Jacob Blumkin: poet-SR, KGB terrorist (part one)
Imagine that you are transported to 1921 year. The same autumn outside, but much colder than it is now. People on the streets, if not armed, then ... somehow shy. And no wonder! Here hunger, typhus, total unemployment, devastation, newspapers report about peasant uprisings ... In Ukraine, Makhno, ataman Antonov takes the city outside the city. At night, "bandit bandits" hunted around the cities. It seems that the power of the Bolsheviks is about to fall apart and the matter will end in a universal catastrophe. And what should people think in such a society, eh? It seems that only about ... to survive! But - surprisingly, in this terrible time there are people who write poetry, read poetry, and someone listens to how they are read. Although the idea is to think it would be necessary only about bread, and of how to stay alive.
Shot from the film "The Sixth of July." Blumkin and Andreev meet with Count Mirbach
Meanwhile, in Moscow, even at that time, there was a “Cafe of Poets”, where such poets as Mayakovsky, Yesenin, Mariengof were constantly hanging out, as is now fashionable to say. And there, too, was a strange man who had a reputation as a well-known terrorist and conspirator — Jacob Blumkin, a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, named Live. Two no less odious characters introduced him to the poetic bohemia: Donat Cherepanov, a gangster and then an accomplice of the famous gangster Marusya Nikiforova, and the son of a book publisher and the future red commander Yuri Sablin. And Sablin himself was friends at that time with Yesenin, and the poet himself at the end of 17, even entered the fighting squad of the Social Revolutionaries. However, the Left Social Revolutionaries at that time enjoyed the sympathy of many writers and poets, among whom were Blok and Bely, and one could not even call any “little things” and “hangers-on” near the masters.
Anatoly Mariengof wrote that Blumkin was "a lyric poet, he loved poems, he loved his and others' glory." Vadim Shershenevich - another then poet described his appearance as follows: “... a man with broken teeth ... he looked around and fearfully guarded his ears for every noise, if someone stood up sharply behind him, the man immediately jumped up and put his hand in his pocket where the crook bristled. He calmed down only when he got into his corner ... Blumkin was very boastful, also cowardly, but, in general, a sweet guy ... He was big, fat, black, curly with very thick lips, always wet. Since this description refers to the 1920 year, it is easy to conclude that Blumkin at that time had mental problems. For example, when he left “Cafe of Poets” after midnight, he literally begged someone of his acquaintances to go with him to his house, that is, he clearly was afraid of a real or imaginary attempt on his life. Shershenevich wrote about it like this: “He adored the role of the victim,” and also: “... he was terribly afraid of illness, colds, drafts, flies (carriers of epidemics) and dampness on the streets.” But, however, this is only one side of his "photographs". But what will happen if we turn over another?
The fact is that no matter who he is, it turned out that his only deed in July 1918 could completely change the whole history Russia, and may even be the course of the entire First World War. That is, a man got to the bifurcation point, but that he was by that time a man, let's see ...
Like all people, Jacob Blumkin, and he is Simha-Yankel Gershev Blumkin, was born ... Born in a family that lived in Odessa, Moldavanka, and officially in 1898, but he himself asserted that in March, 1900. The workplace of his father in his biography, he also changed repeatedly, until he stopped at the option with his father - a small Jewish trader-clerk.
In 1914, he graduated from the Talmudtor (a free Jewish primary school for children from impoverished families, which was headed at that time by the famous Jewish writer - "the grandfather of Jewish literature" Mendele-Moiher-Sforim (Ya. A. Sholom)), and began to work daily bread for the sake of , replacing in the labor field is not one profession. He was also an electrician, and worked in the tram depot, and working on the stage in the theater, and at the cannery of the Avrich brothers and Israilson. At the same time, he managed to write poems, and they even published in local newspapers “Odessa sheet”, “Gudok” and the magazine “Spikes”. The atmosphere in the family was distinguished by revolutionism and polarity of judgment: the elder brother Leo held anarchist views, and Sister Rosa considered herself a Social Democrat. Moreover, both older brothers, Isai and Lev, worked as journalists in a number of Odessa newspapers, and brother Nathan became known as a playwright (alias "Bazilevsky"). There were still brothers, but there is no information about them. Well, why be surprised. Child mortality then was very high.
