Imagine that you are transported to 1921. The same autumn outside, but much colder than now. People on the streets, if not armed, then … somehow shy. And no wonder! Here famine, typhus, total unemployment, devastation, newspapers report on peasant uprisings … In Ukraine, Makhno, ataman Antonov, takes city after city. At night in the cities "jumping bandits" hunt. It seems that the power of the Bolsheviks is about to collapse and the matter will end in a universal catastrophe. And what should people think about in such a society, huh? It seems that only about how to … survive! But - surprisingly, and in this terrible time there are people who write poetry, read poetry, and someone listens to how they are read. Although, in theory, one should only think about bread, and also about how to stay alive.
A still from the film "The Sixth of July". Blumkin and Andreev meet with Count Mirbach
Meanwhile, in Moscow, even at that time, there was a "Cafe of Poets", where, as it is now fashionable to say, such poets as Mayakovsky, Yesenin, Mariengof hung out. And there was a strange type who had a reputation of a famous terrorist and conspirator - Yakov Blumkin, a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party under the nickname Zhivoi. He was introduced to poetic bohemia by two no less odious characters: Donat Cherepanov, a bandit and then an accomplice of the famous bandit Marusya Nikiforova, and the book publisher's son and future red commander Yuri Sablin. Moreover, Sablin himself was friends at that time with Yesenin, and the poet himself at the end of the 17th year even entered the fighting squad of the Social Revolutionaries. However, the Left Social Revolutionaries at that time enjoyed the sympathy of many writers and poets, among whom were Blok and Bely, and even all the "small things" and "hangers-on" around the masters can be omitted.
Anatoly Mariengof wrote that Blumkin was "a lyricist, loved rhymes, loved his own and other people's glory." Vadim Shershenevich - another poet of that time described his appearance as follows: “… a man with broken teeth … he looked around and fearfully guarded his ears at every noise, if someone stood up sharply from behind, the person immediately jumped up and put his hand into his pocket, where the revolver was bristling … He calmed down only sitting in his corner … Blumkin was very boastful, also cowardly, but, in general, a nice guy … He was big, fat-faced, black, hairy with very thick lips, always wet. " Since this description refers to 1920, it is not difficult to conclude that Blumkin had mental problems at that time. For example, when he left the Poets Cafe after midnight, he literally begged someone from his acquaintances to go with him to his house, that is, he was clearly afraid of a real or imaginary attempt on his life. Shershenevich wrote about it this way: "He loved the role of a victim", and also: "… he was terribly afraid of diseases, colds, drafts, flies (carriers of epidemics) and dampness in the streets." But, however, this is only one side of his "photograph". But what will happen if we turn the other one over?
The fact is that whoever he was, it turned out that his one single act in July 1918 could completely change the entire history of Russia, and maybe even the course of the entire First World War. That is, a person got to the point of bifurcation, but what kind of person he was by that time, let's see …
Like all people, Yakov Grigorievich Blumkin, aka Simkha-Yankel Gershev Blumkin, was born … Born into a family that lived in Odessa, Moldavanka, and officially in 1898, but he himself claimed that in March 1900. He also changed his father's place of work several times in his biography, until he settled on the option with his father, a small Jewish merchant-clerk.
In 1914, he graduated from the Talmudtora (a free primary Jewish school for children from poor families, which was led at that time by a famous Jewish writer - "the grandfather of Jewish literature" Mendele-Moikher-Sforim (Ya. A. Sholom)), and began working his daily bread for the sake of, having changed more than one profession in the labor field. He was an electrician, and worked in a tram depot, and a stage worker in a theater, and at a cannery of brothers Avrich and Israelson. At the same time, he managed to write poetry, and they were even published in the local newspapers "Odessa leaf", "Gudok" and the magazine "Kolosya". The atmosphere in the family was notable for its revolutionary nature and polarity of judgments: the elder brother Lev adhered to anarchist views, and sister Rosa considered herself a Social Democrat. Moreover, both older brothers, Isai and Lev, worked as journalists in a number of Odessa newspapers, and brother Nathan became known as a playwright (pseudonym "Bazilevsky"). There were also brothers, but there is no information about them. Well, why be surprised. Child mortality was then very high.
