Boris Savinkov is a Russian politician and writer. First of all, he is known as a terrorist who was part of the leadership of the Combat Organization of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. He took an active part in the White movement. Throughout his career, he often used pseudonyms, in particular Halley James, B.N., Veniamin, Kseshinsky, Kramer.

Family

Boris Savinkov was born in Kharkov in 1879. His father was an assistant prosecutor in a military court, but was fired for being too liberal views. In 1905 he died in a psychiatric hospital.

The mother of the hero of our article was a playwright and journalist, she described the biography of her sons under the pseudonym S.A. Shevil. Boris Viktorovich Savinkov had an older brother, Alexander. He joined the Social Democrats, for which he was exiled to Siberia. In exile in Yakutia, he committed suicide in 1904. Younger brother Victor is an officer of the Russian army, participated in exhibitions of the "Jack of Diamonds". Lived in exile.

There were also two sisters in the family. Vera worked in the magazine "Russian Wealth", and Sofia participated in the Socialist Revolutionary movement.

Education

Boris Savinkov himself graduated from high school in Warsaw, then studied at St. Petersburg University, from where he was expelled after participating in student riots. I studied in Germany for some time.

Boris Viktorovich Savinkov was first arrested in 1897 in Warsaw. He was accused of revolutionary activities. At that moment, he was a member of the “Workers’ Banner” and “Socialist” groups, which considered themselves social democrats.

In 1899 he was detained again, but was soon released. In the same year it improved personal life, when he married the daughter of the famous writer Gleb Uspensky, Vera. Boris Savinkov had two children from her.

At the beginning of the 20th century, he began to actively publish in the newspaper "Russian Thought". Participates in the St. Petersburg Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class. In 1901 he was arrested again and sent to Vologda.

At the head of the Combat Organization

An important stage in the biography of Boris Savinkov comes when in 1903 he flees from exile to Geneva. There he becomes an active member of its Combat Organization.

Takes part in the preparation and implementation of several terrorist attacks on Russian territory. This is the murder of the Minister of Internal Affairs Vyacheslav Pleve, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. Among them were unsuccessful attempts on the lives of Moscow Governor-General Fyodor Dubasov and Minister of Internal Affairs Pyotr Durnovo.

Soon Savinkov becomes the deputy head of the Yevno Azef Combat Organization, and when he is exposed, he himself heads it.

In 1906, while in Sevastopol, he prepared the murder of the commander Black Sea Fleet Admiral Chukhnin. He is arrested and sentenced to death. However, Boris Viktorovich Savinkov, whose biography is given in this article, manages to escape to Romania.

Life in exile

After this, Boris Savinkov, whose photo is in this article, is forced to remain in exile. In Paris, he meets Gippius and Merezhkovsky, who become his literary patrons.

Savinkov was engaged in literature at that time, writing under the pseudonym V. Ropshin. In 1909, he published the books “Memoirs of a Terrorist” and the story “The Pale Horse.” Boris Savinkov in his latest work talks about a group of terrorists preparing an assassination attempt on major government figures. In addition, it contains discussions about philosophy, religion, psychology and ethics. In 1914 he published the novel "That Which Wasn't There." The Social Revolutionaries were very skeptical about this literary experience, even demanding that Savinkov be expelled from their ranks.

When Azef was exposed in 1908, the hero of our article did not believe in his betrayal for a long time. He even acted as a defender during the court of honor in Paris. Afterwards I tried to revive it myself Combat organization, but he failed to organize a single successful assassination attempt. In 1911 it was dissolved.

By that time he already had a second wife, Evgenia Zilberberg, with whom he had a son, Lev. With the outbreak of the First World War, he received a certificate of war correspondent.

Trying to become a dictator

New stage in the biography of Boris Savinkov comes after February Revolution- He returns to Russia. In April 1917 he resumed political activity. Savinkov becomes a commissioner of the Provisional Government, agitates for the continuation of the war to a victorious end, and supports Kerensky.

Soon he becomes assistant to the Minister of War, beginning to claim dictatorial powers. However, everything turns out unexpectedly. In August, Kerensky summons him to Headquarters for negotiations with Kornilov, then Boris Viktorovich leaves for Petrograd.

When Kornilov sends troops to the capital, he becomes the military governor of Petrograd. He tries to convince Kornilov to submit, and on August 30 he resigns, not agreeing with the changes in the Provisional Government. In October he was expelled from the Socialist Revolutionary Party because of the “Kornilov affair.”