Blumkin himself wrote about this time in the following way: “In the conditions of Jewish provincial poverty, squeezed between national oppression and social deprivation, I grew up provided by my own children's destiny.” Well, the childhood and youth of many Odessans at that time were inextricably linked with the world of the Jap “Yaponchik” - “the king of gangsters”. As for Blumkin's first acquaintance with the revolutionary movement, it is clear that Brother Lev and Sister Rosa, of course, have tried. But the Social Democrats Yashka seemed boring and uninteresting. Well, what's the point of reading some boring pamphlets of some obscure foreigners? Whether the slogan is “Anarchy is the mother of order!” However, when he studied at a technical school in 1915 and met a group of anarchist communists, this passion was short-lived.
On the other hand, student Social Revolutionary Valery Kudelsky (also a local journalist who also wrote poetry, a friend of Kotovsky in prison, and then Mayakovsky in the “poetry shop”), in October 1917, managed to prove Blyumkin that there was no better party for the Social Revolutionaries. and she joined by joining the left wing!
A friend of Jacob since he was sixteen years old, and also a poet, Peter Zaitsev, later wrote that Blumkin at first "did not take any part in the political struggle," was always "not clean at hand ... he took part in Odessa in the dirtiest stories," including the trade in fake delays from military service.
What did Jacob do on the eve of the “Great October Revolution”? And different! According to some information, he lived at that time in Kharkov, where he worked as an agitator for the “elections to the Constituent Assembly” and in August-October 1917 of the year went to the Volga region as such.
Then, in January, 1918 of the year, Blyumkin, along with Mishka Yapadchik, took an active part in the creation in Odessa of the First Volunteer Iron Detachment from the lumpen proletariat and the sailor's machine-gun detachment. This detachment played a major role in the well-known “Odessa revolution”, and it was here that our Jacob became friends not only with Jap, but also with many leaders of the maximalist Socialist Revolutionaries: B. Cherkunov, P. Zaitsev, anarchist J. Dubman. Interestingly, Cherkunov at that time was none other than the commissar of that same sailor Zheleznyakov, and the poet Peter Zaitsev became the chief of staff of the Odessa dictator Mikhail Muravyev. Moreover, as Blumkin himself wrote about him, he took with him "many millions from Odessa." Note that Blumkin himself was constantly spinning alongside large, but shadow cash flows, that is, he correctly understood that convictions were convictions, and money — money!
There, in Odessa, he also met another man of the adventurous warehouse and for some reason he was also a poet (and the poets were not adventurers then we had, I wonder? - V.O.) —A. Erdman, who was a member of the "Union for the Defense of Homeland and Freedom" and in addition was also ... an English spy. There is an assumption that it was he, Erdman, who had just arranged Blumkin to work in ... the Cheka. Because it was like this: in April of 1918, this Erdman, under the guise of Lithuanian anarchist leader Birze, placed part of the anarchist units in Moscow under his control, while he also worked as an operational officer to collect information in the Cheka. Erdman wrote and several denunciations of Muravyov, the result of which was the work that brought the Bolsheviks to him. Obviously, he did all this in order to provoke the Bolshevik government of Moscow to the conflict with Muravyov in Odessa. Like it or not, you can only guess. Another thing is important that the friendship between Erdman and Blumkin, having begun in Odessa, was not interrupted in Moscow. And at first Erdman got into the Cheka, and then Blumkin himself!
In March, 1918 of the year became the chief of staff of the 3-th Ukrainian Soviet "Odessa" army, whose task was to stop the onset of the Austro-Hungarian troops. But there were only four thousand soldiers in it, and it is not surprising that she retreated with only one rumor about the approach of the Austro-Hungarian troops. Part of the fighters along with Blumkin on ships was evacuated ... to Feodosia, where he "for special military services" (!) Was appointed Commissar of the Military Council of the Army and Assistant Chief of Staff.
