On June 20, 1918, in Petrograd, an unknown person, as initially reported by the newspapers, killed V. Volodarsky (Moisey Markovich Goldstein), Commissar for the Press of the Northern Commune. The murder took place at about 20.30 on the Shlisselburg highway, near a lonely chapel, not far from the Porcelain Factory.
According to the statement of the chauffeur Hugo Jurgen, the car assigned to Volodarsky (Rolls-Royce) ran out of gas and the car soon stopped:
“When the engine stopped, I noticed a man who was looking at us about twenty paces from the engine. He was wearing a dark cap, a dark gray open jacket, dark trousers, I don’t remember boots, shaved, young, of medium height, thin, no suit quite new, in my opinion, a worker. He was not wearing glasses. Approximately 25-27 years. He did not look like a Jew, he was blacker, but he looked more like a Russian. When Volodarsky with two women walked away from the motor thirty steps, then the killer followed them with quick steps and, catching up with them, fired three shots from a distance of about three paces, directing them at Volodarsky. The women ran from the sidewalk into the middle of the street, the killer ran after them, and Volodarsky, throwing his briefcase, thrust his hand into his pocket, in order to get a revolver, but the killer managed to run very close to him and shoot him point-blank in the chest. scared, cn I scrambled for the motor, for I did not have a revolver. Volodarsky ran to the engine, I got up to meet him and supported him, because he began to fall. His companions ran up and saw that he had been shot in the heart. Then I heard that somewhere behind the houses there was a bomb explosion … Volodarsky soon died, not saying anything, not making a sound. A few minutes later Zinoviev drove by, whose engine I stopped."
These testimonies from the very beginning raised doubts among the investigators, tk. they did not coincide with the testimony of Volodarsky's companions who were with him in the car. One of them, Nina Arkadyevna Bogoslovskaya, testified: "At that time we were standing side by side. I am closer to the panel, at a distance of half a step from me Volodarsky. Zorina stood on the other side of Volodarsky. When the first shot rang out, I looked around, because it seemed to me that the shot was fired from behind us at close range, but did not see anything around. I shouted: "Volodarsky, down!" slope and were already in the middle of the street, when two more shots were heard at once, which were heard closer. At that moment I saw that Volodarsky twitched twice, and he began to fall … When I was near, he was lying on the ground, taking deep breaths. he head towards the car, at a distance of three steps from the car. Zorina and I began to look for a wound and noticed one in the region of the heart. Two other wounds I noticed the next day when he changed the ice. When I saw that Volodarsky had already died, I raised my head, looked around and saw a man standing fifteen steps away and a few steps from the end of the cash register towards Ivanovskaya Street. This man stared at us, holding in one hand, raised and bent at the elbow, a black revolver. It seems Browning. And in my left hand, I did not notice anything. He was of medium height, his eyes were not black, but steel-colored. Trousers, it seemed to me, were the same color as the jacket, outside. As soon as he saw that I was looking at him, he immediately turned and ran …"
The testimony of Elizaveta Yakovlevna Zorina was similar: “I went with Volodarsky and Bogoslovskaya on June 20 from Smolny to the Obukhovsky plant, but on the way we stopped at the Nevsky district council. we started talking about the reason for this. The driver, turning away, replied that there was probably no gasoline. A few minutes later the car stopped completely. The driver got out, then got into the car again and said:
- There will be nothing. There is no gasoline.
- Where have you been before? Volodarsky asked.
- That's not my fault. Two pounds of gasoline in total,”replied the driver.
- Eh you! - said Volodarsky and began to get out of the car.
After leaving, we began to consult on what to do. Volodarsky offered to go to the district council. Bogoslovskaya offered to make a phone call from the box office. Volodarsky and I waited for Bogoslovskaya for several seconds, which, seeing that the ticket office was closed, headed back. Having made ten steps from the car - everything is in a row: Volodarsky in the middle, I - in the direction of the Neva, close to me I heard a loud shot behind my back, as it seemed to me, from behind the fence. I took a step towards the slope without looking back and asked: "What's the matter?" But then a second and a second later a third shot rang out - all from behind, from the same side.