Confrontation with the Bolsheviks

The October Revolution is met with hostility. Tried to help the Provisional Government in the besieged Winter Palace, but to no avail. Afterwards he went to Gatchina, where he received the post of commissar under General Krasnov’s detachment. On the Don he participated in the formation of the Volunteer Army.

In March 1918, in Moscow, Savinkov created the counter-revolutionary “Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom.” About 800 people included in its composition considered their goal to overthrow Soviet power, establish a dictatorship, and continue the war against Germany. Boris Viktorovich even managed to create several militant groups, but in May the plot was discovered and most of its participants were arrested.

For some time he hid in Kazan and was a member of Kappel’s detachments. Arriving in Ufa, he applied for the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Provisional Government. On behalf of the chairman of the Ufa Directory, he went on a mission to France via Vladivostok.

It is noteworthy that Savinkov was a Freemason. He was a member of lodges both in Russia and in Europe when he found himself in exile. In 1919, he participated in negotiations on assistance to the White movement from the Entente. During the Civil War, he looked for allies in the West, personally communicated with Winston Churchill and

In 1919 he returned to Petrograd. He was hiding in the apartment of Anensky's parents, at that time his portraits were posted all over the city, and a good reward was promised for his capture.

In Warsaw

When the Soviet-Polish War began in 1920, Savinkov settled in Warsaw. Pilsudski himself invited him there. There he created the Russian Political Committee, and together with Merezhkovsky published the newspaper “For Freedom!” He tried to become the head of the anti-Bolshevik peasant uprisings. As a result, in October 1921 he was expelled from the country.

In December, in London, he met with diplomat Leonid Krasin, who wanted to organize his cooperation with the Bolsheviks. Savinkov stated that he was ready for this only if the Cheka was disbanded, private property was recognized, and free elections to the councils were held. After this, Boris Viktorovich met with Churchill, who at that time was the Minister of Colonies, and British Prime Minister George, proposing to put forward these three conditions, previously stated to Krasin, as an ultimatum for recognition of the Soviet government.

During that period, he finally broke all ties with the White movement, starting to look for ways to reach the nationalists. In particular, in 1922 and 1923 he met with Benito Mussolini for this purpose. Soon he found himself in complete political isolation. During this period, Boris Savinkov wrote the story “The Black Horse”. In it, he tries to comprehend the results and results of the ended Civil War.

Homecoming

In 1924, Savinkov came to the USSR illegally. He was lured as part of Operation Syndicate-2, organized by the GPU. In Minsk he is arrested along with his mistress Lyubov Dikgof and her husband. The trial of Boris Savinkov begins. He admits defeat in the confrontation with the Soviet regime and his guilt.

In August 24th he was sentenced to death. It is then commuted to ten years in prison. In prison they provide the opportunity to write books for Boris Viktorovich Savinkov. Some even claim that he was kept in comfortable conditions.

In 1924, he wrote a letter “Why did I recognize Soviet power!” He denies that it was insincere, opportunistic and done to save his life. Savinkov emphasizes that the Bolsheviks’ coming to power was the will of the people, which must be obeyed, and besides, “Russia has already been saved,” he writes. There are still different opinions expressed as to why Boris Savinkov recognized Soviet power. Most are convinced that it was the only possibility for him to save his life.

From prison, he sends letters calling on them to do the same to the leaders of the White movement in exile, calling for them to stop the fight against the USSR.

Death

According to the version followed by the authorities, Savinkov committed suicide on May 7, 1925, taking advantage of the fact that there was no grill on the window in the room where he was taken after a walk. He jumped into the courtyard of the Cheka building on Lubyanka from the fifth floor. He was 46 years old.

According to the conspiracy theory, Savinkov was killed by GPU officers. This version is given by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his novel “The Gulag Archipelago”. The place of his burial is unknown.

Savinkov was married twice. His first wife, Vera Uspenskaya, like him, took part in terrorist activities. In 1935 she was sent into exile. Upon returning, she died of starvation in besieged Leningrad. Their son Victor was arrested among 120 hostages for the murder of Kirov. In 1934 he was shot. Nothing is known about the fate of Tatyana’s daughter, born in 1901.

The second wife of the leader of the Combat Organization, Evgenia, was the sister of the terrorist Lev Zilberberg. She and Savinkov had a son, Lev, in 1912. He became a prose writer, poet and journalist. He took part in the Spanish Civil War, where he was seriously wounded. Lev Savinkov is mentioned by the American classic Ernest Hemingway in his novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls”.

During World War II he participated in the French Resistance. Died in Paris in 1987.

