Literary and historical notes of a young technician. Yakov Sverdlov: "black devil"

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The “fiery revolutionary” kept a huge amount of jewelry and gold.

“The Black Devil,” as he was nicknamed, was born 130 years ago. There is no unity in the date of birth of Yakov Sverdlov; some call it the third, others - the fourth of June.

In 1994, a letter from Genrikh Yagoda to I.V. was discovered in the former archives of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee. To Stalin, July 27, 1935. In it, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs reported: Ya.M.'s personal safe was discovered in the warehouse of the Kremlin commandant. Sverdlov, which has not been opened for 16 years since his death, and the key to which was lost. There were gold coins of royal mintage worth an astronomical amount, over seven hundred gold items with precious stones, a lot of blank passport forms and completed passports in the name of Sverdlov himself and unknown persons, tsarist-era bonds.

Why and for what purpose the “fiery revolutionary” kept all this in his personal safe remains a mystery to this day.

Yakov Sverdlov is generally considered one of the most mysterious figures of the Russian revolution.

Firstly, his real name is not Sverdlov at all. His father, the tradesman Miraim-Movsha Izrailevich Gauchmann, with his wife Elizaveta Solomonovna, moved from the Pale of Settlement into the interior of Russia and settled in Nizhny Novgorod, where he signed up as an artisan under the name Movsha Sverdlin, later turning into Sverdlova. Not everything is clear with the name. According to historian I.F. Plotnikov, “according to some sources, Sverdlov was called Yeshua-Solomon Movshevich from birth, and according to others, Yankel Miraimovich.” And when he became a revolutionary, they called him either “Comrade Andrei”, then “Max”, then “Mikhail Permyakov”, then “Smirnov”...

The fate of his relatives was also surprising. His older brother Zinovy became the godson of Maxim Gorky, who actually adopted him, turning him into Peshkov. Which, however, did not stop Zinovy from emigrating, ending up in France, then joining the Foreign Legion, becoming a French general and receiving the Order of the Legion of Honor. The career of another brother, Benjamin, was less successful. After mysterious adventures in the United States in 1938, he was arrested and then shot as a “Trotskyist.”

Like many other Bolsheviks, young Yasha did not abuse his studies at all. He graduated from only four classes of the gymnasium, then began to study pharmacy. But he soon retrained as a professional revolutionary - he became a well-known underground worker in Nizhny Novgorod. Then everything was the same as with his other colleagues: agitation, proclamations, expropriations, prisons, exile, escapes...

He “sat” successfully: in 1912, in Narym, Yakov Mikhailovich met Stalin. And then Turukhansk ended up with him. For some time they even lived in the same house. Here is how Stalin describes some details of their life together with Sverdlov in exile: “We mainly lived by catching nelma. This did not require much specialization. We also went hunting. I had a dog, I named it “Yashka”. Of course, this was unpleasant for Sverdlov: he is Yashka, and the dog is Yashka...”

In general, the revolutionaries in tsarist exile did not have any special problems. We lived on benefits from the government, so we didn’t have to work. In addition, they were also fed from the party treasury, which consisted of expropriations, that is, bank robberies, as well as from contributions from capitalists who sympathized with them.

At the 7th (April) conference of the RSDLP, Sverdlov for the first time personally met with V.I. Lenin and began to carry out his instructions. Then he was elected a member of the Central Committee and headed the then created Secretariat of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, becoming the main organizer of work on the promotion and placement of personnel in key positions.

It was then that he received the nickname “Black Devil” - after the color of his leather jacket, which he never took off in public, and which later became Bolshevik fashion. However, he also had leather riding breeches and even a cap. Outwardly, Sverdlov was a dark-haired man with sharp features and a thick, powerful bass voice. “It’s okay, Sverdlov will tell them this in a Sverdlovsk bass voice, and the matter will be settled,” Lenin usually said in difficult cases.

Its intelligent appearance with his invariable pince-nez and beard, he was more likely to think of a university professor than of the leader of the revolutionary party. Anatoly Lunacharsky wrote about Sverdlov like this: “Of course, there was a lot of internal fire in him, but outwardly he was an absolutely icy man. When he was not on the podium, he always spoke in a low voice, walked quietly, and all his gestures were slow.” Sverdlov had a phenomenal memory, he was called “Lenin’s notebook”, he remembered everything and everyone.

When the Bolsheviks began to be hunted as German spies, Sverdlov personally came to Lenin and organized his transition to an underground position, hiding him near the Razliv station near Sestroretsk, while he himself remained in Petrograd to organize the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks.

However, Sverdlov was probably called the “Black Devil” not only for his black leather jacket. Historians provide evidence of his involvement in black magic. So, while in exile, Sverdlov acquired a dog, which he named Pes. The dog was endlessly attached to his owner and never parted with him. At the end of 1916, the Dog died. Yakov Mikhailovich grieved terribly. He asked a local hunter to skin the corpse of his faithful friend and tan it. And then he took her with him everywhere. In the Kremlin, this skin always lay by Sverdlov’s bed. It's about about the ritual of black magic. With such rituals, they try to “pull” the spirit of a deceased creature to the earth, and not allow it to go into another world in order to use it for their own purposes.

At the suggestion of Lenin, Sverdlov, as the chief personnel officer, was appointed chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. He carried out the main work on the creation of Soviet authorities in the center and locally. “Sometimes it seemed that like V.I. Lenin came to Russia after the victory of the February Revolution with ready-made political blueprints for the entire revolution, so Ya.M. Sverdlov came from distant exile with ready-made organizational drawings of the entire work of the party and with a ready-made plan for the distribution of the main groups of workers according to sectors of work,” Grigory Zinoviev later recalled.

It was Sverdlov who opened the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly on January 5, 1918, announcing the “Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People,” in which Russia was proclaimed a republic. He was also the chairman of the commission for the development of the Constitution of the RSFSR, which declared the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Things were getting to the point where it was no longer Lenin, but Sverdlov who began to be called the “Red Tsar.” But still, until his complete “reign”, Sverdlov was hampered by the authority of Ilyich, who was much higher.

“If you look at who benefited from eliminating Lenin at that moment, Sverdlov won the most,” he writes. - After the assassination attempt, Sverdlov was the first to arrive in the Kremlin. Sverdlov’s wife reports that that same evening he occupied Lenin’s office, taking over the Council of People’s Commissars, the Central Committee, and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.” Roy Medvedev writes the same thing: “When Lenin was seriously wounded by the Socialist-Revolutionary Kaplan, Sverdlov became the de facto head of the Soviet state for several weeks.”

It was Sverdlov who carried out a hasty investigation into the case of Fani Kaplan; it was on his orders that Kaplan was hastily shot and burned in metal barrel on the territory of the Kremlin. Although she was a friend of Yakov Sverdlov’s sister.

Through his relatives, Yakov Mikhailovich was connected with the foreign backstage. Researcher Peter Multatuli writes that his brother Benjamin traveled to the USA even before the revolution, where he worked as a banker for some time. And there he came into contact with the bank Kuhn, Leib and Co. and the banker Jacob Schiff, who, as has already been established, financed the Bolsheviks, as well as the “transfer” of Trotsky and a group of his militants to Russia from the United States.

Sverdlov was famous for his pathological cruelty. His desire to always go to extreme measures surprised even his party comrades. In the Urals, on the eve of the 1905 revolution, Sverdlov created an organization called the “Combat Detachment of People's Arms.” It was an honor to be in Sverdlov’s “brigade,” but not everyone passed the test. Thus, one of the future killers of the royal family, Ermakov, “on instructions from the party” in 1907 killed a police agent and cut off his head.

Sverdlov was the author of cruel directives that prescribed fierce punitive measures in suppressing Cossack uprisings against Soviet power on the Don. After the assassination attempt on Lenin, Sverdlov signed an appeal “on the transformation of the Soviet Republic into a single military camp,” supplemented by the resolution “On Red Terror” issued by the Council of People’s Commissars on September 5.

In May 1918, Sverdlov provoked the start of a fratricidal war in the village. In his report “On the tasks of the Soviets in the countryside” he says: “Only if we can split the village into two irreconcilably hostile camps, if we can kindle the same civil war“, which was going on not so long ago in the cities, if we succeed in restoring the rural poor against the rural bourgeoisie, only then can we say that we are doing in relation to the countryside what we were able to do for the cities.” And in July 1918 he said: “I want to dwell on the question of the death penalty. I must point out that the Revolutionary Tribunal, with its first decision on the death penalty, showed, in my deep conviction, that it correctly took into account the given moment that we are experiencing at this time.”

