Azef and the military organization of the Social Revolutionaries. Terrorist activity and combat organization of the Socialist Revolutionary Party

1. The combat organization of Kutepov and the Union of National Terrorists. Aderkas von Alexander. In July 1927, crossed the border in the Baltic states as part of the Bolmasov group. He was arrested by the organs of the OGPU. September 23, 1927 Military Collegium of the Supreme Court chaired by

Socialist-Revolutionary Party: "political funeral" Socialist-Revolutionary Party: "political funeral" Nikolai Konkov 02/06/2013

Combat organization

The structural unit of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, created specifically to carry out the most important terrorist acts in 1901, i.e., even before the party itself was finalized. The leaders of B.O. were G.A. Gershuni (1901-1903) and E.F. (1903-1908). B.O. was strictly conspiratorial, well organized, and small in number. At first, its number was only 10-15 people. During the revolution of 1905-1907 it included about 30 terrorists. B. O. had her own money, was independent and autonomous in relation to the leadership of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. The most famous terrorist acts committed by its members: the assassination of interior ministers D.S. Sipyagin (2.04.1902) and V.K. Pleve (07.15.1904), the attempt on the life of Kharkiv governor I.M. Obolensky (probably 11.05.1903 ) and the Ufa Governor N.M. Bogdanovich (07.22.1902). On February 4, 1905, a governor-general, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, a brother of Alexander III and an uncle of Emperor Nicholas I, was killed by a member of the B.O.I. P. foiled because its long-term leader Azef was a secret agent of the Police Department. After the exposure of Azef as a provocateur B.O., the party of the Social Revolutionaries was dissolved.

Terror and terrorists: Dictionary. - SPb .: Publishing house of St. Petersburg. University. Lantsov S.A. 2004.

See what the "Combat Organization" is in other dictionaries:

Combat organization   - The combat organization is the name of several terrorist organizations: The combat organization of the party of socialists of revolutionaries The combat organization of Russian nationalists ... Wikipedia

Combat Organization of Russian Nationalists   - To tie? The militant organization of Russian nationalists (abbreviated as BORN) is a terrorist organization of Russian nationalists who claimed responsibility for a number of high-profile killings. SM series ... Wikipedia

Combat Organization of General Kutepov   - It is part of: ROVS Ideology: anti-communism, anti-Sovietism Leaders: A. P. Kutepov, then A. M. Dragomirov Active in: Countries West ... Wikipedia

Fighting Socialist-Revolutionary Organization   - The organization created by the party of Social Revolutionaries in the beginning. 1900s to fight the autocracy by terror against the most odious representatives of the ruling elite. The organization includes from 10 to 30 militants led by G. A. Gershuni, from May 1903 E. F. ... ...

The St. Petersburg group of militants, created by the Union of Maximalists in May 1906 to organize terror and expropriation as the main means of fighting the autocracy. St. 30 members led by M. I. Sokolov. She had several weapons depots, workshops ... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

BATTLE ORGANIZATION OF MAXIMALISTS   - BATTLE ORGANIZATION OF MAXIMALISTS, created in St. Petersburg by the Union of Maximalists in May 1906. Over 30 members, headed by M. I. Sokolov. It had stockpiles of weapons, workshops for the manufacture of bombs and documents, safe houses. In 1906 she organized ... Russian history

Fighting Socialist-Revolutionary Organization   - BATTLE ORGANIZATION OF THE SRS, created in the early 1900s. The organization includes 10 to 30 militants. Leaders: G. A. Gershuni, from May 1903 E. F. Azef. Organized terrorist acts against the interior ministers D. S. Sipya gin and V. K. ... ... Russian history

Ship combat organization   - the rational distribution of personnel at command posts and combat posts with the definition of the functional responsibilities of each crew member to maintain high combat readiness of the ship and the effective use of weapons and technical ... ... Marine dictionary

“The combat organization of the party of socialists-revolutionaries”   - The militant organization of the party of socialists of revolutionaries (Russia) BO PSR. It has been operating since 1901. The initiator of the creation, the first leader and author of the first charter of the PSR BO G. A. Gershuni. Initially, the BO consisted of Gershuni and those he was involved in committing ... ... Terrorism and terrorists. Historical reference

The militant organization of the party of socialist revolutionaries   - This term has other meanings, see Combat Organization. The militant organization of the party of socialists of revolutionaries (Socialist-Revolutionaries) Other names: B.O. It is part of: the party of socialists of revolutionaries Ideology: populism, revolutionary ... ... Wikipedia

Books

• The first military organization of the Bolsheviks. 1905-1907 S.M. Pozner. This book is a supplement to the book The First Conference of the Military and Military Organizations of the RSDLP in November 1906, published by the Marx Engels Lenin Institute in 1932. It complements the protocols ...