Now she has been given a new task: to detain the German, Austro-Hungarian troops and units of the Ukrainian Rada advancing on the Donbass. And now this army did not run away, but ... "sold out" to hundreds of small detachments, which, evading fighting with the occupiers, engaged in the expropriation of money from banks and the weaning of food from the peasants. Blumkin had a direct connection to this. For example, behind him was the expropriation of four million rubles from the State Bank of the town of Slavyansk. And then he offered a bribe (to hush up “this business”) to the left Social Revolutionary leader Peter Lazarev, commander of the Third Revolutionary Army. Moreover, Blumkin left part of this money for himself, and part of it - to transfer the party of the Left Social Revolutionaries to the fund!
But “sewing in a bag” is not concealed, and being under the threat of arrest, Blumkin was forced to return to the bank three and a half million rubles. But what happened to 500 thousands, is unknown. But it is known that Peter Lazarev fled from the front and even from the post of army commander after that. And archival documents show that 80 thousand rubles (the amount is also considerable for that time!) Of these four millions disappeared with him.
After that, in May 1918, Blumkin was in Moscow, but he happily escaped the court, he was not put in prison, but was made for all his "exploits" ... by a chekist! Yes, the leadership of the party of the Left Social Revolutionaries sent him to the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission of the Russian Federation as the head of the department for combating international espionage !!! And since June, he has become the head of the counterintelligence department for monitoring the protection of embassies in connection with their possible criminal activities! That is, the figure in the hierarchy of the Cheka is very, very significant. How, why, for what such merits he was put on this solely responsible post is unknown. Is that some knowledge of German?
It is interesting that in the recommendation of the Central Committee of the Left Social Revolutionaries, according to which he got into the Cheka, he was called "an expert on the disclosure of conspiracies." That's just what, when, and where he opened conspiracies? After all, he himself in his memoirs does not mention one such open conspiracy, and he probably could, couldn’t he? No, no wonder it is very correctly said - “loot wins good”. Probably, if he had not hapnul 500 thousands, but all 4 million, he would have sat in the chair of Dzerzhinsky himself. Why? Why not? In revolution everything is possible. No wonder, recalling Jacob Blumkin, Leon Trotsky once wrote: "The revolution chooses young lovers." According to him, Blumkin "had a strange career and played an even more strange role." It turns out that he was almost one of the “founding fathers” of the Cheka, and he himself became the ultimate victim of his own creation.
Meanwhile, by the summer of 1918, the party of the Left SRs numerically increased to 100 thousands of people. And this force, having the experience of the Bolsheviks before our eyes, was violently striving for power. She was supported by numerous peasantry, and it was the Social Revolutionaries who developed the tactics of terror to the utmost detail. Finally, the glory of “honest revolutionaries” was on their side. Many believed that it was the Social Revolutionaries who could correct the “distortions of October” and actually soften the “revolutionary dictatorship” of presumptuous Bolsheviks. It was a very important circumstance, on which at the same time another layered ...
Another circumstance was the arrival in Moscow 1918 in April of the diplomatic representative of Germany in Russia, Count Wilhelm von Mirbach, who was also endowed with special powers. Mirbach's task was very difficult: to keep Soviet Russia from dissolving the Brest Peace. Germany needed to get 1 million prisoners of war soldiers from camps in Siberia to replenish the army on the Western Front, then needed the Black Sea Fleet, bread, lard, leather from Ukraine, as well as steel, rolled, coal, wood, linen, foam - and all that on darmovschinka pumped out kaiser germany from soviet russia and you don’t remember. He was deservedly considered a master of political intrigue, since Mirbach managed to maintain ties even with obvious opponents of the Brest Peace. And ... in words, they scolded him, but in fact ... like Germany, everything she needed was received, and she continued to receive. The problem was the captured Germans, Austrians and Hungarians, blocked, fortunately for the Entente, by the insurgent Czechoslovakians in Siberia.
