Russian terrorists. The first Russian terrorist: a loser who changed history. Known-unknown terrorist attacks in the USSR
Terrorism was originally the work of romantics, eager to remake the life of the people in their own way, for the better, but today's terrorists are far from that. Terror came to Russia, like many other things, from the West. Russian theorists of revolutionary violence (M. A. Bakunin, P. L. Lavrov, Π. N. Tkachev, S. M. Stepnyak-Kravchinsky, etc.) formed their views on terrorism in emigration at the end of the 18th century, based on on the experience of the French Revolution and other European radical uprisings. Bakunin's concept of the "philosophy of the bomb" was developed in his "theory of destruction", and the anarchists put forward the already mentioned doctrine of "propaganda by action". PA Kropotkin defined anarchism as "constant excitement with the help of spoken and written words, a knife, a rifle and dynamite."
Our theorists marveled at the feats of the Western rebels, their secret organizations and tactical forms of violent change in the social order. Everything seemed relatively simple and efficient. And already in 1866 D. V. Karakozov made an attempt on the life of Alexander II, which failed. The perpetrator was hanged. Ten years later, the Polish emigrant A. Berezovsky was attempting to assassinate the Tsar in Paris. A year later, the gendarme general Mezentsev was killed. The process has intensified. In 1879, the Kharkiv governor Kropotkin (a cousin of the famous anarchist) was killed and at the same time the terrorist organization "Narodnaya Volya" was created, which passed a "death sentence" to Alexander II. Eight attempts were made, the last of which, carried out on March 1, 1881, was successful. The heir received an ultimatum demanding deep political change. However, the people did not follow the terrorists, and soon the terrorist organization collapsed.
The peasantry in Russia, which constituted the majority of the population, as a rule did not share the ideas of the terrorist bombers. A different position was taken by the educated part of society, which was due to the social injustice that existed at that time in Russia, with which the peasant mass put up. However, it must be admitted that the majority of educated people sympathetic to terrorists, as it turns out later, did not fully understand the consequences of terrorism. Their sympathy could be due to the ambivalent Russian mentality, which was very accurately expressed by M. Tsvetaeva: "If I see violence, I am for the victim, and if the rapist runs away, I will give him shelter."
It is important to note that a distinctive feature of pre-revolutionary Russian terrorism was the benevolent attitude towards terrorists of an educated society. People who denied terror tactics for moral or political reasons were in an absolute minority. The arguments for justifying revolutionary terror were drawn from devastating assessments of Russian reality. They saw the terrorists as devotees of the idea, sacrificing their lives in the name of lofty goals. This was facilitated by the acquittal of the jury in the case of the populist Vera Zasulich, who attempted the life of the St. Petersburg mayor F.F. Trepov for cruel treatment of political prisoners. Alarmed by the news about the unjust punishment of the political prisoner Bogolyubov, committed on the orders of Trepov, Zasulich shot at the mayor. The defender's speech ended with the words: "Yes, she can leave here convicted, but she will not come out disgraced ..." A significant part of the educated society admired the terrorists. And Zasulich later became the organizer of the Emancipation of Labor group and a member of the editorial boards of Iskra and Zarya.
At the beginning of the reign of Nicholas II (1894-1917), there was a consolidation of revolutionary forces of various orientations - socialist-revolutionaries, Socialist-Revolutionaries, anarchists, nationalists.
The Socialist Revolutionary Party, formed in 1901, adopted the tactics of terrorism, and in the same year the Fighting Organization of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party (which disintegrated in early 1907) was created. The first political assassination in Russia was committed by a student expelled from the university, Pyotr Karpovich. On February 4, 1901, he mortally wounded the Conservative Education Minister Η. P. Bogolepov, who advocated sending students into soldiers. In April 1902, the Socialist-Revolutionary S. V. Balmashov killed the Minister of Internal Affairs D. S. Sipyagin - the inspirer of the Russification policy in the national outskirts and the initiator of brutal punitive measures against popular movements. And in July 1904 the Socialist-Revolutionary E. S. Sazonov killed Sipyagin's successor in this post - V. K. von Plehve, who was an extreme reactionary. In February 1905, this stage of terrorism ended with the assassination of the Tsar's uncle, the Moscow Governor-General, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. These were the loudest attacks. The Azef case occupies a special place in the history of Russian terrorism during these years.
Yevno Azef, the son of a Jewish tailor, offered his services to the Police Department in 1892 while a student at the Polytechnic Institute in Germany. Returning to Russia, he became a prominent figure in the Socialist-Revolutionary movement, following the instructions of the Minister of the Interior Plehve. In 1908 Azev was exposed and declared a provocateur.