The militant organization of the Socialist Revolutionary Party Plan: The political situation in Russia on the eve of the 20th century. The birth of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. RPS combat organization: leaders, plans, actions. Azef's betrayal. We do not want to replace, but only to supplement and strengthen the mass struggle with the bold blows of the combat vanguard that fall into the very heart of the enemy camp. G.A. Gershuni First of all, terror as a weapon of defense; then, as a conclusion from this, its agitational significance, then as a result ... - its disorganizing significance. V.M. Chernov Terrorism is a very poisonous snake that created power from powerlessness. P.N.Durnovo The Russian state at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries was characterized by the heterogeneity and instability of the social structure, the transitional state or archaism of the leading social strata, the specific formation of new social groups, and the weakness of the middle strata. These features of the social structure had a significant impact on the formation and appearance of Russian political parties. If the state gradually grew out of society in Western European countries, then in Russia the state was the main organizer of society. It created social strata; the historical vector thus had a different direction - from top to bottom. “The Russian state is omnipotent and omniscient, everywhere has eyes, everywhere has hands; it takes care of every step of the subject’s life, it takes care of him as a minor, from any encroachment on his thought, on his conscience, even on his pocket and his excessive credulity, ”wrote the future in the mid-90s of the last century liberal leader N.P. Milyukov. And at the same time, the Russian state was weak ... "Its efficiency" has been and remains extremely low: for a thousand years it could not create a stable society, and at least four times it was destroyed to the ground: the fall of Kievan Rus , The Time of Troubles, 1917 and 1991. It would seem that this contradicts the thesis of the special power and strength of the state in Russia. But the fact is that his strength was most often manifested in punitive functions, in attempts to raise the people to fight against an external enemy, but it turned out to be incompetent whenever it came to solving global, positive, creative tasks, about the ability to stimulate public forces. This contradictory essence of the Russian state was prominently marked in the historical period, which can be called the uterine period of domestic political parties. They arose when almost the leading in the arsenal of “educational” means of the Russian state (and this at the beginning of the XX century!) Was corporal punishment. Police authorities used them especially extensively to recover arrears. “In autumn, the most common occurrence is the appearance of a standing, foreman and volost court in the village. It is impossible to fight without a volost court, it is necessary that the decision on corporal punishment be made by the volost judges - and the stanovka drags a court for the philistine ... The court decides immediately, on the street, verbally ... Three triples rush into the village with bells, with foreman, clerk and judges. Swearing begins, screams are heard: "Rozog!", "Give money, Kanalya!", "I’ll talk to you, cover my mouth!". The case of the police officer Ivanov, to the death of a spotted arrears, received publicity. There were frequent cases when the peasants, having received a summons to punish by section, ended their lives by suicide. Corporal punishment was abolished only in August 1904. an imperial decree issued on the occasion of the birth of the long-awaited son, heir to the throne. In this connection, the leading world newspapers asked: “What would happen to Russia if the fifth child in the royal family was a girl?” Not surprisingly, for almost half of the 19th century, the dagger, revolver, and bomb were almost the main means of influence of radicals on power. At the hands of the terrorists, Emperor Alexander II, ministers N.P. Bogolepov, D.S. Sipyagin, V.K. Pleve, Grand Duke Sergey Alexandrovich, dozens of governors, prosecutors, police officials fell. The list of victims of terrorism was completed by Prime Minister P.A. Stolypin, mortally wounded at the Kiev Opera House on September 1, 1911. People “incidentally" and not involved in politics were killed - soldiers of the Finnish regiment during the explosion in the Winter Palace, prepared by the Narodnaya Volya, or visitors to Stolypin at the dacha blown up by the maximalists on August 12, 1906. The authorities did not remain in debt: extrajudicial deportations, death sentences on the terms of provocateurs, or power to society for the excessive radicalism of demands and actions. For a long time we looked at this from only one point of the side — from the revolutionaries. And from this point of view, Marxist historiography and journalism evaluated individual terror only as an irrational means of struggle. The Narodnaya Volya represented primarily heroes, and the Socialist-Revolutionaries - "revolutionary adventurers." Nowadays, when Russian history made another zigzag, many publicists hastened to rearrange the signs. The revolutionaries now appear to be bloody villains, and their victims - innocent martyrs. In reality, of course, everything was much more complicated. Violence was, alas, mutual, and a bloody spiral unwound on both sides. It was, in a sense, self-destruction. After all, such power was generated by Russian society itself, which subsequently did not find other forms of its restriction than murder. And who is more to blame for the increase in violence in the country, it will take a long time to figure it out, leafing through pages of documents that have turned yellow but have survived ... But why in Russia did terrorism take on a large scale and reached such perfect organizational forms? Several factors played a role in the transition to terror: disappointment in the readiness of the masses to revolt, the passivity of most of society (and its weak influence on power), and the desire to avenge government persecution. Finally, the political structure of Russia and the personification of power were a kind of provoking factor. “Russia is now governed not by popular representation and not even by a class government, but by an organized gang of bandits, behind which 20 or 30 thousand large landowners are hiding. This band of robbers acts with naked violence, not hiding it at all; she terrorizes the population with the help of Cossacks and hired police. The Third Duma with the State Council is not even a faint resemblance to the parliamentary regime: it is simply an instrument in the hands of the same government gang; by a huge majority of votes they support the state of siege in the country, freeing the government from the embarrassment of even previous legislation. The state of siege and the system of governor generals with unlimited power - this is the way of government, now established in Russia ... This police world cannot be reformed; it can only be destroyed. This is the immediate and inevitable task of Russian public thought ... ”, said L.E.Shishko, a historian and publicist of the neo-popular direction, a prominent leader