It is not known exactly how Blumkin came to the German ambassador, though perhaps through his relative, a captive Austrian army officer Robert von Mirbach, who lived in a Moscow hotel since April 1918 after his release from captivity. In the same place lived the Swedish actress M. Landstrom, who unexpectedly then committed suicide. What is the connection? Yes, no kind ... Yes, only in this kind of cases there are no accidents, and there is always some connection.
Blumkin recruited a former officer as an informant and at the same time through him negotiated with the count. About what? God only knows! Did money play any role in their relationship? Without any doubt! Who gave them to whom? Of course, Mirbach and, of course, Blumkin. But on what they went and to whom? Most likely, they were "smeared" by too radical opponents of the Brest peace. But ... those who take money from strangers should always be wary of their own. Can you imagine if Lenin learned about the reception of bribes by the Social Revolutionaries from the Germans? Like, in words you are all "against", and put in your pocket ?! It would have been such a scandal that its consequences would have hit the entire party of the Left Social Revolutionaries!
And it is not surprising that since June 1918 of the year, Blumkin and the same ever-memorable Muravyov are beginning to convince the Central Committee of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries that they kill Mirbach and thereby provoke the start of the “revolutionary liberation war with German imperialism”, and at the same time remove “obscene” from the government "Brest Peace, that is, Lenin and his supporters!
Already 24 June 1918, the CEC of the Left Social Revolutionary Party decided that the time had come. That the ratification of the Brest peace by the Bolshevik government cannot be reconciled, and one should resort to the tactics of terror against "prominent representatives of German imperialism."
Then it was Blumkin who was called to kill Ambassador Mirbach and developed his plan, approved by the Social Revolutionary Central Committee, and the attempt itself was set for July 5 on 1918. But for some unknown reason, Jacob moved it for one day.
Interestingly, Blumkin left a farewell letter, something like a political testament, in which he wrote: “The Black Hundreds-anti-Semites have accused Jews of Germanophilism since the beginning of the war, and now they are laying responsibility on Jews for Bolshevik politics and for a separate peace with the Germans. Therefore, the protest of the Jew against the betrayal of Russia and the allies by the Bolsheviks in Brest-Litovsk is of particular importance. I, as a Jew, as a socialist, take upon myself the commission of an act that is this protest. ” The whole world should know that the “Jewish socialist” was not afraid to sacrifice his life in protest ... ”.
Everything else was a matter of technique. An official paper was printed on the letterhead of the Cheka, which supposedly Comrade Blumkin sent for talks with the German ambassador "on a matter of direct relevance to the German ambassador himself." The signature of Dzerzhinsky on the document was faked by the left SRs P. Proshyan, and V. Alexandrovich, who held the position of deputy Dzerzhinsky, “attached” the seal to the mandate and ordered to issue the car to Blumkin from the Cheka garage.
Two bombs (I wonder what type they were? And Blumkin got two revolvers at Proshian’s apartment. Nikolai Andreev went with the assistants, again well-known in Odessa and also in Moscow, and also a Black Sea sailor from the Cheka.
6 July 1918 of the year, at 14 hours, Blumkin and Andreev, leaving the sailor and driver in the car at the embassy gate, entered his building and demanded an audience with the ambassador. As the ambassador was having dinner at that time, the guests were offered to wait. Counselor of the embassy, Count Bassewitz and senior adviser Rizler, came to them, but representatives of the Cheka continued to insist on a personal meeting with Count Mirbach.
As a result, Mirbach came to them all the same. Blumkin began to tell him about the arrest of his nephew, and then reached into his briefcase to get the necessary documents. However, he pulled a revolver out of his briefcase and fired first at Mirbach, and then at the two servicemen accompanying him at that time. He shot three times and ran. But Andreev noticed that Mirbach was only wounded and not killed! He threw a briefcase with bombs at his feet, but they did not explode, but simply rolled out onto the floor. Then he raised one of the bombs and threw it with force towards the victim. The explosion was followed by a deafening. In the hall flew glass.
Blumkin and Andreev jumped out the window, but since I had to jump from the second floor, Blumkin twisted his leg. The security of the embassy began to shoot and yet both terrorists managed to climb over the fence, were able to get into the car and hid in the nearest alley. Mirbach, riddled with shrapnel, died a few minutes later.
