An ode to the most terrible executioner of the Bolshevik revolution - Sverdlov's birthday. Literary and historical notes of a young technician
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 very short life, at the time of his death he was not 34 years old, Yakov Sverdlov had so much time to contribute 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 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 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: far 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 the 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: “On January 16, 1918, the War Ministry summoned 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. Act of recognition of Kolchak by France supreme ruler was brought 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 - Sverdlov. 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 were once again imprisoned for possessing and distributing banned revolutionary literature, Gorky spoke out in their defense, writing a pamphleteering letter in which he sneered at the Imperial government: “In Nizhny,” he wrote, “there are 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 famous person 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 grades of 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 of a large number of 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 closely or observed the constant work of Yakov Mikhailovich can 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 formed in the Cheka, in the Revolutionary Tribunal and the Kremlin, the decision to kill was made and implemented by the authorities of Sverdlov. 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 of the widespread use of the 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 state formation that arose in the place 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. “The longer he lives,” she said, “the more he removes the idea of socialism by 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 a national state in Russia. This “coronation” was only supposed to mean the death of Russia, its complete capture by satanic forces. I was heading towards this full preparation. 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 for 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 the true monument to Sverdlov...
On July 27, 1935, the People's Commissar of the NKVD, Genrikh Yagoda, handed over the following secret note to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, 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 precious stones, seven hundred 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"
Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Empire
Moscow, Russian SFSR
2) K. T. Sverdlova
daughter: Faith
Biography
Family
1901 − 1917
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 (at the age of 20) he was sent to the Urals as a representative agent of the Central Committee.
Organized an activist group of experienced underground workers. In 1905, he organized revolutionary demonstrations of the masses in Yekaterinburg and learned the practice of combat from militants.
He was repeatedly arrested and sentenced to imprisonment and exile; he educated himself in prison and learned a lot of experience from criminals. Together with I. Teodorovich (appointed People's Commissar for Food in 1917, then General Secretary of the Peasant International), he organized a narrow group of “insiders” in prison, unconditionally supporting each other and suppressing everyone else.
From June 10, 1906 to September 1909, Sverdlov was imprisoned in the Urals. His associates and wife were also arrested. On December 19, 1909, he was arrested again in Moscow. On March 31, 1910, he was exiled to the Narym region for 3 years, but escaped without even staying for four months.
In 1910, he fled from Narym exile to St. Petersburg, and while I. Stalin was at the Krakow meeting, he 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.
Links to Narym and Turukhansk
From the beginning of 1912, on his initiative, a deeply secret organization was created in Narym exile, specifically engaged in arranging escapes for exiled Bolsheviks. Boris Kraevsky was appointed chairman of the Bureau of Escapes.
In February 1913, together with Stalin, he was extradited by secret police agent Malinovsky and exiled to Turukhansk. They served exile in the north of the Yenisei province (Kureika settlement) in the same house for some time. The misunderstanding between the two future leaders of the revolution was, apparently, not based on political grounds.
Under the Provisional Government
After returning from exile in March 1917, after the February Revolution, Sverdlov was sent by the Central Committee to Yekaterinburg.
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 (main executive agency Central Committee, which implements the decisions of party leaders).
Sverdlov was the main speaker of the Bolshevik Central Committee and received the nickname “black devil of the Bolsheviks” from political opponents (based on the color of his leather jacket, which he never parted with, which later became Bolshevik fashion).
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. In this capacity, he began recruiting members of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee.
At the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets (October 25 (November 7), 1917) he led the Bolshevik faction. After his speech on the creation of a coalition socialist government, L. Kamenev, elected by the congress as chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, at the suggestion of V. Lenin, was replaced by Sverdlov (November 8, 1917, old style).
Activities after the revolution
As chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, Sverdlov carried out the main work on creating bodies of Soviet power "in the center and locally." He achieved the unification of the Soviets of Peasants' Deputies with the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.
From January 1918 he was chairman of the Committee for the Revolutionary Defense of Petrograd. On behalf of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, he opened the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly on January 5, 1918, 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. 13th of January
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 a Republic of Soviets on the basis of a free union of free nations as a federation of Soviet national republics (that is, the power of the Soviets on the principles of national autonomies).
At a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on May 20, 1918, Sverdlov first announced the policy of splitting the village into two warring camps of the poor and the kulaks. Sverdlov is credited with the authorship of the directive of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) dated January 24, 1919, which ordered the implementation of harsh punitive measures in the suppression of Cossack uprisings against Soviet power on the Don.
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.
Death
Returning to Moscow from Kharkov on March 6, 1919, he fell ill with the Spanish flu. Died on March 16, 1919. On March 18, 1919 he was buried near the Kremlin wall.
Footnotes
Sources and links
- Sverdlov, Yakov Mikhailovich. Great Soviet Encyclopedia.
- Sverdlov, Yakov Mikhailovich. Peoples.ru
- The Nizhny Novgorod branch of the Union of Orthodox Citizens advocates the demolition of the monument to Yakov Sverdlov in Nizhny Novgorod
- The regional prosecutor's office intervened in the Kuban "war of monuments"
- Must be set title= And url= for template ((cite web)). Alexander Birshtein.. otrageniya.com.ua (2015-07). Retrieved July 15, 2015.
Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov -
The ideological leader of the Red Terror,
Leader of the suppression of leftist essers,
The leader of the brutal murder of the royal family in Yekaterinburg,
The ideological leader of the Holodomor,
The ideological leader of the physical destruction of the Don Cossacks.
born (May 22) June 3, 1885 in Nizhny Novgorod, in a large family of an artisan engraver and workshop owner.
After graduating from primary school, Yakov entered the gymnasium.
In 1900, due to absenteeism, poor grades, and damaged relationships with teachers, he left the gymnasium, becoming a pharmacist's student. Even from his high school days, Sverdlov was close to the Social Democrats.