of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. Shishko personally conducted propaganda among junkers, workers, went “to the people”, was arrested “according to the 193 process”, sentenced to 9 years of hard labor, which he served in Kara. The regicide on March 1, 1881 was the culmination of classical populism and at the same time the beginning of his political death, since from that moment it had lost priority in the liberation movement. But populist organizations from time to time arose in the 80s. In the 90s, populist organizations took the name of socialist revolutionaries. The largest of them at the end of the 19th century were the Union of Socialists-Revolutionaries, the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries, and the Workers' Party for the Political Liberation of Russia. Enough numerous for its time, the "Workers' Party of the Political Liberation of Russia" was formed in 1899. in Minsk, set the fight for political freedom through terror as a priority. It was here that Grigory Gershuni appeared and became famous thanks to his intense energy and organizational abilities. The Socialist-Revolutionary organizations arose in emigration. At the very beginning of the 20th century, the process of consolidating the Socialist Revolutionary organizations intensified significantly. The date of the proclamation of the party of Socialist Revolutionaries (PSR) was January 1902. The organizational design of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party proved to be a rather lengthy process. In 1903 they held a foreign congress at which they received the Appeal. In this document, the principle of centralism was laid as the basis for building the party. In "Revolutionary Russia" of July 5, 1904. The draft program was published. Finally, in late December 1905 - early 1906 in a semi-legal setting in Finland, the First Party Congress took place in a hotel near the Imatra waterfall. By that time, it had 25 committees and 37 groups in Russia, concentrated mainly in the provinces of the South, West and Volga region. Participants in the congress adopted the program. The congress rejected the proposals of party members N.F. Annensky, V.A. Myakotin, and A.V. Poshekhonov to turn the Socialist-Revolutionary Party into a broad, legal, open party for everyone, where everything is conducted openly, under public control, on a consistent democratic basis. In accordance with the adopted charter, a member of the party of socialist revolutionaries was considered "everyone who accepts the party’s program, obeys its decisions, participates in one of the party organizations." The leading political core of the new party consisted of M.R. Gots, G. A. Gershuni and V. M. Chernov. These were people of various warehouses, but they complemented each other well. V.M.Chernov from the very beginning became the main literary and theoretical force of the young party. The functions of the main organizer-practitioner fell on the shoulders of G.A. Gershuni. Until his arrest in May 1903. he was in continuous traveling around Russia, sharing this work with E.K. Breshkovskaya. “Like the holy spirit of the revolution,” Breshkovskaya rushed around the country, everywhere raising the revolutionary mood of the youth and recruiting the proselytes of the party, and Gershuni usually followed her and formalized the movement she raised, organizationally securing it for the party of socialist revolutionaries. Less noticeable for the outside world, but even more significant for the fate of the young party was the role of M.R. Gotz. In the named leading “troika” he was the oldest in age and even more - in life experience. The son of a Moscow millionaire, in the mid-80s he joined a revolutionary circle, was arrested, exiled to Siberia, then to hard labor, fled ... From the very beginning of the party’s activities, he became its leading politician and organizer. In close relations with this leading "troika" was Azef, who from the very beginning stood out with sober practicalism of judgment and the ability to provide all the details of the planned enterprises. This especially brought him closer to Gershuni. According to Chernov, already in this period Gershuni was so close to Azef that he showed and decrypted letters coming from Russia with secret messages about organizational matters. For Azef, this proximity was especially interesting, since it was Gershuni who initiated the question on the use of terror. Conversations on this topic were conducted in a very narrow circle: besides the four people indicated, hardly anyone was dedicated to them. In principle, there were no objections to terror, but it was decided to come forward with the propaganda of this method of struggle only after some initiative group committed a terrorist act of central importance. The party, as agreed, will agree to recognize this act as its own and give the indicated initiative group the rights of the combat organization. Gershuni stated that he was taking on this task, and did not conceal that the first blow, for which, he said, there were already volunteers, would be directed against the Minister of Internal Affairs Sipyagin. Immediately upon arrival in Russia, Gershuni focused on preparing an assassination attempt against Sipyagin. The volunteer who volunteered for this case was a young Kiev student, Art. Balmashev. According to Balmashev’s plan, if he hadn’t managed to shoot Sipyagin, he should have made an attempt to kill the chief prosecutor of the synod, K.P. Pobedonoscev, one of the inspirers of extreme reaction in Russia. All preparations were conducted in Finland, whence April 15, 1902. Balmashev rode out, dressed as an adjutant. At the last minute, the assassination attempt was almost upset: only in the carriage did the “officer” notice that he had forgotten in the hotel such a necessary part of the military toilet as the saber. I had to buy a new one on the way. He arrived at the Minister a little earlier than the appointed hour for such an appointment that he would meet him in the lobby. The calculation was accurate: “the adjutant led. Prince Sergei, ”as Balmashev called himself, was let into the reception room, and when the minister appeared, somewhat surprised why the special envoy of the Grand Duke had come to him, Balmashev handed him the verdict of the Combat Organization in a sealed packet and killed him on the spot with two shots. This was the first performance of the Combat Organization. Balmashev paid for him with his life: a military court sentenced him to death. On May 16, he was hanged in Shlisselburg. The murder of Sipyagin made a huge impression in the country. Naturally, the Socialist Revolutionaries, who now introduced terror into the arsenal of the revolutionary struggle, and especially Gershuni, experienced a special upsurge: “In the beginning, there was a case,” he said. - The Gordian knot is chopped. Terror is proven. He started. All disputes are superfluous. ” He was right: the assassination of Sipyagin really opened a new chapter in the history of the struggle against Russian absolutism - a chapter on the terrorist struggle. It is from this moment that the combat organization of the party of socialist revolutionaries leads its existence. There was no shortage of those who wanted to "take revenge": dozens, hundreds of new volunteers