The first Russian revolution (1905–1907) began with a powerful outburst of terrorism from consolidated terrorist organizations of all kinds. He covered the whole country. Between October 1905 and the end of 1907, 4,500 government officials were killed and maimed, 2,180 were killed and 2,530 were wounded. In 1907, an average of 18 victims were accounted for by terrorists every day. In 1907, the revolution began to recede. From January 1908 to May 1910, 19,957 terrorist attacks and revolutionary robberies were recorded. It was not professional terrorists who killed police officers, blew up houses, carried out expropriation (robbery for the needs of the revolution) in houses, trains and steamers, but hundreds and thousands of those who were captured by the revolutionary element. The principle of "propaganda by action" worked. A classic guerrilla war was unfolding in Russia.
Only the practice of military courts, introduced by the energetic Prime Minister P.A.Stolypin, was able to bring down the wave of revolutionary terror. As Minister of Internal Affairs, and then Chairman of the Council of Ministers (since 1906), in the era of reaction, he determined the government course, was the organizer of the counter-revolutionary coup on June 3, 1907, and the leader of the agrarian reform, called Stolypin. Stolypin began to develop the project "Nationalization of Capital" - a system of protective measures against Russian enterprises. Therefore, the hunt for him was serious. In August 1906, the maximalist Social Revolutionaries blew up Stolypin's dacha. 27 people were killed, the children of the prime minister were injured. The last major case in the history of pre-revolutionary terrorism was the assassination of Stolypin. On September 1, 1911, compromised by his connections with the security department, anarcho-communist Dmitry Bogrov fatally wounded the Prime Minister in the building of the Kiev Opera in front of the Tsar and 92 security agents. The killer was soon hanged, but that made little difference. Nadezhda of Russia, P. A. Stolypin, died on September 5 without implementing the most important reforms for Russia.
The Social Democrats declared their rejection of systematic terror, considering this tactic unpromising. However, the practical Bolsheviks adopted the practice of expropriation, in addition, they practiced the destruction of informants and terror against the supporters of the "Black Hundred".
This position was shared by Lenin and other leaders of the party and state. Expropriation was the main direction of Bolshevik terrorism in those years. This direction was directed by LB Krasin. The most active activity developed in the Caucasus. A group led by Semyon Ter-Petrosyants (Kamo) carried out a number of expropriations. The loudest act was the "Tiflis ex" on June 12, 1907, when the Bolsheviks blew up two postage carriages with money and seized 250,000 rubles, which were directed to the needs of the "Bolshevik center" abroad. Terrorism also developed on the outskirts of the empire, in Poland, on the territory of Lithuania and Belarus, in the Caucasus, in Armenia and Georgia. The centers of anarchist terror were Bialystok, Odessa, Riga, Vilno, Warsaw. Anarchist terror was distinguished by its focus on the possessing classes and the widespread use of suicide bombers.
The February revolution and the Bolshevik coup (1917) marked a new stage in the history of Russian terrorism. Establishing their power, the Bolsheviks faced opposition from a broad coalition of political and social forces. The opponents of the Soviet regime naturally turned to the tactics of terrorism. But then an important detail became clear, which was confirmed in the subsequent years of Soviet power: terrorism is effective only in a society following the path of liberalization. The totalitarian regime opposes the scattered terrorism of anti-government forces with systematic and devastating state terror. During the Civil War, the ambassador of Germany, Count Mirbach (1918), the communists M. S. Uritsky (1918) and V. M. Zagorsky (Lubotsky) (1919) were killed. In 1918, an attempt was made on Lenin's life. In 1918-1919. there were several explosions in public places. The Red Terror quickly destroyed the anti-Soviet underground. The terrorist movement has lost both personnel and support in society. Criticism of the government and sympathy for terrorists is a luxury available to a person living in a more or less free society. In addition, the communist regime has created a powerful and well-thought-out system for the protection of senior government officials. Terrorist attacks against the leaders have become almost impossible. After the end of the Civil War, several terrorist attacks took place abroad: Soviet diplomatic courier Theodor Nette was killed in Latvia (1926) and plenipotentiary P.L. Voikov in Poland (1927). The Soviet secret services solved this problem as well. By the late 1930s, a significant portion of the emigration was under control. The tradition of Russian terrorism has been destroyed.
The high-profile case of the mid-1930s - the assassination of S.M. Kirov (1934) - served as an impetus for a wave of repressions that swept across the country, but it was most likely organized by the USSR special services at Stalin's instructions. During these years, the country was engulfed in massive political repressions (political state terror). After the war, terrorist activities continued in the form of offensive and retaliatory terrorism in the Baltics and Western Ukraine. Partisan movements operating in the Baltics and Western Ukraine carried out acts of terrorism both against representatives of the Soviet authorities and against Soviet activists from local residents. By the early 1950s, anti-Soviet rebel movements using terrorist methods of struggle were destroyed there as well.