In 1901 he joined the RSDLP, and a year later he became a professional revolutionary: he distributed illegal literature, collected funds for the needs of the party, and organized an underground printing house.
After the Second Congress of the RSDLP, Yakov Mikhailovich joined the ranks of the Bolsheviks. During the revolution of 1905–1907, he was one of the leaders of the Yekaterinburg and Ural regional committees of the RSDLP.
After another escape in 1912, Sverdlov reached St. Petersburg, was co-opted into the Party Central Committee, and became a member of the editorial board of Pravda.
In 1913, he was extradited by the provocateur R.V. Malinovsky and exiled to the Turukhansk region. After the February Revolution of 1917 he returned to Petrograd. Sverdlov is one of those who was a member of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b), prepared and carried out October Revolution.
At the suggestion of V.I. Lenin became Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and organized work in the center and locally to establish Soviet power. He took an active part in the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly and supported Lenin on the issue of concluding the Brest Peace.
In 1918, he was elected chairman of the Commission for the development of the first Constitution of the Soviet State, and was one of the leaders in the suppression of the speech of the left Socialist Revolutionaries in Moscow.
On July 18, it was Sverdlov who reported to the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee about the execution of the royal family by decision of the Ural Regional Council. Many argue that the Urals decided to do this precisely on Sverdlov’s instructions.
After the assassination attempt on Lenin on August 30, 1918, at the suggestion of Sverdlov, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a resolution on mass “red terror against the bourgeoisie and its agents.” During Lenin's illness, Sverdlov replaced him at meetings of the Council of People's Commissars, participated in the organization of the Red Army, and the work of the Comintern.
Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov died on March 16, 1919 from the Spanish flu. He was buried on Red Square in Moscow.
Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov(birth name according to some sources - Yeshua-Solomon Movshevich Sverdlov, according to others - Yankel Miraimovich Sverdlov) May 22 (June 3), 1885, Nizhny Novgorod - March 16, 1919, Moscow) - Russian political and statesman, revolutionary, Bolshevik. Member of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b), RCP (b). Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (formal head of the RSFSR) in November 1917 - March 1919. Party pseudonyms: Comrade Andrei, Max, Mikhail Permyakov, Smirnov, etc. As chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, he was one of the organizers of the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, decossackization.
Modern historical science recognizes as an established fact the authorization of the execution of Nicholas II by the Bolshevik leadership in the person of Lenin and Sverdlov, while the question of the existence of sanctions from Moscow for the murder of the relatives of Nicholas II remains controversial in modern historiography: some historians recognize the existence of sanctions by the central government also for their execution, some historians question this circumstance.
Born into a Jewish family. Father - Mikhail Izrailevich Sverdlov(died 1921) - was an engraver; mother - Elizaveta Solomonovna (died in 1900) - a housewife. There were six children in the family: two daughters (Sophia and Sarah) and four sons (Zinovy, Yakov, Benjamin and Lev). After the death of his wife (1900), Mikhail Izrailevich Sverdlov converted to Orthodoxy and married for a second marriage to Maria Alexandrovna Kormiltseva; In this marriage, two more sons were born - Herman and Alexander.
House in Nizhny Novgorod, where Ya. M. Sverdlov spent his childhood
- Elder brother - Peshkov, Zinovy Alekseevich (1884-1966). He 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.
- Brother - Sverdlov, Veniamin Mikhailovich (1887-1938). In 1938, he was executed by execution as a “Trotskyist” by the VKVS.
- Brother - Sverdlov, Lev Mikhailovich (1893-1914).
- Sisters - Sophia (1882-1951) and Sarah (1890-1964).
- Brothers from his father's second marriage - German and Alexander.
- First wife - E.F. Schmidt; daughter from this marriage - E. Ya. Sverdlova (born 1905).
- The second wife is Sverdlova (nee Novgorodtseva) Claudia Timofeevna (1876-1960). Pseudonym - Olga Novgorodtseva. The keeper of the “diamond fund of the Politburo” (it was hidden in her apartment. “Its purpose was to provide members of the Politburo with the means to live and continue revolutionary activities in the event of loss of power”). Author of a book of memoirs about Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov.
- Andrei Yakovlevich Sverdlov (1911-69) - son of the Sverdlovs Yakov Mikhailovich and Klavdia Timofeevna. Twice - in 1935 and 1937 - he was arrested by the NKVD for “anti-Soviet” statements among young people, which did not prevent him from subsequently serving in the central apparatus of the NKGB and the USSR MGB. In October 1951, Colonel A. Ya. Sverdlov was arrested for the third time, but did not go to trial due to the death of Stalin.
- Daughter of the Sverdlovs Yakov Mikhailovich and Claudia Timofeevna - Vera (born 1913).
- Ida Averbakh is the niece of Yakov Sverdlov. She was married to G. Yagoda.
- Leopold Averbakh is the nephew of Ya. Sverdlov.
A frequent guest of the Sverdlov family was Maxim Gorky, who lived in Nizhny Novgorod in those years. One of Yakov’s childhood friends is Volodya Lubotsky (V. M. Zagorsky).
According to the official version, he fell ill with the Spanish flu while returning to Moscow from Kharkov (he left Kharkov on March 6, 1919). Returned to Moscow on March 8. It was reported that he was “seriously ill” on March 9. Died on March 16, 1919. On March 18, 1919 he was buried at the Kremlin wall.
Doctor of Law sciences Arkady Vaksberg , citing a source in RGASPI, 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 was severely beaten by workers because of his Jewish origin, but this fact was allegedly hidden so as not to “disgrace the revolution” and not to inflame even more anti-Semitic passions.” The historian Yu. G. Felshtinsky also mentioned similar rumors, even putting forward the hypothesis that Sverdlov could have been poisoned on Lenin’s orders.