suited each fallen. In those pre-revolutionary years, the activities of the Combat Organization were focused on preparing assassinations of the largest dignitaries: ministers, members of the royal family, since this was extremely dangerous and at the same time extremely important for neo-Narodniks. The combat organization was carefully conspiratorial, was autonomous even in relation to the governing bodies of the party. Becoming a member was not easy and was considered a great honor. Many of them were revolutionary fanatics. “He came to terror in his own special, original way and saw in him not only the best form of political struggle, but also a moral, maybe religious sacrifice,” wrote one of his party comrades about Kalyaev, the killer of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, from the leaders Boris Savinkov. Another famous terrorist, Yegor Sazonov, answered the question of what he would feel after the murder, without hesitation he answered: “Pride and joy ... Only? Of course only. ” In the pre-revolutionary years, the Social Revolutionaries carried out a series of major assassinations: in 1901-1902. the Minister of Internal Affairs Sipyagin, the Minister of Education Bolepov, the Minister of the Interior Pleve were shot dead in 1904 and the Grand Duke in 1905 were killed. This was a significant “contribution” of the Social Revolutionaries to the preparation of the revolution. Demanding in 1905 from the king of the publication of the Manifesto, the Socialist-Revolutionary Terror was used as one of the strongest arguments: "Let the Manifesto, otherwise the Socialist-Revolutionaries will shoot." The arbitrariness of the tsarist bureaucracy was so strong that almost all social and political forces, including the principled opponents of terror, reacted sympathetically to this activity of the neo-people. But Pleve's death was met with great glee. After the assassination attempt on Pleva in August 1904. the charter of the Combat Organization was adopted. It formulated the task of the Combat Organization — the struggle against autocracy by means of terrorist acts, its structure and special position in the party were determined. The governing body of the Combat Organization was a committee to which all its members were subordinate. In the event of the failure of all members of the committee or even the organization as a whole, the right to co-opt the new composition of the committee passed not to the Central Committee, but to its foreign representative. The combat organization had its own cash desk, enjoyed full technical and organizational independence, and was an autonomous unit, almost independent of the party. The creation of the Combat Organization in the context of the growing revolutionary upsurge led to the intensification of individual terror. In addition to the Combat Organization, terrorist acts created by a number of committees of socialist revolutionaries (Gomel, Odessa, Ufa, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, etc.) took part in the implementation of terrorist acts. In total, according to the gendarmerie, local fighting squads during 1905. more than 30 attempts were made, in 1906 - 74 attempts, in 1907 - 57. The leaders of the Combat Organization considered the terrorist acts to be agitated, that they attract everyone’s attention, excite everyone, wake up the most sleepy, most indifferent inhabitants , arouse universal talk and talk, make you think about many things about which nothing had occurred to them before - in a word, make them think politically at least against their will. If Sipyagin’s accusatory act would have been read by thousands of people in ordinary times, then after a terrorist act it will be read by tens of thousands, and a stale rumor will extend its influence to hundreds of thousands, to millions. And if a terrorist attack strikes a person from whom thousands of people have suffered, then he, rather than months of propaganda, is able to change the view of these thousands of people on revolutionaries and on the meaning of their activities. For these people, he will be a vivid, concrete answer to life's question - who is their friend and who is their enemy. As already noted, the source of the AKP was a galaxy of exceptionally energetic, dedicated people. Viktor Mikhailovich Chernov, one of the founders of the Agrarian-Socialist League, a consistent supporter of terrorist tactics, the author of program articles on this issue, wrote in his work “The terrorist element in our program” (June 1902): “The question of the role of the terrorist element in the revolutionary the program is so serious and important that there should be no room for any omissions and no uncertainty. It cannot be circumvented, it must be resolved ... Terrorist acts are a means too powerful, too fraught with all sorts of consequences, so that their use could be completely left to the arbitrariness of individuals subject to random influences and moods with a light heart. Hirsch Lekert appeared at the very moment when an act of retaliation was necessary. But Hirsch Lekert might not have appeared, what would have happened then? If terrorist acts are declared an exclusively irregular, partisan struggle, then where are the guarantees that they will arrive on time and that they will not be at the wrong time? Where is the guarantee that the goal will be chosen well, that the blow will not fall on the wrong person and will not pass the rapist, curbing which makes a secret dream of the widest sections of the population? Only the party ... is competent enough to resolve such issues, and only the party is strong enough to provide not by chance an outsider, but a prepared rebuff to the enemy. Terrorist acts can produce a certain positive effect only when they feel strength, when they sound a serious, fatal threat for the future ... ” The paradox lies in the fact that, never participating in the combat activities of the Socialist Revolutionaries, the party leader substantiated the necessity and expediency of political terror: “Blood is horror; for revolution is blood. If terror is fatal inevitable, then it is advisable "," Terror in the revolution corresponds to artillery preparation in battle. " N.V. Tchaikovsky - authorized by the Central Committee of the RPS - in 1907 called on his party comrades to switch from individual terror to guerrilla warfare as a direct preparation for a popular uprising and considered “that such a thing should be non-partisan”: “Our methods of struggle are outdated and require a radical revision: they were worked out in the preparatory period and responded to it requirements, but not suitable, when the time has come for the battle itself ... The real deal is only a tiny number of committee members, and all the peripheries just look at the work or participate in it nominally ... ” Tchaikovsky proposes to create gangs of partisans, to train their commanders, the people will feed them, they only need a clear understanding of the conditions in which they can hold out for a long time and be successful. A guerrilla war should begin immediately in many parts of the country with the means that are now at its disposal. Such gangs can elude the pursuit of many thousands of troops over the course of months, inflicting sensitive blows here and there. .. At the top of the