Thus, terrorism is leaving the life of Soviet society for decades. In the 60s-80s of the XX century. terrorist acts were sporadic: in 1973 - the explosion of an airplane flying from Moscow to Chita; in 1977 - three explosions in Moscow (in the subway, in a shop, on the street), committed by Armenian nationalists - members of the illegal Dashnaktsutyun party Zatikyan, Stepanyan, Baghdasaryan; in 1969 an army lieutenant, later recognized as mentally ill, fired a pistol at Leonid Brezhnev, who was driving in an open car; in addition, there were several attempts to hijack an aircraft to Israel in the 1970s.
In 1990, A. Shmonov, who attempted to shoot M. Gorbachev, was declared insane. Perhaps it was so beneficial for the authorities not to reveal the real discontent of the people with the country's leadership. Several terrorist attacks were committed during the years of perestroika, among them an attempt to hijack an aircraft by the Ovechkin family ("Seven Simeons") in 1988.
A new wave of terrorist attacks began only in the second half of the 1990s. The collapse of the USSR, the weakening of state institutions, the economic crisis, the formation of a black market in weapons and explosives, the rapid growth of criminal violence (so-called "showdowns", contract killings), uncontrolled migration flows, the war in Chechnya and other factors created the prerequisites for another powerful surge in terrorism ... Individual terrorist attacks are carried out by small groups of a radical communist orientation, for example, the explosion of the monument to Nicholas II near Moscow (1998), the explosion at the reception of the FSB of Russia in Moscow (1999), the mining of the monument to Peter I in Moscow. All these actions took place without human casualties.
The subsequent series of terrorist acts related to the war in Chechnya was much more dangerous. These are explosions of houses, explosions in streets and markets, seizure of public buildings and hostages. Terrorist attacks are carried out in Dagestan, Volgodonsk, Moscow. Among the most notorious actions is the seizure of a maternity hospital in the city of Budennovsk by a detachment of terrorists led by Shamil Basayev in the summer of 1995. The terrorist attack ended in humiliating negotiations by the Russian authorities and the return of terrorists to territory not controlled by the Russian army. The seizure of the Theater Center on Dubrovka in Moscow by a detachment led by Movsar Barayev in the fall of 2002 ended with an assault, the destruction of terrorists and the release of hostages.
During perestroika, the collapse of the Soviet state and the inconsistent democratic and market reform of Russia and other countries formed in the post-Soviet space at the turn of the century, violent terrorist activities of ethnopolitical, separatist, nationalist and religious motivation acquired a massive character (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan , Chechnya, etc.), which was examined in detail by the author based on the study of criminal cases and other documentary sources in separate chapters of previous works.In this terrorist act, perhaps for the first time in our country, cruelty towards innocent people was manifested. According to the terrorists, they fought against the Soviet system and took revenge on the Russians "no matter who it is: women, children, old people - the main thing is Russians." (Bobkov F. D. Kremlin and power. M., 1995.S. 290).
Image copyright RIA News Image caption Dmitry Karakozov a few months before the assassination attempt
On September 3 (15), 1866, Dmitry Karakozov was hanged on Vasilievsky Island in St. Petersburg for an attempt on the life of Alexander II.
"This shot cut Russian history in two. A tall, fair-haired, gloomy-silent young man with a long, horse-like face, a low voice and a heavy look was destined to open a new era. The bullet he had prepared for the emperor did not reach its goal; but it was she who brought death to Sipyagin and Stolypin, Volodarsky and Uritsky, Nicholas II, Mirbakh, Kirov, countless victims of the Civil War and Stalinist repressions, "wrote the historian Andrzej Ikonnikov-Galitsky.
A small pebble brings down an avalanche. The impetus for the process, the consequences of which will affect 150 years later, was given, in the opinion of contemporaries and later researchers, an ordinary person.
Shot past
Unsuccessful assassination attempts on Alexander II
- May 25, 1867: During a visit to Paris, when the Russian Tsar and Emperor Napoleon III were returning from a military review in an open carriage, a Pole, Anton Berezovsky, shot the guest twice. The security officer pushed the assailant, the bullets hit the horse. Napoleon said: "Now we will find out who we were aiming at. If an Italian, then at me, if a Pole, at you." Berezovsky was sentenced to life imprisonment in New Caledonia, replaced by eternal exile, and pardoned 40 years later.
- April 2, 1879: Student Alexander Solovyov, an undergraduate student, fired three shots from a revolver at close range at the emperor, who was taking a morning walk around the Winter Palace. He missed, was captured at the scene of the attempt, convicted and hanged.