Participation in the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly
“The peaceful demonstration in support of the Constituent Assembly that took place in Petrograd on January 5, 1918 was shot by the Red Guard. The shooting took place at the corner of Nevsky and Liteiny Prospekts and in the area of Kirochnaya Street. The main column of up to 60 thousand people was scattered, but other columns of demonstrators reached the Tauride Palace and were dispersed only after the arrival of additional troops. The dispersal of the demonstration was led by a special headquarters led by V. I. Lenin, Ya. M. Sverdlov, N. I. Podvoisky, M. S. Uritsky, V. D. Bonch- Bruevich. According to various estimates, the number of deaths ranged from 7 to 100 people. The demonstrators mainly consisted of representatives of the intelligentsia, employees and university students. At the same time, a significant number of workers took part in the demonstration, and they did not offer serious resistance to the Red Guards. According to the testimony of the former Socialist-Revolutionary V.K. Dzerul, “all the demonstrators, including the PC, walked without weapons, and there was even an order from the PC in the districts that no one should take weapons with them.”
Participation in organizing the execution of the royal family
In 1917, after the February Revolution, abdication and house arrest, the former Russian Emperor Nicholas II and his family, by decision of the Provisional Government, were exiled to Tobolsk, and subsequently transferred by the Bolsheviks to Yekaterinburg.
At the beginning of July 1918, the Ural military commissar Filipp Goloshchekin went to Moscow to resolve the issue of the future fate of the royal family. The execution of the entire family was not sanctioned by the Council of People's Commissars, since, according to one version, Moscow was notified of this later. In accordance with this decision, the Ural Council of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies, at its meeting on July 12, adopted a resolution on the execution. On July 16-17, 1918, the royal family was executed. Sverdlov was in Moscow at that time.
However L. D. Trotsky in his memoirs directly indicates participation Y. M. Sverdlova in the case of the execution of the royal family.
Organization of the fight against the Cossacks
On January 24, 1919, the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), after discussing the 6th item on the agenda - “Circular Letter of the Central Committee on the attitude towards the Cossacks”, adopted a secret directive “To all responsible comrades working in the Cossack regions” with the resolution: “Accept the text of the circular letter. Invite the Commissariat of Agriculture to develop practical measures for the resettlement of the poor on a large scale to Cossack lands.".
This directive, signed on January 29 by the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Ya. Sverdlov, marked the beginning of decossackization. According to the research of historians, the ideologist and compiler of this directive is I.V. Stalin (historian G. Magner), Y.M. Sverdlov (opinion of the historian R.A. Medvedev), or S.I. Syrtsov - Chairman of the Donburo (as stated by Dr. historical sciences L.I. Futoryansky, studying the problems of the Cossacks).
In March 1919, the Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) revised the provisions of the directive, demanding a differentiated approach to various layers of the Cossacks.
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23.05(04.06); 1885, Nizhny Novgorod - 03/16/1919, Moscow.
Revolutionary, party and Soviet statesman.
From the family of the owner of an engraving workshop/ He studied at the Nizhny Novgorod city gymnasium, graduated from 4th grade (was expelled from 5th). He worked as an apprentice in a pharmacy. Member of the RSDLP (since 1901), Bolshevik. Professional revolutionary. Acted in Nizhny Novgorod, Kostroma, Yaroslavl, Kazan.
In 1905 he carried out illegal work in the Urals - in Perm, Yekaterinburg and other cities and factories. In the December days of 1905 he spent some time in Moscow, but returned to the Urals again. He was distinguished by his organizational and oratorical skills, often spoke at rallies, proving that a revolution without blood and the use of weapons is unthinkable. Impressed by the extreme left. In February 1906 he led the Ural Regional Party Conference and was elected chairman of the regional party committee. He was arrested several times. He cultivated the actions of militants and directed their expropriatory acts of robbery.
In June 1906 he was arrested in Perm. He was transferred from one prison to another (he was held, among other things, in the Nikolaevsky correctional prison department in Nizhnyaya Tura, Yekaterinburg prison). Many militants and criminals were imprisoned in the same case with Sverdlov. In prison, Sverdlov “finished his education” for them. Some Social Democrats were shocked by his cruelty. N.A. Cherdyntsev, in his diary for 1908 - 1909, left some observations of Sverdlov in the Yekaterinburg prison - in particular, those in which he describes how Sverdlov led the fight against rats. The prisoners grabbed them, threw them into the bucket, pushed them away from the edges with their boots, and hung them; while having a lot of fun. The old Marxist, social democrat N.A. Cherdyntsev calls such “fun” “a sign of the baseness of the mind and heart.”
Even then, Sverdlov received the nickname “ Yashka the bully " He was released from prison in 1909. In Moscow he was arrested again in December. In 1910 he escaped from Siberian exile, in the same year he was again arrested in St. Petersburg and exiled to the Narym region, then transferred to Tomsk. He escaped from there in December 1912 and joined party work in Petrograd. In exile, Sverdlov became close to Sh. I. Goloshchekin, later the leader of the Ural Bolsheviks.
By that time, Sverdlov had been co-opted into the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (6). He participated in the work of the editorial board of Pravda, the capital’s party committee, and helped the Duma Bolshevik faction. He was handed over to the secret police by deputy provocateur R.V. Malinovsky in February 1913, convicted and exiled to the Turukhansk region.
After the February Revolution he came to Petrograd, then to Yekaterinburg. He also lived with Ya. Kh. Yurovsky. In April 1917, he led the 1st Ural Free Conference of the Bolsheviks, re-establishing the regional party committee. At the VII All-Russian (April) Conference of the RSDLP(b) he was elected a member of the Central Committee and headed the secretariat. One of the organizers of V.I. Lenin’s departure into hiding, he participated in the leadership of the VI Party Congress, the preparation and implementation of the October armed uprising.