Regicide was an obsession for him. At the time of the massacre in Yekaterinburg, Sverdlov was in Moscow. Adventurer V.N. Orlov, posing as a white counterintelligence agent, recalled: “In July 1918, when I was interviewing agents in the Cheka building, a messenger brought a telegram addressed to Dzerzhinsky, who was next to me. He quickly read it, turned as pale as death, jumped to his feet and, exclaiming “Again they are acting without consulting me!”, rushed out of the room. Dzerzhinsky hurried to the Kremlin. What on earth happened?

The next day we learned the news. The imperial family was shot without the knowledge of the Cheka! Independently, on the instructions of Sverdlov and one of the highest bosses in the Central Committee of the Communist Party!

According to the general opinion in the Cheka, the Revolutionary Tribunal and the Kremlin, the decision to kill was made and implemented by Sverdlov’s authorities. He carried out the preparations in secret from his comrades, and only after the execution confronted them with a fait accompli.”

The “Black Devil” died unexpectedly, at the age of only 34, although, as they said, he had good health. According to the official version, he allegedly fell ill with the Spanish flu. And so, on March 16, 1919, Sverdlov died and was buried with pomp at the Kremlin wall. “We lowered into the grave the proletarian leader who did most to organize the working class, for its victory,” Lenin said mournfully at the funeral.

Doctor of Law Arkady Vaksberg wrote: “The exact cause of his death is unknown. At the same time, an apparently not unfounded rumor spread that in the city of Orel he had been fatally beaten by workers, but this fact was allegedly hidden so as “not to disgrace the revolution” and “not to inflame even more anti-Semitic passions.”

The French communist writer Louis Aragon wrote: “Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov, Lenin’s most faithful comrade, who became the first chairman of the Central Executive Committee, that is, the first head of the new Soviet state, and who, unfortunately for the whole world, was to die of the Spanish flu at thirty-four of the year. I said “to the misfortune of the whole world,” because, of course, if he had survived, Sverdlov, and not Stalin, would have succeeded Lenin.” Stalin probably understood this no worse than Aragon.

However, there could be another reason for the unexpected death of the “Black Devil”, a very banal one - money. The fact is that Sverdlov was the custodian of a kind of “Bolshevik common fund”. This was done by his second wife, Claudia Timofeevna, née Novgorodtseva. The Politburo Diamond Fund was hidden in her apartment. Part of this “common fund” was probably later discovered in the safe in Sverdlov’s office.

...They say that when a person dies, all his vices or virtues are imprinted on his face. As usual, the “fiery revolutionary” was removed death mask. Seeing her, psychiatrist Evgeny Chernosvitov exclaimed: “Sverdlov’s mask is the embodiment of evil, it’s unpleasant to look at!”

Especially for "Century"

Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (head of the first Soviet state). 1885–1919

Born on June 3, 1885 in Nizhny Novgorod into a Jewish family. Father - Mikhail Izrailevich Sverdlov - was an engraver; mother, Elizaveta Solomonovna, is a housewife.

The Sverdlovs lived on Bolshaya Pokrovskaya in living rooms at a printing and engraving workshop. A frequent guest of the Sverdlov family was Maxim Gorky, who lived in Nizhny Novgorod in those years. In 1901, Yakov's elder brother Zinovy, together with Maxim Gorky, was arrested on charges of using a mimeograph for revolutionary propaganda. Zinovy converted to Orthodoxy and received it from Gorky, who became his godfather, patronymic and surname - Peshkov. Zinovy emigrated to France and served in the Foreign Legion. Upon retirement, he received the rank of corps general. Knight of the Legion of Honor. He was on friendly terms with Charles de Gaulle.

Yakov graduated from four classes of the gymnasium, then studied pharmacy. Already in his youth he was a famous underground fighter in Nizhny Novgorod.

Since 1901, in the ranks of the RSDLP, after the split at the Second Congress of the RSDLP in 1903, he became a Bolshevik and a professional revolutionary. From September 1905 he was sent to the Urals as a representative agent of the Central Committee. In 1905 he organized revolutionary demonstrations of the masses in Yekaterinburg. In October 1905, he created and headed the Yekaterinburg Council of Workers' Deputies. Since 1906, Sverdlov has been in Perm, where the largest Motovilikha cannon factory in the Urals was located. He was repeatedly arrested and sentenced to imprisonment and exile; in prison he engaged in self-education.

From June 10, 1906 to September 1909, Sverdlov was imprisoned in the Urals. On December 19, 1909, he was arrested again in Moscow. On March 31, 1910, he was exiled to the Narym region for three years. In 1910, he fled from Narym exile to St. Petersburg, and was the editor of the newspaper Pravda. He entered into active correspondence with Lenin and was co-opted into the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP.

On May 5, 1911, Sverdlov was sentenced to exile in the Narym region of the Tomsk province for 4 years. In 1912, in Narym, Yakov Mikhailovich met Stalin, who fled from exile in August. Sverdlov also managed to escape from Narym in December. In February 1913, together with Stalin, he was extradited as an agent of the secret police and exiled to Turukhansk. They served exile in the north of the Yenisei province (the village of Ku-reika) for some time in the same house. Then they began to live in different apartments and rarely met. On October 1, 1913, at a meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, the issue of organizing the escape from exile of Sverdlov and Stalin was discussed, but it was not carried out.

In March 1917, Sverdlov returned from exile. After the February Revolution, he was sent by the Central Committee to Yekaterinburg to organize the work of the Ural Regional Party Conference in order to prepare a proletarian uprising in the Urals - in case it did not work out in Petrograd.

At the 7th (April) conference of the RSDLP (April 24, 1917), Sverdlov personally met Lenin for the first time and began to carry out various current affairs and assignments for him. Under the influence of Lenin, Sverdlov was elected a member of the Central Committee and headed the then organized Secretariat of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, which implements the decisions of party leaders. During the mass protests on July 3–4, Sverdlov was the main speaker from the Bolshevik Central Committee and received the nickname “black devil of the Bolsheviks” from his political opponents (after the color of his leather jacket, which he never parted with; this later became Bolshevik fashion). When the Bolsheviks were declared counter-revolutionaries and German spies, Sverdlov personally came to Lenin and took him underground, hiding him near the Razliv station near Sestroretsk, while he himself remained in Petrograd to organize the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks. Subsequently, he maintained contact between the Central Committee and Lenin, in every possible way prevented his ill-considered attempts to return to legal activities and supplied him with general information about the progress of affairs in Petrograd.

While Lenin was writing the book “State and Revolution” in a hut near Razliv, which determined the principles of the structure of the proletarian state, Sverdlov developed vigorous activity to implement his ideas. Having prepared and held the VI Congress of the RSDLP, he strengthened his position as a member of the Central Committee of the RSDLP and head of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the RSDLP. At the historic meeting of the Central Committee on October 10, 1917, which decided on an armed seizure of power, Sverdlov was chairman and was appointed a member of the Military Revolutionary Center, created to lead the uprising.

On November 8, 1917, at the suggestion of Lenin, Sverdlov, as the chief personnel officer, was appointed chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. Acting in this capacity, Sverdlov carried out the main work on creating bodies of Soviet power “in the center and locally.” From January 1918 he was chairman of the Committee for the Revolutionary Defense of Petrograd.

The Constituent Assembly is a representative body in Russia, elected in November 1917 and convened in January 1918 to adopt a constitution. The meeting of the Constituent Assembly opened on January 18, 1918 in the Tauride Palace in Petrograd. It was attended by 410 deputies, most of them Socialist Revolutionaries, representing the interests of the peasants, who at that time made up 90% of the country's population. Lenin, with the support of the Left Social Revolutionaries, presented the Constituent Assembly with a choice: ratify the power of the Soviets and the decrees of the Bolshevik government or disperse. On behalf of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Sverdlov opened the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly, announcing the “Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People,” according to which Russia was declared a republic of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies. The meeting, by a majority of 237 votes to 146, refuses to even discuss the Bolshevik Declaration. During the second part of the meeting, at three o'clock in the morning, the Bolshevik representative Fyodor Raskolnikov declares that the Bolsheviks (in protest against the non-acceptance of the Declaration) are leaving the meeting. Following the Bolsheviks, the Left Socialist Revolutionary faction left the Assembly at four o'clock in the morning. Lenin ordered not to disperse the meeting immediately, but to wait for the meeting to end and then close the Tauride Palace and not allow anyone there the next day. On January 19, deputies found the doors of the Tauride Palace locked. At the entrance there was a guard with machine guns and two light artillery pieces. Security said there would be no meeting. The next day, the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, adopted on January 19, was published.

Defense of the Constituent Assembly became one of the slogans of the White movement. Regional governments united, electing a temporary All-Russian Directory. The Directory proclaimed the restoration of the Constituent Assembly in Russia as one of its tasks.

The offensive of the Red Army in August - September 1918 forced the Directory to move to Omsk; on November 18, 1918, the Directory was overthrown by the Omsk military.

