostage.