Who was Count Mirbach, many in Russia know. Or at least heard the name. Count Mirbach (Wilhelm von Mirbach-Harff) was the ambassador of Germany (then still Kaiser) in Moscow in the early years of Soviet power. On July 6, 1918, that is, exactly 100 years ago, he fell victim to an assassination attempt: he was killed by the Left SRs Blumkin and Andreev, after which a Left SR rebellion began in the capital and other Russian cities, brutally suppressed by the Bolsheviks.

But how was Count Mirbach "guilty"? Why did he fall victim to the conspirators? And how is the uprising of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries connected with this murder?

Count Wilhelm von Mirbach-Harff (such is his full name) came from a very well-born aristocratic family of the Rhineland. Its roots date back to the 13th century. Family castles still stand on the banks of the Rhine and Moselle. Once the Mirbachs were knights, later they made either a military or a diplomatic career. Count Mirbach became a diplomat.

In 1908 (he was then 37 years old) he was appointed adviser to the German embassy in St. Petersburg. During the almost four years that he spent here, Mirbach learned Russian quite well. This, as well as experience and an excellent reputation, led to his appointment to the post of first extraordinary representative, and then the ambassador of Germany in Russia after the Bolsheviks came to power.

As you know, Kaiser's Germany financed the Leninist party, which advocated an end to the war and a separate peace. Cash injections did not stop even after the conclusion of the Brest Peace. On May 16, 1918, Mirbach met with Lenin. His account of this meeting and Ilyich's requests has been preserved in the archives of the German Foreign Ministry. As well as recommendations based on its results: transfer 40 million Reichsmarks and allocate another three million every month to the Bolshevik government, otherwise it will not stay in power, as a result of which Germany may lose what it received under the agreement in Brest-Litovsk. The German Foreign Ministry immediately responded to the request of the leader of the proletariat: in early June, the Bolsheviks received the money.

Count Mirbach was an extremely unpopular figure in Soviet Russia because he was associated with the "obscene" Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Moreover, not only the opponents of the Bolsheviks, but also part of the Leninist party - the left communists, which included, for example, Dzerzhinsky, as well as the allies of the Bolsheviks - the Left SRs, opposed the "enslaving" agreement with the "German imperialists". At the Congress of Soviets, which opened at the very beginning of July in Moscow, their delegates chanted: "Down with Mirbach!"

The ambassador became more cautious, although he did not reduce his activity. And it was aimed, in particular, at saving the royal family. One of the embassy employees recalls how, at one of the secret meetings, Mirbach, who learned about the intention of the Bolsheviks to try Nicholas II, said: "We must not allow a trial. We must achieve the release of the royal family and take it to Germany." The Bolsheviks did not want to spoil relations with the representative of the Kaiser and their "financier", but as soon as Mirbach was killed, it was decided to shoot the royal family.

How the murder of Count Mirbach happened is well known. The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries Yakov Blyumkin and Nikolai Andreev arrived at the German embassy located in Denezhny Lane under the pretext of clarifying the circumstances of the "case" in which the alleged nephew of Count Mirbach was involved. Blyumkin then headed the Cheka department for combating German espionage, Andreev was a simple photographer. They showed the mandate of the Cheka, signed by Dzerzhinsky and the secretary of the Cheka, Ksenofontov, with a seal, put by the deputy chairman of the Cheka, Alexandrovich. That is the only reason why the ambassador agreed to meet them at all.

The conversation was short. At some point, Blumkin pulled out a revolver and fired three shots - at Mirbach and at the embassy employees who were in the room. And missed three times. The thrown bomb did not explode at first either. Andreev immediately began to shoot, and, apparently, it was his bullet that mortally wounded Count Mirbach. Throwing the briefcase with the mandate mentioned above, Blyumkin and Andreev jumped out the window and rushed to the car. The Germans fired after him and wounded Blumkin in the leg.

But he got to the car. Then he hid for about a year and, in the end, turned himself in. By that time, Blumkin had been sentenced to three years in prison for the murder of the German ambassador, but after he confessed, he was forgiven. They shot him ten years later for a completely different matter: he secretly met in Istanbul with the disgraced Trotsky and undertook to convey his letter to his comrades-in-arms who remained in the USSR. As for Andreev, he fled to Ukraine, to Father Makhno, and died in 1919 from typhus.

The Bolsheviks carefully investigated the murder of Mirbach. Despite this thoroughness, some questions remain. For example: how is the uprising of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries connected with this murder? Was it really a signal for rebellion? There are no decisions on the assassination attempt in the documents of the Central Committee of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party. Sverdlov and Trotsky, for example, believed that the murder of Mirbach was organized by the Cheka. It is not entirely clear whether the signature of Dzerzhinsky (an ardent opponent of the Brest Peace) was on the mandate? The chairman of the Cheka himself claimed that it was forged. Later, Blumkin seemed to confirm this. But who exactly forged the signature, he did not say. During interrogation, Dzerzhinsky claimed that he did not know Blumkin closely and rarely saw him.

But we are more interested in Count Mirbach. His body was transported to Germany and buried in the family cemetery. On the website of the Mirbach family on the Internet, the murdered ambassador is presented as an outstanding representative of the family. In addition to him, on this page are Countess Maimi von Mirbach (Maimi Freiin von Mirbach), who during the Nazi dictatorship saved Jews at the risk of her life (in 1982 she was honored in Israel as a righteous man), and Baron Andreas von Mirbach (Andreas Baron von Mirbach), officer and diplomat. He was the military attache of the German embassy in Stockholm, which in April 1975 was seized by the terrorists of the "Red Army Faction" - a German left-wing radical organization. When one of their demands was not met, they shot Andreas von Mirbach. So he repeated the tragic fate of the first German ambassador to Soviet Russia...

On July 6, 1918, a glaring event took place in Moscow in the history of Russia's relations with other countries of the world. Shot dead in broad daylight at his residence German Ambassador to Soviet Russia Wilhelm von Mirbach.

The assassins of the ambassador were not terrorists, not robbers, but official employees of the Cheka Yakov Blyumkin And Nikolai Andreev.

The events on that fateful day unfolded as follows: at 14:15, a dark Packard drove up to the building of the German Embassy in Denezhny Lane, from which two people got out, presenting the certificates of the Cheka employees to the doorman and demanding a meeting with the ambassador.

The reason for the meeting was the business of a certain relative of Ambassador Robert Mirbach, detained by the Cheka on suspicion of espionage. Count Mirbach agreed to receive the Chekists. In addition to him, the meeting was attended by Embassy Counselor Dr. Kurt Rietzler And adjutant of the military attache Lieutenant Leonhart Müller as a translator. The conversation lasted over 25 minutes.

The ambassador, to whom the materials of the case were presented, stated that he did not know anything about the relative. Then one of the Chekists asked: does Mr. Ambassador want to know about the measures that the Soviet government intends to take in connection with this case?

Mirbach nodded, after which Yakov Blumkin drew his revolver and fired three times. Oddly enough, none of the bullets hit the target. Then Nikolai Andreev threw a bomb, which ... did not explode. After that, Andreev fired at the ambassador, mortally wounding the diplomat. Meanwhile, Blumkin threw the bomb a second time, it exploded, and the Chekists rushed to run, jumping out of the broken window. Under fire from the guards and not without losses (Blyumkin broke his leg while jumping and was wounded), the attackers fled.

The 47-year-old German ambassador died a few minutes later.

At the scene of the murder, the attackers left a whole heap of evidence: their IDs, the case against the "ambassador's relative", a briefcase with a spare bomb. Thus, there were no difficulties in establishing the identity of the killers.

Shot "Aurora" for the Left SRs?

Much more important is another question - who was behind Blumkin and Andreev and "ordered" the massacre of the German diplomat?

According to the canonical version of the Soviet period, the assassination of the ambassador became a kind of "Aurora shot" for the rebellion of the Left SRs who tried to seize power in Moscow.

The Left SRs, together with the Bolsheviks, were part of the Soviet government from the autumn of 1917, but relations between the two parties finally deteriorated due to the issue of the Brest Peace.

The majority of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries considered peace with Germany on the terms of the transfer of huge Russian territories"betrayal of the revolution". A little later, they moved to the same positions and Left SR leader Maria Spiridonova, which previously supported the Brest peace.

By the summer of 1918, the relations of yesterday's allies had escalated to the limit, and the Social Revolutionaries decided to act.

At the beginning of July 1918, the Third Congress of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party decided "to break the Brest Treaty, disastrous for the Russian and world revolution, in a revolutionary way."

The executors were two SRs who served in the bodies of the Cheka - Blyumkin and Andreev.

After the murder of Mirbach, they hid in the territory of the Cheka detachment, which was commanded by Socialist-Revolutionary Popov. Attempted arrest of terrorists Felix Dzerzhinsky, ended with the arrest of the head of the Cheka.

Detachments of the Left Social Revolutionaries began to seize the buildings of state bodies, but they could not achieve complete success. The Latvian riflemen who remained loyal to the Bolsheviks suppressed the rebellion, the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party ceased to exist legally, and Soviet Russia finally became one-party.

Changeable passions of the German count

The perpetrators of the terrorist attack, Yakov Blyumkin and Nikolai Andreev, who put the RSFSR on the brink of resuming the war with Germany, escaped severe punishment for the murder. Andreev fled to Ukraine, where, having been in the ranks of several political movements, including gangs fathers Makhno died of typhus.

As for Blumkin, he was ... taken on bail Leon Trotsky and went to "atone his guilt with blood" in the Civil War, taking the post of head of the personal guard of one of the leaders of the Bolsheviks.

It was the extremely soft attitude towards Blumkin that made historians doubt that the murder of Mirbach was the work of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries.

And here we move on to the second version of the murder, much more detective and confusing.

It is no secret that the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was extremely beneficial to Germany and allowed it to delay the military catastrophe in the First World War. Count Wilhelm von Mirbach put a lot of effort into its conclusion and considered it necessary to support the Bolshevik regime in Russia in every possible way. Historians who are negatively inclined towards the Bolsheviks even declare that Mirbach was one of the curators of the Bolshevik movement, paving the way for the October Revolution with German money.

Be that as it may, until the spring of 1918, Mirbach sent dispatches to Berlin, in which he spoke of the need to support the Bolsheviks. And at the same time, he clarifies that the Entente countries spend a lot of money on supporting their opponents and preparing a coup. In particular, the French and British intelligence officers are looking for connections with the Left SRs.

However, by the summer of 1918, the count's mood began to change. He reports that the Bolshevik regime will not last long and that we must begin to negotiate with those who can replace it.

There were many who wanted to negotiate with Mirbach.

The Bolsheviks, who already had enough problems, became aware of these negotiations.

Dzerzhinsky with the Social Revolutionaries or Lenin with Dzerzhinsky?

The orientation of the German ambassador to other political forces did not promise them anything good. And then the Cheka set out to resolve the issue with an overly active diplomat. Two young employees were appointed as executors - Yakov Blyumkin and Nikolai Andreev.

Blumkin initially engaged in the fabrication of the "Robert Mirbach spy case", which was supposed to allow the terrorists to meet with the ambassador and carry out their plans.

This is where our detective storylines begin to diverge. According to one of them, cunning plan with the elimination of an objectionable diplomat and the simultaneous entrapment of the party of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, who, after the assassination of the ambassador, were outlawed, belongs personally Vladimir Lenin.

Another version suggests that the top leadership of the Bolsheviks was not aware of the plans to assassinate Mirbach, and the conspiracy was organized jointly by the Chekists and the Social Revolutionaries, who decided to get rid of Lenin, Trotsky and Mirbach with one blow.

This assumption is supported by the fact that after the events of July 6, Felix Dzerzhinsky fell into disgrace for some time, and Lenin considered the question of abolishing the Cheka.

And most importantly, the order in the “Robert Mirbach case”, on the basis of which Blumkin and Andreev achieved a meeting with the ambassador, was signed by Dzerzhinsky, although the “iron Felix” insisted that it was a fake.

Mirbach's colleagues from the German embassy sinned against Lenin's involvement, noting that the Bolshevik leader, who came to the embassy on the day of the murder to express condolences and apologize, behaved emphatically coldly and indifferently. However, it is unlikely that there is a crime in this - Lenin did not like the conditions of the Brest peace, and he had no reason to worry about the death of one of those who determined the enslaving conditions.

But what about the possible resumption of war with Germany? Didn't it threaten the Bolsheviks?

The whole point is that between March 1918, when the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was concluded, and July 1918, when Mirbach was assassinated, there was a huge distance.

The Bolsheviks had a lot of difficulties, but Germany had no less of them. All military forces were sent to win in the West, and there were almost no opportunities to be distracted by the RSFSR.

Kaiser Wilhelm II from Berlin, of course, was indignant and demanded that a German battalion be sent to Moscow to guard the embassy, ​​but in response he saw only a Bolshevik fiddle - Lenin said that this was a direct violation of the sovereignty of the country and he would never do that.

Kaiser thought and preferred to silently wipe himself off.

As a result, it turned out that the German ambassador Wilhelm von Mirbach, who considered himself Karabas-Barabas, the owner of the puppet theater of Russian politics, in fact turned out to be a puppet himself, who was used, and then thrown into the oven as unnecessary.

- revolutionary man of mystery

Speaking about the murder of Mirbach, one cannot help but dwell on the personality of Yakov Blumkin. This is a truly unique person - perhaps the most mysterious figure of the times of the revolution.

Yakov Blumkin. Photo: Public Domain

Neither his place of birth, nor his origin, nor even the year of birth are known exactly. It seems that Blumkin remained incognito until the last days of his life, acting under various legends.

In January 1918, in Odessa, Blumkin, who is not even 20 years old, forms a Volunteer Detachment along with the legendary Mishka Yaponchik. Once in the bodies of the Cheka, Blumkin becomes the head of the department for combating international espionage. After the murder of Mirbach, the career of Yakov Blumkin goes uphill, he is entrusted with the most difficult and very responsible missions.

Among the operational pseudonyms of Blumkin there is the surname "Isaev". This is not a coincidence - the fact is that Yulian Semyonov, creating novels about young years Stirlitz, used, among other things, real operations conducted by Yakov Blumkin. In particular, the story of the investigation of the theft from the Gokhran, told in the novel Diamonds for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, is based on an episode from the life of Yakov Blumkin.

In 1920, Blumkin participated in a mission to return ships from Persia, taken to this country by the White Guards, in 1923 he was a resident of Soviet intelligence in Palestine, and worked in Afghanistan. It is also known that Blumkin carried out special assignments in China, Tibet and Mongolia.

