Jacob Sverdlov. 100 anniversary of the death of the "devil of the revolution"
16 March 1919 of the year, 100 years ago, died Jacob Sverdlov - one of the most ambitious figures of the October Revolution and the establishment of Soviet power in Russia. The name of Sverdlov still bears a whole huge area in the Urals, a lot of streets and squares in various cities of the country. And this is despite the fact that in the arrangement of Soviet Russia, Yakov Sverdlov had a chance to take part less than one and a half years. He died without seeing the end of the Civil War. Who was this person, whose name meets the most ambiguous estimates of both historians and ordinary citizens?
In November 1917, almost immediately after the October Revolution, Yakov Sverdlov headed the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets (RSFSR All-Russian Central Executive Committee) and remained its chairman until his death 16 March 1919. Thus, it was Yakov Sverdlov who was formally considered the head of the RSFSR in November 1917 - March 1919. These were the most difficult and dramatic years in stories Soviet Russia, which fell to laying the foundations of the new state, the construction of new political and military institutions, the "Red Terror", the Civil War. And in all these events, the most significant and vivid part was taken by Jacob Sverdlov.
Jacob Sverdlov became the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR only in 31 a year. For those times, if not to take into account the monarchs, who received power by inheritance, it was a very young age for the highest head of state. Sverdlov was fifteen years younger than Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and even seven years younger than Stalin. Nevertheless, despite his age, he played such a significant role in party life, that immediately after the revolution he occupied the most important state post in Soviet Russia.
A native of Nizhny Novgorod, Jacob Sverdlov had the usual biography of many Russian revolutionaries of the time. Coming from a Jewish family, in his childhood and youth he bore a different name - according to some data, the future Bolshevik leader was called Yankel Miraimovich, according to others - Yeshua-Solomon Movshevich. His father, Mikhail Izrailevich Sverdlov, was an engraver by profession. After his wife, Yakov Elizaveta Solomonovna’s mother, died in 1900, Mikhail Sverdlov adopted Orthodoxy and married a second marriage to a Russian woman, Maria Alexandrovna Kormiltseva. Thus, Yakov Sverdlov had three full-blooded brothers, two full-blooded sisters and two brothers by his father.
Young Jacob Sverdlov graduated only four classes of the gymnasium, and then went to study the pharmacy craft. And already in such young years he became close with the Nizhny Novgorod revolutionaries. In principle, this was not surprising. For Jewish youth at the beginning of the twentieth century, the path to revolutionaries was one of the most common life scenarios. Young Sverdlov did not escape him either, who quickly realized that it was incommensurably more boring to learn the pharmacy craft than to master the wisdom of underground work.
In 1901, sixteen-year-old Sverdlov joined the RSDLP. After the party split at the II Congress of the RSDLP, he took the side of the Bolsheviks and soon moved to the leading positions in the Yekaterinburg Committee of the RSDLP. In 1905, the twenty-year-old Sverdlov was already a representative of the Central Committee of the RSDLP in the Urals. Even by the standards of the revolutionary environment of those years, such a lightning career, Sverdlov was obliged, first of all, to his personal qualities. What can I say, this man was clever and astute; he understood people from an early age, which later made him the chief personnel officer of the Bolshevik Party.
Jacob Sverdlov played a very important role in the First Russian Revolution of 1905-1907. He headed the Ekaterinburg Council of Workers' Deputies, led the campaign in Yekaterinburg and Perm, was arrested. 1906 to 1909 Sverdlov was in the prisons of the Urals - in Perm and Nizhneturinsk. In the 1910 year, Sverdlov was exiled for three years to the Narym Territory, from where he fled to Petersburg three months later. A young and active revolutionary was noted by Vladimir Lenin himself, after which Sverdlov was co-opted into the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP.
The next six years in the life of Sverdlov are again prisons and exiles. 5 May 1911 Sverdlov was again exiled to the Narym Territory, but fled from Narym in December. Sverdlov was arrested in February 1913, after which he and Stalin were exiled to the Turukhansk region. This time, Yakov Sverdlov returned from exile only in March 1917 of the year, after the February Revolution, and immediately joined the revolutionary activities.