party, Tchaikovsky’s proposal was not heeded, believing that it was like mass terrorism, terrorism "from below", for which the anarchists advocated. In the "lower classes", however, "militancy" spread like an epidemic, and it became increasingly difficult to distinguish where the "revolutionary" ends and the "robber" begins. L.E. Shishko, evaluating terrorist acts from the point of view of political situation modern Russia , noted that “it is difficult not to see in them one of the two now only possible methods of political struggle. Another way is armed rebellion. Beyond these methods, political struggle is now impossible in Russia. It is not the socialist revolutionaries who seek violent means: they declared a war of extermination by representatives of naked violence. ” “At the Sevastopol guardhouse he was waiting for a loop. In a chamber on Lubyanka, a performer’s bullet was waiting. Both the gallows and the execution were due in strict accordance with the law. In his youth - according to the laws of the Russian Empire. At maturity - according to the laws of the Russian Republic. On August 21, 1924, he embarked on a written statement. The handwriting was hard, the text compressed like a browning spring back. “I, Boris Savinkov, a former member of the PSR Combat Organization, friend and comrade Yegor Sazonov and Ivan Kalyaev, a participant in the murder of Pleve, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, a participant in many other terrorist acts, a person who has worked all his life only for the people, I’m accusing now the workers' and peasants ’power was against the Russian workers and peasants with arms in their hands.” On August 27, 1924, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR began hearing the Savinkov case. Boris Viktorovich Savinkov, 45 years old, was sentenced to capital punishment with confiscation of property. There was no property. Life was subject to confiscation ... Savinkov named the name of this reader in the first lines of his August testimony of 1924. Twenty years before, he and Yegor Sazonov were preparing an assassination attempt on the Minister of the Interior, State Secretary and Senator Pleve. Pleve's ideal was the permafrost of political soil. He was told that a student demonstration is possible from day to day, he answered: "I’ll carve out." He was told that undergraduate students would take part in the demonstration, he replied: "I’ll start from them." It should be clarified. Vyacheslav Konstantinovich began - and continued - not with rods, but with shackles and scaffolds. He saw the symbol of all things in the paragraphs of the instructions. He was as fanatical a bureaucrat as a fierce chauvinist. It was Pleve who defeated the Ukrainian peasant rebels. It was Pleve who subjected the Georgian peasants to military executions. It was Pleve who incited the rioters to Jewish slaughter. It was Pleve who bent down the valley of the Finnish people. And wishing to pay tribute to the indigenous subjects, he drowned the Russian sailors in the depths of Tsushima, killed the Russian soldiers on the hills of Manchuria: it was Pleve who worked in the palace circle of zealous skirmishers of the Russo-Japanese War. “I am a supporter of strong power at all costs,” he dictated impassively to the Matan correspondent. “I will be glorified as an enemy of the people, but let it be, what will be.” My guard is perfect. Only by chance can a successful attempt be made on me. ” He gave an interview to a French journalist in the spring of 1902, sitting down in a ministerial chair. Caring for personal safety, he, as they say, took measures: the Socialist-Revolutionary Combat Organization had already emerged. We note a tricky circumstance - Pleve also counted on a top-secret agent provocateur, the actual leader of the militants. This hope exploded with a projectile. On the morning of July nine hundred and four, in St. Petersburg, Savinkov's group overtook the minister’s carriage on Angliysky Prospekt. Pleve was hit by a bomb by Yegor Sazonov, seriously wounded by her fragments. The echo spread throughout Russia ... ". The political success of the Pleve cause caused an increase in terrorist sentiments in the party. “The influence of the supporters of the exceptional importance of political terror and the predominant importance of the Combat Organization with its specific features of conspiratorialism has grown at a rapid leap,” says S.N.Sletov. The party placed its main hopes on terror. She threw her best powers into terror. Around terror, she concentrated the main agitation. This influenced the next slogans of the party, and the direction of its practical activity. Mass work to a certain extent receded into the background. Bloody Sunday of 1905 burned through the Combat Organization. The procession, overshadowed by the Savior, solemnly touched by the choral call for the tsar to reign to preserve the Tsar of the Orthodox, the peaceful procession of petitioners flocking to the Winter Palace was shot, crushed, scattered, trampled. Also, the fortieths did not celebrate the innocently killed on January 9th, as Savinkov's group prepared to strike the dynasty. Blood shed on the way to the Winter Palace echoed with blood shed near the Nikolaev Palace. The Governor-General of the Mother See was killed in the Kremlin. The bomber, captured immediately, declared at the first interrogation: “I have the honor to be a member of the Combat Organization of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, by the sentence of which I killed Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. I am happy that I fulfilled the duty that lay throughout Russia. ” The bomber refused to give his name. That was the rule of the militants: for the time being they will establish your name, comrades will have time to hide. And true, Savinkov’s group did not suffer. Flipping through the archival link once stored in the Special Department of the Police Department, one is convinced of the energy of the search. But only in mid-March a dispatch from Warsaw arrived: "The killer of the Grand Duke ... Ivan Kalyaev, friend of Boris Savinkov." Kalyaev was strangled on a scaffold ... The SRs considered the terrorist activity not only as a means of disorganizing the government apparatus, but also as a means of propaganda and agitation that undermined the authority of the government. At the same time, they emphasized that individual terror is by no means a "self-sufficient system of struggle", which "by its own internal force must inevitably break down the enemy’s resistance and lead him to surrender ...". Terrorist actions should not replace, but only complement the mass struggle. Advocating and defending the tactics of individual terror, the socialist revolutionaries argued that the "crowd" was supposedly powerless against the autocracy. He has police and gendarmerie against the “crowd”, but no force can help him against the “elusive” terrorists. The preachers of terror claimed that “every duel of the hero” awakens “the spirit of struggle and courage” among the masses and, in the end, as a result of a chain of terrorist acts, the “scales” will outweigh. However, in reality, these fights, causing a momentary sensation, ultimately led to apathy, to a passive expectation of the next fight. At the beginning of the