Together with F. E. Dzerzhinsky, he controlled the military organization under the Central Committee of the party, a member of the military-revolutionary center and the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, chairman of the Bolshevik faction at the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. From November 8 (21), 1917, Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, from April 1918, Chairman of the Commission for the Development of the Constitution of the RSFSR. Delegate to the VII Congress of the RCP(b). He remained a member and secretary of the Central Committee, and since January - a member of its Organizing Bureau. At the same time he led both the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the apparatus of the Central Committee of the party. Following Lenin's will, I tried to predict his steps. The most consistent supporter of the leader, but when the authority of the head of the Bolsheviks began to fall by the summer of 1918, Sverdlov, as if following the circumstances, came to the fore.
After Lenin was wounded (according to one version, Sverdlov participated in organizing the assassination attempt) he immediately began to act as the first person in the Bolshevik party and state leadership. One of the organizers of the dispersal of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, the shooting of demonstrations in its defense, and the deprivation of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries of positions in government institutions. Sverdlov is one of the most brutal Bolshevik leaders in the country. In certain cases, he “ran ahead of Lenin,” taking the initiative in aggravating the bloody events of the Civil War. On May 20, at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, it directed the “split” of the village into two irreconcilably hostile camps in order to “ignite the same Civil War, which was shown not so long ago in cities.”
He was also involved in military issues, primarily personnel, in the country, at the fronts, incl. (and especially) - on the Eastern Front. He took part in the work to save the situation in the northern sector of the Eastern Front, which arose in connection with the “Perm catastrophe” - the severe defeat of the 3rd Army near Perm. He headed the work of organizing illegal subversive work of Bolshevik organizations and partisan movement in the rear of the White troops, including in the Urals (through the Ural-Siberian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and its branch).
It was Sverdlov who signed the decree on “decossackization” - the total extermination of the Don Cossacks. Coordinating actions with Lenin, he led the work of the royal family (organizing its transportation from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg and subsequent physical destruction), as well as the preparation of the murder of the Grand Dukes and Princes of the Romanovs by Yekaterinburg and Alapaevsk executioners (many of whom Sverdlov knew well personally and trusted them).
Delegate and leader of the III-VI All-Russian Congresses of Soviets. One of Lenin’s assistants in organizing and maintaining connections with A.L. Parvus (I.L. Gelfand) for the transfer of national values abroad (for the needs of the “world proletarian revolution”). In his personal safe, opened only in 1935, enormous valuables were discovered (tsarist gold coins worth 108,525 rubles, 705 precious items, etc.), as well as forged documents. According to some reports, Sverdlov, returning from a trip to Ukraine in March 1919, was severely beaten by workers in one of the cities and soon died. According to official data, he died of a cold.
http://www.m-i-e.ru/biblioteka/personalii/s/sverdlov
Talk about Sverdlov. Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov (party name “Comrade Andrei”) is without a doubt one of the most prominent Bolshevik propagandists and agitators. His life path is complicated. He began to engage in active revolutionary activities at the age of sixteen. Moreover, out of the sixteen pre-revolutionary years while he was engaged in this activity, twelve were spent in prison and exile. But even in captivity, Yakov Mikhailovich did not lose his presence of mind. He studied a lot and intensively, and helped others study. After October 1917, Sverdlov became chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. But he held this position for only about a year and a half. In March 1919, illness ended his life.
For a detailed biography of Sverdlov’s life, we owe much to his wife Claudia Timofeevna Sverdlova (aka Bolshevik Olga Novogorodtseva), who accompanied him throughout his life, and even followed him into the most difficult conditions of exile. In this article I will briefly outline the main events of the life of Yakov Sverdlov until 1918, and in other articles I will continue to discuss the life of this revolutionary and the myths associated with his name.
* * *
Yakov Mikhailovich was born on May 23 (June 4), 1885 in Nizhny Novgorod. His father Mikhail Sverdlov was an artisan engraver.
1896 - Yakov graduated from the city primary school and entered the gymnasium. At the gymnasium, together with his friend Vladimir Lubotsky, he began to get acquainted with forbidden literature.
1900 - after the death of his mother due to serious financial situation family was forced to leave the gymnasium. Yakov gets a job in a pharmacy.
1901
1901 - Sverdlov and Lubotsky become members of the underground Nizhny Novgorod organization of the RSDLP.
Yakov is assigned to distribute leaflets and proclamations. He involves his friends and playmates in this matter.
In 1901, writer Maxim Gorky living in Nizhny Novgorod was arrested for printing “criminal appeals.” The authorities banned Gorky from living in Nizhny Novgorod, and on November 7 he was expelled outside the city. A whole crowd gathered to see off the writer, and after his departure a spontaneous demonstration began. The police did not dare to disperse the demonstration, but the most active participants were registered. Among them was Yakov Sverdlov.
December 3 - Sverdlov was arrested, but was soon released.
1902
1902 The Nizhny Novgorod Committee of the RSDLP began sending Sverdlov as a propagandist to the workers' circles of Sormov. Sverdlov realizes that he lacks knowledge. He diligently makes up for the lack of knowledge by studying history, political economy, and the works of Marx. For propaganda work in workers' circles he uses the Leninist newspaper Iskra.
May 1 - a demonstration takes place in Sormovo (Gorky described it in his book “Mother”). Yakov Sverdlov participated in its preparation. The demonstration was dispersed by the police, and those who led it were arrested.
May 5 - a group of young Sormovo residents held a revolutionary demonstration in the city center as a sign of protest. The police were on alert, the demonstrators, among whom was the young Sverdlov, were arrested. Due to his young age, Yakov was released after two weeks, but for many participants the sentence was much more severe.
Yakov works in a revolutionary circle of student youth. He organizes a small underground printing house. They print brochures and proclamations on a hectograph.
At the end of the year, the Nizhny Novgorod Committee of the RSDLP gives Sverdlov the task of organizing a large underground printing house.