After running a few steps forward, I looked back and saw a man behind me with an outstretched hand and, as it seemed to me, a revolver pointed at me against the background of the cash register. This man looked like this: medium height, sunburnt face, dark gray eyes, as far as I remember, without a beard and mustache, shaved, cheekbony face. Not like a Jew, rather like a Kalmyk or a Finn. He was dressed in a dark cap, jacket and trousers. As soon as I noticed him, he rushed to run towards the corner of Ivanovskaya Street. Apart from this man, I have not seen any of his accomplices. I turned away immediately again in the direction of the car and Volodarsky. Not far from me I saw Volodarsky standing, not far from him, in the direction of the car, Bogoslovskaya. A second later Volodarsky, shouting: "Nina!", Fell. Bogoslovskaya and I rushed to him with a cry. I never saw the killer again …"
Thus, both witnesses recorded a lone killer, dressed in a jacket and trousers, who happened to be at the stop of Volodarsky's Rolls-Royce, and three shots (one and then two more shots).
As already indicated, the testimony of the driver, Hugo Jurgen, contradicted the testimony of the women, who “recorded” four shots, describing other “actions” of Volodarsky during the assassination attempt. However, we also note the coincidence with the testimony of women, the description, for example, of the clothes of the terrorist. Also note his mention of a bomb explosion.
At the same time, we will point out the strange coincidence of the time when the gasoline ends in the car and the presence of a terrorist nearby, which will be explained in different ways in the future. To what extent is the version of the chauffeur Hugo Jurgen about running out of fuel in the car correct? In total, 2 poods of gasoline were allocated in the morning. The route of the car on this day is quite long: the editorial office of Krasnaya Gazeta (Galernaya Street) - Smolny (lunch at 16.00), then the tram depot on Vasilyevsky Island, later Sredniy Prospekt, then return to Smolny, from there to a rally at Nikolaevsky railway station (now Moskovsky station), then to the Nevsky district council, then an unfinished trip to the Obukhovsky plant. In total, a fairly large route for which, indeed, there might not be enough gasoline. There could be an accident …
Soon, the responsibility for the terrorist attack of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party was announced. There was a certain logic in this. Volodarsky was a well-known orator, editor of a large newspaper, there was an election campaign in the Petrosovet. According to this version, therefore V. Volodarsky was chosen as the target of the terrorist attack by the Socialist-Revolutionary organizations as an active participant in the June election campaign. The Commissioner for the Press of the Northern Commune organized not only pressure on the printed publications of the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties, but also organized and participated in numerous meetings directed against these parties.
Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky gave the following assessment to V. Volodarsky's oratorical gift: “From the literary side, Volodarsky's speeches did not shine with a special originality of form, a wealth of metaphors that Trotsky gave the listeners from his overabundance. to delight today's constructivists, if, however, these constructivists were real, and not confusion. … His speech was like a machine, nothing superfluous, everything is adjusted to one another, everything is full of metallic luster, everything trembles with internal electric charges. American eloquence, but America, which returned to us a lot of Russians who had gone through her steel school, nevertheless did not give a single orator like Volodarsky. the same tension, barely rising sometimes. The rhythm of his speeches in its clarity and evenness reminded me most of ru to recite Mayakovsky. He was warmed by some kind of internal revolutionary incandescence. In all this brilliant and seemingly mechanical dynamics one could feel the bubbling enthusiasm and pain of the proletarian soul. The charm of his speeches was immense. His speeches were not long, unusually understandable, like a whole bunch of slogans, arrows, well-aimed and sharp. He seemed to forge the hearts of his listeners. Listening to him, more than any other speaker, it was understood that agitators in this era of the heyday of political agitation, which, perhaps, the world has never seen, truly kneaded human dough, which hardened under their hands and turned into a necessary weapon of the revolution."
A rather quick-to-speak and passionate orator (appropriately nicknamed the "Machine Gun" in the party), he was one of the figures most hated by anti-Soviet forces in Petrograd. On June 20, the election campaign with the active participation of Volodarsky was extremely successful for the Bolsheviks. On June 20, 1920, Krasnaya Gazeta (editor V. Volodarsky) came out with the characteristic caption "65 Bolsheviks, 3 Left Socialist Revolutionaries, not a single defencist!" Thus, with some stretch, the main reason for the murder of V. Volodarsky was often called his active propaganda work and the desire of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party to change the situation, or to take revenge on Volodarsky personally.