The missions carried out by Blumkin still have many "blank spots" to this day.

He was closely acquainted with famous Russian poets - Gumilyov, Yesenin, Khodasevich, Mayakovsky and others.

At the same time, information about Blumkin's personality is very contradictory - some describe him as a ruthless killer, executioner, illiterate and cruel person. However, it is difficult to imagine that such a character could be entrusted with the most difficult missions in the Middle East. There is no doubt that Blumkin knew several languages ​​perfectly, was an excellent psychologist, knew how to win people over, and in general was a very outstanding person who left behind many secrets and mysteries.

Yakov Blyumkin was killed by his closeness to Trotsky, who was in exile. In 1929, Blumkin was arrested as a Trotskyist, but his fate hung in the balance until the very end - apparently, he really did not want to lose such an agent. However, Yakov Blyumkin was shot in December 1929. Even about his death, several different versions are given, which makes one wonder if this execution was also a hoax? Perhaps Blumkin continued his activities much later, only under different names?

As for Wilhelm von Mirbach, the unfortunate count still retains a kind of "priority" - since then no ambassadors have been killed in Russia. Neither German, nor any other.

Leonid Mlechin - about the murder of Wilhelm von Mirbach

One hundred years ago in Moscow the German Ambassador Wilhelm von Mirbach was killed by the Left SRs.

On July 6, 1918, at two o'clock in the afternoon, members of the Cheka, Yakov Blyumkin and Nikolai Andreev, arrived at the German embassy in an official car. They presented a mandate with the signature of Dzerzhinsky and the seal of the Cheka. They demanded a meeting with the ambassador. Count Wilhelm von Mirbach was threatened several times, and he perceived the appearance of the Cheka as a belated reaction from the Soviet authorities. The ambassador received the Chekists in the small living room ...

First accredited

Wilhelm von Mirbach began his diplomatic career - even before World War I - at the German embassy in St. Petersburg, served as a political adviser in Bucharest, and as ambassador to Greece. Participated in peace negotiations in Brest-Litovsk. The negotiations ended with the signing of a peace treaty between Russia and Germany and the establishment of diplomatic relations. And the diplomat received a new assignment - to Moscow.

His arrival was a major event. “Count Mirbach arrived in Moscow,” wrote Jacques Sadoul, attaché of the French military mission in Russia, in his diary. gives the impression of an active and intelligent person, endowed with a bright personality. He is accompanied by a large retinue.

Count Mirbach became the first foreign ambassador accredited to the Soviet government. But in Moscow, not everyone was happy with him. And they were not shy to show this attitude. After a conversation with People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Georgy Chicherin on April 26, 1918, the ambassador presented his credentials to Yakov Sverdlov, chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. “Chicherin,” Mirbach reported to Berlin, “greeted me in a very cordial tone and clearly sought to establish relations based on mutual trust from the very first day ... Stronger personalities were less shy and did not try to hide their displeasure. This is primarily the chairman of the Executive Committee Sverdlov. The presentation of my credentials took place not only in the simplest, but also in the coldest atmosphere ... In his words, indignation was clearly felt. At the end of the official ceremony, he did not invite me to sit down and did not honor me with a personal conversation.

Meanwhile, the head of the first Soviet government, Lenin, valued the peace treaty and listened to the opinion of Berlin. That is why Ambassador Mirbach was credited with special influence on the Kremlin. The German diplomat, however, quickly concluded that "Bolshevism had reached the end of its power" and even tried to establish contacts with opposition politicians. On June 25, 1918, he reported to Berlin: “After more than two months of observation, I can no longer make a favorable diagnosis of Bolshevism: we are undoubtedly at the bedside of a seriously ill; and although there may be moments of seeming improvement, it is ultimately doomed.”

Doomed, alas, was Mirbach himself.

Terrorist attack in Denezhny Lane

On July 4, 1918, the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets opened at the Bolshoi Theater, which led to a split in the coalition of Bolsheviks and Left Social Revolutionaries that had taken power after the October Revolution. Let us briefly recall the chronicle of events: in October 1917, the Socialist Revolutionary Party split - the right SRs opposed the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, while the left supported Lenin, entered the government, and occupied important positions in the army and the Cheka. The leader of the Left SRs, Maria Spiridonova, became deputy chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (she was called the most popular and influential woman in Russia).

Lenin valued an alliance with the Left SRs, who were supported by the peasantry. But cooperation gradually faded away, because the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries were increasingly at odds with the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks did not want to distribute land to the peasants and set up committees of the poor in the countryside, which simply robbed the wealthy peasants. The final split occurred due to a separate peace with Germany. The Left SRs demanded the annulment of the Treaty of Brest, believing that it was suffocating world revolution. And in July, the abscess burst.

The mood at the Fifth Congress of Soviets was dominated by anti-Bolsheviks, and their degree grew from session to session. The representative of Ukraine said that the Ukrainians had already rebelled against the German occupation troops, and called on revolutionary Russia to come to their aid. Among the guests of the congress was the German ambassador, whose presence electrified the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries. They chanted: "Down with Mirbach!" Boris Kamkov, a member of the Central Committee of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party, from the rostrum of the congress called the Bolsheviks "lackeys of German imperialism." “The dictatorship of the proletariat has turned into the dictatorship of Mirbach,” he declared and threatened the Bolsheviks: “We will throw your food detachments and your commanders out of the village by the collar ...”

On July 6, several members of the Socialist-Revolutionary Central Committee defiantly left the Bolshoi Theater, where the Congress of Soviets was taking place, and settled in the headquarters of the cavalry detachment of the Cheka in the Pokrovsky barracks in Bolshoi Trekhsvyatitelsky Lane (the detachment was commanded by the Socialist-Revolutionary Dmitry Popov, a Baltic sailor and member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee). It was then that Anastasia Bitsenko, the head of the Moscow Social Revolutionaries, secretly handed over to Blumkin and Andreev the bombs intended for the German ambassador: his murder was supposed to be a signal for a rebellion (the name of the bomb maker was then kept a special secret. Today it is known: this is Yakov Fishman, a member of the Central Committee of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party, the future general, doctor of chemical sciences and head of the military chemical department of the Red Army.In tsarist times, he escaped from hard labor, went abroad and graduated from the chemical faculty in Italy). Mirbach had only a few hours to live.

Dzerzhinsky's signature on the mandate that Blumkin presented at the embassy was fake, but the seal was genuine. It was attached to the mandate by the Deputy Chairman of the Cheka, the Left Social Revolutionary Vyacheslav Alexandrovich (real name - Dmitrievsky, party pseudonym Pierre Orange). He was a selfless person, dreamed of a world revolution and the common good. He spent six years in hard labor, fled. Aleksandrovich was elected to the executive committee of the Petrograd Soviet, appointed Dzerzhinsky's deputy in the Cheka. Felix Edmundovich explained after the rebellion: “His rights were the same as mine. He had the right to sign all the papers and make orders instead of me. He kept a large seal, which was attached to a false certificate on my alleged behalf, with the help of which Blumkin and Andreev committed the murder. I completely trusted Alexandrovich.