At first he was sent to work at Yekaterinburg he was used to, and then he personally met with Vladimir Lenin and was included in the party’s Central Committee. Sverdlov headed the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the RSDLP and became responsible for organizing questions and implementing the instructions of the party leadership. However, quite quickly, Jacob Sverdlov gained fame not only as a backstage leader and organizer, but also as an excellent speaker, often speaking on behalf of the Bolsheviks at numerous rallies. It was Sverdlov, by the way, that gave rise to the famous fashion for black leather cuffs, which was adopted by party activists and Red Guard commanders. It is for this jacket Sverdlov and nicknamed "the Black Devil of the Bolsheviks."
- then recalled Leon Trotsky in the article "In Memory of Sverdlov".
The period between March and October 1917 was a time of rapid strengthening of Sverdlov’s political influence. Pretty soon, Sverdlov turned from a little-known young revolutionary into one of the key figures in the Bolshevik party, which could well compete with Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Stalin and other "heavyweights." Moreover, Sverdlov was superior to all the listed Bolshevik leaders in the degree of influence on Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.
It was Sverdlov who presided over the historic meeting of the Central Committee 10 in October 1917 of the year, at which it was decided to seize power by force. He also headed the Military Revolutionary Center, which was directly responsible for the preparation and implementation of the armed uprising. In fact, Sverdlov concentrated in his hands a colossal power, was able to control the personnel questions of the Central Committee of the party.
25 of October (7 of November) of 1917 of the year, during the October Revolution, Lev Kamenev was elected chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, but already 8 (21) of November of 1917 of the year, at the initiative of Lenin, this post was occupied by Jacob Sverdlov. Lenin believed that Sverdlov, despite his youth, was the most suitable candidate for this post. Sverdlov also headed the commission for the preparation of the Constitution of the RSFSR.
In the conditions of the construction of a new state, the solution of the agrarian question acquired particular importance. Jacob Sverdlov was one of the initiators of the official party course to split the Russian village into "kulaks" and "poor people". He also acted as the initiator of the policy of revealing, brutally suppressing any anti-Soviet speeches of the Cossacks on the Don.
Naturally, by his actions, Sverdlov has earned hatred from a significant part of the peasantry, not to mention the Cossacks. It was with him that the negative consequences for the people of the revolution were tied to the greatest extent. Opponents of the Bolsheviks in the revolutionary camp - the Left Social Revolutionaries - also had their scores for fanatical Sverdlov. They considered Sverdlov guilty of the anti-peasant policy of the Soviets and during the famous insurrection in the summer of 1918, the first thing they planned was to arrest Sverdlov.
The “whites” hated Sverdlov even more, because he was the initiator of the “Red Terror” policy. In the White movement, the point of view was even popular that in fact the country was ruled by Yakov Sverdlov, and Lenin was more of a symbolic figure. To some extent, the proponents of this version were close to the truth. In the 1918 year, Sverdlov enjoyed enormous influence, especially on the personnel policy of the Central Committee, on the internal policy of the Bolshevik Party.
It is believed that Yakov Sverdlov personally authorized the execution of the former emperor Nikolai Romanov and his family members in Yekaterinburg. Although it is still not known exactly who exactly ordered the destruction of the royal family, but Leon Trotsky recalled that Lenin and Sverdlov did it.
When an assassination attempt against Lenin occurred in August 1918, Sverdlov initiated the "Red Terror". By the way, there is a version that the attempt on Lenin was "ordered" by Sverdlov himself. Fanny Kaplan was a friend of his sister, also a revolutionary. But when the attempt on the leader failed and Lenin got off with injuries, Fanny Kaplan was immediately shot.
The order for the shooting of Kaplan was personally given by Sverdlov, although it would seem that there was a wonderful chance to arrange an indicative trial of the woman who had shot at the leader of the revolution. But Kaplan was quick to shoot as quickly as possible, and the next decision of Sverdlov was the start of the “Red Terror” against representatives of the “exploiting classes”. In connection with the plight of Vladimir Ilyich, Sverdlov exercised the actual control of the Soviet state and was regarded as one of the most likely successors to the leader.
It seemed that in the life of Yakov Sverdlov, who turned out to be on the highest floors of the power of a huge country in 33, everything is going as well as possible. The chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was distinguished by colossal vigor, great ability to work and initiative. This political machine! He traveled around Soviet Russia, met with workers and Red Army soldiers, strengthened the vertical hierarchy of the party hierarchy. Who knew that the tragic end of the all-powerful Jacob was so close.
6 March 1919, Jacob Sverdlov left Kharkov, where he was on a business trip, to Moscow. According to the official version, exactly on the way to the capital, the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee became ill with the Spaniard. Recall that the epidemic of the Spanish flu in 1918-1919. raging in almost all countries of the world. She died in these years, according to various estimates, from 50 million to 100 million people. The disease did not understand the young and old, ordinary people and the powerful. Therefore, it is likely that the "Spaniard" could not spare the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviet Russia.
9 March 1919, the Central Executive Committee reported a serious illness of its chairman, and 16 March 1919, it was officially announced that Yakov Sverdlov died on 34-year life. Two days after his death, 18 March 1919, Jacob Sverdlov was buried near the Kremlin wall. It was one of the first "Kremlin dead" of such a rank.
- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin emphasized in his mourning speech at the burial of Yakov Sverdlov.
And the leader of the revolution was from what to worry. Sverdlov really was Lenin’s right-handed person, solved numerous organizational issues for him, and now the leader was alone, surrounded by rival amongst himself and very unfriendly to each other tuned Bolshevik leaders of the “first echelon”.
From what Sverdlov died, it is still unknown. Some historians put forward a strange version that Sverdlov was allegedly beaten to death by workers in Orel, before whom the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided to speak. According to another version, Sverdlov was poisoned on the personal instructions of Vladimir Ilyich, who was afraid of increasing his political influence.
On the other hand, if we consider the version of the poisoning, it was probably not Lenin who was involved in it, but those Bolshevik leaders who saw in Sverdlov a dangerous adversary in the upcoming struggle for power.
In any case, it is safe to say that if then, 100 years ago, in 34, the life of Yakov Sverdlov had not been interrupted, the history of Russia could have been different. Who knows, for example, whether Stalin would have come to power, since Sverdlov was smarter than Trotsky and could well, stay alive in the 1919 year, prevent Stalin from gaining.
In November 1917, almost immediately after the October Revolution, Yakov Sverdlov headed the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets (RSFSR All-Russian Central Executive Committee) and remained its chairman until his death 16 March 1919. Thus, it was Yakov Sverdlov who was formally considered the head of the RSFSR in November 1917 - March 1919. These were the most difficult and dramatic years in stories Soviet Russia, which fell to laying the foundations of the new state, the construction of new political and military institutions, the "Red Terror", the Civil War. And in all these events, the most significant and vivid part was taken by Jacob Sverdlov.
Jacob Sverdlov became the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR only in 31 a year. For those times, if not to take into account the monarchs, who received power by inheritance, it was a very young age for the highest head of state. Sverdlov was fifteen years younger than Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and even seven years younger than Stalin. Nevertheless, despite his age, he played such a significant role in party life, that immediately after the revolution he occupied the most important state post in Soviet Russia.
A native of Nizhny Novgorod, Jacob Sverdlov had the usual biography of many Russian revolutionaries of the time. Coming from a Jewish family, in his childhood and youth he bore a different name - according to some data, the future Bolshevik leader was called Yankel Miraimovich, according to others - Yeshua-Solomon Movshevich. His father, Mikhail Izrailevich Sverdlov, was an engraver by profession. After his wife, Yakov Elizaveta Solomonovna’s mother, died in 1900, Mikhail Sverdlov adopted Orthodoxy and married a second marriage to a Russian woman, Maria Alexandrovna Kormiltseva. Thus, Yakov Sverdlov had three full-blooded brothers, two full-blooded sisters and two brothers by his father. Young Jacob Sverdlov graduated only four classes of the gymnasium, and then went to study the pharmacy craft. And already in such young years he became close with the Nizhny Novgorod revolutionaries. In principle, this was not surprising. For Jewish youth at the beginning of the twentieth century, the path to revolutionaries was one of the most common life scenarios. Young Sverdlov did not escape him either, who quickly realized that it was incommensurably more boring to learn the pharmacy craft than to master the wisdom of underground work.