Socialist-Revolutionary Congress (end of December 1905) a letter was read by Gershuni from the Shlisselburg Fortress. It concerned the unfolding revolution and amazingly accurately reflected the pathos of the Socialist Revolutionary mentality: “The prediction came true: let the latter be the first. Russia made a giant leap and immediately found itself not only close to Europe, but ahead of it. The strike, amazing in its grandeur and slenderness, the revolutionary spirit, the courageous and political tact of the proletariat’s behavior, its magnificent resolutions and resolutions, the consciousness of the laboring peasant, his willingness to fight for the solution of the greatest social and social problem. All this cannot but be fraught with the most complicated favorable consequences for the entire world working people. ” But without the name Azef it is impossible "to understand much in the history of the first Russian revolution - the revolution of 1905. and subsequent years, ”wrote Yu.Nikolaevsky, author of The History of a Traitor: Terrorists and Political Police (1991). A person who has served in the service for more than 15 years as a secret agent to fight the revolutionary movement and at the same time has been the head for over 5 years terrorist organization - the largest in terms of size and scope of its activities, which only world history knows; a man who betrayed many, many hundreds of revolutionaries into the hands of the police and at the same time organized a series of terrorist acts, the successful conduct of which drew the attention of the whole world; organizer of the killings of a number of prominent authorities the organizer of the assassination attempt against the king, an assassination attempt that was not carried out by no means due to the lack of “good” desire from its main organizer, Azef is a truly unsurpassed example of what the consistent application of provocation as a system can bring to. Acting in two worlds - in the world of secret political police, on the one hand, and in the world of revolutionary terrorist organizations - on the other, Azef never merged himself with any of them, but all the time he pursued his own goals and accordingly betrayed the revolutionaries police, then police revolutionaries. In both of these worlds, his activity left a noticeable mark. Azef, of course, did not cover with his shadow all the activities of either the Combat Organization of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries, whose permanent leader he had been for so long, or the political police, whose main hope for fighting this organization was considered for so long. Especially in the history of the Combat Organization, it is important to be able to separate this organization itself, its real tasks and all its other leaders from the personality of the one whom they considered their leader. The duration of Azef’s provocative activities is surprising because many people at first glance looked at him: "This is a provocateur!" Subsequently, a member of the Central Committee of the party of socialists-revolutionaries, its theorist V.M. Chernov did not deny that Azef made a heavy impression on many. In 1909 the whole world was shocked by the sensation: Azef is a provocateur. The famous hunter for provocateurs in Russia V.L. Burtsev caught it “in the most malicious provocation, unprecedented in the annals of the Russian liberation movement”. Later, B.N. Nikolayevsky made Azef the “hero” of his book, mainly because the provocation in Tsarist Russia developed into a “coherent and complete system” that gave the world the “Azef case”, which was destined to go down in history “as a classic example of provocation in general ". The Social Revolutionaries were shocked to learn of Azef's betrayal; many did not believe in it. But the fact remains: Azef was a provocateur. Archival affairs about Azef speak for themselves: Cases of the Police Department for Relations with Azef from 1893 to 1902. ; Cases of the same Police Department from 1909-1910. on preparing materials for a government response in the State Duma to inquiries about Azef; The case of the official investigator who carried out the inquiry on the Lopukhin case; The case of that investigator of the Extraordinary Investigation Commission, created by the Provisional Government in 1917, which conducted a special investigation about Azef. Among the materials of this group, it is necessary to put the messages of A.V. Gerasimov, the former head of the Security Department in St. Petersburg in 1905-1909. and police chief Azef since April 1906. at the time of its exposure. Back in early 1917 his letters were published - reports to the head of the foreign agents of the Police Department L.A. Ratayev, which are full of names, appearances, facts. But much, according to other sources, he did not name, because he was careful and always left himself “freedom of maneuver” or a loophole. Azef became a provocateur of his own free will, and in this case his mercantile interests undoubtedly dominated. He did not have any moral barriers here: this "chimera" was replaced by a purebred. Hypocrisy and falsehood pervaded his whole being. And without these qualities he would hardly have taken place as a “great provocateur”. “He became great because he was directly involved in the“ assassination attempts of the century ”, was a major figure in the revolutionary camp, and at the same time was short with all the leaders of tsarist politics, and this all made it possible to succeed in his chosen field of activity. During his last visit abroad, at the beginning of 1903. Gershuni left Gotz, who was his constant attorney for all matters - and especially about the affairs of the Combat Organization - his testament, so to speak: a detailed overview of all the connections of the latter, addresses, appearances, passwords, etc., as well as a list of persons who offered themselves to work in a combat organization. In the case of the arrest of Gershuni, according to this will, Azef was to become the head of the Combat Organization. Gotz fully approved this choice of Gershuni, and therefore it is quite clear that when in June 1903. Azef appeared on the Geneva horizon, then he was met by Gotz and people close to him as a recognized new leader of the Combat Organization, which should increase the glory of the latter. And he took things slowly. The forces available to the Combat Organization when Azef entered into leadership of its affairs were quite large: there were many volunteers, there was money. Together with Gotz, who became his closest attorney and adviser on the affairs of the Combat Organization, Azef developed an attack plan on Pleva. The Pleve murder act was enthusiastically received by the socialist revolutionaries. They regarded him as their victory, as their triumph. And it is only natural that the authority of Azef - the main "organizer of this victory" - rose to unprecedented heights. He immediately became a real "hero" of the party. Terror soared to an unprecedented height. O became the "holy of holies" for the whole party, and Azef - henceforth, the universally recognized "head of terror", whose name is put on a par and even higher than the names of the largest terrorists of the past - higher than the names of Zhelyabov, Gershuni. A real legend is being created