- November 19, 1879: An attempt to blow up the tsarist train near Moscow on its way from Livadia. The People's Will, led by Andrey Zhelyabov and Sophia Perovskaya, knew that the baggage train should go first, but in Kharkov its steam locomotive broke down, and the tsar's train moved first. Several people were injured in the explosion of a mine under the baggage train. The organizers were later arrested and hanged.
- February 5, 1880: Narodnovolets Stepan Khalturin, who got a job as a carpenter in the Winter Palace, laid two pounds of dynamite under the hall where a dinner in honor of the arrival of the Prince of Hesse was to be held. Due to the late arrival of the prince's train, the bomb went off when the dignitaries were not in the room. 11 were killed and 56 servants and soldiers were injured. Khalturin in 1882 was captured at the time of the murder by him and another member of the People's Will of the Odessa prosecutor Strelnikov, refused to identify himself, and his identity was established only after the execution.
On April 4, at about four in the afternoon, Alexander II finished his usual walk in the Summer Garden and went out to the Nevskaya embankment.
There were no guards under the emperor in those days, only a policeman walked along the sidewalk from the outside of the gate, and a non-commissioned gendarmerie was waiting for the carriage, who stood at attention at the sight of the king.
Passers-by, as always, paused to gaze at the sovereign.
Alexander, picking up the long flaps of his greatcoat, was preparing to get into the carriage. At that moment, eyewitnesses heard a loud bang and saw a young man running. The policeman and the gendarme rushed after him, knocked him down, took away the heavy double-barreled pistol and began to beat. Covering his face with his hands, the man shouted: "You fools, because I am for you, but you do not understand!"
The first thing the tsar did was ask the shooter if he was a Pole. Having received no convenient explanation, he asked why he did it. The terrorist replied: "Your Majesty, you have offended the peasants!" (such was the inertia of habit that even the regicides in the eyes and behind the eyes called the monarch "majesty" and "sovereign").
Alexander went to a thanksgiving service at the Kazan Cathedral, and the criminal for interrogation at the Third Section on the Fontanka.
In his pocket they found a copy of his proclamation "To Friends-Workers!": "It was sad, hard for me that my beloved people are dying, and so I decided to destroy the villainous Tsar. I will die thinking that I have benefited my dear Russian friend. I believe that there will be people who will follow my path. "
Written in a deliberately common language, the appeal contained mainly attacks on the rich and calls for property equality, which, according to the author, is paradise.
The arrested person identified himself as a peasant Alexei Petrov and refused further testimony. But with him they found a medical prescription, went to a doctor who knew about the patient that he had come from Moscow, and, most importantly, indicated the hotel in which he was staying. During a search in the room, the gendarmes found an unsent letter to his cousin Nikolai Ishutin and from him they learned the real name of the terrorist.
"Savior"
Several hours later, at a gala reception in the Winter Palace, the head of the Third Section, Prince Dolgorukov, reported a sensation: it turns out that the bullet flew above the emperor's head, because the peasant Osip Komissarov, who happened to be nearby, "took away the villainous hand."
Alexander, of course, wished to see him and immediately, under a thunderous "hurray", raised him to the nobility.
Many contemporaries suspected this was a PR move, especially because Komissarov turned out to be from the Kostroma province, like Ivan Susanin.
"I find it very political to invent such a feat," wrote a gendarme officer, a participant in the investigation of the Karakozov case, Pyotr Cherevin, and Minister of Internal Affairs Pyotr Valuev noted that Komissarov's role was not confirmed by the investigation data.
Komissarov was rewarded with money, presented with a house, and began to invite to countless official and social events, where he amazed everyone with his tightness and tongue-tied language.
His wife began to go to expensive shops and ask for gifts, modestly introducing herself: "I am the wife of the Savior."
After about six months, Komissarov disappeared from public space and subsequently died of alcoholism.
The path to terror
After the half-way abolition of serfdom in 1861, the intelligentsia decided that the peasants had been robbed and deceived.
- Liberation by half
One of those who did not want to wait, and even considered Herzen to be a compromiser, was the 25-year-old Dmitry Karakozov, the son of small-scale Penza nobles.
Enough to rejoice! - Musa whispered to me. - It's time to go ahead. The people are liberated, but are the people happy? Nikolay Nekrasov, poet
Later, Nechaev, Zhelyabov, Savinkov, Gershuni, Azef - "demons of the revolution", versatile talents, cold-blooded prudent adventurers, natural-born leaders would come to the Russian terror.
Most of the terrorists of the first wave were losers with unsettled fates and unstable psyches, easily passing from euphoria to depression, with unquenched ambitions and resentment towards the whole world.
