Английская Википедия:1907 Tiflis bank robbery

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The 1907 Tiflis bank robbery, also known as the Erivansky Square expropriation,Шаблон:Sfn was an armed robbery on 26 June 1907Шаблон:Ref label in the city of Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia) in the Tiflis Governorate in the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire. A Bolshevik group "expropriated" a bank cash shipment to fund their revolutionary activities. The robbers attacked a bank stagecoach, and the surrounding police and soldiers, using bombs and guns while the stagecoach was transporting money through Erivansky Square (present-day Freedom Square) between the post office and the Tiflis branch of the State Bank of the Russian Empire. The attack killed forty people and injured fifty others, according to official archive documents. The robbers escaped with 241,000 rubles.[1]

The robbery was organized by a number of top-level Bolsheviks, including Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Maxim Litvinov, Leonid Krasin, and Alexander Bogdanov; and executed by a party of revolutionaries led by Stalin's early associate Simon Ter-Petrosian, also known as "Kamo" and "The Caucasian Robin-Hood". Because such activities had been explicitly prohibited by the 5th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) only weeks previously, the robbery and the killings caused outrage within the party against the Bolsheviks (a faction within the RSDLP). As a result, Lenin and Stalin tried to distance themselves from the robbery.

The events surrounding the incident and similar robberies split the Bolshevik leadership, with Lenin against Bogdanov and Krasin. Despite the success of the robbery and the large sum involved, the Bolsheviks could not use most of the large banknotes obtained from the robbery, because the police had records of the serial numbers. Lenin conceived a plan to have various individuals cash the large-value banknotes at once at various locations throughout Europe in January 1908, but this strategy failed, resulting in a number of arrests, worldwide publicity, and negative reaction from social democrats elsewhere in Europe.

Kamo was caught in Germany shortly after the robbery, but successfully avoided a criminal trial by feigning insanity for more than three years. He managed to escape from his psychiatric ward, but was recaptured two years later while planning another robbery. Kamo was then sentenced to death for his crimes including the 1907 robbery, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment; he was released after the 1917 Russian Revolution. None of the other major participants or organizers of the robbery were ever brought to trial. After Kamo's death in 1922, a monument to him was erected near Erivansky Square in Pushkin Gardens, and Kamo was buried beneath it. The monument was later removed and Kamo's remains were moved elsewhere.

Background

A mugshot of a young balding man with a Van Dyke beard.
Police photograph of V. I. Lenin from December 1895

The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), the predecessor of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was formed in 1898. The goal of the RSDLP was to carry out a Marxist proletarian revolution against the Russian Empire. As part of their revolutionary activity, the RSDLP and other revolutionary groups (such as anarchists and Socialist Revolutionaries) practised a range of militant operations, including "expropriations", a euphemism for armed robberies of government or private funds to support revolutionary activities.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn

From 1903 onwards, the RSDLP were divided between two major groups: the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks.Шаблон:Sfn After the suppression of the 1905 Revolution, the RSDLP held its 5th Congress in May–June 1907 in London with the hopes of resolving differences between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn One issue that still separated the two groups was the divergence of their views on militant activities, and in particular, "expropriations".Шаблон:Sfn The most militant Bolsheviks, led at the 5th Congress by Vladimir Lenin, supported continuation of the use of robberies, while Mensheviks advocated a more peaceful and gradual approach to revolution, and opposed militant operations. At the 5th Congress, a resolution was passed condemning participation in or assistance to all militant activity, including "expropriations" as "disorganizing and demoralizing", and called for all party militias to be disbanded.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn This resolution passed with 65 per cent supporting and 6 per cent opposing (others abstained or did not vote) with all Mensheviks and some Bolsheviks supporting the resolution.Шаблон:Sfn

Despite the unified party's prohibition on separate committees, during the 5th Congress the Bolsheviks elected their own governing body, called the Bolshevik Centre, and kept it secret from the rest of the RSDLP.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn The Bolshevik Centre was headed by a "Finance Group" consisting of Lenin, Leonid Krasin and Alexander Bogdanov. Among other party activities, the Bolshevik leadership had already planned a number of "expropriations" in different parts of Russia by the time of the 5th Congress and was awaiting a major robbery in Tiflis, which occurred only weeks after the 5th Congress ended.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn

Preparation

Before the 5th Congress met, high-ranking Bolsheviks held a meeting in Berlin in April 1907 to discuss staging a robbery to obtain funds to purchase arms. Attendees included Lenin, Stalin, Krasin, Bogdanov and Litvinov. The group decided that Stalin, then known by his earlier nom de guerre Koba,Шаблон:Ref label and the Armenian Ter-Petrosian, known as Kamo, should organize a bank robbery in the city of Tiflis.Шаблон:Sfn

The 29-year-old Stalin was living in Tiflis with his wife Ekaterina and newborn son Yakov.Шаблон:Sfn Stalin was experienced at organizing robberies, and these exploits had helped him gain a reputation as the centre's principal financier.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Kamo, four years younger than Stalin, had a reputation for ruthlessness; later in his life he cut a man's heart from his chest.Шаблон:Sfn At the time of the conspiracy, Kamo ran a criminal organization called "the Outfit".Шаблон:Sfn Stalin said that Kamo was "a master of disguise",Шаблон:Sfn and Lenin called Kamo his "Caucasian bandit".Шаблон:Sfn Stalin and Kamo had grown up together, and Stalin had converted Kamo to Marxism.Шаблон:Sfn

After the April meeting, Stalin and Litvinov travelled to Tiflis to inform Kamo of the plans and to organize the raid.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn According to Roman Brackman's The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life, while Stalin was working with the Bolsheviks to organize criminal activities, he was also acting as an informant for the Okhrana, the Russian secret police. Brackman alleges that once the group returned to Tiflis, Stalin informed his Okhrana contact, Officer Mukhtarov, about the bank robbery plans and promised to provide the Okhrana with more information at a later time.Шаблон:Sfn However, Geoffrey Roberts has termed Brackman's allegation as a "conspiracy theory" and has further opined that all the evidence that Brackman adduces in support of this hypothesis is circumstantial and speculative.Шаблон:Sfn

In Tiflis, Stalin began planning for the robbery.Шаблон:Sfn He established contact with two individuals with inside information about the State Bank's operations: a bank clerk named Gigo Kasradze and an old school friend of Stalin's named Voznesensky who worked at the Tiflis banking mail office.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Voznesensky later stated that he had helped out in the theft out of admiration for Stalin's romantic poetry.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Voznesensky worked in the Tiflis banking mail office, giving him access to a secret schedule that showed the times that cash would be transferred by stagecoach to the Tiflis branch of the State Bank.Шаблон:Sfn Voznesensky notified Stalin that the bank would be receiving a large shipment of money by horse-drawn carriage on 26 June 1907.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn

Krasin helped manufacture bombs to use in the attack on the stagecoach.Шаблон:Sfn Kamo's gang smuggled bombs into Tiflis by hiding them inside a sofa.Шаблон:Sfn Only weeks before the robbery, Kamo accidentally detonated one of Krasin's bombs while trying to set the fuse.Шаблон:Sfn The blast severely injured him in the eye, leaving a permanent scar.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Kamo was confined to his bed for a month owing to intense pain, and had not fully recovered by the time of the robbery.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn

Day of the robbery

Файл:Tiflis bank robbery (NY Times, 1907).JPG
A New York Times article, June 27, 1907.

On the day of the robbery, 26 June 1907, the 20 organizers, including Stalin, met near Erivansky Square (just 2 minutes from the seminary, bank and viceroy's palace) to finalize their plans, and after the meeting, they went to their designated places in preparation for the attack.Шаблон:Sfn The Russian authorities had become aware that some large action was being planned by revolutionaries in Tiflis, and had increased the security presence in the main square; just prior to the robbery, they had been tipped off and were guarding every street corner in Erivansky Square.Шаблон:Sfn To deal with the increased security, gang members spotted patrolling gendarmes and police prior to the robbery and lookouts were posted looking down on the square from above.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn

The gang members mostly dressed themselves as peasants and waited on street corners with revolvers and grenades.Шаблон:Sfn In contrast to the others, Kamo was disguised as a cavalry captain and came to the square in a horse-drawn phaeton, a type of open carriage.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn

The conspirators took over the Tilipuchuri tavern facing the square in preparation for the robbery. A witness, David Sagirashvili, later stated that he had been walking in Erivansky Square when a friend named Bachua Kupriashvili, who later turned out to be one of the robbers, invited him into a tavern and asked him to stay. Once inside the tavern, Sagirashvili realized that armed men were stopping people from leaving. When they received a signal that the bank stagecoach was nearing the square, the armed men quickly left the building with pistols drawn.Шаблон:Sfn