There is another version of this terrorist attack on which Blumkin, climbing over the fence, received a bullet in the buttock. And Mirbach was killed just by a sailor, and he removed Blumkin from the lattice on which he hung, catching his pants. But exactly how everything was there, is unknown. Panic, explosion, blood, shooting, everyone is running - it is very difficult to restore the truth.
To be continued ...
Shot from the film "The Sixth of July." Blumkin and Andreev meet with Count Mirbach
Meanwhile, in Moscow, even at that time, there was a “Cafe of Poets”, where such poets as Mayakovsky, Yesenin, Mariengof were constantly hanging out, as is now fashionable to say. And there, too, was a strange man who had a reputation as a well-known terrorist and conspirator — Jacob Blumkin, a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, named Live. Two no less odious characters introduced him to the poetic bohemia: Donat Cherepanov, a gangster and then an accomplice of the famous gangster Marusya Nikiforova, and the son of a book publisher and the future red commander Yuri Sablin. And Sablin himself was friends at that time with Yesenin, and the poet himself at the end of 17, even entered the fighting squad of the Social Revolutionaries. However, the Left Social Revolutionaries at that time enjoyed the sympathy of many writers and poets, among whom were Blok and Bely, and one could not even call any “little things” and “hangers-on” near the masters.
Anatoly Mariengof wrote that Blumkin was "a lyric poet, he loved poems, he loved his and others' glory." Vadim Shershenevich - another then poet described his appearance as follows: “... a man with broken teeth ... he looked around and fearfully guarded his ears for every noise, if someone stood up sharply behind him, the man immediately jumped up and put his hand in his pocket where the crook bristled. He calmed down only when he got into his corner ... Blumkin was very boastful, also cowardly, but, in general, a sweet guy ... He was big, fat, black, curly with very thick lips, always wet. Since this description refers to the 1920 year, it is easy to conclude that Blumkin at that time had mental problems. For example, when he left “Cafe of Poets” after midnight, he literally begged someone of his acquaintances to go with him to his house, that is, he clearly was afraid of a real or imaginary attempt on his life. Shershenevich wrote about it like this: “He adored the role of the victim,” and also: “... he was terribly afraid of illness, colds, drafts, flies (carriers of epidemics) and dampness on the streets.” But, however, this is only one side of his "photographs". But what will happen if we turn over another?
The fact is that no matter who he is, it turned out that his only deed in July 1918 could completely change the whole history Russia, and may even be the course of the entire First World War. That is, a man got to the bifurcation point, but that he was by that time a man, let's see ...
Like all people, Jacob Blumkin, and he is Simha-Yankel Gershev Blumkin, was born ... Born in a family that lived in Odessa, Moldavanka, and officially in 1898, but he himself asserted that in March, 1900. The workplace of his father in his biography, he also changed repeatedly, until he stopped at the option with his father - a small Jewish trader-clerk.
In 1914, he graduated from the Talmudtor (a free Jewish primary school for children from impoverished families, which was headed at that time by the famous Jewish writer - "the grandfather of Jewish literature" Mendele-Moiher-Sforim (Ya. A. Sholom)), and began to work daily bread for the sake of , replacing in the labor field is not one profession. He was also an electrician, and worked in the tram depot, and working on the stage in the theater, and at the cannery of the Avrich brothers and Israilson. At the same time, he managed to write poems, and they even published in local newspapers “Odessa sheet”, “Gudok” and the magazine “Spikes”. The atmosphere in the family was distinguished by revolutionism and polarity of judgment: the elder brother Leo held anarchist views, and Sister Rosa considered herself a Social Democrat. Moreover, both older brothers, Isai and Lev, worked as journalists in a number of Odessa newspapers, and brother Nathan became known as a playwright (alias "Bazilevsky"). There were still brothers, but there is no information about them. Well, why be surprised. Child mortality then was very high.