"The French revolution happened after Corneille and Voltaire on the shoulders of Mirabeau, Bonaparte, Danton, encyclopedists. And here expropriators, murderers, bombers are incompetent writers, students who have not completed their course, lawyers without trials, artists without talent, scientists without science," - wrote Fyodor Dostoevsky.
Many differed in adolescence by exaggerated religiosity, from which they passed on to equally exalted atheism, replacing God with an Idea. It seems that they wanted not so much to defeat the victim and achieve some result, but to be honored with martyrdom.
Karakozov entered the revolution under the influence of his peer Ishutin, who was left an orphan early and was brought up by his parents.
After studying a little at Kazan University, Karakozov transferred to Moscow. Ishutin attended lectures there as a volunteer, since he did not graduate from high school either.
According to the recollections of their mutual friend, later famous judicial journalist Elena Kozlinina, Ishutina "made me climb into heroes" by love for a certain girl of extraordinary beauty, combined with the inability of a young man to prove himself in science.
"Karakozov was even grayer and even more embittered than Ishutin: he could not study positively, and, unable to adapt to anything, he migrated from one university to another. And everywhere he was oppressed by hopeless need. This made him ready to do anything in revenge for their failures, "Kozlinina said.
Narodism perished not under the blows of the police, but because of the mood of the then revolutionaries, who at all costs wanted to take revenge on the government for the persecution and, in general, to enter into direct struggle with it Georgy Plekhanov, a Marxist
According to the doctors who examined Karakozov after his arrest, he suffered from chronic colitis due to malnutrition and was constantly suffering from stomach pains.
Eager to be a leader, Ishutin founded a student circle that he called simply and uncomplicated: "Organization." The goal was to promote socialism and help poor students by creating a bookbinding workshop on an artel basis.
Within the "Organization" there arose a conspiratorial, however clumsily, nucleus under the pretentious name of "Hell".
During the gatherings over tea with a bit of sugar and cheap sausage, Ishutin talked about regicide, which would cause a "general great revolt"; told tales about an acquaintance who allegedly poisoned his father in order to give his inheritance to the cause of the revolution; fantasized that he was a member of the leadership of a mighty international committee preparing a coup in all of Europe.
"Many knew about the existence of" Hell ", but treated it as the chatter of young people," Kozlinina said in her memoirs.
As the historian Edward Radzinsky suggests, the gendarmes could not have been unaware of what was happening, but were not averse to the members of the circle throwing out something loud and giving them a reason to tighten the screws.
According to the testimony of the arrested Ishutins, Karakozov, who joined them in 1865, was mostly silent at the gatherings. And then, without saying anything to anyone, he went to Petersburg to kill the tsar.
According to the testimony of doctor Kobylin, who was prescribing him medications, the last days he was on the verge of a nervous fever.
Bnservese after Pugachev
According to available information, they wanted to declare Karakozov insane: a Russian person, being in his right mind, cannot encroach on the sovereign. Alexander rejected the offer.
Most of the time in the Alekseevsky ravelin, Karakozov prayed.
On August 10, the trial began in the Supreme Criminal Court chaired by Prince Pyotr Gagarin - in the same house of the commandant of Petropavlovka, where exactly 40 years ago the Decembrists were tried.
Karakozov wrote to the tsar: "I ask your forgiveness as a Christian from a Christian and as a person from a person."
The next day it was announced to him: "His Majesty forgives you as a Christian, but as a sovereign he cannot forgive."
Karakozov was hanged in the Smolensk field of Vasilievsky Island in front of a large crowd of people. This was the first public execution in Russia after Yemelyan Pugachev.
A sketch of the condemned on the scaffold was drawn by 22-year-old Ilya Repin.
Ishutin was announced to replace the execution with life imprisonment, having already thrown a robe over him. He sat in the Shlisselburg fortress and died in 1879 in the Carian penal servitude in a state of gloomy insanity.
Reaction
Alexander II was furious and insulted. I gave them freedom, but a bullet at me for that? In front of your father did not dare to utter a word! In vain did Brother Constantine remind the emperor of his own words: "No weakness, no reaction."
What terrible people have risen from the graves! Petersburg was dying. Everything was recalled and avenged. Flocks of "well-meaning" rushed from everywhere Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, writer
The head of the commission of inquiry was appointed Count Mikhail Muravyov, nicknamed "Muravyov the Hanger". After the ruthless suppression of the Polish uprising of 1863, he became a monster in the eyes of Europe and liberal Russia and was sent into honorable retirement on the principle: "The Moor did his job." Now the iconic character is back in politics.