Vyacheslav Aleksandrovich was in charge of the key department "for combating crimes by position." He was instructed to "clear the ranks of Soviet power from provocateurs, bribe-takers, adventurers, all kinds of mediocrity, people with a dark past." The appointment turned out to be unsuccessful: it was not a job for Aleksandrovich. “What was happening in the Cheka,” recalled Alexandra Kollontai, who knew him well, “was sharp and contrary to the convictions of a revolutionary who passionately, irreconcilably hated “detective” and everything that smelled of “police” and administrative violence ... The more noticeable the contradiction between the the deed that Aleksandrovich and his collaborators were doing every day, and his principles and convictions, the louder his revolutionary conscience demanded "purification" and redemption ... In this state, people go only to suicide or to an act of the greatest self-sacrifice ... An explosion in Mirbach's palace should was to be a signal to the still sluggish proletarians of Germany and Austria.

Vyacheslav Alexandrovich not only sealed the fake mandate of Blumkin and Andreev, but also wrote a note to the VChK garage to give them a car ...

Yakov Blyumkin was a very young man: after the February Revolution, when he joined the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party, he was only 17 years old. In June 1918, he was appointed head of the VChK department for combating German espionage. But less than a month later - after the Brest Peace - the branch was liquidated: what kind of fight against German espionage, if we have an agreement with the Germans? And suddenly everything changes overnight: “I talked with the ambassador, looked into his eyes,” Blumkin later said, “and said to myself: I have to kill this man. In my briefcase, among the papers, was a Browning. “Get it,” I said, “here are the papers,” and fired point-blank. Mirbach, wounded, ran across the large living room, his secretary slumped behind an armchair. In the large living room, Mirbach fell, and then I threw a grenade on the marble floor ... "

Rebellious day

The assassination of the ambassador was the signal for an uprising. The Left SRs had armed detachments in Moscow and believed that they could well take power in the country: in the elections to the Constituent Assembly, the village voted for the SRs, who promised to give them land, and in the elections to the Soviets they got the votes of almost all the peasants.

Then, after the suppression of the Social Revolutionary rebellion, they will conduct an investigation. On Lenin's instructions, Dzerzhinsky will be interrogated: he himself was under suspicion - after all, his subordinates participated in the rebellion. And how did he manage to miss the fact that a conspiracy was brewing before his eyes? “Approximately in the middle of June,” Dzerzhinsky will tell during interrogation, “I received information coming from the German embassy, ​​confirming rumors about an impending attempt on the lives of members of the German embassy and about a conspiracy against Soviet power. Searches undertaken by the commission found nothing. At the end of June, I was given new material about impending conspiracies ... I came to the conclusion that someone was blackmailing us and the German embassy.

About the murder of Mirbach - an hour later - the chairman of the Cheka learned not from his subordinates, but from Lenin.

I went to Denezhny Lane: “With a detachment, investigators and a commissioner - to organize the capture of murderers. I was shown a paper - a certificate signed by my last name ... "The impulsive Dzerzhinsky rushed to the headquarters of Popov's detachment, where members of the Central Committee of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party gathered, demanded that Blumkin be extradited, threatened: "Your entire Central Committee will answer for Mirbach's head with his head." Prominent Socialist-Revolutionary Vladimir Karelin, a recent People's Commissar for Property (resigned in protest against the Brest Peace), proposed disarming Dzerzhinsky's guards. The Chekists did not resist. Aleksandrovich announced to the chairman of the Cheka: “By decision of the Central Committee of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party, I declare you under arrest” ...

Left without a chairman, Dzerzhinsky's subordinates did not know what to do. The Chekists were confused. Aleksandrovich arrived at Lubyanka and ordered the arrest of Martyn Latsis (Yan Sudrabs), a member of the board of the Cheka. The sailors wanted to shoot Latsis. Alexandrovich saved him: "There is no need to kill, send him away." The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries seized the telegraph office and the telephone exchange and printed their leaflets. The military who joined them offered to take the Kremlin by storm. But the leaders of the Social Revolutionaries acted indecisively - they were afraid that the internecine struggle with the Bolsheviks would benefit the bourgeoisie. We proceeded from the premise that without the support of the world revolution, genuine socialism could not be built in Russia. They counted on the support of the revolutionary movement in Germany. And they believed that the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk delayed the German revolution for six months. Maria Spiridonova wrote to Lenin: “We did not overthrow the Bolsheviks, we wanted one thing - a terrorist act of world significance, a protest for the whole world against the strangulation of our Revolution. Not a rebellion, but semi-spontaneous self-defense, armed resistance to arrest. But only".

The passive position of the Social Revolutionaries allowed the Bolsheviks to seize the initiative. Trotsky, People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, took over the liquidation of the rebellion. He summoned two Latvian regiments loyal to the Bolsheviks from near Moscow, pulled up armored cars, and on the morning of July 7 ordered Popov's headquarters to be shelled with artillery. A few hours later, the left-wing Socialist-Revolutionaries laid down their arms. By evening, the rebellion was suppressed (the consequences are known: after the July events, the Socialist-Revolutionaries were expelled from politics and from the state apparatus and no longer had the opportunity to influence the fate of the country; the Russian peasantry lost its defenders; later, under Stalin, all prominent Socialist-Revolutionaries were destroyed) ...

And then, in hot pursuit, Dzerzhinsky arrested Vyacheslav Aleksandrovich and ordered him to be shot, as well as 12 other Chekists from Popov's detachment. Popov himself managed to go to Kharkov, ended up as an adviser to Makhno, but in the end he still got to Dzerzhinsky and was shot in 1921 (already in our time, Alexandrovich and Popov were rehabilitated - as illegally repressed). The assassins of the German ambassador, Blumkin and Andreev, fled to Ukraine, where the Left Social Revolutionaries were active (on July 30, 1918, they killed the commander of the German occupation forces, Field Marshal Hermann von Eichhorn, in Kiev). Andreev soon fell ill with typhus and died, and Blumkin joined the process: he took part in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the head of the Ukrainian state, Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky. But already in the spring of 1919 he returned to Moscow and turned himself in to the Cheka.

At the trial, he explained why he killed Mirbach: “I am opposed to a separate peace with Germany, shameful for Russia ... But apart from general and fundamental motives, other motives are pushing me to this act. Since the beginning of the war, the anti-Semitic Black Hundreds accused the Jews of Germanophilism, and now they blame the Jews for the Bolshevik policy and a separate peace with the Germans. Therefore, the Jewish protest against the betrayal of Russia and its allies by the Bolsheviks in Brest-Litovsk is of particular importance. I, as a Jew and a socialist, took upon myself the accomplishment of the act which is this protest.” By that time, a revolution had taken place in Germany, no one regretted Count Mirbach, so his murderer was first sentenced, and then, on May 19, 1919 ... amnestied. He later fought on the Southern and other fronts of the Civil War, studied at the Military Academy, worked in the secretariat of the people's commissar of Trotsky, and in 1923 he was returned to the state security agencies. True, in 1929 they nevertheless shot him (not for Mirbach - for his connection with Trotsky).

Instead of an afterword

Who was punished for the terrorist attack in Money Lane? No one. Maria Spiridonova, however, took responsibility for the murder of the German ambassador: she cursed herself for hindsight, for short-sightedness, for endangering the party ... But not for ordering the murder of an innocent person.

Her biography is amazing: from the moment when, on January 16, 1906, she shot Gavriil Luzhenovsky, an adviser to the Tambov provincial administration, who pacified peasant riots, and until the day she was shot 35 years later, she spent only two years at large: regimes changed, leaders and jailers, but the authorities preferred to keep her in a cell.