Blumkin himself wrote about this time in the following way: “In the conditions of Jewish provincial poverty, squeezed between national oppression and social deprivation, I grew up provided by my own children's destiny.” Well, the childhood and youth of many Odessans at that time were inextricably linked with the world of the Jap “Yaponchik” - “the king of gangsters”. As for Blumkin's first acquaintance with the revolutionary movement, it is clear that Brother Lev and Sister Rosa, of course, have tried. But the Social Democrats Yashka seemed boring and uninteresting. Well, what's the point of reading some boring pamphlets of some obscure foreigners? Whether the slogan is “Anarchy is the mother of order!” However, when he studied at a technical school in 1915 and met a group of anarchist communists, this passion was short-lived.
On the other hand, student Social Revolutionary Valery Kudelsky (also a local journalist who also wrote poetry, a friend of Kotovsky in prison, and then Mayakovsky in the “poetry shop”), in October 1917, managed to prove Blyumkin that there was no better party for the Social Revolutionaries. and she joined by joining the left wing!
A friend of Jacob since he was sixteen years old, and also a poet, Peter Zaitsev, later wrote that Blumkin at first "did not take any part in the political struggle," was always "not clean at hand ... he took part in Odessa in the dirtiest stories," including the trade in fake delays from military service.
What did Jacob do on the eve of the “Great October Revolution”? And different! According to some information, he lived at that time in Kharkov, where he worked as an agitator for the “elections to the Constituent Assembly” and in August-October 1917 of the year went to the Volga region as such.
Then, in January, 1918 of the year, Blyumkin, along with Mishka Yapadchik, took an active part in the creation in Odessa of the First Volunteer Iron Detachment from the lumpen proletariat and the sailor's machine-gun detachment. This detachment played a major role in the well-known “Odessa revolution”, and it was here that our Jacob became friends not only with Jap, but also with many leaders of the maximalist Socialist Revolutionaries: B. Cherkunov, P. Zaitsev, anarchist J. Dubman. Interestingly, Cherkunov at that time was none other than the commissar of that same sailor Zheleznyakov, and the poet Peter Zaitsev became the chief of staff of the Odessa dictator Mikhail Muravyev. Moreover, as Blumkin himself wrote about him, he took with him "many millions from Odessa." Note that Blumkin himself was constantly spinning alongside large, but shadow cash flows, that is, he correctly understood that convictions were convictions, and money — money!
There, in Odessa, he also met another man of the adventurous warehouse and for some reason he was also a poet (and the poets were not adventurers then we had, I wonder? - V.O.) —A. Erdman, who was a member of the "Union for the Defense of Homeland and Freedom" and in addition was also ... an English spy. There is an assumption that it was he, Erdman, who had just arranged Blumkin to work in ... the Cheka. Because it was like this: in April of 1918, this Erdman, under the guise of Lithuanian anarchist leader Birze, placed part of the anarchist units in Moscow under his control, while he also worked as an operational officer to collect information in the Cheka. Erdman wrote and several denunciations of Muravyov, the result of which was the work that brought the Bolsheviks to him. Obviously, he did all this in order to provoke the Bolshevik government of Moscow to the conflict with Muravyov in Odessa. Like it or not, you can only guess. Another thing is important that the friendship between Erdman and Blumkin, having begun in Odessa, was not interrupted in Moscow. And at first Erdman got into the Cheka, and then Blumkin himself!
In March, 1918 of the year became the chief of staff of the 3-th Ukrainian Soviet "Odessa" army, whose task was to stop the onset of the Austro-Hungarian troops. But there were only four thousand soldiers in it, and it is not surprising that she retreated with only one rumor about the approach of the Austro-Hungarian troops. Part of the fighters along with Blumkin on ships was evacuated ... to Feodosia, where he "for special military services" (!) Was appointed Commissar of the Military Council of the Army and Assistant Chief of Staff.
Now she has been given a new task: to detain the German, Austro-Hungarian troops and units of the Ukrainian Rada advancing on the Donbass. And now this army did not run away, but ... "sold out" to hundreds of small detachments, which, evading fighting with the occupiers, engaged in the expropriation of money from banks and the weaning of food from the peasants. Blumkin had a direct connection to this. For example, behind him was the expropriation of four million rubles from the State Bank of the town of Slavyansk. And then he offered a bribe (to hush up “this business”) to the left Social Revolutionary leader Peter Lazarev, commander of the Third Revolutionary Army. Moreover, Blumkin left part of this money for himself, and part of it - to transfer the party of the Left Social Revolutionaries to the fund!