During the highest audience, Muravyov demanded a purge of the government. "They are all cosmopolitan, adherents of European ideas," he said. Thus, for the first time in Russia, the word "cosmopolitan" was used as a political label, which later fell in love with Stalin.
The governor-general of St. Petersburg Alexander Suvorov (the grandson of the great commander), the chief of the gendarmes Vasily Dolgorukov, and the minister of education Alexander Golovnin, who "dismissed the youth," immediately lost their posts.
They were replaced by well-known retrogrades: Fyodor Trepov, whom Vera Zasulich would shoot at 12 years later, Pyotr Shuvalov, who in fact received the prime minister's powers, and Dmitry Tolstoy, soon nicknamed "the curse of the Russian school."
The salvation of loyal statements becomes tiresome. Local authorities foolishly excite them with clerical receptions Pyotr Valuev, Minister of Internal Affairs
The Sovremennik magazine was closed, although the editor-in-chief Nikolai Nekrasov tried to save his brainchild by composing an ode to Muravyov, of which he repented to death.
Immediately after the "miraculous rescue", the patriots who drank in joy began to tear off the hats from passers-by, who, in their opinion, were not jubilant enough, and beat the long-haired (this is how students walked).
Muravyov died two days before the sentencing of Karakozov, but the tsar still did not want to hear about liberalization.
Lost time
Image copyright RIA News Image caption Historians call Alexander II a victim of indecision and inconsistency and are sometimes compared to Mikhail Gorbachev"It is dangerous to start reforms in Russia. But it is much more dangerous to stop them," writes Radzinsky.
Alexander lost his main support - the sane supporters of progress within the framework of stability.
The ideas of the radicals were dubious, and the methods were sometimes terrible, but their sacrifice aroused sympathy, and the policy of the authorities irritated.
The government is now not supported by anyone Nikolai Milyutin, Minister of War
Karakozov's prediction about the people who will follow him came true one hundred percent.
In 1869, Nechaev composed the eerie Catechism of a Revolutionary, which inspired Fyodor Dostoevsky to write the visionary novel Demons and Vladimir Lenin to create a "new type of party."
In 1878, the jury demonstratively, to applause, even parts of the high society acquitted Vera Zasulich - despite the fact that the jury, of course, was not nihilistic.
In 1877-1878, the emperor tried to unite the society with a war for "the liberation of the Slavic brothers from the Ottoman yoke."
Enthusiasm arose, but quickly disappeared when the Bulgarians did not show much gratitude, the geopolitical fruits were reaped by England and Germany, and Russia received only Annin's checkers for the aide-de-camp, and endless rows of graves of ordinary soldiers, in the cynical expression of General Dragomirov, "holy cattle".
Only in 1880, Alexander, who had survived five assassination attempts by that time, returned to the path of reforms, placing Mikhail Loris-Melikov with his "dictatorship of the heart" at the head of the government.
But the emperor's hunting machine had already picked up steam.
Like all over the world
Terrorism as a means of political struggle is a relatively new phenomenon.
Ancient and medieval history remembered only two such organizations, both operating in the Middle East: the Jewish Sicarii in the 1st century AD and the Shiite sect of the Nizari ("Assassins"), which in the 12th-13th centuries terrified the crusaders and local Sunni rulers.
Probably, the aristocracy found murder from around the corner a base deed, and ordinary people did not know how to create effective conspiratorial structures. The first was a weapon of war, the second - a riot.
A new type of revolutionary began to emerge. A gloomy figure was outlined, illuminated as if by hellish flame, which, with gaze breathing challenge and revenge, began to make its way among the terrified crowd. That was a terrorist! Sergey Kravchinsky, Narodnolets
Terrorism flourished in the 19th century with the rise of an educated middle class. Russia was no exception and was by no means ahead of the rest of the world in this matter.
Until 1900, British Prime Minister Spencer Percival and his Japanese counterpart Toshimiti Okubo, US Presidents Abraham Lincoln and James Garfield, French President Sadi Carnot, Austro-Hungarian Empress Elizabeth (Sissi), the Persian Shah Nasser al-Din and the Italian king became victims of political terror Umberto I, not counting smaller figures.
There is an important difference between the past and the present terrorism not in favor of modernity.
Russian Narodnaya Volya and Western anarchists and nationalists killed the rulers and their high-ranking henchmen, who, with more or less reason, were considered tyrants and enemies of society. It never occurred to anyone to blackmail the authorities, blowing up and seizing innocent and innocent inhabitants.
For the last half century of its existence, the tsarist regime had to resist the onslaught of radical revolutionaries who chose terror as their strategy. Terrorism swept the country in waves, each time leaving behind ruined lives and hopes. What methods were used by the revolutionaries, what they fought against, and how it ended - in our material.