1903
April 13-14 Sverdlov 1903 Sverdlov was arrested. During a search, prohibited leaflets were found on him. The investigation into the case lasted several months. Yakov used his imprisonment for intensive study.
Sverdlova:
A thick oilcloth notebook, now kept in the Museum of the Revolution in Moscow, which eighteen-year-old Sverdlov kept in 1903 in a Nizhny Novgorod prison can tell a lot.
It contains a record of books read, extracts and notes on political economy and history, algebraic problems, poetry. The range of issues that interest Sverdlov is very extensive. He studied political and historical literature, foreign languages, did mathematics, and read fiction and poetry. During his time in prison, with the help of only dictionaries, Yakov Mikhailovich learned German and French so much that he read quite freely and fluently in German, for example, Marx, Hilferding, Heine, Goethe.
Sverdlov not only studied himself, but also helped other prisoners.
In August, Sverdlov was released from prison due to insufficient evidence.
Yakov Sverdlov becomes the organizer and participant of “flying” rallies.
Sverdlova:
...Shortly before the end of his shift, Yakov was secretly escorted to the plant. At the end of the shift, when thousands of workers rushed to the exit in a continuous wave, a traffic jam was artificially created at the entrance, and a huge crowd immediately formed. In the center of this crowd, workers raised Yakov high in their arms, and he delivered a hot, incendiary speech. Taking facts from the life of Sormovo residents, Sverdlov linked them with the situation of the Russian worker and called for struggle. While the confused secret police had time to do something, Yakov finished his speech and, surrounded by a dense wall of workers, went outside the plant.
After the split of the RSDLP into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, Sverdlov was the first organizer of the Bolshevik group in Nizhny Novgorod.
1904
It became increasingly difficult to work in Nizhny Novgorod. Sverdlov was arrested and released twice more. In February 1904, open police surveillance was established over Sverdlov at his place of residence.
In mid-September, Sverdlov was arrested for the fourth time, but was soon released. This was followed by a new arrest, and in February 1904 Sverdlov was subjected to public police surveillance at his place of residence for two years. It was difficult to continue working under supervision.
The Northern Committee of the RSDLP sends Sverdlov to work in Kostroma. Since that time he has been in an illegal position.
In Kostroma, Sverdlov expanded his work: he created workers and student circles, campaigned among workers, organized a printing house, and distributed literature.
1905
In the spring it becomes known that the Nizhny Novgorod police are on the trail of Sverdlov. Yakov Mikhailovich leaves for Yaroslavl, where he helps prepare the May Day demonstration. Then he returns to Nizhny Novgorod, where he participates in “floating” rallies organized by the Sormovo Committee.
After this, Sverdlov travels around the cities of the Volga region, introducing the Bolshevik organizations to the resolution of the Third Congress of the RSDLP. In the summer he comes to Kazan and works in a local organization.
Yakov Mikhailovich is engaged in creating Marxist circles among workers, organizing agitation and propaganda in military units of the Kazan garrison. Sverdlov develops leaflets and proclamations. At the same time, Sverdlov wrote articles for the local Bolshevik newspaper “Rabochy”, as well as the local legal newspaper “Volzhsky Listok”.
In the fall of 1905, the Central Committee sent Sverdlov to the Urals. Yakov Mikhailovich comes to Yekaterinburg, where he establishes the work of a local organization. Here he meets his future wife.
Sverdlov organizes clubs and speaks at rallies. In the second half of October of the year, on the initiative of Ya. M. Sverdlov, a party school of agitators and propagandists was organized in Yekaterinburg. Three dozen workers were trained at the school.
“The classes were held regularly, on appointed days,” recalls K. T. Novgorodtseva-Sverdlova. “Andrei himself selected from among the working class comrades suitable for propaganda work. At school, lectures were given on the history of the party, on the program and tactics of the party, they studied political economy, the history of the revolutionary movement.”
During the period of revolutionary unrest, Yakov Sverdlov was one of the organizers of the Yekaterinburg Council of Workers' Deputies.
1906
In winter, the tsarist government launched a counter-offensive, and the suppression of revolutionary activity began. Sverdlov cannot stay in Yekaterinburg any longer; he is sent to Perm. In Perm, he begins to restore the destroyed party organization in Motovilikha. Under the leadership of Yakov Mikhailovich, the organization quickly recovered.
In February, Sverdlov organizes the Ural Regional Conference. In the spring, a large underground printing house was equipped in Perm.
In the summer, Sverdlov traveled to various cities of the Urals, held committee meetings, and spoke at rallies and meetings.
In July 1906, Sverdlov was betrayed by an agent provocateur. He himself and many of his comrades went to prison. The investigation dragged on for more than a year. At the end of 1906, he was sent from the Perm prison to the so-called Nikolaev companies (a convict-type prison in which prisoners were especially cruelly treated). Here he spent more than a year. Political prisoners elected him headman.
1907
In the fall of 1907, a trial took place. Yakov Mikhailovich received a sentence of two years in the fortress. He is transferred to the Yekaterinburg prison.
Another characteristic episode, which was told by the old Bolshevik A.I. Paramonov. One day, Yakov Mikhailovich, sitting in a Yekaterinburg prison, entered the very big camera, in which there were up to thirty prisoners, and asked if the “mass people” who were there - workers and peasants - wanted to talk about political topics. “The people made a noise and were happy...” recalled Paramonov and continued:
“The next day, Sverdlov, dressed in a simple black blouse, began a conversation in a ringing, strong and clear voice. From his first words, there was absolute silence in the cell... The attentive eyes of the listeners gazed at the small, lean figure of the speaker, and he, with his pince-nez gleaming, confidently and convincingly expounded on the “Communist Manifesto.” And when he raised up at head level right hand with his index finger extended, he ended with the exclamation: “Workers of all countries, unite!” — there was general friendly applause, like in a theater.”.
In prison, Sverdlov reads and takes notes a lot.