Maria Spiridonova was executed in the autumn of 1941. German troops were advancing, Stalin did not know which cities he would be able to keep, and ordered the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, Beria, to destroy the "most dangerous enemies" who were in prison. On September 6, Beria presented the list to the leader. On the same day, Stalin signed a top-secret resolution of the State Defense Committee: “To apply capital punishment - execution to one hundred and seventy prisoners convicted at different times for terror, espionage, sabotage and other counter-revolutionary work. The consideration of the materials shall be entrusted to the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court.” The orders were issued in one day. Those who were included in the list of prisoners of the Oryol Central were called one by one: they stuffed a gag into their mouths, shot them in the back of the head, loaded them into trucks and took them to bury them in the Medvedev forest. Maria Spiridonova is buried there. The irony of fate: she lost everything in her life, including freedom, because on July 6, 1918 she revolted against cooperation with Germany, and she was destroyed under the pretext that she could go over to the German side.

And one more sad detail: a relative of Ambassador Mirbach, who was killed by Socialist-Revolutionary militants in Moscow, the military attache of the German Embassy in Sweden, Baron Andreas von Mirbach, will also be killed by militants: from the ultra-left West German organization Red Army Faction. It will happen in Stockholm in 1975...

Leonid Mlechin

On July 6, 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm II's ambassador to Soviet Russia, Count Wilhelm von Mirbach-Harf, was assassinated in Moscow. For decades, this terrorist act was unambiguously interpreted in the USSR as a provocation by the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party, which since October 1917 was part of a government coalition with the Bolsheviks, whose goal was to violate the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Germans and seize power in the country.

MONEY LANE, 5

At this address in Moscow was the mansion of the German embassy in the RSFSR. On July 6, 1918, at 2:15 p.m., a dark-colored Packard stopped near him, from which two people got out.

They showed the doorman of the embassy the certificate of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission and demanded a personal meeting with the German ambassador. The Chekists were led through the lobby to the Red Drawing Room of the mansion and offered to wait a bit. Count Mirbach was warned of a possible attempt on his life and therefore avoided receiving visitors. But, having learned that official representatives of the Cheka had arrived, I decided to go out to them. Mirbach was joined by the embassy adviser, Dr. Kurt Rietzler, and the adjutant of the military attaché, Lieutenant Leonhart Müller, as an interpreter. The conversation lasted over 25 minutes.

The Chekist, who introduced himself as Yakov Blumkin, presented Mirbach with papers that allegedly testified to the espionage activities of a "relative of the ambassador" of a certain Robert Mirbach. The diplomat noted that he had never met this relative. Then the second employee of the Cheka - Andreev - asked if the count wanted to know about the measures that the Soviet government was going to take. Mirbach nodded. After that, Blumkin pulled out a revolver and opened fire. He fired three shots: at Mirbach, Rietzler and Müller, but hit no one. The ambassador started to run. Andreev threw the bomb, and when it did not explode, shot at Mirbach and mortally wounded him.

The Count, covered in blood, fell to the carpet. Blumkin, on the other hand, picked up the failed bomb and threw it a second time. There was an explosion, under the cover of which the killers tried to escape. Leaving the VChK identity card, the "Robert Mirbach file" and a briefcase with a spare explosive device on the table, the terrorists jumped out the broken window and ran across the garden to the car. Andreev was in the Packard in a few seconds. Blyumkin landed extremely unsuccessfully - he broke his leg. He struggled to climb over the fence. From the side of the embassy, ​​the Germans opened fire indiscriminately. The bullet hit Blumkin in the leg, but he also got to the car.

At 15:15 Count Mirbach died. He was 47 years old

TWO POLITICAL LINES

So, the Kaiser diplomat was killed by Blumkin and Andreev, the Left SRs. But did they only want the death of Mirbach?

In the summer of 1918, the situation of the German troops on the Western Front of the World War became more and more difficult. That is why the military-political elite of Germany was in dire need of preserving the peace treaty signed by the Bolsheviks in Brest-Litovsk. The Bolsheviks, weighed down by the "obscene", "predatory" and "enslaving" peace with the German imperialists, were forced to observe it, since the fate of the Russian revolution now depended on Berlin.

Count Mirbach became a hostage, on the one hand, to the policy of forced partnership between the Reich and the Bolsheviks, and on the other, to the search for political alternatives to Lenin's government and support for anti-Soviet forces in Russia. Thus, the ambassador was forced to conduct two mutually exclusive political lines, which made possible the provocation of which he became a victim.

The materials of the political archive of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, documents of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Chancellor Gertling, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Kuhlmann speak of their high appreciation of the work of the German ambassador to Soviet Russia. Count Mirbach's official letters sent from Moscow to Berlin, on the whole, testify to his correct understanding of the situation in the host country, although there is an overestimation of pro-German sentiments.

The report of Count Mirbach on the conversation with Lenin on May 16, 1918 is one of the few documents containing the recognition by the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the failure of the Brest policy. However, Mirbach believed that Germany's interests still required its orientation towards the Leninist government, since those forces that might replace the Bolsheviks would seek, with the help of the Entente, to reunite with the territories torn from Russia by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

On May 18, 1918, two days after his meeting with Lenin, Mirbach sent a telegram to Berlin expressing concern about the situation in Russia and emphasizing that he estimated that a one-time sum of 40 million marks would be needed to keep the Bolsheviks in power. A few days later, on June 3, the German ambassador telegraphed to the Reich Ministry of Foreign Affairs that, in addition to the one-time sum of 40 million marks, another 3 million marks would be required monthly to support Lenin's government.

State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Kuhlmann instructed Mirbach to continue to provide financial assistance to the Bolsheviks. However, neither Kühlmann nor Mirbach were sure that with the help of German money, which helped the Bolsheviks come to power in October 1917, Lenin could continue to hold on to the helm of government. The German ambassador was convinced that in the summer of 1918 the Bolsheviks would survive last days. Therefore, Mirbach proposed to insure against the fall of Lenin by forming a pro-German anti-Soviet government in Russia in advance.

Berlin approved this proposal. On June 13, 1918, Mirbach informed his leadership that various politicians, clarifying the possibility of the German government providing assistance to anti-Soviet forces in overthrowing the Bolsheviks. Moreover, these forces consider the revision of the articles of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk by Germany as a condition for the overthrow of Lenin.

On June 25, 1918, in his last letter to Kuhlmann, Mirbach wrote that he could not "put a favorable diagnosis on Bolshevism. We are undoubtedly standing at the bedside of a dangerously ill person who is doomed." Based on this, the ambassador proposed to fill the "vacuum" with new "government bodies, which we will keep ready and who will be entirely at our service."

The change in Germany's position and the intensification of Mirbach's contacts with anti-Bolshevik forces did not go unnoticed. As early as mid-May, representatives of the political parties overthrown in October 1917, the so-called "Rightists", noted that "the Germans, whom the Bolsheviks brought to Russia, peace with which was the only basis for their existence, are ready to overthrow the Bolsheviks themselves."