Active members of the Constituent Assembly tried to campaign against Kolchak. On November 30, 1918, he ordered the betrayal former members Constituent Assembly to a military court “for attempting to raise an uprising and conduct destructive agitation among the troops.” Some of the members of the congress of the Constituent Assembly (25 people) were arrested and imprisoned. After an unsuccessful liberation attempt on December 22, 1918, many of them were shot.

Sverdlov paid great attention to the formation of proletarian personnel to govern the country, organizing for them a school of instructors and agitators at the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (in 1919 it was transformed into the Communist University named after Ya.M. Sverdlov, which in 1939 was transformed into the Higher Party School under the Central Committee).

Sverdlov was the chairman of the commission for the development of the Constitution of the RSFSR. The Constitution he prepared declared the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia in order to establish socialism in the state in the form of the Republic of Soviets.

During the rebellion of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries in the summer of 1918, the arrest of Sverdlov was one of the main goals of the rebels, in response to which Sverdlov and Lenin ordered the arrest of the leadership of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, who were in the Bolshoi Theater at a meeting of the V Congress of Soviets.

After the assassination attempt on Lenin on August 30, 1918, Sverdlov signed the appeal of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on September 2, “On the transformation of the Soviet republic into a single military camp,” supplemented on September 5 by the “Resolution on Red Terror” issued by the Council of People’s Commissars, which declared mass red terror against all enemies of the revolution. While Lenin was being treated, Sverdlov categorically refused to elect a temporary acting chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and personally performed his functions, working in Lenin's office and signing documents for him, and holding meetings of the Council of People's Commissars.

In addition, Sverdlov carried out a lot of international work: he prepared the First Congress of the Communist International, participated in the organization of congresses of the Communist Parties of Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine.

On July 16-17, 1918, the royal family was executed. Sverdlov was in Moscow at that time. However, Trotsky in his memoirs directly points to the participation of Ya. M. Sverdlov in the execution of the royal family.

Returning to Moscow from Kharkov on March 6, 1919, Sverdlov fell ill with the Spanish flu. Died on March 16, 1919. On March 18, 1919 he was buried near the Kremlin wall.

The fateful VIII Congress of the RSDLP (b) was scheduled for March 18, 1919, at which a fierce struggle was to flare up. Lenin, after being wounded, was no longer so energetic, and the question of replacing him could arise. Most likely, all power would have been concentrated in the hands of Sverdlov. These circumstances suggest the unnatural death of Sverdlov, who was in good health.

Yakov Sverdlov and his brothers...

Sverdlov’s personality can rightfully be classified as a genius infernal personality, if such a term can be applied to supporters of the underworld. Having lived a very short life, at the time of his death he was not 34 years old, Yakov Sverdlov managed to contribute so much to the victory of the world revolution, to set a pace of mass bloodletting that few world villains can compete with. The crimes of Sverdlov and his clique can only be compared with the crimes of the Nazis during World War II. Leon Trotsky loved him very much, and he was flattered when he was called the “demon of the revolution.”

But it must be said that in comparison with Sverdlov, the phrase-monger and demagogue Trotsky was clearly a loser. It was not he who rightfully earned the name “demon of the revolution”, but Sverdlov. Unlike Vladimir Lenin and Trotsky, Sverdlov did not make hysterical and pretentious speeches, did not travel around the front in former tsarist carriages, did not give interviews to the foreign press and almost did not appear on the pages of newspapers and magazines. He, occupying the highest position in the Soviet state, remained as if in the shadows all the time, preferring to lead from behind the curtain. His speech, always calm and reasonable, his intelligent appearance with his constant pince-nez and wedge beard, his almond-shaped, always slightly sad eyes, rather suggested a zemstvo doctor than the leader of one of the bloodiest regimes in world history. Anatoly Lunacharsky wrote about Sverdlov: “Of course, there was a lot of internal fire in him, but outwardly he was an absolutely icy man. When he was not on the podium, he always spoke in a low voice, walked quietly, and all his gestures were slow.”

But those who knew Sverdlov closely knew how deceptive this appearance of an intelligent doctor was. Such a powerful force was felt in Sverdlov, such an iron conviction in the work he was doing, that involuntarily he was recognized as the unofficial leader of the entire party. Sverdlov’s quiet voice inspired horror many times greater than Lenin’s heart-rending screams. It was this man who gave the order to kill the royal family, it was he who unleashed the monstrous Red Terror, it was he who initiated the so-called “decossackization”, when about 1 million Don Cossacks, including women and infants, were brutally killed, including buried alive. Until March 1919, there was not a single bloody global action of the Bolsheviks that was not initiated by Sverdlov. No wonder he was called “the brain of the party.” “We have no doubt,” wrote Pavel Paganutsi, “that the monstrous crimes of the Bolsheviks (in 1918 - Author), which surpassed all measures of cruelty, were committed on orders from the center, Moscow, and the main responsibility for them lay with Sverdlov.” ..

Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov was born on May 22, 1885 in Nizhny Novgorod into the family of the owner of an engraving workshop. Yiddish it full name sounded like Yankel Movshevich Sverdlov. Mikhail Parkhomovsky writes that Sverdlov’s great-grandfather, a tradesman from the city of Polotsk, was a skilled driller. “Apparently,” says Parkhomovsky, “the surname came from the Belarusian word “sverdlo.”

In childhood, nothing foreshadowed the boy’s bloody character...

His father, Movsha Izrailevich, had three sons: Zavei (Zinovy), Yakov, Benjamin, and also two daughters: Sarah and Sophia. In addition, Movsha Sverdlov had two sons from his second marriage - German and Alexander. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Movsha took on an engraver as his apprentice young man named Hershel Gershelevich Yehuda, who later turned into Genrikh Genrikhovich Yagoda, the future bloody chief of the OGPU. Yagoda, despite the fact that he robbed his master twice, managed to become related to the Sverdlov family by marrying Yankel’s niece, Ida Averbakh.

For his assistance to the revolutionaries, Movsha Sverdlov was under the supervision of the Nizhny Novgorod gendarmerie department.

Yakov's elder brother, Zavel Movshovich Sverdlov, bore the name of Zinovy Alekseevich Peshkov. Zinovy Sverdlov (Peshkov) was a very difficult figure. Here is the data from the French directory “Who's who in France” for 1955-1956: “Zinovy Peshkov, diplomat and general. Born on October 16, 1884 in Nizhny Novgorod (Russia). Volunteer in the French army (1914). Participated in missions: to the USA - 1917, China, Japan, Manchuria and Siberia - 1918-1920.”

Peshkov joined the revolutionary movement from his youth, but quickly moved away from it. However, in this act Zinovy was guided not by ideological considerations, but by some much more subtle reasons. Belonging to secret societies and close connections with Gorky allowed Zinovy Peshkov to maintain connections with the most influential people in the revolutionary and Masonic camp. In 1906, Zinovy, together with Gorky, made a long trip to the USA, where they raised money to support the revolution. It is curious that Zinovy was on friendly terms with the widow and daughters of the great Russian doctor Sergei Botkin, the father of Evgeniy Botkin, the physician of Emperor Nicholas II.

In 1911, Zinovy Sverdlov again left for the USA, where he certainly maintained close ties with his brother Veniamin, and almost certainly with Jacob Schiff. It is interesting that after Zinovy was seriously wounded at the front during the World War, “his many friends and patrons in the French “higher spheres” suddenly remembered that Zinovy had lived in America for a long time, spoke English and had great acquaintances there. At this time, France made every effort to involve the United States in the war on its side. It was decided to use Zinovy to send him to the USA to promote entry into the war on the side of the Allies. Zinovy did everything to facilitate this.” How an ordinary officer of the French army could contribute to such a grandiose event as the entry of the United States into the war is not clear, unless one takes into account Zinovy’s connections with American financial circles...

Brothers: extreme left Zinovy Peshkov, second right - Yakov Sverdlov

Of course, Zinovy always maintained contact with his brother Yankel, despite the fact that there was supposedly enmity between them. His adoptive father Maxim Gorky (aka Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov) took a prominent part in preparing the coup against the sovereign. It is obvious that Zinovy Peshkov also took a direct part in this coup: he was an intermediary between the Masonic circles in France and the revolutionary circles in Russia. It is no coincidence that in the summer of 1917, French army captain Zinovy Peshkov was appointed representative of France under the government of Alexander Kerensky. Kerensky even awarded him the Order of St. Vladimir 4th degree.

During Bolshevik coup Zinovy Peshkov was in Petrograd and outwardly opposed the pro-German policy of the Bolsheviks. He wrote a letter to the named Father Gorky, in which he urged him to change his pacifist position: “The more Germany seizes territories,” he wrote, “the less we will be able to make peace without annexations. In this decisive battle, waged by the best forces of humanity against brutal forces, can Russia remain peaceful?