From Young Russia to the assassination attempt on the emperor
In 1862, a twenty-year-old prisoner of the Tver police unit, Pyotr Zaichnevsky, wrote a proclamation "Young Russia", which quickly spread to all the major cities of the empire. In a proclamation issued on behalf of the non-existent Central Revolutionary Committee, revolutionary terror was declared a medicine for curing the ills of society, and the Winter Palace was the main target of terrorists.The author was inspired mainly by the ideas of the French utopian socialist L.O.Blanca, but partly by Herzen, whose works were distributed by a student circle organized by Zaichnevsky in Moscow. However, Herzen spoke of the young supporters of terror with paternal condescension: "Not a drop of blood has been shed from them, and if it does, it will be their blood — of young fanatics." Time has shown that he was wrong.
The popularity of radical views became apparent when the first of numerous attempts on the life of Alexander II was made. On April 4, 1866, Dmitry Karakozov, a member of the Organization secret society, shot at the emperor, who was heading to his carriage after a walk in the Summer Garden. The astonished Alexander asked the terrorist, dressed as a peasant, why he wanted to kill him. Karakozov replied: "You deceived the people: you promised them land, but you did not give it."
Both Karakozov and the leader of the Organization, Nikolai Ishutin, were sentenced to hanging. But the latter was announced a pardon at a time when a noose was already thrown around his neck. Unable to cope with the shock, he went mad.
The nechaev process
In November 1869, an event occurred that prompted Dostoevsky to the idea of \u200b\u200bthe novel Demons. Moscow student Ivan Ivanov was killed by his own comrades - members of the "Society of People's Repression" circle. He was tricked into a grotto on the bank of a pond in the park of the Petrovsk Agricultural Academy, beaten to the point of feeling insensible and shot. The body, lowered under the ice, was found a few days later.
The lawsuit affected nearly ninety people and received extensive newspaper coverage. A document called "Catechism of a Revolutionary" was published. It said that a revolutionary is a “doomed man” who has renounced his own interests, feelings and even a name. His relationship with the world is subordinated to a single goal. He should not hesitate to sacrifice a comrade-in-arms if this is necessary for the coming "complete liberation and happiness" of the people.
Sergei Nechaev, the leader of the Narodnaya reprisal, the author (or one of the authors) of the Catechism and the organizer of Ivanov's murder, did not hesitate to sacrifice his comrades, but the purity of his intentions is more than doubtful.
He was a skilled hoaxer and manipulator. He spread legends about himself - for example, about his heroic escape from the Peter and Paul Fortress. Going to Switzerland, Nechayev misled Bakunin and Ogarev and received 10,000 francs for the needs of a fictional revolutionary committee. He slandered student Ivanov, accusing him of betrayal, while the young man's entire fault was that he dared to argue with Nechaev. And this, according to the leader, could undermine his authority in the eyes of others.
After the start of the arrests, Nechaev fled, leaving his comrades to fend for themselves, abroad - again to Switzerland. But it was issued by the Swiss authorities to the Russian authorities in 1872.
The trial of the Nechaevites made a strong impression not only on Dostoevsky. The facts that came to light for several years averted the majority of the opposition-minded intelligentsia from thinking about the benefits of terror.
The trial of Vera Zasulich
Historians count a new milestone in the development of revolutionary terrorism in Russia from the assassination attempt on St. Petersburg mayor FF Trepov at the beginning of the winter of 1878. The 28-year-old revolutionary-populist Vera Zasulich, who came to see the official, seriously wounded him with two shots in the stomach.
The reason for the attempt was the absurd trick of Trepov, who had a reputation as a bribe-taker and tyrant. Bypassing the prohibition of corporal punishment, he ordered to flog a prisoner who did not take off his hat in front of him.
Zasulich was saved from hard labor by two brilliant lawyers: the chairman of the district court A.F. Koni and the lawyer P.A.Akimov. They managed to present the case in such a way that the jury, in fact, was no longer considering a criminal offense, but the moral confrontation between the cruel city governor, who personified everything that was mossy and inert that was in the government system, and a young woman driven exclusively by altruism.
Koni personally instructed Vera Zasulich - according to the memoirs of his contemporaries, soft, shy, scattered to the point of carelessness - how to make the best impression at the trial. He brought a shabby cloak ("mantilla"), which was supposed to help the defendant appear harmless and deserving of pity, and persuaded her not to bite her nails so as not to alienate the jury.
The jury acquitted Zasulich. This aroused the delight of the liberal public in Russia and the West and the indignation of the Emperor and Minister of Justice K. I. Palen. But the main consequence of the Zasulich case was that her example inspired others and led to a wave of terrorist attacks in 1878-1879. In particular, on April 2, 1878, Alexander Soloviev, a member of the revolutionary society "Land and Freedom", fired five shots (missed all five times) at Alexander II near the Winter Palace.