But not only Russian "right" circles and foreign diplomats were aware of the anti-Soviet activities of the German embassy in Russia. The Soviet government also knew about the change in the mood of the Germans. It is no coincidence that at the time when preparations began in Berlin and at the German embassy in Moscow to change the course of German Ostpolitik, the counterintelligence department was created in the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, headed by the left communist and opponent of the Brest peace, Felix Dzerzhinsky, in the most important department of the Cheka for combating counterrevolution. , aimed at working against the German diplomatic mission. "Department to combat German espionage" was headed by 19-year-old Yakov Blyumkin, and Nikolai Andreev was an employee (photographer) of this department.

HOW THE ATTEMPT WAS PREPARED

By virtue of his official position, Blumkin had extensive information about the German embassy in Moscow. He managed to introduce his employee Yakov Fishman under the guise of an electrician. As a result, the plan of the premises and posts of the internal security of the diplomatic mission ended up in the hands of Blumkin. Martin Latsis, head of the department for combating counter-revolution of the Cheka, recalled: "Blumkin boasted that his agents give him everything they want, and that in this way he manages to get in touch with all persons of German orientation." But in order to kill Mirbach, Blyumkin and Andreev had to personally enter the well-guarded embassy building, which was legally considered German territory, and get a meeting with the ambassador.

As a pretext, Blumkin used the "case" he had fabricated, allegedly of the ambassador's nephew, the "Austrian prisoner of war" Robert Mirbach, whom the Chekists accused of espionage. In fact, Robert Mirbach was just a namesake or a very distant relative of the Kaiser diplomat. The Russified German Robert Mirbach never served in the Austro-Hungarian or German armies. He was a Russian subject, before his arrest he lived in Petrograd and worked at the Smolny Institute on the economic side.

According to the memoirs of Latsis, "Blumkin showed a great desire to expand the anti-espionage department and more than once submitted projects to the commission." However, the only "case" in which Blumkin really dealt with was the "case of Mirbach-Austria", and Blumkin "went entirely into this matter" and sat "over the interrogation of witnesses for whole nights." As a result of Blumkin's zeal, the modest caretaker of Smolny turned into an Austro-Hungarian officer who allegedly served in the 37th infantry regiment of the army of Emperor Franz Joseph, was captured by Russians and was released after the ratification of the Brest peace treaty. In anticipation of leaving for his homeland, he rented a room in one of the Moscow hotels, where he lived until the beginning of June 1918, when the Swedish actress Landstrom, who was staying at the same hotel, unexpectedly killed herself. Whether this suicide was set up by the security officers or not, it is difficult to judge. The Cheka, meanwhile, declared that Landstrem committed suicide in connection with her counter-revolutionary activities, and arrested all the inhabitants of the hotel. Among them, they say, was "the nephew of the German ambassador."

The Cheka immediately informed the Danish consulate, which represented the interests of Austria-Hungary in Russia, about the arrest of Robert Mirbach. On June 15, the Danish consulate began negotiations with the Cheka "on the case of the arrested officer of the Austrian army, Count Mirbach." During these negotiations, the Chekists suggested to the representative of the consulate the version that Robert Mirbach was a relative of the German ambassador. On June 17, the Danish consulate handed over to the Chekists the document they had been waiting for: “The Royal Danish Consulate General hereby informs the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission that the arrested officer of the Austro-Hungarian army Count Robert Mirbach, according to a written message from the German diplomatic mission in Moscow, addressed to the Danish Consulate General, is in fact a member of a family related to the German Ambassador, Count Mirbach, who settled in Austria."

Obviously, the German embassy decided to consider the unknown Count Robert Mirbach as a relative of the German ambassador in the hope that this would alleviate the fate of the unfortunate Austrian officer, and he would be immediately released, especially since the charges against him seemed frivolous.

However, the "nephew case" formed the basis of a dossier against the German embassy and the ambassador personally. The main piece of evidence in Blumkin’s hands was a document allegedly signed by Robert Mirbach: “Commitment. I, the undersigned, a Hungarian citizen, a prisoner of war officer of the Austrian army, Robert Mirbach, undertake to voluntarily, at my personal request, deliver secret information about Germany and about German embassy in Russia. I confirm everything written here and will voluntarily fulfill it. Count Robert Mirbach."

Of course, the manager of the Smolny Institute could not tell the Chekists "secret information about Germany and the German embassy in Russia": he simply did not know them. The fact that the “commitment” of Robert Mirbach is a dubious document is evidenced by its appearance: the text is written in Russian in one hand (obviously, by Blumkin’s hand), and the last sentence in Russian and German (with errors) and signatures in Russian and - German - in a different handwriting.

The "Robert Mirbach case" became a pretext for the Chekists to penetrate the German Kaiser's ambassador. Blumkin printed a certificate on the letterhead of the Cheka: “The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission authorizes its member Yakov Blumkin and the representative of the Revolutionary Tribunal Nikolai Andreev to enter into negotiations with the German Ambassador to the Russian Republic regarding a case that is directly related to the Ambassador. Chairman of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission: F. Dzerzhinsky Secretary: Ksenofontov.

Andreev and Blyumkin left this certificate, together with a folder called "Robert Mirbach's case," at the German embassy. After the assassination attempt, these documents became the main evidence.

"IRON FELIX" IS JUSTIFIED

According to Dzerzhinsky's testimony to the commission of inquiry of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, his signature on the certificate was forged, and, therefore, he was not involved in the murder of the German ambassador. However, new data show that the left-wing communist and opponent of the Brest peace, the Polish gentry Dzerzhinsky, whose homeland Poland was occupied by the Germans, was playing his own political game. Not without reason, the day after the murder of Mirbach, Lenin removed Dzerzhinsky from the post of chairman of the Cheka: obviously, Lenin, Sverdlov and Trotsky considered the events of July 6, 1918 as a joint conspiracy of the Chekists and the Socialist-Revolutionaries.

On July 7, 1918, Dzerzhinsky filed an official application with the Council of People's Commissars for his dismissal from the post of chairman of the Cheka due to the fact that he is "one of the main witnesses in the murder of the German envoy Count Mirbach." The question of removing Dzerzhinsky was considered at a special meeting of the Central Committee of the RCP(b). Apparently, in order to somewhat reassure the Germans, Lenin gave the decree on the removal of Dzerzhinsky a demonstrative character: it was printed not only in newspapers, but also pasted around Moscow. The Collegium of the Cheka was declared dissolved and subject to reorganization within a week.

Dzerzhinsky's testimony is a very confused and contradictory document, which is, in fact, an attempt at self-justification. Dzerzhinsky calls the accusation of Kurt Ritzler, who said that the chairman of the Cheka "turns a blind eye to conspiracies directed directly against the safety of members of the German embassy", "fiction and slander." However, according to Lieutenant Muller, at the beginning of June 1918, cinematographer Vladimir Ginch turned to the embassy, ​​saying that the underground organization "Union of Allies", of which he became a member, was preparing the murder of Count Mirbach. Ritsler reported the information received to the Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Karakhan, who, in turn, informed Dzerzhinsky.

When Ginch warned the German embassy for the second time and about ten days before the assassination attempt named the date of the impending terrorist attack - between July 5 and 6, 1918 - Dzerzhinsky made personal contact with him. During a meeting at the Metropol, Ginch told Dzerzhinsky that members of the Cheka were involved in the case.