Nevertheless, when the Bolsheviks came to power, the French sent Zinovy to Moscow, and he had a meeting “on official business” with his brother Yakov. It is unknown what was discussed between them, but in the summer of 1918 Peshkov headed to Siberia. However, we will give the floor to Peshkov himself. In his questionnaire of the 30s, listing the stages of his military service, he writes: “January 16, 1918 War Ministry called me to Paris to send me to Russia Northern route. On March 7, 1918, I received an order from the General Staff to go to Eastern Siberia, through America and Japan. At the same time, I had a special assignment in Washington from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On June 1, 1918, I arrived in Tokyo, then in Beijing, and at the end of July I was in Siberia.”

Peshkov welcomes Admiral Alexander Kolchak to power in Siberia in September. Under Kolchak, Zinovy Sverdlov played a very important role. Alexander Amfiteatrov wrote about him: “Carrying out his military-diplomatic service in a French uniform, he was an active liaison agent between the French government and the army command. The act of recognizing Kolchak as the supreme ruler by France was delivered to Omsk by Zinoviy Peshkov.”

By a strange coincidence, the brother of one of Kolchak’s main enemies becomes a military adviser to the French representative under the Kolchak government, General Maurice Janin. Let's not forget that Janin, a prominent Freemason, was the curator from French government circles, read Masonic, of the case of the murder of the royal family. “Under Kolchak,” writes Vadim Kozhinov, “the British General Knox and the French General Janin were constantly with their chief adviser, Captain Zinoviy Peshkov (younger brother of Ya. M. Sverdlov). Before us is a truly amazing situation: in red Moscow, then, Yakov Sverdlov plays an extremely important role - second only to Lenin, and in white Omsk, his brother Zinovy resides as an influential adviser!

Zinovy Peshkov-Sverdlov - French general...

Peshkov's services in Siberia were appreciated by the French command. General Maurice Janin called his actions very successful. At the insistence of the general, Peshkov was assigned a high pension of 1,500 francs monthly and 5,000 francs at a time.

Thus, the role of Zinovy Sverdlov in the Civil War in Russia in general and in the Yekaterinburg atrocity in particular requires additional and most careful study. It is possible that the murder of the royal family was supervised by certain behind-the-scenes forces and their representatives, both in the “red” and “white” camps. In both cases, the representatives of these secret forces were the Sverdlovs - Yakov and Zinovy.

As for the second brother, Veniamin (Benyamin, Ben, Beni) Sverdlov, he left for the USA even before the revolution and opened a bank there. After the revolution, American political agents gave the following information about Veniamin Sverdlov: “Office of Special Agents of the New York Branch. Ministry of Foreign Affairs (confidential). Mr. Bannerman is the Chief Special Agent. Washington.

Reilly has a business relationship with Veniamin Mikhailovich Sverdlov. On January 15, 1916, Sverdlov arrived in the United States aboard the steamship San Paul. He brought with him a sealed parcel from Colonel Belyaev, a Russian, addressed to General Hermonius, who was connected with some Russian delegations in the United States. Sverdlov was involved in revolutionary activities in Russia in the past. He lived in England for four years and visited Russia in 1915. He knows Siberia well. While in the United States, he worked in the Flint & Co office at 120 Broadway, which owned the building. He is the brother of a prominent communist from Soviet Russia- Sverdlova. While in London, in a private conversation, he stated that he was going with two people to New York to purchase ammunition, but would sail to America separately from these people. He received about one thousand dollars for the trip. He arrived at Flint&Co with the recommendations of partner T. Marshall from London, whose interests were financed by money received from sales of Ural oil. At the beginning of the war, Marshall and Sverdlov often had information about the movement of troops and military operations in England and Russia."

For information, Sidney Reilly, an international adventurer who worked for British, American and German intelligence at the same time, but in fact carried out tasks for the American secret society. Benjamin knew and maintained business relations with the Kuhn, Leib and Co. bank and its leading force, banker Jacob Schiff.

Maxim Gorky with the family of Graver Sverdlov

In 1913, the Security Department reported in its secret reports: “The Police Department has received information that Polotsk tradesman Veniamin Mikhailovich (Benyamin Movshev) Sverdlov, currently living abroad, wanted by the Department’s circular dated June 1, 1907, intends to return to the Empire, using for this purpose the foreign passport of his brother Lev Sverdlov.”

After October 1917, Yakov summoned his brother to Russia, where he was appointed People's Commissar of Railways, but proved unsuccessful in this post. There is information that Veniamin Sverdlov headed the scientific and technical department of the Supreme Economic Council (a secret division of the OGPU, which was engaged in experiments to obtain telepathic information about the inhabitants of Shambhala and the thoughts of Soviet citizens). In 1937, during the “great purge,” Veniamin Sverdlov was arrested, sentenced to 15 years in the camps, but executed in 1939.

Sverdlov did not like to talk about himself and his family. “Yakov Mikhailovich,” recalled his wife Klavdiya Novgorodtseva, “never liked to talk about himself.” And this is quite understandable: the Sverdlov family hid many secrets. One of them is the fact that, being completely insignificant, neither socially, nor culturally, nor financially, the Sverdlov family knew and maintained close relationships with many influential and famous people of their era. First of all, this concerns Maxim Gorky. Gorky knew the Sverdlovs closely even at the time when Yankel and his brothers were very young. “A frequent guest of the Sverdlovs,” wrote Novgorodtseva, “was Gorky, who lived in Nizhny Novgorod in those years, who knew and appreciated this friendly, interesting family.”

Who, how and under what circumstances brought the famous Russian writer together with the “interesting and friendly family” is unknown, but Gorky showed keen interest in her from the very beginning. When in the spring of 1902 Yankel and Veniamin Sverdlov Once again were imprisoned for possessing and distributing banned revolutionary literature, Gorky spoke in their defense, writing a pamphleteering letter in which he sneered at the Imperial government: “In Nizhny,” he wrote, “terrible things are happening! Terrible things! The disgusting criminals, political agitators, revolutionaries, two in number, the sons of the engraver Sverdlov, were caught and imprisoned - finally! Now order will triumph in Russia!” Thanks to Gorky's intercession, the brothers were soon released from custody.

Later, as we know, Gorky took a keen part in the fate of Sverdlov’s older brother Zinovy, adopting him. At the same time, he was also his godfather, which, of course, was sacrilege, since according to Orthodoxy, the father and the godfather cannot be the same person. The “baptism” was carried out in 1902 in Arzamas by priest Fyodor Vladimirsky, a friend of Gorky and a secret revolutionary. (By the way, the son of this priest, Mikhail Vladimirsky, became the People’s Commissar of Health in 1931.) Gorky’s biographer Pletnev wrote: “Of course, there was in fact no “sacrament”, but all this was only formally arranged by the “seditious” priest Vasiliev.” In general, hatred of Christianity was in the blood of both Gorky and his “betrothed son.” Mikhail Parkhomovsky provides information about “comic”, according to his concepts, scenes that were acted out by Gorky, Zinovy Peshkov-Sverdlov and others, and then filmed. “In one picture,” writes Parkhomovsky, “there is a biblical scene called “Marriage in Canna of Galilee.” In the foreground - Christ - V. A. Desnitsky, the kneeling slave - Zinovy and the Virgin Mary - Maria Fedorovna, in the background: the high priest with raised hands - Gorky, the groom - Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky, the bride E. F. Pavlova-Asilvanskaya, the servants - Katya Zhelyabuzhskaya and M. S. Botkina, centurion - Amphitheaters. The entire series of these photographs is called “Sacred History in Faces.”

Yakov Sverdlov, chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in the period 1917-1919, with his family - his wife, Claudia Novgorodtseva and son Andrei, future colonel of the USSR Ministry of State Security.

It is curious that the roles are distributed with meaning, deliberately pursuing the goal of mocking the Savior and His Most Pure Mother. Note that the great freemason Gorky is depicted as the Jewish high priest who betrayed the Lord to torture and execution, the blasphemer Peshkov - in the role of an evil slave, Gorky's mistress Maria Andreeva - in the role of the Most Holy Theotokos.

The purpose of the “baptism,” besides desecration of Orthodoxy, was obvious: to hide behind Peshkov’s surname his connection with Yankel Sverdlov, whose name was becoming increasingly notorious. The authorities understood this, and in 1903, by imperial decree, the clergy of the Trinity Church in the city of Arzamas was ordered to return Zinovy to his real surname: Sverdlov. The fact that both the “baptism” and “adoption” of Zinovy Gorky were clean water a fiction, Gorky himself proves, who wrote to Lenin in 1921: “The other day I called Zinovy Peshkov, my so-called adopted son, here from Paris.”

Not only Zinovy, but also Yakov Sverdlov used Gorky’s extensive connections. Thus, in 1903, Yakov, with the help of Gorky, received large financial assistance from Fyodor Chaliapin, who personally donated money for the purchase of a printing unit to Yakov, who came to the Nizhny Novgorod Opera House with Gorky.