But “sewing in a bag” is not concealed, and being under the threat of arrest, Blumkin was forced to return to the bank three and a half million rubles. But what happened to 500 thousands, is unknown. But it is known that Peter Lazarev fled from the front and even from the post of army commander after that. And archival documents show that 80 thousand rubles (the amount is also considerable for that time!) Of these four millions disappeared with him.
After that, in May 1918, Blumkin was in Moscow, but he happily escaped the court, he was not put in prison, but was made for all his "exploits" ... by a chekist! Yes, the leadership of the party of the Left Social Revolutionaries sent him to the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission of the Russian Federation as the head of the department for combating international espionage !!! And since June, he has become the head of the counterintelligence department for monitoring the protection of embassies in connection with their possible criminal activities! That is, the figure in the hierarchy of the Cheka is very, very significant. How, why, for what such merits he was put on this solely responsible post is unknown. Is that some knowledge of German?
It is interesting that in the recommendation of the Central Committee of the Left Social Revolutionaries, according to which he got into the Cheka, he was called "an expert on the disclosure of conspiracies." That's just what, when, and where he opened conspiracies? After all, he himself in his memoirs does not mention one such open conspiracy, and he probably could, couldn’t he? No, no wonder it is very correctly said - “loot wins good”. Probably, if he had not hapnul 500 thousands, but all 4 million, he would have sat in the chair of Dzerzhinsky himself. Why? Why not? In revolution everything is possible. No wonder, recalling Jacob Blumkin, Leon Trotsky once wrote: "The revolution chooses young lovers." According to him, Blumkin "had a strange career and played an even more strange role." It turns out that he was almost one of the “founding fathers” of the Cheka, and he himself became the ultimate victim of his own creation.
Meanwhile, by the summer of 1918, the party of the Left SRs numerically increased to 100 thousands of people. And this force, having the experience of the Bolsheviks before our eyes, was violently striving for power. She was supported by numerous peasantry, and it was the Social Revolutionaries who developed the tactics of terror to the utmost detail. Finally, the glory of “honest revolutionaries” was on their side. Many believed that it was the Social Revolutionaries who could correct the “distortions of October” and actually soften the “revolutionary dictatorship” of presumptuous Bolsheviks. It was a very important circumstance, on which at the same time another layered ...
Another circumstance was the arrival in Moscow 1918 in April of the diplomatic representative of Germany in Russia, Count Wilhelm von Mirbach, who was also endowed with special powers. Mirbach's task was very difficult: to keep Soviet Russia from dissolving the Brest Peace. Germany needed to get 1 million prisoners of war soldiers from camps in Siberia to replenish the army on the Western Front, then needed the Black Sea Fleet, bread, lard, leather from Ukraine, as well as steel, rolled, coal, wood, linen, foam - and all that on darmovschinka pumped out kaiser germany from soviet russia and you don’t remember. He was deservedly considered a master of political intrigue, since Mirbach managed to maintain ties even with obvious opponents of the Brest Peace. And ... in words, they scolded him, but in fact ... like Germany, everything she needed was received, and she continued to receive. The problem was the captured Germans, Austrians and Hungarians, blocked, fortunately for the Entente, by the insurgent Czechoslovakians in Siberia.
It is not known exactly how Blumkin came to the German ambassador, though perhaps through his relative, a captive Austrian army officer Robert von Mirbach, who lived in a Moscow hotel since April 1918 after his release from captivity. In the same place lived the Swedish actress M. Landstrom, who unexpectedly then committed suicide. What is the connection? Yes, no kind ... Yes, only in this kind of cases there are no accidents, and there is always some connection.