On June 28, Ritsler again informed Karakhan (and he - Dzerzhinsky) about the impending assassination attempt and handed over the relevant materials. At the direction of Dzerzhinsky, a search was carried out at the address indicated by the Germans and the British citizen Wiber, "the main organizer of the conspiracy," was arrested. During the search, the Chekists found "six ciphered sheets." Having familiarized himself with their content, Dzerzhinsky came to the conclusion that "someone is blackmailing us and the German embassy, ​​and that Mr. Wiber may be the victim of this blackmail." Dzerzhinsky expressed his doubts to Ritsler and Lieutenant Muller.

Thus, Dzerzhinsky "from about the middle of June of this year." knew about the "prepared attempt on the lives of members of the German embassy and a conspiracy against the Soviet power," but did nothing to stop them. The chairman of the Cheka claimed that he "was afraid of attempts on the life of Count Mirbach by the monarchist counter-revolutionaries who wanted to achieve restoration through the military force of German militarism, as well as by the counter-revolutionaries - Savinkovites and agents of the Anglo-French bankers." Meanwhile, Dzerzhinsky's subordinates were completing the preparation of a terrorist attack against the ambassador of the German Kaiser.

And here is what the chairman of the Cheka said about his employees who became the murderers of Mirbach: "Who Andreev was, [I] did not know"; "I did not know Blumkin closely and rarely saw him." Yes, Dzerzhinsky really could not have known that a simple photographer Andreev was working for him, but Dzerzhinsky probably saw Blumkin quite often as the head of the most important area of ​​​​Soviet counterintelligence, the department for combating German espionage.

Dzerzhinsky's testimony is refuted by Blumkin himself, who in April 1919 claimed that all of his "work in the Cheka in the fight against German espionage, obviously, due to its importance, took place under the continuous supervision of the chairman of the Commission, comrade Dzerzhinsky and comrade Latsis."

We do not undertake to assert that Blumkin acted on the direct instructions of Dzerzhinsky. However, indirect evidence indicates that Felix Edmundovich knew about his intentions.

So, even before the murder of Count Mirbach, Dzerzhinsky decided "to dissolve our counterintelligence and leave Blumkin without a post for the time being" (he was accused of violating the law and exceeding power). But, despite this, Blumkin was able to receive the investigation file of Robert Mirbach from Latsis on the morning of July 6, issue certificates for himself and Andreev, call an official car and go to the German embassy.

Consequently, Blumkin, formally removed from his post, in fact, with the tacit consent of Dzerzhinsky, continued to prepare a terrorist act. It is obvious that the chairman of the Cheka actually allowed his subordinates to kill Count Mirbach.

Moreover, as Anatoly Lunacharsky, People's Commissar for Education, testified, in his presence immediately after the assassination attempt on Mirbach, Lenin gave the following order over the phone to arrest the murderers: "Search, search very carefully, but ... do not find." Later, in the mid-1920s, Blumkin, in a private conversation with his housemate, the People's Commissar's wife Rozanel-Lunacharskaya, in the presence of her cousin Tatyana Sats, claimed that Lenin was well aware of the plan to assassinate Mirbach. True, Blumkin did not personally talk to the leader of the Bolsheviks on this subject. But he discussed it in detail with Dzerzhinsky ...

LENIN LAUGHING

But, paradoxically, it was Lenin who won most of all from Mirbach's assassination, who managed, with the help of official Berlin, to maintain the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and to destroy the last obstacle on the way to the one-party dictatorship of the Bolsheviks - the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party.

An employee of the Soviet embassy in Berlin, Solomon, told how People's Commissar for Trade and Industry Leonid Krasin, who arrived in Germany shortly after the July events in Moscow to prepare an economic agreement, told him that he "did not suspect such deep and cruel cynicism" in Lenin. Lenin, on July 6, 1918, telling Krasin how he intended to get out of the crisis created by the assassination of Mirbach, "with a smile" said that we "will make an internal loan among the comrades of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and in this way we will maintain innocence and acquire capital."

Lenin could be pleased with how events unfolded after Mirbach's assassination and soon "forgave" Dzerzhinsky. The new board of the Cheka was formed with the direct participation of the "iron Felix", and already on August 22, 1918, the "punishing sword of the revolution" was again in his hands.

After the assassination of Count Mirbach, the Kaiser had the opportunity to refuse help to Lenin. However, although Germany presented the Soviet government with an ultimatum, Wilhelm II did not have the strength to resume the war against Russia. The emperor spoke out against breaking off relations with Russia and urged "to support the Bolsheviks under any conditions."

Let me remind you of one well-known fact: Sverdlov, Lenin and Chicherin went to the German embassy to express official condolences on the assassination of the ambassador. Trotsky flatly refused to go to the Germans: his formula "no peace, no war" did not require an expression of sympathy for the murdered "imperialist and enemy of the world revolution" Mirbach.

A chic Rolls-Royce from the former tsar's garage was carrying the head of the Soviet state, the head of government and the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs to Money Lane. Lenin was in a great mood: Count Mirbach, who was aware of the dark affairs of the Bolsheviks with the Kaiser Reich, Count Mirbach, who made efforts to save the royal family, Count Mirbach, who was the personification of the humiliation of revolutionary Russia by German imperialism, was no longer alive. Lenin joked: “I already agreed with Radek: I wanted to say “Mitleid,” but I should say “Beileid,” and laughed at my own joke (these are words that are close in meaning and can be translated into Russian as “sympathy”; however, the former rather means “ sympathy, complicity", in the second - "condolence").

In the embassy mansion, Lenin delivered a short speech in German. He conveyed to the German side the apologies of the government of Soviet Russia about what happened and, of course, added that "the matter will be immediately investigated and the perpetrators will suffer the punishment they deserve." But these words remained empty promises. So instead of condolences, it really turned out to be complicity ┘

FORGIVEN, AWARDED AND... SHOT

Meanwhile, Andreev and Blumkin simply disappeared. Soon the first one ended up in Ukraine, where he died of typhus.

Blumkin, on the other hand, had a different fate. In May 1919, he arrived in Moscow and turned himself in to the presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, which forgave the terrorist. The decision of the supreme body of Soviet power of May 16, 1919 read: "In view of the voluntary appearance of Ya.G. Blyumkin and the detailed explanation given by him of the circumstances of the murder of the German ambassador Count Mirbach, the presidium decides to grant amnesty to Ya.G. Blyumkin." Yakov Grigorievich was even accepted into the Bolshevik Party. And on the recommendation of ... Dzerzhinsky!

But the appearance of Blumkin in Moscow did not go unnoticed by the German side, who demanded that the killer of Mirbach be punished, and his patrons preferred to send their ward away from Moscow for a while. Blumkin was seconded to the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. In June 1920, he arrived in Northern Iran, where he developed a plan for a coup d'état, took part in it himself and became a member of the Central Committee of the Iranian Communist Party. The government of Kuchuk Khan was overthrown. New people came to power, offering Blumkin a high military post. The former Left SR did all this enormous work in just four months. Moscow encouraged the enterprising and successful employee by awarding him a military order and enrolling him in the Military Academy of the Red Army.

In 1922, Blumkin was recalled from the academy and sent to Trotsky's secretariat. And already in October 1923, Dzerzhinsky took him to the Foreign Department of the OGPU. Blumkin led Soviet intelligence in Tibet, Mongolia, northern China, and the Middle East.