But Gorky was not the only one famous people, whose help Yakov used. During the revolutionary unrest, when Yakov was wanted by the police for organizing mass riots involving murders and robberies, Sverdlov was hiding not just anywhere, but in the apartment of the Yekaterinburg City Duma, attorney-at-law Sergei Bibikov, who knew all the local city authorities closely. In 1918, during the height of the Bolshevik terror in Yekaterinburg, “for this service, Sverdlov recommended that the Soviet of Deputies treat the Bibikov family prudently.”

Having completed only four classes primary school Having spent a short time as a pharmacist's assistant, at the age of 15, Sverdlov went into the revolution. The reasons that led Sverdlov to the revolution are vague. The boring lie about “official Russian anti-Semitism” is refuted by Sverdlov himself, who wrote in one of his letters: “I personally never knew national oppression, I was not persecuted as a Jew.” No, the reason for Sverdlov’s revolutionary spirit was based on hatred, and deep and ancient hatred, a feeling that, without a doubt, was cultivated in young Yakov by his father.

What revolutionary organizations did Sverdlov join? This question is very confusing and mysterious, like Sverdlov’s whole life. According to the official Soviet canonical biography of Sverdlov, he acted from the very beginning as a member of the Bolshevik Party. However, there is no evidence that Sverdlov was a member of the RSDLP before 1917. In his leaflets he signed himself as “social democrat” or “group of social democrats”. Most likely, in those years Sverdlov had nothing to do with the Bolsheviks. He represented the interests of secret organizations of the West, and specifically the inhabitants of the skyscraper at 120 Broadway, the same Schiff, Solomon Leib, Colonel Edward House and so on. It was this force that organized entire armed groups of its militants in Russia.

Jacob Schiff - American banker who invested in the Russian Revolution

There is also more compelling evidence of Sverdlov’s commitment to Kabbalistic occultism, and, possibly, black magic. Researcher Valery Shambarov writes: “Sverdlov was such a thorough occultist that evidence of his hobbies leaked onto the pages of even Soviet works! I will give two examples from the memoirs of his wife Novgorodtseva.

In 1911, when his wife was about to give birth, Yakov Mikhailovich encouraged her and wrote from prison: “I would like to pour out all my “living spirit” in the hope of strengthening yours.” As we see, the phrase “spirit is alive” is used in the sense of some kind of vital energy. And this combination is characteristic of Sverdlov; it is heard more than once in his conversations and letters. And precisely in this form: not “living spirit”, not “living spirit”, but “living spirit”. That is, this is a term. In Turukhansk exile, where many revolutionaries drank themselves to death and even committed suicide, Yakov Mikhailovich convinces that the main thing is not to lose the “spirit is alive,” to keep the “spirit alive.” This is actually a Kabbalistic term meaning "energy." More precisely, according to occult beliefs, one of several “energies” inherent in humans.

Second example. In the Turukhansk region, back in Kureika, Sverdlov acquired a dog, which he named Pes. And I really loved this animal. The dog was endlessly attached to his owner and never parted with him. Wherever Sverdlov went, the dog followed on his heels. At the end of 1916, the Dog died. Yakov Mikhailovich grieved terribly. But what does a grieving owner do? He asked a local hunter to tan the Dog's skin. And then he took her with him everywhere. In the Kremlin, this skin always lay by the bed of Yakov Mikhailovich.

Those who have pets and are truly attached to them will probably shudder at such a display of “love.” But the fact is that the well-known magic ritual. And not just magical, but black magic. By preserving part of the corpse, necromancers, using certain rituals, try to “draw” the spirit of the deceased creature to the earth, to the material plane. Don't let him go to another world. And use it for your own purposes.

Shambarov also cites facts about Sverdlov’s depiction of occult drawings and his knowledge of magical rituals.

Another mystery is the reason for Sverdlov’s departure to the Urals, where he had neither relatives nor acquaintances. There, in the Urals, on the eve of the 1905 revolution, Sverdlov created an organization called the “Combat Detachment of People's Arms” (BONV), which became one of the most criminal and bloody organizations of the revolution of 1905-1907. This organization was formally subordinate to the combat center, which included Moses Lurie, Erasmus Kadomtsev, Miney Gubelman (Yaroslavsky). But in fact, the absolute master in it was Sverdlov, who acted under the nicknames “Comrade Andrei” and “Mikhailovich”. In BONV, “as in the classic mafia or in the Masonic orders, several levels of initiation into the secrets of the organization were created. Full information“Only the one who was at the top of the pyramid possessed it; he coordinated his actions with the combat center.” One of the active militants of BONV, Konstantin Myachin (aka Vasily Yakovlev), defined the rules that reigned in it: “Rule: one knows - no one knows, two are worse, three know - everyone knows.”

Behind the outward intelligence hid a brutal militant and a tough organizer...

Sverdlov was the leader of all anti-government actions in the Urals. The head of the Perm security department wrote to his superiors that “Comrade Andrei”, or “Mikhailovich”, “after the announcement of the Most Merciful Manifesto on October 17, 1905, led all the riots that took place in Yekaterinburg and constantly presided and spoke at all rallies of a revolutionary nature that took place there...”. In leading the militants, Sverdlov relied on monstrous cruelty. When one of the organization’s members, Ivan Bushenov, expressed disapproval of Sverdlov’s methods, he said in an ominously calm voice: “What, Vanyusha, do you want to make a revolution with white gloves? No blood, no shots, no defeats?

All members of the Yekaterinburg organization of the RSDLP who did not agree with the bloody methods of Yakov Sverdlov were one way or another pushed out of business. The future executioner of the royal family, Sverdlov even then set regicide as his main task. On May 6/19, 1905, on the Tsar’s birthday, Sverdlov wrote a leaflet that said: “Your hour has struck, the last hour for you and all yours! Either the Last Judgment or the revolution is coming!” What inhuman, age-old malice emanates from these lines, as if Sverdlov was only voicing, conveying the message of someone else, more powerful than him.

Many accomplices of the Yekaterinburg atrocity of 1918 went through the Sverdlovsk school. He happily attracted criminals and any antisocial element into his ranks. Oleg Platonov cites the memoirs of Social Democrat Nikolai Cherdyntsev, who was in prison with Sverdlov: “Sverdlov does not hesitate to enter into friendly relations with inveterate criminals. Whispers with them. He’s negotiating something.”

“Desperate urkhagans,” writes Eduard Khlystalov, “with aces of diamonds on their backs, feared the puny bespectacled Sverdlov. He did not forgive insults. In the surviving photograph, Sverdlov is sitting in a prison cell on a bunk in front of the “thieves in law,” with his legs folded in Turkish style, according to the thieves’ tradition.”

One of the accomplices in the murder of the royal family, criminal Pyotr Ermakov, on instructions from the party in 1907, killed a policeman and cut off his head; in the same year he committed an armed robbery of a transport with money; another criminal, Ilyusha Glukhar, specialized in killing police officers, whom he killed “in his own way” - with a shot between the eyes; Bolshevik Smirnov, suspecting his wife of betraying him, shot her with his own hands.

It is obvious that at this time the Sverdlovs acted independently, without relying on any Bolshevik structures, which in fact did not exist in the Urals at that time. Who financed and supplied weapons to Yankel Sverdlov and his bandits? After all, the militants received a very good “salary”. “Each vigilante,” wrote one of the militants, Ivan Podshivalov, “received 150 rubles a month in full support.”

Yakov Sverdlov in a group of prisoners in a Perm prison, 1906

There is no exact answer to this question, but some assumptions can be made. Sverdlov was captured by one idea. Everything in his life was subordinate to her. It is difficult to determine the nature of this idea. Sverdlov was a reserved person. But there is no doubt that it was a black and terrible idea, the idea of destruction and death. Even Sverdlov’s personal life was built on the principle of expediency. His first marriage was to Ekaterina Schmidt, with whom he had a daughter. In 1905, Sverdlov left his wife and, without divorcing her, on September 28, 1905, he met Claudia Novgorodtseva, who was the daughter of a wealthy Yekaterinburg schismatic merchant. Yekaterinburg was a place of concentration large quantity the so-called “Old Believer” merchants, descendants of exiled schismatics and sectarians. We know that these merchants actively helped all revolutionaries, and the Bolsheviks in particular, and Maxim Gorky played a significant role in this. The choice of Sverdlov was not accidental. Using his “father-in-law’s” connections, he was able to create his own reliable rear in the Urals.

It was during the years of the first Russian Troubles that Sverdlov created and organized his own own strength who will play an important role in organizing the murder of the royal family.