Also an important point explaining the appearance in the right place and at the right time of a terrorist at the scene of the assassination (and as a possible reason for the assassination attempt on V. Volodarsky) is the events at the Obukhovsky plant. The strike movement at the plant, with numerous rallies, led to the constant running of representative Soviet cars in this and vice versa. So, on this day, a few minutes after the terrorist attack, the car of Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev proceeded here to the center of Petrograd. Even the version was considered that it was preparation of an attempt against Zinoviev, but Volodarsky was caught. Obviously, in these conditions, the place was just not accidental, in terms of the convenience of the assassination attempt, on the whole, on the Soviet leaders (apart from Zinoviev, one can mention Ioffe, Lunacharsky, who spoke at the Obukhov rally, Maria Spiridonova, the leader of the Left SRs, who also followed through the place of the future terrorist attack). The presence of the bomb in the terrorist's possession just testified in favor of the alleged violent stop of the car with the subsequent execution of the passengers.
The version about the involvement of the Socialist-Revolutionary combat detachment, which committed a terrorist attack with the knowledge of the Socialist-Revolutionary leadership, in the June days of 1918.was advantageous politically, giving rise to the defeat of the party, and allowing the Bolsheviks to end the election campaign with a complete defeat of their opponents. Later, the leader of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party V. Chernov wrote about this: "The murder was untimely, because it damaged the Socialist-Revolutionary campaign in the elections to the Petrograd Soviet."
For the first time, this version of the reasons for the murder in its first interpretation was voiced immediately after the murder of V. Volodarsky. It should be noted right away that the Socialist-Revolutionary leadership assumed such an accusation, and the very next day, June 21, 1918, an official message from the Central Committee of the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries appeared that it was not involved in the assassination attempt. However, these assurances were perceived by the Soviet authorities, at least, with skepticism. As a result, from the very beginning of the investigation, the "Socialist-Revolutionary version" of the murder of V. Volodarsky (in several variations) became the main one, and in the future it enjoyed popularity.
There are two variants of this version. Initially, the organizers of the terrorist attack were called circles close to the terrorist known in the past, Boris Viktorovich Savinkov, and later to the combat Socialist-Revolutionary terrorist detachment of Semenov (version 1922). The first version (Savinkov's) seems to be more confirmed by real facts, since The activities of the Semyonov detachment meet with numerous doubts, especially considering Semenov's cooperation with the Cheka in the fall of 1918 and the later publication of his memoirs, just in time for the open political trial of the Socialist Revolutionary Party of 1922.
At the memorial meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, Moisei Solomonovich Uritsky, accused him of organizing the murder by the Right Social Revolutionaries with the support of British agents. Uritsky linked the party of Right SRs directly with the organization of the terrorist attack through his revealed participation in the organization of the terrorist attack of the Right SR Maximilian Filonenko. Uritsky stated: "The Right SR Filonenko lived in Petrograd under various fictitious names. He is the mastermind of the murder. We know for certain that British capital is involved in this case. The Right SRs were promised 256 million rubles, of which they have already received 40". This scheme assumed Filonenko's connection not only with the British, but also with Savinkov, who headed the largest anti-Soviet underground organization in 1918, the Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom.
By mid-May 1918, it numbered up to 5 thousand members in Moscow and 34 provincial cities. The composition of the organization included infantry, artillery, cavalry and sappers. By the end of the spring of 1918, the Union had reached the stage of development that made it an impressive organizational force. In Moscow, the Union had real chances to seize the most important strategic points, arrest the SNK, but the threat of occupation of the capital by Germany changed the plan of action. The May decision followed to transfer the organization to Kazan, and at the same time the Moscow organization (previously tracked by the Bolsheviks) was opened. Under these conditions, the members of the union are working out a new plan of action against the Soviet regime. The initial task was to assassinate Lenin and Trotsky in Moscow. At the same time, performances were supposed to take place in Rybinsk, Yaroslavl, Murom, Kazan, Kaluga.