Sverdlova:
Here is one of the notebooks with notes from Yakov Mikhailovich, which he kept while in Yekaterinburg prison. It contains summaries of Lenin's works: "Tasks of Russian Social Democrats", "What to do?", "One step forward, two steps back." The works of Kautsky, Plekhanov, and Mehring are also summarized here.
This notebook contains extracts from the books of Paul Louis “The Future of Socialism”, Sidney and Beatrice Webb “The Theory and Practice of Trade Unionism”, Charles Gide “Cooperation”, V. Klark “The Labor Movement in Australia”, Rozhkova “ Economic development Russia in the first half of the 19th century", Werner Sombart "Modern Capitalism".
Just like in the Nizhny Novgorod prison, Sverdlov not only studies himself, but also helps his comrades by organizing prison clubs, conducting classes and lectures, and providing his comrades with literature and reading lists. Sverdlov also participated in disputes with representatives of other political groups, the imprisoned Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists.
1909
In September 1909, Yakov Mikhailovich was released. He comes to Finland, where Sergei Ivanovich Gusev introduces him to the current state of affairs and helps him establish contact with the Central Committee. A week later, Yakov Mikhailovich was sent to Moscow. The Central Committee instructs him to organize the work of the Moscow organization. However, this time too, Sverdlov and his comrades are betrayed by a provocateur. In December he was arrested again.
1910-1911.
In March 1910, Sverdlov was exiled to the Narym region for a period of three years, but he escaped from exile without spending even four months in it.
This time Yakov Mikhailovich goes to St. Petersburg, where, through Mikhail Stepanovich Olminsky, he gets in touch with the Central Committee. He is entrusted with the restoration of the destroyed St. Petersburg organization. He also takes part in the work of the publication “Stars”.
In November 1910, Sverdlov was arrested. Yakov Mikhailovich again fills his time in prison with studying.
Sverdlova:
In almost every letter, he asked for more and more new books, wrote about those he had read, and shared his thoughts and considerations. In his first letter to me, written on March 1, 1911, he asked to send him Bebel’s book “From My Life” in German, Spinoza’s “Ethics,” letters from Marx to Sorge and Lassalle to Marx. In the following letters, he asks for Heine’s one-volume book in German and, in general, “more German books,” then Finn’s “Industrial Development of Russia over the Last 20 Years” and a number of others.
He also asked for books from Glafira Ivanovna Okulova, with whom he was in active correspondence at that time. In a statement addressed to the head of the prison, Sverdlov asks to buy at his expense “The Theory of Surplus Value” by K. Marx, “World Market” by Parvus, “Historical Materialism” by Bernstein, Volume III of “Capital”.
In one of the letters, Yakov Mikhailovich writes: “In general life mine flows as before. I study on average for about ten hours."
In May 1911, a sentence was passed - he was again sent into exile in the Narym region. Sverdlov is sent to the village of Maksimkin Yar - to such a wilderness from where it is almost impossible to escape. Winter is harsh northern climate Maksimkin Yar had a negative impact on the health of Sverdlov, who did not even have warm clothes with him. In January, his comrades managed to achieve his transfer to Kolpashino.
1912
In February, Sverdlov writes to his wife:
“About two weeks since I arrived... At first I was going to lead a secluded life, covered myself with books, especially periodical literature, I wanted to review it, because Maksimka, no less than prison, tore me away from everyone and everything. But this did not work out. With the poverty of intellectual forces, with my social temperament, I could not stand it and gave in to the requests, persuasion, and pestering of my comrades: I agreed to give lectures on political economy and abstracts, and now I took the initiative and started interviews myself on such lively issues as assessing the moment, the election campaign, etc., and took assume the role of speaker."
Several times Yakov Mikhailovich tried to escape from exile, but he was caught and returned. The only successful escape was in December 1912 - an escape along a “string”. At the beginning of 1912, on the initiative of Yakov Mikhailovich, an organization was created in Narym that prepared the escape of prisoners. The crossing from coachman to coachman - from Narym to Tomsk - is the crossing along the “rope” along which Sverdlov managed to escape.
1913-1916.
Yakov Mikhailovich reached St. Petersburg at the end of December of the year. The Central Committee entrusts him with the leadership of the newspaper Pravda. However, this time too, because of the provocateur Malinovsky, Sverdlov did not remain free for long. In February 1913 he was arrested again.
In 1913, in a letter from the St. Petersburg “Crosses”: “I have French and German books. But not only do I literally study, I replenish and general knowledge... I visited Shelley, Verhaeren, Verlaine, Edgar Allan Poe, Baudelaire, Calderon... I often re-read Heine, I have it in the original...” A few months later, in a letter to the Bolshevik V. S. Mickiewicz-Kapsukas, Sverdlov remarked , that “our brother needs knowledge of at least three” foreign languages.
In May 1913, he was exiled to a place from which it was almost impossible to escape - to Turukhansk exile. Here he remained until the February Revolution.
Sverdlova:
His theoretical thought was honed in further work on the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, in a critical analysis of the books and articles of Kautsky, Hilferding, Pannekoek, in incessant, systematic work on numerous journalistic monthlies, on magazines and newspapers, in passionate disputes with comrades.
In a letter to M. S. Olminsky, Yakov Mikhailovich writes that he has to work at night, snatching time from sleep. There is only about 4 hours of sleep per day.
In Turukhanka, Sverdlov writes the following works: “Tsarist exile for ten years (1906-1916)”, “Turukhanka rebellion”, “Essays on the history of the international labor movement”. Yakov Mikhailovich planned to write a book on the history of the labor movement, but the book was not completed because the February Revolution of 1917 came.
1917-1918.
After the revolution, Sverdlov returned to Yekaterinburg, where he helped organize factory committees, and later went to Petrograd.
Svredlov was elected a member of the Petrograd City Duma and a member of the Central Executive Committee of the first convocation.
After the defeat of the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda, he helped organize the publication of the newspapers Rabochy and Proletary.