In the late 1920s, Yakov Grigorievich became one of the most famous people THE USSR. Big soviet encyclopedia gave him more than thirty lines. Sergei Yesenin dedicated poems to Blumkin, and Valentin Kataev in the story "Werther has already been written" endowed his hero, Naum Fearless, with his features and portrait resemblance.

However, in 1929 in Istanbul, Blumkin met with his former boss and friend Trotsky, Stalin's worst enemy, expelled from the USSR, and even undertook to convey to Soviet Union a letter from a disgraced leader. On November 3, 1929, the "case" of the Trotskyist Blyumkin was considered at a court session by the OGPU. The verdict is shooting.

The argumentation of each of the versions is based on a different interpretation of selective publications of documents collected in the "Red Book of the Cheka" (M., 1920. Book 1; M., 1989. Book 1. Ed. 2nd). Official Soviet documents, memoirs and Left Social Revolutionary publications were compiled by the Special Investigative Commission of the Council of People's Commissars established on July 7, 1918 (People's Commissar of Justice P. I. Stuchka, investigator of the Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal under the All-Russian Central Executive Committee V. E. Kingisepp and Chairman of the Kazan Council Ya. S. Sheinkman) . 19 volumes of the materials of this commission are entitled "On the rebellion of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries in Moscow in 1918 and on the murder of the German ambassador Mirbach". There are also many other debatable questions .

However, it remained undeniable: on July 6, 1918, a political assassination was committed, and the assassins were convinced of their impunity. Blumkin wrote in his testimony: "I was always firmly convinced that it was historically necessary to do so, that the Soviet government could not execute me for the murder of a German imperialist." And he really was not executed, but amnestied, and he again made a brilliant Chekist career.

Among the explanations of the reasons for the assassination of the ambassador, there is also the following: Mirbach was killed by Blumkin, because he knew about Lenin receiving German money. This version was not supported by the researchers; not a single document was found that testified to Lenin's involvement in the terrorist attack. But the fact that the leader of the Bolsheviks used the situation for political purposes better than anyone else is undeniable.

The situation in the summer of 1918 was very critical for the ruling party. According to the adviser of the German mission in Moscow, Dr. K. Ritzder, by June 4, 1918, it appeared as follows: “Over the past two weeks, the situation has sharply worsened. Famine is approaching us, they are trying to stifle it with terror. The Bolshevik fist smashes everyone in a row. Hundreds of people are calmly shot... There can be no doubt that the material resources of the Bolsheviks are running out. Fuel supplies for cars are running out, and even the Latvian soldiers sitting in trucks can no longer be relied upon, not to mention the workers and peasants. The Bolsheviks are terribly nervous, probably feeling the approach of the end, and therefore the rats begin to leave the sinking ship in advance.

Mirbach's murder took place at the beginning of the work of the 5th All-Russian Congress of Soviets. The party membership of the congress delegates - 773 communists and 353 left SRs - testified, in comparison with previous congresses, to the decline in the influence of the Bolsheviks. Middle Volga provinces, where it was blazing Civil War, were represented at the congress by 27 Bolsheviks and 33 Left SRs. The Bolshevik leadership understood that its salvation lay in the creation of extreme conditions, in getting rid of any opposition, in establishing a dictatorship as the only way to retain power. Therefore, the war on the Volga with the Komuchevites and Czechoslovak legionnaires was used, because the shots at Mirbach led to the defeat of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party, the only legal organization at that time in the political struggle for the confidence of the masses.

The events that took place in Moscow on July 6, 1918, are now presented as a well-directed performance by someone. Mirbakh was killed not only by a Left Social Revolutionary, but by a Soviet employee who held a high position in the Cheka. However, the second was soon forgotten, and the first was used, and very purposefully and in an organized manner, to ostracize one of the government parties. It is hardly possible to speak of a Left Socialist-Revolutionary rebellion that day; rather, it was the 24 hours of the tragic finale of the party, which decided to fight for power with the Bolsheviks. They were defending, not advancing. They detained 27 Bolsheviks, including Dzerzhinsky, and did not shoot anyone. The Bolsheviks started shooting the next day. According to the memoirs of Mstislavsky, A.I. Rykov, who was negotiating with the faction of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, delegates to the 5th Congress of Soviets, unequivocally warned them - they are not people's choices, but hostages for those communists who were arrested by Popov's Cheka detachment. “And if something happens to them…” Rykov kept silent. But you don't have to say it, it's clear...

Then the Bolsheviks, in order to justify their actions, will call what happened an anti-Soviet rebellion, and this definition will firmly enter Soviet historiography for many years, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries will reject all accusations against them. They approved and acknowledged their participation in the murder of Mirbach, but not in the anti-Soviet rebellion. On August 4, 1918, the 1st Council of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party was held in Moscow. Its opening was preceded by a statement to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee by the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries Sablin, Izmailovich and others, prisoners in the Kremlin guardhouse: “We, members of the Left S.R. Party, arrested after the terrorist act on the ambassador of German imperialism, demand an immediate death sentence, which, obviously included in the plan of action of the government party. Those arrested resented the insulting treatment they were being held without charge. At the same time, they prepared draft resolutions of the Party Council on various issues, including stating that “accepting terror as a matter of principle, the Council believes that terror can become a weapon of the Party’s struggle only if (and from that moment) if the conditions of the political situation stopped the possibility of legal work among the masses,” and resolutely protested against the slander that the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries had rebelled against the Soviet regime and wanted to overthrow the Bolsheviks by force of arms.

The opinion of the winners prevailed. The defeat of the party of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, former comrades-in-arms who dared to join the opposition, was completed rather quickly. The conclusion that there was no anti-Soviet uprising of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries at that time and could not be, but only an armed defense by a detachment of the Cheka of the members of the Central Committee of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party from possible reprisal for taking responsibility for the murder of Mirbach, only in Lately began to assert itself in Russian historiography. “It would be, perhaps, wrong ... to blame only one of the warring parties. Both the Leninists and the members of the Central Committee of the Left SRs were equally unable to see the historical perspective, to predict the dictatorship of the individual coming after the establishment of a one-party system, which buried both of them, ”writes Ya. V. Leontiev.

I. I. Vatsetis, the commander of the Latvian division, who led the military defeat of the Cheka detachment, since the Moscow garrison declared its neutrality, seeing only an inter-party squabble in what was happening, left several versions of his memoirs about the events of July 6-7, 1918 in Moscow . They can hardly be trusted, they are overly politicized and inaccurate. In the first versions of the memoirs, Vatsetis wanted to exaggerate the strength and capabilities of the "rebels" and set off his merits. It was he who named the number of opponents in 2000 bayonets, 8 guns, 64 machine guns, 4-6 armored vehicles. But when the commission of inquiry began to compile a list of persons from the Cheka detachment who at that moment took any part in the defense of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary leadership, they turned out to be only 174 people.

In his memoirs, written at the suggestion of Voroshilov at the end of the 1920s, Vatsetis discovered in Moscow on July 6-7 not only the Left SR, but also the Trotskyist uprising, which, of course, did not take place. The fate of Vatsetis, like all other actors, participants in the confrontation on July 6-7, 1918 in Moscow, was tragic. Vatsetis received a monetary reward for his actions (Trotsky handed him a package of money), became the commander-in-chief of the front, and then all the armed forces of the republic. But, probably, Lenin could not forget the moment of humiliation, the request to help him, and at least twice in 1918-1919. offered to shoot Vatsetis