As Savinkov wrote: "Neither the Czecho-Slovaks, nor the Serbs, nor our other allies took any part in this. All speeches were performed exclusively by Russian forces - members of the SZRS" (GAFR - source). Savinkov later wrote about this: "This plan was partly successful. The assassination attempt on Trotsky failed. The attempt on Lenin's life was only half successful: Dora Kaplan, now shot, wounded Lenin, but did not kill him." True, later, already in prison, he gave different testimony (at the trial in 1924: “Our union had nothing to do with the Dora Kaplan case. I knew that the Socialist-Revolutionaries were doing something, but I did not know what exactly. In the course of our work, I attached very little importance to Lenin and Trotsky. Much more important to me was the question of an armed uprising. "(The case of Boris Savinkov, Moscow, 1924)
The Savinka organization had representatives in Petrograd. Actually Maximilian Filonenko was his representative in the city. Moreover, Savinkov himself spoke of the involvement of his organization in a number of the Petrograd events of 1918. Therefore, Filonenko and Savinkov were proclaimed the organizers of the terrorist attack from the very beginning. The murderer of Volodarsky was quickly found and found. It turned out to be the driver of Smolny, Pyotr Andreevich Yurgenson. A native of Riga, Jurgenson worked there as an electrician, earning good money. He began to work in garage No. 6 of Smolny in April 1918, had expenses - he played cards.
They got on his trail very quickly. The head of the Smolny Garage, Yuri Petrovich Birin, turned to the investigators of the Cheka. Before the revolution, he served as an artillery non-commissioned officer on the Baltic cruiser "Russia", was a staunch Bolshevik (later served in the Amur flotilla, in 1930 he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for the military merits of his monitor ship "Lenin"). Birin said that “today, after the interrogation of the driver, Hugo Jurgen, the latter told me the following: a few days ago, since I appointed him to go with Volodarsky, the driver of the same garage, Pyotr Yurgenson, began to contact him with questions about where and when Volodarsky would go … Jurgenson told Jurgen that Volodarsky would be killed anyway, because lawyers and students were angry with him. In addition, he said that there was some kind of Packard car, if this car stopped his car at night, so that I could drive slowly so that to shoot Volodarsky. " Jurgenson was the driver of the Packrad.
The arrested Pyotr Yurgenson was shown to V. Volodarsky's companions, who identified him. Zorina testified: "In the Petr Yurgenson presented to me, I find a resemblance to the killer in height, build, expression of eyes, and cheekbones, and in the structure of the face." Nina Arkadyevna Bogoslovskaya gave similar testimonies: "The chauffeur Peter Yurgenson presented to me bears a great resemblance to the murderer's face, especially cheekbones, eyes and gaze, height and whole figure."
Strange in this context are only the first inconsistent testimony on June 20, 1920, of the driver Hugo Jurgen, who "did not recognize" his friend Peter Jurgenson in the terrorist. However, it should be borne in mind that the interrogation took place shortly after the assassination attempt and Hugo Jurgen might not have yet developed his point of view on the events, avoiding the possible direct accusation of complicity. It is characteristic that after the interrogation, having considered the situation, he quickly handed Yurgenson over to Yuri Petrovich Birin. The same version, cited above, in an expanded version, he cited during the second interrogation. According to the testimony of Hugo Jurgen, on June 7, Pyotr Yurgenson, who served as a driver in the Smolninsky garage, approached him and asked:
- Do you want to earn money, Hugo?
"To my question: how? - Yurgenson said: - It's very simple. We need to kill Volodarsky."
- Should I kill? Hugo asked.
- No. You sit in the car and be silent. When a car is going towards you and a signal is shown, you will stop. You pretend that the car has deteriorated, - answered Jurgenson. - Then they will do whatever is necessary.
Hugo Jurgen hesitated, and Jurgenson told him that as a reward Hugo could take the wallet of the murdered Moisey Markovich Volodarsky. "He told me not to shout, but to take Volodarsky's wallet in my favor, and only then would he declare what had happened. Then he taught me to discreetly take Volodarsky's wallet, examining him where he was wounded."