In 1901, sixteen-year-old Sverdlov joined the RSDLP. After the party split at the II Congress of the RSDLP, he took the side of the Bolsheviks and soon moved to the leading positions in the Yekaterinburg Committee of the RSDLP. In 1905, the twenty-year-old Sverdlov was already a representative of the Central Committee of the RSDLP in the Urals. Even by the standards of the revolutionary environment of those years, such a lightning career, Sverdlov was obliged, first of all, to his personal qualities. What can I say, this man was clever and astute; he understood people from an early age, which later made him the chief personnel officer of the Bolshevik Party.
Jacob Sverdlov played a very important role in the First Russian Revolution of 1905-1907. He headed the Ekaterinburg Council of Workers' Deputies, led the campaign in Yekaterinburg and Perm, was arrested. 1906 to 1909 Sverdlov was in the prisons of the Urals - in Perm and Nizhneturinsk. In the 1910 year, Sverdlov was exiled for three years to the Narym Territory, from where he fled to Petersburg three months later. A young and active revolutionary was noted by Vladimir Lenin himself, after which Sverdlov was co-opted into the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP.
The next six years in the life of Sverdlov are again prisons and exiles. 5 May 1911 Sverdlov was again exiled to the Narym Territory, but fled from Narym in December. Sverdlov was arrested in February 1913, after which he and Stalin were exiled to the Turukhansk region. This time, Yakov Sverdlov returned from exile only in March 1917 of the year, after the February Revolution, and immediately joined the revolutionary activities.
At first he was sent to work at Yekaterinburg he was used to, and then he personally met with Vladimir Lenin and was included in the party’s Central Committee. Sverdlov headed the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the RSDLP and became responsible for organizing questions and implementing the instructions of the party leadership. However, quite quickly, Jacob Sverdlov gained fame not only as a backstage leader and organizer, but also as an excellent speaker, often speaking on behalf of the Bolsheviks at numerous rallies. It was Sverdlov, by the way, that gave rise to the famous fashion for black leather cuffs, which was adopted by party activists and Red Guard commanders. It is for this jacket Sverdlov and nicknamed "the Black Devil of the Bolsheviks."
I think that in the introduction of the leather "form" a great role was played by the example of Sverdlov. He himself, at any rate, walked in the skin from head to foot, that is, from boots to leather cap. From him, as from a central organizational figure, these clothes, which somehow corresponded to the character of that time, spread widely,
- then recalled Leon Trotsky in the article "In Memory of Sverdlov".
The period between March and October 1917 was a time of rapid strengthening of Sverdlov’s political influence. Pretty soon, Sverdlov turned from a little-known young revolutionary into one of the key figures in the Bolshevik party, which could well compete with Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Stalin and other "heavyweights." Moreover, Sverdlov was superior to all the listed Bolshevik leaders in the degree of influence on Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.
It was Sverdlov who presided over the historic meeting of the Central Committee 10 in October 1917 of the year, at which it was decided to seize power by force. He also headed the Military Revolutionary Center, which was directly responsible for the preparation and implementation of the armed uprising. In fact, Sverdlov concentrated in his hands a colossal power, was able to control the personnel questions of the Central Committee of the party.
25 of October (7 of November) of 1917 of the year, during the October Revolution, Lev Kamenev was elected chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, but already 8 (21) of November of 1917 of the year, at the initiative of Lenin, this post was occupied by Jacob Sverdlov. Lenin believed that Sverdlov, despite his youth, was the most suitable candidate for this post. Sverdlov also headed the commission for the preparation of the Constitution of the RSFSR.
In the conditions of the construction of a new state, the solution of the agrarian question acquired particular importance. Jacob Sverdlov was one of the initiators of the official party course to split the Russian village into "kulaks" and "poor people". He also acted as the initiator of the policy of revealing, brutally suppressing any anti-Soviet speeches of the Cossacks on the Don.