Creative activity

For many, Savinkov is not only a terrorist and Socialist Revolutionary, but also a writer. He began to study literature seriously in 1902. His first published stories, written under the influence of the Polish prose writer Stanislaw Przybyszewski, were criticized by Gorky.

In 1903, in his short story “At Twilight,” a revolutionary first appears who is disgusted with what he is doing and worries that killing is a sin. Subsequently, on the pages of his works one can regularly observe a kind of dispute between the writer and the revolutionary about the admissibility of extreme measures in order to achieve the goal. The SR Combat Organization had an extremely negative attitude towards his literary experience, as a result they became one of the reasons for his overthrow.

Since 1905, Boris Savinkov has written many memoirs, describing literally hot on the heels of the famous terrorist attacks carried out by the Socialist Revolutionary Combat Organization. These “Memoirs of a Terrorist” were first published as a separate edition in 1917, after which they were reprinted several times. Revolutionary Nikolai Tyutchev noted that in these memoirs Savinkov the writer desperately argues with Savinkov the revolutionary, ultimately proving that he is right and that extreme measures are inadmissible to achieve the goal.

In 1907, he began to communicate closely in Paris with Merezhkovsky, who became a kind of mentor in all subsequent activities of the writer. They actively discuss religious views and ideas, attitudes towards revolutionary violence. It was precisely under the influence of Gippius and Merezhkovsky that Savinkov wrote the story “The Pale Horse” in 1909, which he published under the pseudonym V. Ropshin. The plot is based on events that actually happened to him or in his environment. For example, this is the murder of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich by terrorist Kalyaev, whom Savinkov himself directly supervised. The author gives the events described a very apocalyptic connotation, which is already given in the very title of his story. He conducts a thorough psychological analysis of the average terrorist, drawing a parallel with Nietzsche's superman, but who is also seriously poisoned by his own reflection. In the style of this work one can observe a clear influence of modernism.

Among the Socialist Revolutionaries, the story caused deep discontent and criticism. Many considered the image of the main character slanderous. This guess was fueled by the fact that Savinkov himself supported to the last the previous leader of the Combat Organization Azef, who was exposed at the end of 1908.

In 1914, for the first time, the novel “That Which Wasn’t” was published as a separate edition. He is again criticized by his party comrades. This time, taking into account the weakness of the leaders of the revolution, the theme of provocations and the sinfulness of terror, Savinkov makes the main character a repentant terrorist, as in his earlier story “At Twilight”.

In the 1910s, poems by Boris Savinkov appeared in print. They are published in various collections and magazines. They are dominated by Nietzschean motifs of his early prose works. It is noteworthy that during his lifetime he did not collect his own poems; after his death in 1931, Gippius published a collection under the simple title “Book of Poems”.

Khodasevich, who at that moment was in confrontation with Gippius, emphasized that in Savinkov’s poems he reduces the tragedy of a terrorist to the hysteria of a weak, mediocre loser. Even Adamovich, who was close to the aesthetic views of the Merezhkovskys, criticizes the poetic work of Boris Viktorovich.

From 1914 to 1923, Savinkov almost completely abandoned fiction, concentrating on journalism. His famous essays of that period are “In France during the war”, “On the Kornilov case”, “From the active army”, The fight against the Bolsheviks”, “For the Motherland and Freedom”, “On the Eve of new revolution", "On the way to the "third" Russia", "Russian people's volunteer army on the march."

In 1923, while in Paris, he wrote a continuation of the story “The Pale Horse” entitled “The Black Horse”. The same applies to it main character, apocalyptic symbolism is again discernible. The action is moved to the years of the Civil War. Events unfold both in the rear and on the front line.

In this work, Savinkov calls his main character Colonel Georges. The plot is based on Bulak-Balakhovich’s campaign against Mozyr, which took place at the end of 1920. Savinkov then commanded the First Regiment.

The second part is written based on the stories of Colonel Sergei Pavlovsky, whom the writer himself appointed in 1921 to head the rebel and partisan detachments on the Polish border.

The story ends with the third part, which is dedicated to Pavlovsky’s underground work in Moscow in 1923.

Savinkov’s last work was a collection of short stories written in the Lubyanka prison. In it, he satirically describes the life of Russian migrants.

SAVINKOV BORIS VIKTOROVICH

(b. 1879 – d. 1925)

A prominent figure in the Socialist Revolutionary Party, one of the leaders of its Combat Organization, organizer and participant in a number of assassination attempts on prominent tsarist officials, minister of the Provisional Government, one of the organizers of the fight against Bolshevism.

This free flight lasted almost three seconds. A man who fell from a window on the fifth floor of the Lubyanka pre-trial detention center flew for almost three seconds. Almost three seconds of freedom... A body lay on the stones of the prison yard. Blood flowed from his crushed head, which he never spared in the name of the great idea - the Revolution, he did not spare both his own and others. This was the last point in the tragedy of a man, a gambler who put everything on winning and lost everything, including the right to life and the right to a name, crossed out from the lists of the Revolution for decades. His name is Boris Viktorovich Savinkov. The man who made his own, albeit rather terrible, contribution to the struggle for the freedom of the people, did not even receive the right to a grave. Where and how he was buried is unknown.

Of the 68 volumes of the criminal case opened by the OGPU regarding the activities of the Savinkov organization after 1917, three are dedicated to him personally. This personality is quite extraordinary: revolutionary terrorist, fighter, politician, writer. Savinkov participated in the murders of the Minister of Internal Affairs Plehve, the Moscow Governor-General Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, a number of other terrorist acts, and prepared an assassination attempt on the Tsar. He was arrested more than once, sent into northern exile, escaped, again ended up in prison in Sevastopol, sentenced to death, but again managed to escape. After the February Revolution of 1917, he did not serve long as Minister of War and Navy, and then began a long period of struggle with the Bolsheviks, whose ardent enemy he became, by any means, by any means. He was considered in the West; he was included in many high offices of power. In addition, the writer V. Ropshin is also B. Savinkov. He is the author of a number of well-known works: “The Pale Horse” and “The Black Horse,” the novels “What Didn’t Happen” and “Memoirs of a Terrorist,” and the book of essays “In France during the War.” Yes, this man was very gifted, appearing in various guises, multifaceted and artistic - a man with many faces. And the opinions of his contemporaries about him are absolutely contradictory: a lion hunter and a cheap clown on the carpet of history, a cavalry guard of the revolution and a stinking corpse of the revolution, a brilliant individualist and a sentimental executioner. According to the Bolshevik People's Commissar Lunacharsky, Savinkov is “an artist of adventure, a man in highest degree theatrical. I don’t know if he always plays a role in front of himself, but in front of others he always plays a role.” But Winston Churchill, who met Savinkov more than once, saw in him “the wisdom of a statesman, the qualities of a commander and the fortitude of a martyr.”

During the investigation, which began in August 1924, B. Savinkov gave the following testimony about himself. He was born in 1879 in Kharkov. His father was a judge in Warsaw, but he was expelled from service in 1905 for his revolutionary way of thinking. Mother was the sister of the artist Yaroshenko, originally from Poland. Boris had two more brothers and three sisters. Higher education he never received it, because in 1899, for participating in student riots, he was expelled from St. Petersburg University without the right to enter another educational institution in Russia. Then Boris was forced to leave to continue his studies in Germany. At that time he was already married. His chosen one was the daughter of the writer Gleb Uspensky, Vera, and his son Lev grew up in the family. Upon returning to St. Petersburg in the same 1899, B. Savinkov was arrested and after five months of imprisonment in the fortress, he was sent into exile in Vologda. His wife and son went with him.

The aspiring revolutionary initially joined the Plekhanov-type Social Democrats and even made his contribution to this movement. His article “The St. Petersburg labor movement and the practical tasks of the Social Democrats,” written in exile, received a positive review from V. Ulyanov (Lenin), who praised the author for his sincerity and liveliness. But Savinkov was cramped within the framework of Social Democracy. His active nature yearned for something more radical than theoretical reasoning. While still abroad, he met the future leader of the Socialist Revolutionary Party V. M. Chernov. The views of the Social Revolutionaries with their cult of heroic, sacrificial individual feat, a supreme personality sacrificing himself on the altar of the revolutionary struggle and the renunciation of one’s “I” for the sake of the great goal of national and social liberation of the people - all this was much closer to Savinkov, a man of extremes, a maximalist and an extremist. In his revolutionary activities, he will always consider only one thing to be the main thing for himself - terror.

In July 1903, Savinkov escaped from exile and soon found himself in Geneva, where he met one of the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionaries, M. Gotz. By that time, the Socialist Revolutionary Party used terror in its activities. For this purpose, a carefully hidden Combat Organization (BO) was created within the depths of the party, which was led, after the arrest of G. Gershuni, by Yevno Azef. For many years then Savinkov considered him his teacher and friend. Immediately upon arrival in Geneva, Boris declared that he wanted to engage in terrorism. They looked closely at him for some time, and soon...

Savinkov went by the nickname “Theatrical” to the tsarist secret police detectives. Indeed, he was a theater man: the Pole Adolf Tomashkevich, aka Kshesinsky, aka the modest Frenchman Leon Rode, or the representative of a wealthy bicycle company, the English engineer James Halley, or the Belgian citizen Rene Tok, as well as second lieutenant Subbotin, Chernetsky, Kramer, Veniamin. The list goes on. In 1904, Savinkov received his first task - the liquidation of the Minister of Internal Affairs Plehve. Azef developed the assassination plan. Savinkov was appointed head of the group. It included Dora Brilliant, homemade bomb maker Maximilian Schweitzer, Yegor Sazonov, as well as several other people supporting the operation. It was decided to blow up Plehve's carriage with a bomb. A support group under the guise of cab drivers, newsboys, and peddlers monitored all the movements of the minister and his security system, and on March 18, bomb throwers were stationed along Plehve’s entire route. Only the cowardice of one of them, Abram Borishansky, saved the life of the royal dignitary that day. But only on that day. On July 15, dressed in a railway worker's uniform, Sazonov threw a five-kilogram bomb wrapped in newspaper at Plehve's carriage. He was torn to pieces, Sazonov was seriously wounded. He will be sentenced to 10 years of hard labor and commit suicide there. Savinkov was at the scene of the assassination attempt, saw everything with his own eyes, and then. went to the bathhouse. In the evening he left for Moscow to meet with Azef and then abroad.

In 1905, Savinkov was preparing a new terrorist attack. This time the victim was to be the Moscow Governor-General Grand Duke Sergey Aleksandrovich. On February 2, Savinkov’s friend and classmate at the Warsaw gymnasium, Ivan Kalyaev, threw a bomb at the Grand Duke’s carriage. The murder was accomplished, but Kalyaev himself was soon hanged in the Shlisselburg fortress. Meanwhile, Savinkov was already in Geneva. He needed new people who believed in him without hesitation, capable of self-sacrifice, and he knew how to find such people. Why get your hands dirty with blood? On April 23, 1906, Polish student Boris Wnorovsky threw a bomb at the carriage of the Minister of Internal Affairs, Admiral Dubasov. But the minister was lucky; his adjutant, Count Konovnitsyn, was killed. At the same time, Savinkov was preparing an assassination attempt on the Tsar, convincing the aristocrat Tatyana Leontyeva to take this step. True, nothing came of this, and soon he himself was arrested in Sevastopol. There was no mercy to be expected; the sentence was death. But I didn’t want to die. Later, in the novel “The Pale Horse,” Savinkov wrote: “But somehow I couldn’t believe in death. Death seemed unnecessary and therefore impossible. There was not even joy, calm pride that I was dying for a cause. I didn’t want to live, but I didn’t want to die either.” Possessing colossal ambition and the desire to go down in history, Savinkov always paid great attention to the dying confessions of his comrades in the BO. Now his time has come. But I didn’t want to die myself. He was lucky: on the eve of his execution he managed to escape.

A real blow for the ambitious Savinkov was the exposure in 1908 by V. Burtsev of Azef’s provocative activities. For so many years this man was an idol and mentor for Boris Viktorovich! The Social Revolutionaries sentenced Azef to death, but the sentence was not carried out, and his comrades accused Savinkov of this. But in reality, Azef was not killed because everyone was completely confused. Few believed in his betrayal. Savinkov himself said that he did not raise his hand against his former comrade and leader: “At that moment I still loved him like a brother.” Whatever this love may be, the activity of the BO has sharply declined. Azef managed to hand over her militants to the tsarist police. The Social Revolutionaries failed to carry out any more high-profile terrorist attacks.

Until 1917, Savinkov lived in France. During the First World War, he acted as a war correspondent, sending his reports from Paris to Russia. Then, in 1916, his book “In France During the War” appeared. The February Revolution in Russia was unexpected for all Russian emigrant revolutionaries, including Boris Viktorovich. He immediately said goodbye to his wife and son and left for Russia. In April 1917, Savinkov arrived in Petrograd. The Provisional Government, which took over the administration of the country after the abdication of the tsar, included many of his comrades in the Socialist Revolutionary Party - Kerensky, Chernov, Avksentyev - and he, an imperious, active man with dictatorial inclinations, completely plunged into politics. By June 1917, Savinkov had become a fairly prominent figure, exerting a strong influence on Kerensky, the head of government. Having become commissar of the Southwestern Front, he tried to inspire the soldiers to fight to the bitter end, but they no longer wanted to fight. Discipline in the army was falling, chaos was brewing in the country. Savinkov understood that to get out of this, firm power was needed. That’s when his rapprochement began with a person similar to him in character - the general. L. G. Kornilov, appointed on his recommendation as Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Boris Viktorovich himself was approved for the post of manager of the Military Ministry. The British Ambassador to Russia, Buchanan, then wrote in his diary: “...We have come to a curious situation in this country when we welcome the appointment of a terrorist. in the hope that his energy and willpower can still save the army." However, the situation in the country worsened. In such a situation, Savinkov demanded from Kerensky the immediate arrest of the Bolsheviks and the introduction of the death penalty in the rear - it had already been introduced at the front - but Kerensky refused to do this. And then Savinkov resigned, but he did not accept the resignation, but appointed Savinkov military governor of Petrograd.

At the end of August, General Kornilov began his speech, whose goal was to establish in Russia military dictatorship. This frightened the government, and Savinkov’s closeness to the general played a bad joke on him. Despite the fact that the Minister of War denied his participation in the conspiracy, considering it “politically erroneous,” they did not believe him. All his activities were placed under the control of the party. Moreover, on August 31, Kerensky removed him from the post of governor of Petrograd. Then Savinkov, without any explanation, resigned from the post of Minister of War and was expelled from the Socialist Revolutionary Party.

Savinkov met the Bolshevik coup with hostility. He called for a fight against the Bolsheviks, together with the units of General Krasnov, two days after Lenin seized power, he took part in the attack on Petrograd, and after its failure he rushed to the Don, where the government of the Don Republic was created, but he, a revolutionary and terrorist, was met It’s quite cool there, and he went to Moscow. Here he created the “Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom” (SZRS). This organization included monarchists, republicans, socialist-revolutionaries, social democrats of Plekhanov’s persuasion, and Mensheviks - in a word, everyone who was ready to fight the new government with arms in hand. The SZRS included many officers; their total number, according to Savinkov himself, reached 5 thousand people. Colonel Perkhurov and General Rychkov became his assistants. This organization, essentially an underground army, was built on the basis of strict secrecy and consisted of fighting fives. Its program was short and clear: Fatherland, Constituent Assembly, land - to the people. The methods of struggle are known - terror. His main goals are Lenin and Trotsky.

To organize terrorist attacks and maintain the Union, money was needed, and a lot of money. And they were found. Part of the necessary funds was provided by the chairman of the Czech National Committee Masaryk, part by one of the leaders of the Volunteer Army, General Alekseev, and part by the French Embassy. But in May 1918, security officers arrested and shot many Savinkovites. He himself was hiding in the house of the Derental spouses - Alexander Arkadyevich and Lyuba. It was A. A. Derenthal who was in touch with the French.

Although the plan to assassinate Lenin failed, Savinkov’s troops still managed to capture the cities of Yaroslavl, Murom and Rybinsk. True, not for long. The capture of the cities itself was bloody, and their liberation by the Bolsheviks was also accompanied by much blood. The Bolsheviks at that time were already carrying out mass terror, but by that time Savinkov had also moved away from individual terror. After the suppression of the speech, the head of the SZRS, wandering around the Novgorod province for some time, made his way to Petrograd, and from there went to Kazan with false documents. Along the way, he was arrested more than once by the Reds, and the peasants almost shot him, seeing him as a Bolshevik, but he managed to get to the place. Many members of his organization were already here, but the Committee of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch), created under the auspices of the Czech corps, consisting of former prisoners of war, mainly Socialist Revolutionaries, was located here. And Savinkov dissolved the SZRS. However, feeling the distrust of his former party comrades and seeing their inability to rouse the people to fight the Bolsheviks, he joined Colonel Kapel’s detachment as a private, which became famous for its punitive actions. Then there was Siberia and a trip with the Derenthal spouses through Japan to Paris, where he became a representative of the Kolchak government, until the defeat of the admiral’s troops. Here, in Paris, new troubles began: weapons and ammunition for the white movement, participation in protecting the interests of Russia during the discussion of the Treaty of Versailles. But Savinkov's position was quite humiliating. In conversations with British leaders Lloyd George and Churchill, he was constantly hinted that the white armies were, in fact, “pocket” armies of the Entente, and that help had to be paid for—preferably by separating the country’s oil regions from Russia.

In January 1920, Savinkov was invited to Warsaw by the former socialist, and now the owner of Poland, Jozef Pilsudski, inviting him to create a Russian Political Committee and Russian armed formations in Poland. Boris Viktorovich agreed. From the remnants of the armies of Yudenich and Denikin, he short term formed a detachment of about 2.5 thousand people, and he himself volunteered in a cavalry regiment to take part in the campaign against Mozyr. This campaign ended in failure, and then Savinkov, breaking with the White movement, created the “Scientific Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom” (NSZRS), heading it. The program of the organization was: the struggle against Soviet power, the Bolsheviks, monarchists, landowners, for democracy, freedom of speech, press, assembly, small private property, transfer of land into the ownership of peasants, the right to self-determination of peoples who were previously part of Russian Empire. Each person joining the NSZRS took an oath: “I swear and promise, without sparing my strength or my life, to spread the idea of ​​the NSZRS everywhere: to inspire the dissatisfied and rebellious to Soviet power, unite them into revolutionary communities, destroy Soviet governance and destroy the pillars of power of the communists, acting, where possible, openly, with weapons in hand; where not, secretly, by cunning and cunning.”

Since 1921, Savinkov tried to develop the so-called “green movement” in Soviet Russia, relying on the peasantry: guerrilla warfare, with the ruthless extermination of communists by everyone possible ways, first of all – terror. “Our Mother Russia is truly mysterious,” he wrote to A. Derenthal. “The worse it is, the better it seems for her.” The language of the mind is inaccessible to her. She understands or remembers only the whip or revolver. Now we only speak to her in this language, losing the last signs of rotten but thinking Russian intellectuals.” The worse the better! And the blood of the people flowed again. In Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia, a network of underground conspiratorial groups of the NSZRS was created, extermination squads marched across the border from Polish territory, Savinkov again and again planned an assassination attempt on Lenin. But where did he get the money for this? It's simple. Savinkov sold information received from his agents located on Soviet territory to Western intelligence services. The Soviet government demanded that the Polish government expel the Savinkovites from its territory, and the Poles were forced to take this step. Savinkov moved to Paris and lived in the house with Alexander and Lyubov Derenthal, who was his personal secretary.

Savinkov had no intention of stopping the fight against the Bolsheviks, but there was not enough money. He constantly turned to Western governments for help, but they were in no hurry to fork out money, and the Italian dictator Mussolini generally gave Savinkov money instead. your book with a dedicatory inscription. Boris Viktorovich's shares fell, especially after he was unable to organize an assassination attempt on Chicherin, the head of the Soviet delegation at the Genoa Conference in 1922. Savinkov was tired of the incessant struggle, his mental strength was melting away. He was on the verge of a breakdown and already latently understood the futility of what he was doing. His whole life is a struggle. And the result? With the introduction of NEP in Russia, the Bolshevik regime strengthened, and Western business circles were interested in establishing economic relations with the Soviets. In this regard, Savinkov became a hindrance; it was necessary to get rid of him, he had to be “squeezed out” from Western Europe. But where? In Russia. And Savinkov was left to relive the last drama of his life - another betrayal, the betrayal of those he trusted.

Meanwhile, by order of F.E. Dzerzhinsky in 1922, the OGPU authorities launched an operation against Savinkov under the code name “Syndicate-2”, the purpose of which was to lure him into the territory of Soviet Russia and neutralize him. It began with the liquidation of NSZRS cells in the country and the re-recruitment, first of all, of the people closest to Savinkov: his adjutant L. Shesheni, the head of the NSZRS committee in Vilno I. Fomichev and, ultimately, Colonel S. Pavlovsky, sent by Savinkov with an inspection to Moscow. Work was carried out to “seduce” Boris Viktorovich in Paris. The OGPU agents who came here did their best to impose on him, an emigrant who had long been cut off from Russian reality, that a new generation had been born in Russia and that it was fighting the communists in the name of the Russian people. They are waiting only for him, the only one who is able to lead this fight. Boris Viktorovich was pushed to this by both a friend, an English intelligence businessman, or intelligence businessman, Sidney Reilly, and the Soviet People's Commissar L. Krasin, with whom Reilly introduced Savinkov in London. Krasin invited him to confess to his homeland, promising forgiveness and the opportunity to work abroad through the NKID (People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs). In addition, Lenin was already seriously ill, and a struggle was gradually unfolding in Moscow between supporters of continuing the “hard” course and supporters of a softening of the regime. It seemed that everything could change, and Savinkov decided to travel to Russia. On August 15, 1924, he crossed the Soviet-Polish border. Walking with him were Alexander Derenthal and his wife Lyuba, who at that time was no longer only Boris Viktorovich’s personal secretary. He was already married twice, had three children, but his personal life did not work out, and once again burden himself family ties Savinkov didn’t want to. Lyuba’s husband, A. Derenthal, completely accepted this state of affairs. The day after crossing the border, all three were arrested.