around him: he is a man of iron will, inexhaustible initiative, an exceptionally bold organizer-manager, an extremely accurate, “mathematical” mind. “Before, we had a romantic,” said Gotz, comparing Azef with Gershuni, “now we have a realist. He doesn’t like to speak, he mumbles barely, but he will carry out his plan with iron energy and nothing will stop him. ” More than others, the members of the Combat Organization participate in the creation of this legend: they are passionate about Azef, idealize him and devoted to him. They think of their further work only under his guidance. His position - the position of the indispensable leader of the Combat Organization - is fixed "seriously and for a long time." The role of Azef in the life of the Combat Organization was really huge. True, according to B. Nikolayevsky, who worked with archival materials for many years, Azef did not find any outstanding initiative or scope that was unusual in its breadth. The legend that it was he who created the new methods of terrorist struggle that the Combat Organization applied in 1904-1906. - only a legend. A real initiative in the search for new ways was shown by M.R. Gots, who, due to illness, could not take a direct part in terrorist work. Usually he presented new ideas - Azef specified them, developed and put into practice. But the chief of the General Staff of the Combat Organization was precisely Azef, all the main staff work lay on him, as well as all the main work of an organizational nature. Admission to the organization of new members was usually made by Azef himself, who held fast to this function, especially in the beginning. He made great demands on the candidates and the selection was the most rigorous among them. He persuaded not to go into terror, but to engage in some other party work. Azef showed the most careful attention to the already accepted members of the Organization, he remembered everything, noticed everything. According to the memoirs, the members of the organization, he seemed unusually attentive, sensitive and even gentle. Today, this behavior is easily explainable: he was not just afraid of treason, he was afraid of treason, which would expose his double own betrayal. An assassination attempt on Stolypin organized by maximalists intervened in the work of the Combat Organization with a foreign body. “Maxima-sheets”, having separated from the party of socialists-revolutionaries and creating their own organization, decided to independently conduct the terrorist struggle. After the unsuccessful attempt on Stolypin, organized by "maximalists" against the Combat Organization, criticism began to be heard more and more often, on the basis of which there were sharp conflicts between members of the Combat Organization. Created them and led them, of course, Azef. But he preferred, as usual, for the most part to stay in the shadows. The leading role was played outside by his deputy Savinkov. In terror, in addition to the executing terrorist, there must necessarily exist a terrorist organizer, one who clears the way for the first one, who prepares the possibility of his speech. For several reasons, Savinkov became just such a terrorist organizer. To the misfortune of Savinkov, the first who he leaned against during the years of his work in the Combat Organization was Azef. There is no doubt that, along with his practicality, he conquered Savinkov with a complete absence of internal vibrations of soul-eating doubts. Savinkov’s risk as an organizing terrorist was very high, and each time Savinkov was escorted to the “business”, his relatives said goodbye to him as if he were doomed. But terror for him more and more became an end in itself. V.M.Zenzinov tells in his memoirs how he, together with A.R. Gotz, at the beginning of 1906. were arguing with Savinkov regarding the driving motives of their personal behavior. “With surprise, with bewilderment, we heard from Savinkov that the will of the Combat Organization is his categorical imperative. In vain did we prove to him that the will of more or less random persons cannot become a moral law for the human mind, that from a philosophical point of view this is illiterate, and from a moral point of view it is terrible. Savinkov stood his ground. ” The interests of the Combat Organization and the terrorist activities that it conducts stood for him higher than everyone else. With such moods, it was not difficult for Azefu to turn Savinkov into his weapon and in the implementation of all his plans. Therefore, when in September 1906. at a meeting (in Finland) of the AKP Central Committee, the question was raised about the work of the Combat Organization and the claims of the latter against the Central Committee (“the Central Committee is guilty of the failure of the Combat Organization: it does not provide funds and enough people for the proper development of combat activity, it is indifferent to the issue about terror, does not have confidence in the leaders of the Combat Organization ”, etc. ), Savinkov, along with Azef, resigned. Devotion to Azef did not allow Savinkov to see in the speeches of the members of the Combat Organization that there was a discontent with the bureaucratic centralism introduced into the Organization by Azef and Savinkov, a complete suppression of the personal initiative of the militants introduced by Azef. As long as the Combat Organization existed, which had the so-called monopoly on the conduct of central terror from the party, all combat work in St. Petersburg was centralized and controlled by Azef. Not a single step in this area could have been made without his knowledge and consent. Now, after Azef left and the dissolution of the Combat Organization, the monopoly was over and the terrorist work went on several channels at once. So, in St. Petersburg there were three active battle groups, the most effective of which was a group led by A.D. Trauberg (Karl), a Latvian by nationality, an active participant in the 1905 uprising. And this was the only group of all active combat groups, on whose composition and plans Azef until some time had no information. As a result, very soon after Azef’s departure abroad, the Security Department found itself in complete darkness regarding the plans and composition of battle groups. The consequences were not slow to affect: starting in December 1906. battle groups managed to make an attempt on the adm. Dubasova (second), on January 3, the St. Petersburg mayor von Launitz was killed, 8 - the chief military prosecutor, gene. Pavlov, 30 - the head of the temporary prison in St. Petersburg, Gudima, distinguished for his cruelty in dealing with political prisoners. Gershuni, who fled from Siberia, helped Azefu return to the Combat Organization, and he was least inclined to put up with Azef's departure from combat work. As the main, almost the only, task, the KC set the tsar’s case before the restored Combat Organization. Strictly conspiratorial, she had to conduct only one thing, not being distracted by other, relatively smaller activities. It was decided to concentrate the conduct of all other terrorist enterprises of central importance in the conduct of the Karl Flying Combat Unit, whose leadership was entrusted to Azef and Gershuni. Naturally, with the return of Azef to the Organization, regular information