Naturally, by his actions, Sverdlov has earned hatred from a significant part of the peasantry, not to mention the Cossacks. It was with him that the negative consequences for the people of the revolution were tied to the greatest extent. Opponents of the Bolsheviks in the revolutionary camp - the Left Social Revolutionaries - also had their scores for fanatical Sverdlov. They considered Sverdlov guilty of the anti-peasant policy of the Soviets and during the famous insurrection in the summer of 1918, the first thing they planned was to arrest Sverdlov.
The “whites” hated Sverdlov even more, because he was the initiator of the “Red Terror” policy. In the White movement, the point of view was even popular that in fact the country was ruled by Yakov Sverdlov, and Lenin was more of a symbolic figure. To some extent, the proponents of this version were close to the truth. In the 1918 year, Sverdlov enjoyed enormous influence, especially on the personnel policy of the Central Committee, on the internal policy of the Bolshevik Party.
It is believed that Yakov Sverdlov personally authorized the execution of the former emperor Nikolai Romanov and his family members in Yekaterinburg. Although it is still not known exactly who exactly ordered the destruction of the royal family, but Leon Trotsky recalled that Lenin and Sverdlov did it.
When an assassination attempt against Lenin occurred in August 1918, Sverdlov initiated the "Red Terror". By the way, there is a version that the attempt on Lenin was "ordered" by Sverdlov himself. Fanny Kaplan was a friend of his sister, also a revolutionary. But when the attempt on the leader failed and Lenin got off with injuries, Fanny Kaplan was immediately shot.
The order for the shooting of Kaplan was personally given by Sverdlov, although it would seem that there was a wonderful chance to arrange an indicative trial of the woman who had shot at the leader of the revolution. But Kaplan was quick to shoot as quickly as possible, and the next decision of Sverdlov was the start of the “Red Terror” against representatives of the “exploiting classes”. In connection with the plight of Vladimir Ilyich, Sverdlov exercised the actual control of the Soviet state and was regarded as one of the most likely successors to the leader.
It seemed that in the life of Yakov Sverdlov, who turned out to be on the highest floors of the power of a huge country in 33, everything is going as well as possible. The chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was distinguished by colossal vigor, great ability to work and initiative. This political machine! He traveled around Soviet Russia, met with workers and Red Army soldiers, strengthened the vertical hierarchy of the party hierarchy. Who knew that the tragic end of the all-powerful Jacob was so close.
6 March 1919, Jacob Sverdlov left Kharkov, where he was on a business trip, to Moscow. According to the official version, exactly on the way to the capital, the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee became ill with the Spaniard. Recall that the epidemic of the Spanish flu in 1918-1919. raging in almost all countries of the world. She died in these years, according to various estimates, from 50 million to 100 million people. The disease did not understand the young and old, ordinary people and the powerful. Therefore, it is likely that the "Spaniard" could not spare the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviet Russia.
9 March 1919, the Central Executive Committee reported a serious illness of its chairman, and 16 March 1919, it was officially announced that Yakov Sverdlov died on 34-year life. Two days after his death, 18 March 1919, Jacob Sverdlov was buried near the Kremlin wall. It was one of the first "Kremlin dead" of such a rank.
We lowered into the grave of the proletarian leader, who did the most for the organization of the working class, for its victory,
- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin emphasized in his mourning speech at the burial of Yakov Sverdlov.
And the leader of the revolution was from what to worry. Sverdlov really was Lenin’s right-handed person, solved numerous organizational issues for him, and now the leader was alone, surrounded by rival amongst himself and very unfriendly to each other tuned Bolshevik leaders of the “first echelon”.
From what Sverdlov died, it is still unknown. Some historians put forward a strange version that Sverdlov was allegedly beaten to death by workers in Orel, before whom the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided to speak. According to another version, Sverdlov was poisoned on the personal instructions of Vladimir Ilyich, who was afraid of increasing his political influence.
On the other hand, if we consider the version of the poisoning, it was probably not Lenin who was involved in it, but those Bolshevik leaders who saw in Sverdlov a dangerous adversary in the upcoming struggle for power.
In any case, it is safe to say that if then, 100 years ago, in 34, the life of Yakov Sverdlov had not been interrupted, the history of Russia could have been different. Who knows, for example, whether Stalin would have come to power, since Sverdlov was smarter than Trotsky and could well, stay alive in the 1919 year, prevent Stalin from gaining.
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