The conversation that took place between Peter Yurgens and Hugo Jurgen on the day of the murder after four o'clock in the afternoon in Smolny, where Hugo brought V. Volodarsky for lunch, is also characteristic. The driver, according to his testimony, entered room no. 3 to pick up an outfit the next day and met Pyotr Yurgenson here. “We talked for two or three minutes. Jurgenson asked:“In what room does Volodarsky live in Astoria? Today I have to give the final information. Thus, information about V. Volodarsky was collected, possibly due to the fact that it was planned to assassinate him in Astoria. The hotel was the residence of many Bolsheviks. In particular, Grigory Evseevich Zinoviev lived here. It is characteristic that at the end of August an assassination attempt will be made against Zinoviev in the hotel. This circumstance indicates a possible accidental stop of the car at 20.30. After spending several days under arrest, Hugo Jurgen, despite the fact that numerous facts testified to his possible involvement in the murder of V. Volodarsky, was released. There was no direct evidence against him. It is possible that he was released in order to trace his connections.
On June 21, 1918, a search was carried out at Jurgenson's apartment. The following was found in the apartment: "1 37 mm projectile filled with gunpowder, one appeal against Soviet power, all kinds of correspondence, letters, photographs, car passes for travel in Petrograd No. 5379, Delaunay car No. 1757, pass for travel in the city of Petrograd by car "Packard" 1918 ".
He did not have an alibi, although he later tried to organize it. Initially, he stated that after a conversation with Hugo in Smolny, Jurgen went to the garage, where he stayed until nine o'clock in the evening, but this alibi was denied by the testimony of Yuri Petrovich Birin and Pyotr Andreyevich's mother, Christian Ivanovna Yurgenson. Yuri Petrovich Birin on the day of Volodarsky's murder went down to the garage at about six o'clock in the evening and saw Pyotr Yurgenson there.
- What are you doing here? - he asked. - You have a day off.
- Came to look … - answered Jurgenson.
Birin was going to the cinema and invited Jurgenson to join.
"They left the garage - me, my wife, Yurgenson and Ozole. We met Korkla at the gate, and everyone went in the direction of Kirochnaya. At the corner of Kirochnaya and Potemkinskaya, Yurgenson and Ozole separated from us." Khristiana Ivanovna Yurgenson, in turn, testified that "on the day of the murder, Peter came home at about seven in the evening, ate and left again at about eight. It seems, to the cinema. He returned at about eleven in the evening." Peter Yurgenson himself, during interrogation on June 21, 1918, spoke of his innocence, refusing to admit that he was involved in the murder of V. Volodarsky.
Having received materials incriminating Pyotr Yurgenson of involvement in the assassination attempt, Uritsky summoned P. Yurgenson for interrogation. It was not something extraordinary, extraordinary, as the famous publicist Nikolai Konyaev writes. Uritsky often interrogated key persons from among those under investigation. There are numerous recollections of such conversations with Moses Uritsky. At the same time, the interrogation was conducted without a protocol. It is obvious that the data of these interrogations were used by Uritsky in the preparation of his already mentioned speech on the murder at the mourning session of the Petrograd Soviet.
Soon the guilt of the driver of "Packard" Peter Jurgenson became more obvious, so there was another witness against him. So in his mourning speech, Moses Uritsky mentioned in connection with Peter Yurgenson a certain general who lived on Zagorodny Prospekt. According to Uritsky's speech: “One tailor testified that an unfamiliar chauffeur had once come to him and, ordering a suit, said that there was one general living in Zagorodny, offering big money for special services to Soviet chauffeurs. When this tailor was presented with thirty chauffeurs, he immediately pointed to Jurgenson ". (Konyaev "The Death of the Red Moses.) Thus, a version was formed about the organized assassination of Volodarsky by the Savinkovskaya-Filonenkovskaya organization with a focus on the British. It is characteristic that Uritsky conducted the so-called" English case "all summer, even the" English folder "was known.