Vera Zasulich herself soon became a staunch opponent of terrorist methods.
"Narodnaya Volya". The hunt for the king
In the summer of 1879, "Land and Freedom" split into "Black Redistribution", which professed peaceful "populist" methods of struggle, and the terrorist "Narodnaya Volya". Members of the latter in 1881 put an end to the fierce hunt for the "Tsar-Liberator" Alexander II, which had been going on for fifteen years, since the time of Karakozov.In the fall of 1879 alone, the Narodnaya Volya tried three times unsuccessfully to undermine the Tsar's train. They made the next attempt at regicide on February 5, 1880. A gala dinner was scheduled for that evening in the Winter Palace. Stepan Khalturin, who got a job at the palace as a carpenter, had previously laid dynamite in the cellars. Interestingly, he had the opportunity to kill the emperor before the scheduled date. Khalturin and Alexander II were accidentally left alone in the tsar's office - but the emperor talked so kindly to the "carpenter" that his hand did not rise.
On February 5, Alexander and his entire family were also saved by an accident. Dinner was delayed by half an hour due to the late arrival of a high-ranking guest. However, an explosion that occurred at 18.20 killed ten soldiers. Eighty people were wounded by shrapnel.
The denouement of the tragedy occurred on March 1, 1881. The Tsar was warned about the preparation of another assassination attempt, but he replied that, since the higher powers had kept him until now, they would keep him in the future.
People's Volunteers mined Malaya Sadovaya Street. The plan was multi-stage: in case of a misfire, four bombers were on duty on the street, and if they failed, Andrei Zhelyabov was to kill the emperor with his own hand. The second of the bombers, Ignatius Grinevitsky, became the regicide. The explosion fatally wounded both the terrorist and the emperor. Alexander II, whose legs were crushed, was transferred to the Winter Palace, and an hour later he died.
On March 10, the revolutionaries presented his heir, Alexander III, an ultimatum letter, calling for a renunciation of revenge and "the voluntary appeal of the supreme power to the people." But they achieved exactly the opposite result.
The execution of five of the First March members - Zhelyabov, Nikolai Kibalchich, Sofya Perovskaya, Nikolai Rysakov and Timofey Mikhailov - marked the beginning of the so-called period of reaction. And among the peasants, Alexander II was known as a tsar-martyr, who was killed by the nobles dissatisfied with the reforms.
Assassination attempt on Alexander III
Attempts to revive Narodnaya Volya and its cause were made several times. On March 1, 1887, exactly six years after the death of Alexander II, members of the “Terrorist faction“ Narodnaya Volya ”, founded by Pyotr Shevyrev and Alexander Ulyanov, encroached on the life of Alexander III. The brother of the future "leader of the world revolution" bought the explosives for the terrorist attack by selling his high school gold medal.
The assassination attempt was averted, and its main organizers - again five people, including Ulyanov and Shevyrev - were hanged in the Shlisselburg fortress. The Second March 1 affair put an end to the revolutionary terror in Russia for a long time.
"We will go the other way"
The phrase allegedly said by Vladimir Ulyanov after the death of his brother is in fact a paraphrased line of Mayakovsky's poem. But it does not correspond to reality in essence. The Bolsheviks, like the Social Revolutionaries and anarchists, actively participated in the rise of revolutionary terrorism at the beginning of the 20th century. All these parties had militant organizations.In 1901-1911, terrorists killed and wounded, including accidentally, about 17,000 people. The revolutionaries did not disdain to cooperate with criminals in operations related to the sale of weapons and smuggling. Children were sometimes involved in terrorist attacks: for example, the four-year-old "Comrade Natasha" was used by her mother, the Bolshevik Drabkina, as a cover for the transportation of explosive mercury.
The arsenal and tools of terrorists, on the one hand, have become extremely simple - homemade explosives from cans and pharmaceuticals were often used. On the other hand, assassination attempts began to be planned more thoughtfully and carefully. In his memoirs, Boris Savinkov described how the SR militants spent weeks tracking down important people, working as cabbies and street vendors. Such surveillance was carried out, for example, in the preparation of attempts on the life of the Minister of Internal Affairs V.K. von Plehve in St. Petersburg and on the Moscow Governor-General, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich.
The murder in 1911 of P.A.Stolypin by the anarchist Dmitry Bogrov is often called the last significant terrorist attack in literature, however, terrorist actions continued until the February Revolution.
It is with the revolutionary terror that the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood is connected. Many are surprised by.