Despite being very busy, Sverdlov found the time and opportunity to speak to workers and soldiers at rallies and meetings.
Here are the topics of some of his speeches in the summer and autumn of 1917: “Socialism and imperialism” (report to the workers of Petrograd bakeries), “War and Revolution” (to the workers of the Vyborg side), “On the current moment” (to the workers of the cannon workshop of the Putilov plant), “On development international capital" (workers of the cartridge department of a cartridge and weapons factory).
In November 1917, at the suggestion of Lenin, Sverdlov became chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.
In January 1918, Sverdlov spoke before the Constituent Assembly, demanding recognition of the decrees and resolutions of the Council of People's Commissars.
From a family of artisans. In 1900 he graduated from the 5th grade of the gymnasium and worked as a pharmacist's apprentice. Since 1901 member RSDLP. After the 2nd Party Congress (1903) Bolshevik. During the Revolution of 1905 - 1907, one of the leaders of the Yekaterinburg and Ural regional committees of the RSDLP. He was repeatedly arrested and exiled. In 1912 editorial office of the newspaper "Pravda", co-opted into the Central Committee and the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP. Since 1913 in Turukhansk exile.
After Feb. revolution of 1917 arrived on March 29 in Petrograd and participated in the work of Vseros. meeting of the Councils of the RSD (March 29 - April 3), conveyed the Krasnoyar resolution to the meeting. Council, denouncing imperialism. the nature of the war. 3 Apr. sent by the Central Committee of the RSDLP to Yekaterinburg. April 14-15 one of the leaders of the Ural region. conf. RSDLP; elected member Uralobkom party. Del. 7th (April) All-Russian. conf. RSDRGKb) (April 24-29) from the Urals; gave a report on the work of the Ural Party. org-tions; elected a member of the conference presidium and led the sectional work; elected member Central Committee of the RSDLP(b). There was a secret. Central Committee and headed the municipal group under the Central Committee, which led the local parties. organizations during the May-June election campaign to city and district councils. Elected as a councilor and deputy. prev Petrograd Duma district of the capital. On the 1st general city. conf. factory committees (May 30-June 3) elected a member of the presidium of the conference, a member of the Center, the council of factory committees of Petrograd During the work of the 1st All-Russian. The Bolsheviks led the activities of the Congress of Soviets of the RSD (June 3-24). factions.
After the July events in Petrograd and the destruction of the editorial office of Pravda by cadets on July 5, one of the organizers of the departure of V.I. Lenin underground. Headed the Organizing Bureau (created on June 29) for convening the 6th Congress of the RSDLP(b); July 26 - Aug 3 delegate to the congress from the Tiflis organization, pred. most meetings, delivered a report to the Organizing Bureau and an organizational report of the Central Committee: elected member. Central Committee of the RSDLP(b). Aug 5 entered the narrow composition of the Central Committee, at a meeting on August 6. Sverdlov was given instructions to organize a group under the Central Committee to work in the trade union movement. Headed the activities of the Secretariat, led active work on personnel placement, establishing connections with local desks. org-tions, the creation of printed organs of the party: joint. with F.E. Dzerzhinsky exercised control over the actions of the Military. organization under the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b), on the initiative of Sverdlov, courses for agitators from soldiers were created. Participated in organizing the activities of the Interdistrict Meeting of Petrograd district councils, factory committees, and city councils. Council of trade unions, communities, women's and youth workers' organizations. Aug 14 entered into Information. bureau created by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the 1st convocation in connection with rumors of an impending counter-revolution. speech Aug 20 elected as a member of Petrograd. Gor. Duma On the days of the speech, Gen. L.G. Kornilov is one of the organizers of the defense of Petrograd, the accelerated formation of Kr units. Guards, roar. agitation among Kornilov's troops. Aug 20 gas was introduced to the editorial board. "Proletarian",
On Sept. for operational leadership created a branch of the Secretariat of the Bolshevik Party Central Committee in Smolny. factions of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Petrograd Soviet. 24 Sep. On behalf of the Central Committee, he spoke at a meeting of members of the Central Committee, the PC of the RSDLP (b) and delegates of the Democratic Party. meeting with a report on the campaign for elections to the Institution. Collection and on the issue of convening an emergency party congress: the Central Committee was sent to the commission for convening the 2nd All-Russian Federation. Congress of Soviets of the RSD. From 7 Oct. member of the Bureau of the Party Central Committee for information on the fight against counter-revolution. Was before. at a meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP(b) on October 10, which adopted a decision on armament. restore (reported on the situation on the Northern, Western and Roman fronts and throughout Russia). Participated in the organization of the Congress of Soviets of the Northern Region, 4th Petrograd. conf. factory committees, 3rd conf. citywide desk org-tions and other forums, in military-technical. preparation for the uprising. 16 Oct; prev at an extended meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP(b); discussed with L.B. Kamenev, who argued that the preparations for the uprising were insufficient [see. "Protocols of the Central Committee of the RSDLP(b)", p. 100 - 01] elected member. Military Rev. desk center under the leadership of the uprising, which entered Petrograd. VRK. Oct 18 held a meeting of party representatives. org-tions of Petrograd districts, Military. organization under the Central Committee, military units of the garrison on the issue of readiness for an uprising on the ground. Oct 20 at a meeting of the Central Committee, reading letters from V.I. Lenin to party members and the Central Committee regarding the act of Kamenev and G.E. Zinoviev, stated that the Central Committee does not have the right to expel them from the party, which Lenin insisted on, and that the convening of the Plenum of the Central Committee is necessary, at the same time confirmed that the issue must be resolved immediately (they decided to prohibit them from speaking against the decisions of the Central Committee) (ibid., p. 107). According to the decision of Petrogr. The Military Revolutionary Committee was involved in the selection of commissars and employees of the Military Revolutionary Committee, organized communications between the Military Revolutionary Committee and district councils and military units, etc. Oct 24 The Party Central Committee entrusted Sverdlov with organizing the monitoring of the Time. pr-vom and his orders, maintain fasting. communication with the reserve headquarters of the uprising - Petropavl. fortress.