The Tiflis branch of the State Bank of the Russian Empire had arranged to transport funds between the post office and the State Bank by horse-drawn stagecoach.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Inside the stagecoach was the money, two guards with rifles, a bank cashier, and a bank accountant.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn A phaeton filled with armed soldiers rode behind the stagecoach, and mounted cossacks[2] rode in front, next to, and behind the carriages.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn

Attack

Drawing of a man holding a whip, sitting on top of an open carriage pulled by two horses.
A typical phaeton, as used in the robbery

The stagecoach made its way through the crowded square at about 10:30 am. Kupriashvili gave the signal, and the robbers hit the carriage with grenades, killing many of the horses and guards, and began shooting security men guarding the stagecoach and the square.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Bombs were thrown from all directions.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:R The Georgian newspaper Isari reported: "No one could tell if the terrible shooting was the boom of cannons or explosion of bombs ... The sound caused panic everywhere ... almost across the whole city, people started running. Carriages and carts were galloping away".Шаблон:Sfn The blasts were so strong that they knocked over nearby chimneys and broke every pane of glass for a mile around.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Ekaterina Svanidze, Stalin's wife, was standing on a balcony at their home near the square with her family and young child. When they heard the explosions, they rushed back into the house terrified.Шаблон:Sfn

One of the injured horses harnessed to the bank stagecoach bolted, pulling the stagecoach with it, chased by Kupriashvili, Kamo, and another robber, Datiko Chibriashvili.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Kupriashvili threw a grenade that blew off the horse's legs, but he himself was caught in the explosion, landing stunned on the ground.Шаблон:Sfn Kupriashvili regained consciousness and sneaked out of the square before police and military reinforcements arrived.Шаблон:Sfn Chibriashvili snatched the sacks of money from the stagecoach while Kamo rode up firing his pistol,Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn and they and another robber threw the money into Kamo's phaeton.Шаблон:Sfn Pressed for time, they inadvertently left twenty thousand rubles behind,Шаблон:Sfn some of which was pocketed by one of the stagecoach drivers who was later arrested for the theft.Шаблон:Sfn

Escape and aftermath

Файл:Tiflis map (Moskvich guide, 1913)-2.jpg
A fragment of the 1913 map of Tiflis, highlighting Erivansky Square and adjacent streets

After securing the money, Kamo quickly rode out of the square; encountering a police carriage, he pretended to be a captain of the cavalry, shouting, "The money's safe. Run to the square."Шаблон:Sfn The deputy in the carriage obeyed, realizing only later that he had been fooled by an escaping robber.Шаблон:Sfn Kamo then rode to the gang's headquarters where he changed out of his uniform.Шаблон:Sfn All of the robbers quickly scattered, and none were caught.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn

One of the robbers, Eliso Lominadze, stole a teacher's uniform to disguise himself and came back to the square, gazing at the carnage.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Fifty casualties lay wounded in the square along with the dead people and horses.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:RШаблон:Sfn The authorities stated that only three people had died, but documents in the Okhrana archives reveal that the true number was around forty.Шаблон:Sfn

The State Bank was not sure how much it actually lost from the robbery, but the best estimates were around 341,000 rubles, worth around 3.4 million US dollars as of 2008.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn About 91,000 rubles were in small untraceable bills, with the rest in large 500-ruble notes that were difficult to exchange because their serial numbers were known to the police.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn

Stalin's role

Set of three photographs and a filled form, all profiling a man with a thick mustache and dark hair, dressed in a hat, black overcoat, white shirt, black pants and black shoes.
The information card on "I. V. Stalin", from the files of the Tsarist secret police in Saint Petersburg, 1911

Stalin's exact actions on the day of the robbery are unknown and disputed.Шаблон:Sfn One source, P. A. Pavlenko, claimed that Stalin attacked the carriage itself and had been wounded by a bomb fragment.Шаблон:Sfn Kamo later stated that Stalin took no active part in the robbery and had watched it from a distance.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Another source stated in a police report that Stalin "observed the ruthless bloodshed, smoking a cigarette, from the courtyard of a mansion."Шаблон:Sfn Another source claims that Stalin was actually at the railway station during the robbery and not at the square.Шаблон:Sfn Stalin's sister-in-law stated that Stalin came home the night of the robbery and told his family about its success.Шаблон:Sfn