After the defeat of the revolution, in 1906, Sverdlov was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison. In March 1910, Sverdlov was exiled to the Narym region for a period of three years. In the same year, he writes a petition to replace his period of stay in exile with deportation abroad, which is very similar to returning to his own people after a completed task. This was denied to Sverdlov, and he was exiled to Narym, where he met Shaya Goloshchekin, who later became Sverdlov’s closest accomplice in organizing the Yekaterinburg crime. In July of the same 1910, Sverdlov escapes from exile, he is caught, returned back, he flees again, he is caught again and exiled for five years to the Turukhansk region, where he meets Joseph Stalin. By the way, mutual hostility immediately arose between Sverdlov and Stalin. The February Revolution found Sverdlov in the Turukhansk region.

In March 1917, he left Turukhansk for Krasnoyarsk. There, according to the official Soviet biography of Sverdlov, he “exposes the Menshevik-SR compromisers.” On this occasion, researcher German Nazarov writes very correctly: “Which of the Bolsheviks in Krasnoyarsk knew Sverdlov, who spent about seven years in exile with short breaks? It is known that in the Bolshevik faction of the RSDLP during the days of the February Revolution there were 14 thousand workers, almost 6,200 employees, a little more than 1,800 peasants and 1,500 representatives of other social strata. In a number of cities and regions of the country, especially in non-industrial centers, the Bolsheviks were members of joint organizations with the Mensheviks. But in Krasnoyarsk there were almost none of them.”

After spending a very short time in Krasnoyarsk, Sverdlov went to Petrograd and then to Yekaterinburg. After staying in the city for only two weeks, Sverdlov creates a unified party organization there. According to Sverdlov himself, he showed vigorous energy in Yekaterinburg, and the Bolshevik party organization grew during April from several hundred to 14 thousand members. This raises serious doubts. Firstly, why did the workers rush so en masse into the ranks of the Bolsheviks, an organization that was more than small in number and unpopular in those days? Secondly, from the documents of that era it is nowhere clear that Sverdlov identified himself as a Bolshevik-Leninist. He was even elected to the All-Russian April Conference of the RSDLP(b) not as a Bolshevik, but as “the favorite of the Ural workers.” It seems that Sverdlov arrived in Yekaterinburg to unite his bandits from 1905 into a legal organization.

Thus, with all his activities, Sverdlov provided enormous assistance to the revolution. At the same time, being under the banner of Social Democracy, Sverdlov pursued his own far-reaching goals, known only to a small circle of people. To do this, he used a Bolshevik sign. Soviet biographers of Sverdlov, Efim Gorodetsky and Yuri Sharapov, apparently without suspecting it themselves, very aptly described this activity of Sverdlov: “For a decade and a half until October 1917, Sverdlov worked in Russia. He did not have the opportunity to attend a single party congress, although he was an all-Russian worker. His work before the revolution was invisible, according to Lunacharsky’s apt definition. It was precisely that daily work that gradually prepared the revolution.”

Returning to Petrograd again, Sverdlov participates in the 7th April Conference of the RSDLP(b), where he meets Lenin for the first time. At the conference, Sverdlov was elected secretary of the Central Committee, which caused sharp opposition from Lenin. Trotsky writes that later, when Lenin “appraised” Sverdlov, he said: “But we were at first against his introduction to the Central Committee, we underestimated the man to such an extent! There were quite a few disputes on this score, but at the Congress we were corrected from below and they turned out to be entirely right.”

In fact, it is still unclear who “corrected” Lenin and convinced him, or forced him, to include Sverdlov in the party leadership. But it was from this moment that the rapid career growth of Yakov Sverdlov began. Being neither a major party theoretician nor an outstanding speaker, thirty-two-year-old Sverdlov immediately and firmly moved into the forefront of the Bolshevik leadership. Although it is obvious from his report to the Sixth Party Congress that he had little understanding of the party balance of power and even little knowledge of who the Bolsheviks were, this word never appears in Sverdlov’s report. He focused more on the so-called “inter-districts,” among whom were Trotsky, Lunacharsky, Adolf Joffe, and Dmitry Manuilsky.

Sverdlov (standing, second from right) and the future assassin of the Tsar Shaya Goloshchekin (sitting, far left) in a group of comrades returning from exile, March 1917

Sverdlov was clearly promoted by some force to which neither Lenin nor most of the Bolsheviks had a direct relationship.

From the very beginning, Sverdlov's dictatorial habits are evident. He clearly set himself the task of becoming the first person in the party. It got to the point that Sverdlov ignored Lenin. Together with Trotsky, he did everything to prevent Lenin from entering the Smolny premises on the eve of the October revolution.

On October 27 (November 9), 1917, the second day after the coup, at the first meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Lev Kamenev (Rosenfeld) was elected Chairman. But Kamenev did not remain in his position for very long. Eleven days later, he was removed from his post due to “disorganizing policies and insubordination of the Central Committee.” On November 8 (21), 1917, Lenin, unexpectedly for everyone, proposed Sverdlov for the post of chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

From this moment on, Sverdlov acquired virtually an equal position with Lenin, and in some matters, of course, he had more power than Lenin. Karl Radek (Sobelson) recalled: “When I arrived in Petrograd in November 1917 and talked with Vladimir Ilyich about the state of affairs abroad, I asked him who to talk to about all the work, he answered me simply: “With Sverdlov.” Let us note that Radek is talking about work abroad, that is, about connections with foreign forces, and all this work was carried out single-handedly by Sverdlov!

It is no coincidence that Lenin, delivering a speech in memory of Sverdlov on March 18, 1919, said the following: “None of those who knew or observed permanent job Yakov Mikhailovich, there can be no doubt that in this sense Yakov Mikhailovich is irreplaceable. The work that he did alone in the field of organization, selection of people, appointment of them to responsible positions in all various specialties - this work will now be within our power only if for each of the large industries that Comrade was solely in charge of. Sverdlov, you will put forward entire groups of people who, following in his footsteps, would be able to come closer to what one person did.”

He remained so adamant in the memory of the Soviet people at the instigation of Vladimir Lenin

It is interesting that it was Sverdlov who was perceived by many foreign circles as the most influential person in the Soviet hierarchy. And this was not at all caused by the fact that he officially held the post of head of the Soviet state. Almost all the leading powers of the world, with the exception of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey, did not recognize the Bolshevik regime. But, nevertheless, some of them, immediately after the October Revolution, hastened to assure the leaders of this regime of their respect.

In March 1918, US President Woodrow Wilson sent a welcoming telegram addressed to Sverdlov to the Congress of Soviets that opened in Moscow. Essentially, this was the recognition by the US government of the Bolshevik regime as the legitimate Russian government. But what the Frenchman Joseph Noulens took as President Wilson’s “unsuccessful initiative” was in fact an expression of support from the same Broadway, 120 of his proteges in Russia.

But it was not only the American president who singled out Sverdlov from the total number of Soviet figures. The German ambassador, despite the fact that Lenin, and not Sverdlov, was the creature of Germany, nevertheless, “conducted the most important affairs primarily with Sverdlov, and not with Lenin. Wilhelm Mirbach was daily provided with a detailed report from the Extraordinary Commission, which gave a complete picture of what was happening in the country.”

Despite this, Sverdlov behaved even with Mirbach like an imperious ruler. Mirbach himself wrote to Berlin about his impression of meeting Sverdlov during the presentation of his credentials: “The presentation of my credentials took place not only in the simplest, but also in the coldest atmosphere. In his response speech, the Chairman expressed his expectation that I would “be able to remove the obstacles that still stand in the way of genuine peace.” There was clearly indignation in these words. At the end of the official ceremony, he did not invite me to sit down and did not deign to have a personal conversation with me.”

With Lenin at the opening of a temporary monument to Karl Marx in Moscow...

“With each passing month,” writes Yuri Felshtinsky, “Sverdlov’s power grew stronger. Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, member of the Central Committee, secretary of the Central Committee, Sverdlov gradually concentrated all party work in his hands. His signature appears under documents more often than others. Since July 1918, he has signed himself with the titles: Secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) or even simply “Secretary”; Novgorodtseva, Sverdlov’s wife, signs “for the secretary”; more and more often letters are sent to places on behalf of the “Secretariat of the Central Committee” (and not the Central Committee, as was customary before August 1918 and after September 1918).

On April 8, 1918, Sverdlov virtually single-handedly abolished the national Russian white-blue-red flag, approved as a state flag by Emperor Nicholas II at the beginning of the First World War, and approved as a new red banner with Masonic-occult symbols: a pentagram and a hammer. It is interesting that the greatest Satanist of the twentieth century, Eliphas Levi, wrote about the pentagram: “All the secrets of magic, symbols of Gnosticism, figures of the occult, all the keys of Kabbalah - all this is contained in the sign of the pentagram. This sign is the greatest, the most powerful of all signs. He who does not recognize the sign of the cross trembles at the sight of the star of the microcosm.”

It was Sverdlov who introduced the terrifying Chekist leather uniform. Sverdlov himself, according to Trotsky, “walked in leather from head to toe, i.e. from boots to leather caps.”