Oct 25 on behalf of the Military Revolutionary Committee sent telegrams throughout the country announcing the victory of the uprising in Petrograd. Bolshevik delegate and leader. factions on the 2nd All-Russian Federation. Congress of Soviets of the RSD: elected member. All-Russian Central Executive Committee and its Presidium. Author of the appeal of the Military Revolutionary Committee October 25. “To the rear and the front” about the immediate seizure of local power by the Soviets. Organized the release of Information. bulletins of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) from October 29. From 6 Nov. Member of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. 8 Nov At a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, on the recommendation of the Central Committee of the party, the Bolshevik faction of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was elected instead of Kamenev. All-Russian Central Executive Committee (with the Secretary of the Central Committee remaining at the post) November 15. opened the joint meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Extraordinary. All-Russian Congress of the CD and the Petrosovet, at which a decision was made to unite the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of the RSD and the Executive Committee of the All-Russian Federation. Council KD. He negotiated with the Left Social Revolutionaries about their entry into the Soviet Union. production On Nov. elected member Established Collection (from Simbir. lips.). As before The All-Russian Central Executive Committee organized work on the creation of Soviet bodies. authorities at the center and locally.
In the beginning. Jan. 1918 entered the Emergency. the Military Revolutionary Committee commission for the protection of Petrograd, formed to prevent possible antis. speeches on the day of the start of work of the Establishment. Collection, which, on behalf of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, opened on January 5. and announced the “Declaration of the Rights of Working and Exploited People.” Opened it and was in front. 3rd All-Russian Congress of Soviets of the RSD (Jan. 10-13), made a report on the work of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, and announced the “Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People,” adopted by the congress. After the unification on January 13. 3rd All-Russian Congress of Soviets of the RSD with the 3rd All-Russian. The Congress of Councils of the CD elected pred. All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of the RSKD. Participated in the organization on February 21. entered the K-t roar. defense of Petrograd during the German offensive. troops. On February 21, the plenary meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted, at the suggestion of Sverdlov, a resolution supporting the decision of the Council of People's Commissars to conclude peace with Germany. 23 Feb The joint meeting was held by a Bolshevik. and the Left Socialist Revolutionary faction of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the issue of peace. On the night of February 24. Plenum of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee pred. Sverdlov decided to accept Germany. conditions of the world. On March 6, he opened the meeting of the 7th Congress of the RCP (b), prev. all meetings, gave an organizational report to the Central Committee with a speech on Lenin’s report on war and peace; elected member of the Central Committee. On March 14, he opened the 4th Emergency. All-Russian Congress of Soviets, prev. all meetings; elected before All-Russian Central Executive Committee.
1 Apr. 1918 elected All-Russian Central Executive Committee before. Commission for the development of the Constitution of the RSFSR. Commission for 3 months created the 1st Constitution of the Soviet Union. state Member of the commission M.A. Reisner recalled: “..only one Ya.M. Sverdlov was able to bring the Commission out of its many different contradictions and give a form that accurately reflected the existing and at the same time opened paths and set milestones for the future” (“About Ya. Sverdlov . Vosp., essays, articles of contemporaries." M., 1985. P. 178): Sverdlov “.. knew better than us all the primordial chaos of the original order” (ibid. p. 179), “And if the first Constitution. does not represent the completeness that was sought in the People's Commissariat of Justice, then it was precisely under the pressure of Sverdlov that “contained within itself the entire possibility of the subsequent work of the All-Russian. congresses with their many. amendments" (ibid., p. 180).
On July 4, 1918, the 5th All-Russia was opened. Congress of Soviets, was before. meetings, on July 6 he entered the center in charge of the liquidation of the speech of the left Socialist Revolutionaries in Moscow. On July 9, he continued his work at the Congress of Soviets; On July 10, the congress unanimously approved the Constitution: the chairman was elected. All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Initiator of the creation in July of courses for agitators and “instructors” at the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (in 1919 they were transformed into a Center, a school, then into the Sverdlov Communist University).
On July 18, S. informed the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee that in the conditions of the attack on Yekaterinburg by units of Czechoslovakia. corps, by decision of the Ural region. Council on the night of July 17, Nicholas II and his family were shot. The Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee approved the decision of the Urals Council.
Aug 30 1918 at 22:40 Sverdlov signed an appeal to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee “To all Soviets of workers, crosses, red armies, deputies, all armies, everyone, everyone, everyone. A few hours ago, a villainous attempt was made on Comrade Lenin... Attempts directed against his leaders, the working class will respond... with merciless mass terror against all enemies of the Revolution..." ("Decrees of Soviet Power", vol. 3, M., 1964, p. 266)
On September 2, at the suggestion of Sverdlov, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a resolution: “...The workers and peasants will respond to the white terror of the enemies of the workers’ and peasants’ power with massive red terror against the bourgeoisie and its agents” (ibid., p. 267). During Lenin's illness, Sverdlov chaired meetings of the Council of People's Commissars, continuing to work in the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Central Committee of the RCP (b). Participated in the organization of Kr. Army. in preparation for the 1st Congress of the Comintern, in January-February. 1919 - in the work of the first congresses of the Soviets of Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus. in March - the 3rd Congress of Soviets of Ukraine. After a trip to Ukraine and speaking at a rally in Orel, he caught a cold and died upon arrival in Moscow.
Giving a speech in memory of Sverdlov at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on March 18, 1919, Lenin said: “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 only be within the power of us in the event that for each of the large industries that Comrade Sverdlov was solely in charge of, you put forward entire groups of people who, following in his footsteps, would be able to get closer to what one person did" (PSS, vol. 38, p. .79).