Stalin's role was later questioned by fellow revolutionaries Boris Nicolaevsky and Leon Trotsky. The latter, Stalin's rival, was later assassinated on orders from Stalin. In his book Stalin: An Appraisal of the Man and His Influence, Trotsky analyzed many publications describing the Tiflis expropriation and other Bolshevik militant activities of that time, and concluded, "Others did the fighting; Stalin supervised them from afar".Шаблон:Sfn In general, according to Nicolaevsky, "The role played by Stalin in the activities of the Kamo group was subsequently exaggerated".Шаблон:Sfn Kun later discovered official archive documents however clearly showing that "from late 1904 or early 1905 Stalin took part in drawing up plans for expropriations", adding, "It is now certain that [Stalin] controlled from the wings the initial plans of the group" that carried out the Tiflis robbery.Шаблон:Sfn

Security response and investigation

A cartoon of a man dressed in an iron suit, wearing a black top hat with a lockbox chained to his neck, getting into a horse-drawn carriage made out of metal and covered with spikes and cannons.
"Necessary equipment for money transfer", a caricature by Oscar Schmerling from the Georgian press, 1906

The robbery featured in headlines worldwide: "Rain of Bombs: Revolutionaries Hurl Destruction among Large Crowds of People" in the London Daily Mirror, "Tiflis Bomb Outrage" in The Times of London, "Catastrophe!" in Le Temps in Paris, and "Bomb Kills Many; $170,000 Captured" in The New York Times.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:RШаблон:Sfn

Authorities mobilized the army, closed roads, and surrounded the square hoping to secure the money and capture the criminals.Шаблон:Sfn A special detective unit was brought in to lead the police investigation.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:RШаблон:Sfn Unfortunately for the investigators, witness testimony was confusing and conflicting,Шаблон:Sfn and the authorities did not know which group was responsible for the robbery. Polish socialists, Armenians, anarchists, Socialist-Revolutionaries, and even the Russian State itself were blamed.Шаблон:Sfn

According to Brackman, several days after the robbery the Okhrana agent Mukhtarov questioned Stalin in a secret apartment. The agents had heard rumors that Stalin had been seen watching passively during the robbery. Mukhtarov asked Stalin why he had not informed them about it, and Stalin stated that he had provided adequate information to the authorities to prevent the theft. The questioning escalated into a heated argument; Mukhtarov hit Stalin in the face and had to be restrained by other Okhrana officers. After this incident, Mukhtarov was suspended from the Okhrana, and Stalin was ordered to leave Tiflis and go to Baku to await a decision in the case. Stalin left Baku with 20,000 rubles in stolen money in July 1907.Шаблон:Sfn While Brackman claims to have found evidence of this incident, whether Stalin cooperated with the Okhrana during his early life has been a subject of debate among historians for many decades and has yet to be resolved.Шаблон:R

Moving the money and Kamo's arrest

The funds from the robbery were originally kept at the house of Stalin's friends in Tiflis, Mikha and Maro Bochoridze.Шаблон:Sfn The money was sewn into a mattress so that it could be moved and stored easily without arousing suspicion.Шаблон:Sfn The mattress was moved to another safe house, then later put on the director's couch at the Tiflis Meteorological Observatory,Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn possibly because Stalin had worked there.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Some sources claim that Stalin himself helped put the money in the observatory.Шаблон:Sfn The director stated that he never knew that the stolen money had been stored under his roof.Шаблон:Sfn

A large portion of the stolen money was eventually moved by Kamo, who took the money to Lenin in Finland, which was then part of the Russian Empire. Kamo spent the remaining summer months staying with Lenin at his dacha. That autumn, Kamo traveled to Paris, to Belgium to buy arms and ammunition, and to Bulgaria to buy 200 detonators.Шаблон:Sfn He next traveled to Berlin and delivered a letter from Lenin to a prominent Bolshevik physician, Yakov Zhitomirsky, asking him to treat Kamo's eye, which had not completely healed from the bomb blast.Шаблон:Sfn Unknown to Lenin, Zhitomirsky had been secretly working as an agent of the Russian government and quickly informed the Okhrana,Шаблон:Sfn who asked the Berlin police to arrest Kamo.Шаблон:Sfn When they did so, they found a forged Austrian passport and a suitcase with the detonators, which he was planning to use in another large bank robbery.Шаблон:Sfn

Cashing the marked notes

Файл:Maxim Litvinov 1902.jpg
Maxim Litvinov in 1902

After hearing of Kamo's arrest, Lenin feared that he too might be arrested and fled from Finland with his wife.Шаблон:Sfn To avoid being followed, Lenin walked Шаблон:Cvt across a frozen lake at night to catch a steamer at a nearby island.Шаблон:R On his trek across the ice, Lenin and his two companions nearly drowned when the ice started to give way underneath them; Lenin later admitted it seemed like it would have been a "stupid way to die".Шаблон:R Lenin and his wife escaped and headed to Switzerland.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:R

The unmarked bills from the robbery were easy to exchange, but the serial numbers of the 500-ruble notes were known to the authorities, making them impossible to exchange in Russian banks.Шаблон:Sfn By the end of 1907, Lenin decided to exchange the remaining 500-ruble notes abroad.Шаблон:Sfn Krasin had his forger try to change some of the serial numbers.Шаблон:Sfn Two hundred of these notes were transported abroad by Martyn Lyadov (they were sewn into his vest by the wives of Lenin and Bogdanov at Lenin's headquarters in Kuokkala).Шаблон:Sfn Lenin's plan was to have various individuals exchange the stolen 500-ruble notes simultaneously at a number of banks throughout Europe.Шаблон:Sfn Zhitomirsky heard of the plan and reported it to the Okhrana,Шаблон:Sfn who contacted police departments throughout Europe asking them to arrest anyone who tried to cash the notes.Шаблон:Sfn

In January 1908, a number of individuals were arrested while attempting to exchange the notes.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:R The New York Times reported that one woman who had tried to cash a marked 500-ruble note later tried to swallow evidence of her plans to meet her accomplices after the police were summoned, but the police stopped her from swallowing the paper by grabbing her throat, retrieved the paper, and later arrested her accomplices at the train station.Шаблон:R Most prominent among those arrested was Maxim Litvinov, caught while boarding a train with his mistress at Paris's Gare du Nord with twelve of the 500-ruble notes he intended to cash in London.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:R The French Minister of Justice expelled Litvinov and his mistress from French territory, outraging the Russian government, which had requested his extradition.Шаблон:Sfn Officially the French government stated that Russia's request for extradition had been submitted too late, but by some accounts, they denied the extradition because French socialists had applied political pressure to secure his release.Шаблон:Sfn

Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin's wife, discussed these events in her memoirs:

Шаблон:Quote

Brackman claims that despite the arrests, Lenin continued his attempts to exchange the 500-ruble notes and did manage to trade some of them for 10,000 rubles from an unknown woman in Moscow.Шаблон:Sfn According to Nicolaevsky, however, Lenin abandoned attempts to exchange the notes after the arrests,Шаблон:Sfn but Bogdanov tried (and failed) to exchange some notes in North America, while Krasin succeeded in forging new serial numbers and managed to exchange several more notes.Шаблон:Sfn Soon after, Lenin's associates burned all the 500-ruble notes remaining in their possession.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:R

Trials of Kamo

Шаблон:Quote

Файл:Krasin Baku c 1903.jpg
Leonid Krasin around 1903

After Kamo was arrested in Berlin and awaiting trial, he received a note from Krasin through his lawyer Oscar Kohn telling him to feign insanity so that he would be declared unfit to stand trial.Шаблон:Sfn To demonstrate his insanity, he refused food, tore his clothes, tore out his hair, attempted to hang himself, slashed his wrists, and ate his own excrement.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn To make sure that he was not faking his condition, German doctors stuck pins under his nails, struck him in the back with a long needle, and burned him with hot irons, but he did not break his act.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn After all of these tests, the chief doctor of the Berlin asylum wrote in June 1909 that "there is no foundation to the belief that [Kamo] is feigning insanity. He is without doubt mentally ill, is incapable of appearing before a court, or of serving sentence. It is extremely doubtful that he can completely recover."Шаблон:Sfn

In 1909 Kamo was extradited to a Russian prison, where he continued to feign insanity.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn In April 1910, he was put on trial for his role in the Tiflis robbery,Шаблон:Sfn where he ignored the proceedings and openly fed a pet bird that he had hidden in his shirt.Шаблон:Sfn The trial was suspended while officials determined his sanity.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn The court eventually found that he had been sane when he committed the Tiflis robbery, but was presently mentally ill and should be confined until he recovered.Шаблон:Sfn In August 1911, after feigning insanity for more than three years, Kamo escaped from the psychiatric ward of a prison in Tiflis by sawing through his window bars and climbing down a homemade rope.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn

Kamo later discussed these experiences:

Шаблон:Quote After escaping, Kamo met up with Lenin in Paris,Шаблон:R and was distressed to hear that a "rupture had occurred"Шаблон:R between Lenin, Bogdanov, and Krasin.Шаблон:R Kamo told Lenin about his arrest and how he had simulated insanity while in prison.Шаблон:R After leaving Paris, Kamo eventually met up with Krasin and planned another armed robbery.Шаблон:Sfn Kamo was caught before the robbery took place and was put on trial in Tiflis in 1913 for his exploits including the Tiflis bank robbery.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn This time, Kamo did not feign insanity while imprisoned, but he did pretend that he had forgotten all that happened to him when he was previously "insane".Шаблон:Sfn The trial was brief and Kamo was given four death sentences.Шаблон:Sfn

Seemingly doomed to death, Kamo then had the good luck along with other prisoners to have his sentence commuted to a long prison term as part of the celebrations of the Romanov dynasty tricentennial in 1913.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Kamo was released from prison after the February Revolution in 1917.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn

Aftermath

Effect on Bolsheviks

Apart from Kamo, none of the organizers of the robbery were ever brought to trial,Шаблон:Sfn and initially it was not clear who was behind the raid, but after the arrest of Kamo, Litvinov and others, the Bolshevik involvement became obvious.Шаблон:Sfn The Mensheviks felt betrayed and angry; the robbery proved that the Bolshevik Centre operated independently from the unified Central Committee and was taking actions explicitly prohibited by the party congress.Шаблон:Sfn The leader of the Mensheviks, Georgi Plekhanov, called for separation from the Bolsheviks. Plekhanov's colleague, Julius Martov, said the Bolshevik Centre was something between a secret factional central committee and a criminal gang.Шаблон:Sfn The Tiflis Committee of the party expelled Stalin and several members for the robbery.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn The party's investigations into Lenin's conduct were thwarted by the Bolsheviks.Шаблон:Sfn

The robbery made the Bolsheviks even less popular in Georgia and left the Bolsheviks in Tiflis without effective leadership. After the death by natural causes of his wife Ekaterina Svanidze in November 1907, Stalin rarely returned to Tiflis. Other leading Bolsheviks in Georgia, such as Mikhail Tskhakaya and Filipp Makharadze, were largely absent from Georgia after 1907. Another prominent Tiflis Bolshevik, Stepan Shahumyan, moved to Baku. The Bolsheviks' popularity in Tiflis continued to fall, and by 1911, there were only about 100 Bolsheviks left in the city.Шаблон:Sfn

The robbery also made the Bolshevik Centre unpopular more widely among European social democrat groups.Шаблон:Sfn Lenin's desire to distance himself from the legacy of the robbery may have been one of the sources of the rift between him and Bogdanov and Krasin.Шаблон:Sfn Stalin distanced himself from Kamo's gang and never publicized his role in the robbery.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn

Later careers

After the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917, many of those who had been involved in the robbery became high ranking Soviet officials. Lenin went on to become the first Soviet Premier, the post he held until his death in 1924, followed by Stalin as leader of the Soviet Union until his own death in 1953. Maxim Litvinov became a Soviet diplomat, serving as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs (1930–1939). Leonid Krasin initially quit politics after the split from Lenin in 1909, but rejoined the Bolsheviks after the 1917 Revolution and served as the Soviet trade representative in London and as People's Commissar for Foreign Trade until his death in 1926.Шаблон:Sfn

After Kamo's release from prison, he worked in the Soviet customs office, by some accounts because he was too unstable to work for the secret police.Шаблон:Sfn He died in 1922 when a truck hit him while he was cycling.Шаблон:Sfn Although there is no proof of foul play, some have theorized that Stalin ordered his death to keep him quiet.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn

Monument

Erivansky Square, where the robbery took place, was renamed Lenin Square by the Soviet authorities in 1921, and a large statue of Lenin was erected in his honour in 1956.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:R Despite being convicted of the bloody robbery, Kamo was originally buried and had a monument erected in his honour in Pushkin Gardens, near Erivansky Square.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:R Created by the sculptor Iakob Nikoladze, it was removed during Stalin's rule, and Kamo's remains were moved to another location.Шаблон:Sfn The statue of Lenin was torn down in August 1991—one of the final moments of the Soviet Union—and replaced by the Liberty Monument in 2006. The name of the square was changed from Lenin Square to Freedom Square in 1991.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:R

See also

Шаблон:Portal

Notes

References

Шаблон:Reflist

Bibliography

External links

Шаблон:Joseph Stalin

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  1. ↑ (White, James D. Red Hamlet: The Life and Ideas of Alexander Bogdanov, 2018, p. 179).
  2. ↑ Шаблон:Cite book
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