Blumkin recruited a former officer as an informant and at the same time through him negotiated with the count. About what? God only knows! Did money play any role in their relationship? Without any doubt! Who gave them to whom? Of course, Mirbach and, of course, Blumkin. But on what they went and to whom? Most likely, they were "smeared" by too radical opponents of the Brest peace. But ... those who take money from strangers should always be wary of their own. Can you imagine if Lenin learned about the reception of bribes by the Social Revolutionaries from the Germans? Like, in words you are all "against", and put in your pocket ?! It would have been such a scandal that its consequences would have hit the entire party of the Left Social Revolutionaries!
And it is not surprising that since June 1918 of the year, Blumkin and the same ever-memorable Muravyov are beginning to convince the Central Committee of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries that they kill Mirbach and thereby provoke the start of the “revolutionary liberation war with German imperialism”, and at the same time remove “obscene” from the government "Brest Peace, that is, Lenin and his supporters!
Already 24 June 1918, the CEC of the Left Social Revolutionary Party decided that the time had come. That the ratification of the Brest peace by the Bolshevik government cannot be reconciled, and one should resort to the tactics of terror against "prominent representatives of German imperialism."
Then it was Blumkin who was called to kill Ambassador Mirbach and developed his plan, approved by the Social Revolutionary Central Committee, and the attempt itself was set for July 5 on 1918. But for some unknown reason, Jacob moved it for one day.
Interestingly, Blumkin left a farewell letter, something like a political testament, in which he wrote: “The Black Hundreds-anti-Semites have accused Jews of Germanophilism since the beginning of the war, and now they are laying responsibility on Jews for Bolshevik politics and for a separate peace with the Germans. Therefore, the protest of the Jew against the betrayal of Russia and the allies by the Bolsheviks in Brest-Litovsk is of particular importance. I, as a Jew, as a socialist, take upon myself the commission of an act that is this protest. ” The whole world should know that the “Jewish socialist” was not afraid to sacrifice his life in protest ... ”.
Everything else was a matter of technique. An official paper was printed on the letterhead of the Cheka, which supposedly Comrade Blumkin sent for talks with the German ambassador "on a matter of direct relevance to the German ambassador himself." The signature of Dzerzhinsky on the document was faked by the left SRs P. Proshyan, and V. Alexandrovich, who held the position of deputy Dzerzhinsky, “attached” the seal to the mandate and ordered to issue the car to Blumkin from the Cheka garage.
Two bombs (I wonder what type they were? And Blumkin got two revolvers at Proshian’s apartment. Nikolai Andreev went with the assistants, again well-known in Odessa and also in Moscow, and also a Black Sea sailor from the Cheka.
6 July 1918 of the year, at 14 hours, Blumkin and Andreev, leaving the sailor and driver in the car at the embassy gate, entered his building and demanded an audience with the ambassador. As the ambassador was having dinner at that time, the guests were offered to wait. Counselor of the embassy, Count Bassewitz and senior adviser Rizler, came to them, but representatives of the Cheka continued to insist on a personal meeting with Count Mirbach.
As a result, Mirbach came to them all the same. Blumkin began to tell him about the arrest of his nephew, and then reached into his briefcase to get the necessary documents. However, he pulled a revolver out of his briefcase and fired first at Mirbach, and then at the two servicemen accompanying him at that time. He shot three times and ran. But Andreev noticed that Mirbach was only wounded and not killed! He threw a briefcase with bombs at his feet, but they did not explode, but simply rolled out onto the floor. Then he raised one of the bombs and threw it with force towards the victim. The explosion was followed by a deafening. In the hall flew glass.
Blumkin and Andreev jumped out the window, but since I had to jump from the second floor, Blumkin twisted his leg. The security of the embassy began to shoot and yet both terrorists managed to climb over the fence, were able to get into the car and hid in the nearest alley. Mirbach, riddled with shrapnel, died a few minutes later.
There is another version of this terrorist attack on which Blumkin, climbing over the fence, received a bullet in the buttock. And Mirbach was killed just by a sailor, and he removed Blumkin from the lattice on which he hung, catching his pants. But exactly how everything was there, is unknown. Panic, explosion, blood, shooting, everyone is running - it is very difficult to restore the truth.
To be continued ...
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