An important point that should be pointed out is the access to people who had connections with Peter Yurgens. Roman Ivanovich Yurgenson, a cousin of Pyotr Andreevich Yurgenson, who served in the Petrograd Cheka, gave important information to the investigation. According to his testimony, his brother Peter had good acquaintances among counterrevolutionaries - officers of the 1st armored division and was friends with Emmanuil Petrovich Ganzhumov, an officer from the Terek region, of the Armenian-Georgian religion, born. September 16, 1891, with an officer of the same armored division Kazimir Leonardovich Martini, Colonel Dobrzhansky and others. Subsequently, in August 1918, even with the participation of Uritsky, he would be sentenced to death for embezzling money and things during a search.
All these are real famous figures. Emmanuil Petrovich Gandzhumov, according to the data of Doctor of Historical Sciences. Volkov, in 1917-1918. member of the officers' organization in Petrograd; from August 1918 in the White troops of the Northern Front in Arkhangelsk. A graduate of the Pavlovsk military school. In 1915 he was a lieutenant. Colonel Dobrzhansky is, possibly, promoted to the rank of major general in 1917, Alexander Nikolaevich Dobrzhansky, the commander of the first armored division in Russia. Kazimir Leonardovich Martini, a graduate of the Petersburg Institute of Railway Engineers in 1913. Nikolai Konyaev cites these circumstances, but without further analysis. Meanwhile, unraveling this data, much can be clarified. In particular, he expresses doubt about the involvement of M. Filonenko in the terrorist attack. In our opinion, this is a serious omission of Konyaev.
Immediately, we note that Major General Boris Viktorovich Shulgin lived on Zagorodny Prospekt during this period. This, in particular, is evidenced by the earlier testimony of Zuev of the 1930s mentioned below. Sister Shulgina in 1918 kept a cafe-confectionery "Goutes" on Kirochnaya street, at the corner with Znamenskaya. This cafe, along with a deli cafe on the corner of Basseinaya and Nadezhdinskaya (kept by Lieutenant Colonel Ludenqvist of the General Staff, later exposed as a traitor to the Chief of Staff of the 7th Army in 1919), was a recruiting point for the underground anti-Soviet organization of her brother General Shulgin, a meeting place. The organization focused initially on the French, later on the Germans, and then the British (with whom Luddenquist was associated). Those who have materials on her, and in general on the defendants in the Kovalevsky case, supplement the data of the investigative cases of the early 1930s. in USSR. During the measures to identify former officers in Leningrad, those arrested during the purges (Zuev and others) will testify about the organization of Shulgin and his sister, confirming the existence of the organization and Shulgina's participation in it. According to the investigative testimony of the 1930s, Shulgin's organization, among other things, was engaged in the recruitment of drivers in Smolny. The general himself just these days, after the murder of Volodarsky, urgently left the city. The sister stayed. She will be arrested on August 24, for a long time after her arrest she was not interrogated. The first time she was interrogated by the investigator Baikovsky only on October 17, about which she wrote a statement addressed to Geller.
Shulgina denied any connections with the underground, admitting only the fact that the room was handed over to officer Solovyov and her acquaintance with several persons involved in the case or their relatives. At the same time, she could not explain the presence of the letterheads of the 6th Luga regiment and the letters of the 1st Vasileostrovsky regiment. The latter circumstance was decisive, as it was in these units that the conspirators were exposed. Testimonies of other arrested persons also testified against her. It was also revealed her participation in the maintenance of a cafe on Kirochnaya, 17, in which officers were recruited by Shulgin's organization. According to the investigation file, Shulgin is "the right hand of his brother, Major General Boris Shulgin." He lived on Zagorodny Prospekt, he also recruited Smolny's drivers, Shulgin was connected (according to Zuev) from the beginning of 1918 with Filonenko, Shulgin went into hiding after the murder.
Thus, the participation of Peter Yurgenson in the organization of General Shulgin is likely. Note that Zuev also mentions a number of underground workers, which can be associated with the names mentioned above. Uritsky mentioned several young officers, incl. Ganzhumov, an officer, originally from the Tersk region, of the Armenian-Georgian religion. Zuev showed: “I never knew their names, I don’t remember their faces, I saw them briefly. To enter the apartment you had to call, then knock, and also say the password. One officer was from the Caucasus, his batman was in a Circassian coat, a highlander, with a dagger. These officers had a connection with Smolny, from where almost daily received some copies, mainly telegraph information, etc., which did not have significant value."