on the activities of the central institutions of the party, as well as information on the composition and plans of the central battle groups, was resumed regularly: these were the information about the surviving part of the Silberberg Combat Squad that allowed Gerasimov and Stolypin to create the famous at one time the process of "conspiracy against the king." But the main attention was paid to the capture of "Karl". All agents were mobilized to search for threads for the detachment and all the instructions received were compared with those instructions given by Azef regarding the location of the detachment's safe house. February 20, 1908 9 people were taken. The court was quick and merciful: 7 people, including three women were sentenced to death. Shortly afterwards, Karl and several other members of the detachment arrested at different times on denunciation of Azef were tried. The flying combat detachment was destroyed ... The systematic setbacks of the Combat Organization, in all that was important to it, began to suggest sad thoughts for many of the party leaders .. It became indisputable that there was a traitor in the very center of the party, and by the method of exclusion everything embarked on the path of this reasoning, came to suspicions against Azef. The campaign against Azef began and brought to the end V.L.Burtsev. The links of the chain of charge closed one after another. January 5, 1909 The AKP RPS convened a meeting of a number of the most responsible party workers and, setting out in detail the situation, raised the question: what to do? The dazzle of Azef's “brilliant past” was so great that out of the 18 present, only four cast their votes for the immediate execution of the traitor. The rest hesitated. Karpovich, who lived at that time in St. Petersburg, wrote that he would "shoot the entire Central Committee if they dare to raise a hand against Azef." It was known that this was the mood of many other members of the Combat Organization. Complete corruption, complete distrust of everyone at the top of the political police - on the one hand; the deepest defamation in the whole world — on the other hand — such was Azef’s revenge provocateur of the system that created the possibility of his being born into the light of day. But he did not take revenge on the police alone. When it became impossible to doubt the fact of his betrayal, agitation arose among the emigrant terrorists for the need to "restore the honor of terror." Savinkov led her especially ardently. He recognized only one way: it is necessary to restore the Combat Organization and in fact show that there are still terrorists, that terror is still possible. Only in this way, he said, the stain imposed by Azef will be washed away. Many responded to his call, from the ranks of which Savinkov selected 12 people for his detachment. There was not one who would not have been behind jails, exile, hard labor, many had already taken part in combat work. All were people who saw death and it seemed that now death can not be scary for them, that they will never turn off the intended path. In fact, it turned out quite differently: the last attack ended worse than nothing. Among the selected twelve, three turned out to be traitors ... Azef's betrayal introduced poison into a large and pure faith, and killed its purity. “I got an impression, Sletov said two years later, - if the party managed to overthrow the tsar himself, the party people would first suspect a provocation here ...” In such an environment, terror as a system of struggle both politically and psychologically became, of course, impossible. The strike on the AKP, caused by the exposure of Azef, was so strong that she never was able to fully recover from him. The Social Revolutionaries were very progressive for their time. The historical merit of the Socialist Revolutionaries can be considered a predominant orientation towards the peasantry and the primary solution to the agrarian question. First of all, they intensively comprehended the nature of the historical development of Russia and in some significant moments (a special type of capitalism in Russia, its combination with non-capitalist evolution in certain sectors of the national economy and life) were probably on the way to creating the optimal “soil” model of socio-economic development. However, they could not successfully complete the solution to this problem. The Socialist-Revolutionary Party reproduced not only strength, but also the weakness of the “soil”, which manifested itself in the extreme contradictory nature of the theory, program and tactics of the party, and a penchant for extremism. The Socialist Revolutionaries revived the terrorist tradition in the Russian liberation movement and bear historical responsibility for this. However, the preparation and conduct of more than 30 terrorist acts that left their mark on the revolutionary movement of the beginning of the 20th century cannot be discounted from the accounts of the combat organization of the Social Revolutionaries. The revolutionary uprising of 1901-1904 gave rise to terror, terror deepened the revolutionary situation and became one of its obvious manifestations. During these years, some leftists condemned terror as a means of distracting the masses from the revolutionary struggle. However, the terror and birth of the Combat Organization were an objective result of the country's political and socio-economic condition, a reflection of deep dissatisfaction in society with the autocratic system, as evidenced by the explosion of glee that stirred up all layers of Russian society when the news about the death of the apostle of autocracy V.K. Pleve : “Never a single temporary worker knew such hatred. No man has ever given birth to such contempt for himself. The autocracy has never had such a servant. The country was exhausted in captivity. Cities burned with blood, and freedom fighters perished in vain in hundreds. Pleve's heavy hand crushed everything. Like a coffin lid, she lay on a rebellious, already awakened people. And the darkness grew thicker, and everything became unbearable to live. And then Sazonov went to die. He did not kill Pleve. He hit Nikolai in the heart. Dynamite terror ... entered into life, became reality, and Nikolai, stained in blood, felt for the first time what blood means and for the first time realized that blood is born by blood ... ”- wrote B.V.Savinkov. The terrorist tradition took off the plentiful bloody harvest in Russia of the 20th century and dealt a boomerang mortal blow to the party of socialist revolutionaries, however, the Social Revolutionary illusions were perhaps the most sober of all the political illusions that Russia was so rich in at the beginning of this century. References: Gusev K.V. The Socialist-Revolutionary Party: from petty-bourgeois revolutionaryism to counter-revolution: A historical outline. - M., 1975. The history of terrorism in Russia in documents, biographies, studies. - 2nd ed., Ext. and reslave. - Rostov n / a, 1996. Nikolayevsky B. The story of a traitor: Terrorists and political police. - 1991. Political parties of Russia in the context of its history. In 2 issues. - Rostov n / a, 1996. - Issue 1. Savinkov B.V. Memories of a terrorist. - M., 1990. Chernov V.M. Before the storm. Memories. - M., 1993.