Almost a year later, on May 7, 1925, Savinkov wrote in a letter to Dzerzhinsky: “When I was arrested, I was sure that there could only be two outcomes. The first, almost certain, is that they will put me against the wall; second - they will believe me and, having believed me, they will give me a job. The third outcome, i.e. imprisonment, seemed to me an exception: the crimes that I committed cannot be punished by prison, there is no need to “correct” me - life corrected me.

This is how the question was posed in conversations with gr. Menzhinsky, Artuzov and Pillar: either shoot them or give them the opportunity to work. I was against you, now I am with you. I cannot sit in prison or become a commoner. They told me that they believed me, that I would soon be pardoned, that I would be given the opportunity to work.” Of course, they believe, of course, they will give, but first you need to: publicly repent, admit your defeat, the wrongness of yourself personally and your party, and therefore the rightness of your yesterday’s enemies, and call on all your comrades inside the country and abroad to confess, stop fighting. Not immediately, but Savinkov accepted these conditions and sent letters to his comrades. It was a sensation. “If the majority of Russian workers and peasants are behind the communists,” he wrote, “then I, as a Russian, must submit to their will, whatever it may be. But I am a revolutionary, and this means that I not only recognize all means of struggle, including terror, but I also fight to the end, to that last minute, when I either die or am completely convinced of my mistake... I fought a war, and I am defeated. I have the courage to say openly that my persistent, long-term, not to the stomach, but to the death, struggle with all the means available to me did not produce results. Judge me as you wish...” And again: “After a hard and long bloody struggle, in which I did, perhaps, more than many others, I tell you: I come here and declare without coercion, freely, not because they stand with rifle behind my back: I unconditionally recognize Soviet power and no other.”

Within four days, from August 22 to 26, the investigation into Savinkov’s case was completed and submitted to court.

On August 27, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, led by V. Ulrich, “without the participation of the parties, due to the clarity of the case,” sentenced the former revolutionary and former terrorist to death, which, however, at the proposal of the OGPU itself was replaced by a 10-year imprisonment. There is nothing strange about this. One of the leaders Communist Party G. Zinoviev later wrote: “The parable of the prodigal son played out between the judges and the defendant. Is it not because these enemies were always closer to his revolutionary soul? That is why, perhaps, this adventurer, who hated his givers and allies with the best, revolutionary part of his soul, was never so sincere as here, before this people's court. The “prisoner of war” turned out to be, in essence, taken captive by his own people from strangers.” Savinkov, in one of his letters, wrote about the security officers: “I thought I would meet executioners and criminals, but I met convinced and honest revolutionaries, those to whom I had become accustomed from my young years.”

Victim and executioners, but what spiritual closeness with the conductors of the terrorist regime! And what a mistake in their assessment on the part of Savinkov himself! After his confessions and revelations, the emigration no longer needed him. What is 10 years in prison for a 45-year-old man? He has a chance to be released alive. And then what? Where to put him, this former revolutionary? Where should his memory go? After all, he told Dzerzhinsky soon after his arrest: “Yes, we used the help of foreigners. It seemed to us that all methods were good to overthrow those who seized power during the war, not disdaining the enemy’s gold.” This is a clear hint at how the Bolsheviks came to power. Problem! In the same letter to Dzerzhinsky dated May 7, 1925, Savinkov wrote: “If you believe me, free me and give me a job, no matter what, even the most subordinate one. Maybe I, too, will be useful: after all, I was once an underground worker and fought for the revolution...” There was no answer. But…

On the same day, the security officers - Puzitsky, Speransky and Syroezhkin - took Savinkov in a passenger car for a walk in Tsaritsyno. Late in the evening they returned to Lubyanka and settled down to await the convoy, which was supposed to take Savinkov to a cell in Pillar’s ​​office on the fifth floor. And then there was a flight out of the window. According to the official version, Savinkov committed suicide, but there is also an unofficial version. It appeared in 1937. Former security officer Arthur Shrubel, dying in a camp in Kolyma, spoke about his participation in the murder of Savinkov. He was thrown out of the window. The person is gone, and the problem is gone. The message about the death of the world-famous prisoner followed only a week later.