On July 6, under the most mysterious circumstances, the German ambassador Count Mirbach was killed. On the night of July 17 - the royal family.

The adventurer Vladimir Orlov, who posed as a white counterintelligence agent who was illegally operating in the Cheka in 1918, and for unknown reasons had close ties with the Bolshevik leadership, recalled: “In July 1918, when I was interviewing agents in the Cheka building, a messenger brought a telegram addressed to Dzerzhinsky, who was next to me. He quickly read it, turned deathly pale, jumped to his feet and exclaimed: “Again they are acting without consulting me!” - rushed out of the room. What's happened? The entire Cheka was excited. Screams, exclamations, calls merged into a single hubbub! Dzerzhinsky hurried to the Kremlin. What on earth happened? The next day we learned the news. The imperial family was shot without the knowledge of the Cheka! Independently, on the instructions of Sverdlov and one of the highest bosses in the Central Committee of the Communist Party! According to the general opinion in the Cheka, the Revolutionary Tribunal and the Kremlin, the decision to kill was made and implemented by Sverdlov’s authorities. He carried out the preparations in secret from his comrades and only after the execution confronted them with a fait accompli.”

Sverdlov wanted to shoot them all. And he shot...

On the very eve of the murder, in July 1918, Sverdlov became an ardent supporter wide application death penalty.

In May 1918, Sverdlov initiates the start of a fratricidal war in the village. In his report “On the Tasks of the Soviets in the Countryside,” he says: “We must most seriously pose before ourselves the question of stratification in the countryside, the question of creating two opposing hostile forces in the countryside, set ourselves the task of contrasting the poorest strata of the population with kulak elements in the countryside.” . Only if we can split the village into two irreconcilably hostile camps, if we can kindle there the same civil war that was going on not so long ago in the cities, if we succeed in restoring the rural poor against the rural bourgeoisie, only then will we be able to say that we are doing for the countryside what we were able to do for the cities. ...I have no doubt at all that we will be able to bring work in the village to the proper level.”

And the work was brought to the “proper level”: unprecedented tyranny and violence began in the villages.

Sverdlov sought to seize power. He was clearly becoming the main protege of the world behind the scenes, the person who was supposed to become the leader of the new public education, which arose on the site of Russia.

The murder of the royal family seemed to give Sverdlov “ green light"to prepare for a new and, as he assumed, finally victorious round of the struggle for power. On August 26, 1918, Sverdlov sent a letter to the Vologda Committee of the RCP(b), signing it with a new title: “Chairman of the Central Committee of the RCP Ya. Sverdlov.” This was the time when it was Sverdlov, and not Lenin, who was called the “Red Tsar.”

Red Tsar Yakov Sverdlov...

Sverdlov’s role during the assassination attempt on Lenin on August 30, 1918 is very confusing and strange. An interesting Russian researcher, Valery Shambarov, directly points out Sverdlov’s attempt to kill Lenin in order to completely seize power. “If you look at who benefited from eliminating Lenin at that moment, Sverdlov won the most. After the assassination attempt, Sverdlov was the first to arrive in the Kremlin. Sverdlov’s wife reports that that same evening he occupied Lenin’s office, taking over the Council of People’s Commissars, the Central Committee, and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.”

Roy Medvedev writes the same thing in his article: “When Lenin was seriously wounded by the Socialist-Revolutionary Kaplan, Sverdlov became the de facto head of the Soviet state for several weeks.”

And even Ivan Plotnikov in 1987, and in those years Sverdlov was for Plotnikov not “Yashka the Hooligan”, but “a hero of the revolutionary struggle,” writes that by the summer of 1918 Sverdlov “essentially became a secretary, the first secretary of the Central Committee in the modern sense "

It is Sverdlov who conducts a hasty investigation into the case of Fanny Kaplan, and it is on his orders that Kaplan is quickly shot and burned in a barrel on the territory of the Kremlin. By the way, this method of covering up tracks in Sverdlovsk style, that is, burning corpses, involuntarily leads us to Ganina Yama. The same is evidenced by the name of the person who led the “investigation” of the Kaplan case - Yakov Yurovsky.

It is interesting that Fanny Kaplan did not hide her hatred specifically for Lenin, and not for the Bolsheviks in general. "How lives longer“he,” she said, “the more removes the idea of socialism for decades.” At the same time, she several times called Lenin a “traitor to the revolution.”

Of course, Sverdlov was not able to act alone. His conspiracy relied on the powerful support of part of the Bolshevik elite. It was in those days that Sverdlov unleashed a monstrous terror against the Russian people, which he called the “red terror,” and it was under Sverdlov’s rule that the “decossackization” we have already mentioned was carried out.

Telling stories in Sverdlovsk...

Sverdlov was very close to the “red coronation”. But Sverdlov’s “red coronation” should not have meant the preservation of any semblance of nation state. This “coronation” was only supposed to mean the death of Russia, its complete capture by satanic forces. There was full preparation for this. In the city of Sviyazhsk, a statue of Judas Iscariot was erected, with his fist extended to the sky. The Danish writer Henning Köhler, who observed the opening of the monument, wrote that they wanted to erect a monument to Lucifer, but, in the end, he was recognized as “not fully sharing the principles of communism.” They were desecrated en masse Orthodox churches However, similar actions were carried out against churches of other faiths and Jewish synagogues, but Orthodoxy was especially hated by the atheists.

Such a famous Jewish communist as Louis Aragon openly spoke about the fact that it was Sverdlov who was supposed to become the head of the “new Khazaria”. “Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov,” he wrote, “is Lenin’s most faithful comrade, who became the first chairman of the Central Executive Committee, that is, the first head of the new Soviet state, and who, unfortunately for the whole world, was to die of the Spanish flu at the age of thirty-four. I said “to the misfortune of the whole world,” because, of course, if he had survived, Sverdlov, and not Stalin, would have succeeded Lenin.”

Note that Aragon never uses the word “Russia”. We are talking exclusively about the fate of “the whole world”, and it is clear which world and under whose control.

In case of failure, Sverdlov was ready to disappear from the blood-drenched country at any moment. It is quite possible that this was part of the plans of the foreign owners. Bloodless, robbed and dismembered Russia was supposed to have a protege of the secret forces of the West over it. Who it would be - a Bolshevik leader, or a white general - was generally unimportant to them. The main thing is that both of them continue to provide the West with control over Russia and pump out natural and material resources from it.

Hints of such a decision can be heard in a letter Jacob Schiff wrote to the editor of the Parisian newspaper La Tribune Juive. “It is obvious,” he wrote, “that if we do not help those elements who are fighting so heroically in Russia today to defeat the forces of anarchy and disorder that have today established themselves as the Russian government, and if we do not contribute to the establishment of a truly democratic government in their place “, which alone can save Russia, the current regime, which cannot be eternal, will be replaced by a reactionary government, as unacceptable as the Romanovs, whose autocracy brought so much poverty and suffering to the Russian people.”

Victims of decossackization and famine - this is a true monument to Sverdlov...

On July 27, 1935, People's Commissar of the NKVD Genrikh Yagoda handed over Secretary General The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks sent the following secret note to Joseph Stalin: “Sov. secret. To the Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Comrade. Stalin. In the inventory warehouses of the commandant of the Moscow Kremlin, the fireproof cabinet of the late Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov was kept locked. The keys to the closet were lost. On July 26 this year we opened this cabinet and found in it:

1. Gold coins of royal minting in the amount of one hundred eight thousand five hundred twenty-five (108,525) rubles.
2. Gold items, many of which are set with precious stones, seven hundred and five (705) items.
3. Seven blank forms of royal-style passports.
4. Seven passports filled out in the following names:
a) Sverdlov Yakov Mikhailovich
b) Gurevich Cecilia-Olga
c) Ekaterina Sergeevna Grigorieva
d) Princess Baryatinskaya Elena Mikhailovna
e) Sergei Konstantinovich Polzikov
e) Romanyuk Anna Pavlovna
g) Klenochkin Ivan Grigorievich
5. One-year passport in the name of Goren Adam Antonovich
6. German passport in the name of Elena Steel.

In addition, royal credit notes worth only seven hundred fifty thousand (750,000) rubles were discovered. A detailed inventory of gold products is made with specialists. People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR (Yagoda) July 27, 1935 No. 56568"....

On March 3, 1919, Sverdlov, after returning from Orel, where, according to one official version, he caught a cold while speaking at a rally, and according to another, he was beaten to death by workers, he died suddenly, and died in severe agony, in constant delirium...

Peter MULTATULI, "Ekaterinburg Initiative"

135 years ago, on June 4, 1885 in Nizhny Novgorod, an outstanding revolutionary was born into the family of an artisan engraver Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov.

Biography of Sverdlov Ya. M.