Thus, in our opinion, the Shulgin-Filonenko organization was behind the murder of V. Volodarsky. Later events may also testify to this. Arrested for the murder of Uritsky, Filonenko's cousin Leonid Kanegisser, already in prison, will turn to him with a request to organize an armed raid on the prison using cars. True, by that time Filoneko had already fled to Finland, where he boasted of his involvement in the murder of Uritsky.
There is another version of the murder of V. Volodarsky. It arose later, in 1922, on the eve of the trial of the Right SRs. According to this version, the fighting Socialist-Revolutionary detachment of Semyonov-Vasilyev was involved in the murder, which received sanction for the action from one of the leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionaries Gotz (the latter denied this). According to this version, the militant Sergeev (a worker whose identity, apart from this Semenov's testimony, no one could certify) was rehearsing an attempt on the scene of the terrorist attack, tying the place to a future terrorist attack. It was supposed to stop the car in the future with a bomb or glass and nails scattered on the road. Then shoot any of the Soviet leaders. At that moment, a car with Volodarsky stopped here, and Sergeev considered this a sign from above and carried out a terrorist attack planned for a later moment. Then he threw a bomb to the workers pursuing him and swam across the Neva.
"… On the Shlisselburgsky tract, at a lonely chapel, not far from the Porcelain Factory, the car stopped. The driver, cursing, jumped out of the cab and, throwing back the hood, climbed into the engine. It's a long business … Volodarsky went down onto the cobblestone pavement and, stretching his numb legs, slowly he walked along an almost deserted highway. He did not even take fifty steps when a gray figure separated from the fence on the side of the road. The man convulsively pulled his hand out of his pocket. Shots rang out … One of the bullets hit Volodarsky right in the heart. " After 1922, this version was included in almost all Soviet publications.
".. The murderer of the twenty-six-year-old commissar managed to escape. Jumping over the fence, he at random threw an English-style fragmentation bomb towards the fleeing people. ").
The version raises questions not only about Semyonov's belonging to the Chekists, but also about the lack of data on Semyonov. The only thing is that, perhaps, some real moments of the events of 1918 were involved in the development of the version (a possible version about the reasons for the murderer's presence at the crime scene, the presence and use of a bomb by him).
There are also modern conspiracy theories. However, these versions are rather superficially worked out and clearly do not stand up to any criticism. The most detailed, but at the same time politicized (with an obvious anti-Soviet and anti-Semitic bias), this is set out in the study of Nikolai Konyaev. According to his version (without specifying the sources), the murder of V. Volodarsky is directly related to Gelfand-Parvus. According to Nikolai Konyaev, Volodarsky "… pocketed the money that should have been transferred to Izrail Lazarevich. And yet, it seems to us, it was not only rat-eating that killed Moisey Markovich Goldstein-Volodarsky. His" hitting "on Israel's faithful assistant Lazarevich Gelfand-Parvus also played a role. - Moisei Solomonovich Uritsky ". Konyaev explains the essence of the "hitting" by the fact that Volodarsky on June 6, 1918told Zinoviev that Uritsky had been a Menshevik in the past and hence his gentleness. It looks funny at least. Both Zinoviev and the other members of the Bolshevik Party knew this very well, as well as the fact that both Uritsky and Volodarsky simultaneously joined the Bolshevik Party in the summer of 1918 as part of the Mensheviks-Mezhraiontsy. Moreover, Uritsky was in exile with Lenin and Zinoviev, and they arrived on the same train.
Therefore, it was impossible to reveal something about the Menshevik past of Uritsky, since there was no secret. According to Konyaev's version, from this moment the preparations for the assassination of V. Volodarsky, organized by Uritsky, as an agent of Parvus, begin. In the future, he explains all the inconsistencies in the case and the oddities by "opposition" to the investigation on the part of Uritsky, who, in his opinion, cut off facts and evidence. This statement does not stand up to criticism.
In our opinion, Moisey Uritskiy was not the organizer of the murder in the version as presented by Konyaev. Moreover, Uritsky in 1917-1918. - the most consistent opponent of Parvus. And the investigation of the Volodaski case was carried out quite actively. Although it was conducted in the direction of identifying the English trace and was interrupted after the murder of Uritsky.