At his father's house, as a teenager, he heard talk about the plight of workers. He met people who came to illegal meetings, and more than once helped them hide illegal literature in the hiding places of his father’s house. Lively and impressionable, Yakov early began to look for answers to “damned questions” in Marxist literature.

Yakov Mikhailovich was only sixteen years old when he fulfilled his first party assignment and became a member of the RSDLP. From this memorable December day began his difficult and dangerous life, full of hardships and heroism. life of a professional revolutionary.

Sverdlov's personal life

Both in the stone sack of solitary confinement and in the “white silence” of Siberian exile, Yakov Mikhailovich, cut off from friends and family, remained a staunch revolutionary, full of energy and enthusiasm. He was a man of rare soul.

In the spring of 1911, he was arrested again and thrown into solitary confinement in the St. Petersburg pre-trial detention center. This time the arrest is especially depressing for Sverdlov.

His wife, Klavdia Timofeevna, arrested with him, is expecting a child. True, she was soon released, but she has no means of subsistence, no work... From solitary confinement, one after another, letters are sent to her wife, full of anxiety, touching and courageous concern. He doesn't think about himself. He is worried about powerlessness, the inability to be useful to her, “to take upon himself the most careful care, the most tender, touching care...” He wants to be close to her, but “what can I, dear?”

In mid-April there was joy in Yakov Mikhailovich’s cell: a son was born. Sverdlov is immensely happy. He hurries to congratulate his wife, “I have already congratulated myself.” He comes up with affectionate nicknames for his distant son: “animal, little animal, little animal.” He is interested in everything: who the “future little man” is like, and his weight, and his health. He remains hopeful that he and his wife will raise him “to be a real person in the best and fullest sense of the word.” He misses his wife and son. But Yakov Mikhailovich was able to see them only a year and a half later, when Klavdia Timofeevna came to him in exile in Narym...

Revolutionary Yakov Sverdlov

Deep conviction in the rightness of the cause to which he is selflessly devoted, intransigence and fearlessness in the fight against the enemies of the party, great organizational talent, a rare ability to captivate the masses, extraordinary simplicity, passion for work - these are the qualities that Lenin highly valued in Yakov Mikhailovich. “The most distinguished type of professional revolutionary,” characterized Vladimir Ilyich Ya. M. Sverdlov.

During the years of the first Russian revolution Sverdlov carried out on instructions from the party great job in Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Perm. He is preparing for an armed uprising and creating fighting squads.

With the first news of the February Revolution of 1917, Yakov Mikhailovich came from exile to Petrograd, where he immediately became involved in active revolutionary work. He was elected secretary of the party's Central Committee. In this post his outstanding abilities as an organizer manifested themselves with exceptional force. He directs all his vigorous energy to the implementation of the tasks set by the party in the struggle for the victory of the proletarian revolution.

After the Great October Revolution, Sverdlov became chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Yakov Mikhailovich took an active part in the triumphal march of Soviet power across the vast expanses of Russia, in the demolition of the old state machine and the creation of a new state apparatus.

Died revolutionary Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov from a serious illness in 1919. The life and revolutionary activities of Sverdlov are a vivid example of selfless service to the party and the people.

Tags: personal life of Sverdlov, Sverdlov biography, revolutionary Sverdlov, revolution.

“The Black Devil,” as he was nicknamed, was born 130 years ago. There is no unity in the date of birth of Yakov Sverdlov; some call it the third, others - the fourth of June.

In 1994, a letter from Genrikh Yagoda to I.V. was discovered in the former archives of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee. To Stalin, July 27, 1935. In it, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs reported: Ya.M.'s personal safe was discovered in the warehouse of the Kremlin commandant. Sverdlov, which has not been opened for 16 years since his death, and the key to which was lost. There were gold coins of tsarist minting worth an astronomical amount, over seven hundred gold items with precious stones, many blank passport forms and completed passports in the name of Sverdlov himself and unknown persons, bonds of tsarist times.

Why and for what purpose the “fiery revolutionary” kept all this in his personal safe remains a mystery to this day.

Yakov Sverdlov is generally considered one of the most mysterious figures of the Russian revolution.
Firstly, his real name is not Sverdlov at all. His father, the tradesman Miraim-Movsha Izrailevich Gauchmann, with his wife Elizaveta Solomonovna, moved from the Pale of Settlement into the interior of Russia and settled in Nizhny Novgorod, where he signed up as an artisan under the name Movsha Sverdlin, later turning into Sverdlova. Not everything is clear with the name. According to historian I.F. Plotnikov, “according to some sources, Sverdlov was called Yeshua-Solomon Movshevich from birth, and according to others, Yankel Miraimovich.” And when he became a revolutionary, they called him either “Comrade Andrei”, then “Max”, then “Mikhail Permyakov”, then “Smirnov”...

Unlike the eloquent Leon Trotsky, Sverdlov did not make pretentious speeches, did not tour the fronts in luxurious royal carriages, did not give interviews to the foreign press, and did not appear on the pages of newspapers. He remained, as it were, in the shadows all the time.
His intelligent appearance with his unchanging pince-nez and wedge beard suggested, rather, a university professor than the leader of the revolutionary party. Anatoly Lunacharsky wrote about Sverdlov like this: “Of course, there was a lot of internal fire in him, but outwardly he was an absolutely icy man. When he was not on the podium, he always spoke in a low voice, walked quietly, and all his gestures were slow.” Sverdlov had a phenomenal memory, he was called “Lenin’s notebook”, he remembered everything and everyone.

However, Sverdlov was probably called the “Black Devil” not only for his black leather jacket. Historians provide evidence of his involvement in black magic. So, while in exile, Sverdlov acquired a dog, which he named Pes. The dog was endlessly attached to his owner and never parted with him. At the end of 1916, the Dog died. Yakov Mikhailovich grieved terribly. He asked a local hunter to skin the corpse of his faithful friend and tan it. And then he took her with him everywhere. In the Kremlin, this skin always lay by Sverdlov’s bed. We are talking about a black magic ritual. With such rituals, they try to “pull” the spirit of a deceased creature to the earth, and not allow it to go into another world in order to use it for their own purposes.

At the suggestion of Lenin, Sverdlov, as the chief personnel officer, was appointed chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. He carried out the main work on the creation of Soviet authorities in the center and locally. “Sometimes it seemed that like V.I. Lenin came to Russia after the victory of the February Revolution with ready-made political blueprints for the entire revolution, so Ya.M. Sverdlov came from distant exile with ready-made organizational drawings of the entire work of the party and with a ready-made plan for the distribution of the main groups of workers by branches of work,” Grigory Zinoviev later recalled.

In this regard, the assassination attempt on Lenin on August 30, 1918 looks very mysterious. Researcher V.E. Shambarov directly points to Sverdlov’s attempt to kill Lenin in order to completely seize power.
“If you look at who benefited from eliminating Lenin at that moment, Sverdlov won the most,” he writes. - After the assassination attempt, Sverdlov was the first to arrive in the Kremlin. Sverdlov’s wife reports that that same evening he occupied Lenin’s office, taking over the Council of People’s Commissars, the Central Committee, and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.” Roy Medvedev writes the same thing: “When Lenin was seriously wounded by the Socialist-Revolutionary Kaplan, Sverdlov became the de facto head of the Soviet state for several weeks.”

It was Sverdlov who carried out a hasty investigation into the case of Fani Kaplan; it was on his orders that Kaplan was hastily shot and burned in a metal barrel on the territory of the Kremlin. Although she was a friend of Yakov Sverdlov’s sister.

In May 1918, Sverdlov provoked the start of a fratricidal war in the village. In his report “On the tasks of the Soviets in the countryside,” he says: “Only if we can split the village into two irreconcilably hostile camps, if we can kindle there the same civil war that was going on not so long ago in the cities, if we It will be possible to restore the rural poor against the rural bourgeoisie, only then will we be able to say that we are doing for the countryside what we were able to do for the cities.” And in July 1918 he said: “I want to dwell on the question of the death penalty. I must point out that the Revolutionary Tribunal, with its first decision on the death penalty, showed, in my deep conviction, that it correctly took into account the given moment that we are experiencing at this time.”

The next day we found out. The imperial family was shot without the knowledge of the Cheka! Independently, on the instructions of Sverdlov and one of the highest bosses in the Central Committee of the Communist Party!
According to the general opinion in the Cheka, the Revolutionary Tribunal and the Kremlin, the decision to kill was made and implemented by Sverdlov’s authorities. He carried out the preparations in secret from his comrades, and only after the execution confronted them with a fait accompli.”

...They say that when a person dies, all his vices or virtues are imprinted on his face. As usual, the death mask was removed from the “fiery revolutionary”. Seeing her, psychiatrist Evgeny Chernosvitov exclaimed: “Sverdlov’s mask is the embodiment of evil, it’s unpleasant to look at!”

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