Blumkin himself wrote about this time as follows: "In conditions of Jewish provincial poverty, squeezed between national oppression and social deprivation, I grew up, left to my own childish fate." Well, the childhood and youth of many Odessans at that time were inextricably linked with the world of Mishka "Yaponchik" - "the king of bandits". As for Blumkin's first acquaintance with the revolutionary movement, it is clear that, of course, Brother Lev and Sister Rosa did their best. But Yashke's Social Democrats seemed boring and uninteresting. Well, what business is it to read some boring brochures of some obscure foreigners? Whether the slogan "Anarchy is the mother of order!" However, when he studied at a technical school in 1915 and met a group of communist anarchists, this passion was short-lived.
But the student Socialist-Revolutionary Valery Kudelsky (also a local journalist, who also wrote poetry, a friend of Kotovsky in prison, and then Mayakovsky in the "poetry workshop"), in October 1917 managed to prove to Blumkin that there was no better Socialist-Revolutionary party, after which he became her and joined, joining the left wing!
Yakov's friend from the age of sixteen, and also a poet, Pyotr Zaitsev later wrote that Blumkin at first "did not take any part in the political struggle", was always "not clean on his hand … took part in Odessa in the dirtiest stories", including the trade in false deferrals from service in the army.
What was Yakov doing on the eve of the Great October Revolution? And different! According to some reports, he lived at that time in Kharkov, where he worked as an agitator "for the elections to the Constituent Assembly" and in August - October 1917 he visited the Volga region as such.
Then, in January 1918, Blumkin, together with Mishka "Yaponchik", took an active part in the creation in Odessa of the First Volunteer Iron Detachment from the lumpen proletariat and the sailor machine-gun detachment. This detachment played a major role in the famous "Odessa revolution", and it was here that our Yakov became friends not only with Yaponchik, but also with many leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionaries-maximalists: B. Cherkunov, P. Zaitsev, anarchist Y. Dubman. It is interesting that at that time Cherkunov was none other than the commissar of that very sailor Zheleznyakov, and the poet Pyotr Zaitsev became the chief of staff of the Odessa dictator Mikhail Muravyov. Moreover, as Blumkin himself wrote about him, he took with him "many millions from Odessa." Note that Blumkin himself was constantly spinning next to large, but shadowy cash flows, that is, he correctly understood that beliefs are beliefs, and money is money!
In the same place in Odessa, he met another person of an adventurous warehouse and for some reason also a poet (and poets were not adventurers with us then, I wonder? - V. O.) -A. Erdman, who was a member of the Union for the Defense of Homeland and Freedom, and in addition was also … an English spy. There is an assumption that it was he, Erdman, who just got Blumkin to work in … Cheka. Because it was like this: in April 1918, this Erdman, disguised as the leader of the Lithuanian anarchists, Birze, put under his control part of the anarchist detachments in Moscow, and at the same time worked as an operational officer for collecting information in the Cheka. Erdman also wrote several denunciations against Muravyov, the result of which was the case that the Bolsheviks brought against him. Obviously, he did all this in order to provoke the Bolshevik government of Moscow into a conflict with Muravyov in Odessa. Whether it is true or not, one can only guess. Another thing is important, that the friendship between Erdman and Blumkin, which began in Odessa, was not interrupted in Moscow. And first Erdman got into the Cheka, and then Blumkin himself!
In March 1918 he became chief of staff of the 3rd Ukrainian Soviet "Odessa" army, whose task was to stop the advance of the Austro-Hungarian troops. But it had only four thousand soldiers and it is not surprising that it retreated at the mere rumor of the approach of Austro-Hungarian troops. Some of the soldiers, together with Blumkin, were evacuated on ships … to Feodosia, where he "for special military merits" (!) Was appointed commissar of the Army's Military Council and assistant chief of staff.
Now she was given a new task: to detain the German, Austro-Hungarian troops and parts of the Ukrainian Rada advancing on the Donbass. And now this army did not scatter, but … "dispersed" into hundreds of small detachments, which, avoiding battles with the occupiers, began to expropriate money from banks and take away food from the peasants. Blumkin was directly related to this. For example, he was credited with the expropriation of four million rubles from the State Bank of the town of Slavyansk. And then he offered a bribe (to hush up "this case") to the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Pyotr Lazarev, the commander of the Third Revolutionary Army. And part of this money Blumkin kept for himself, and part - to transfer to the fund of the party of the Left SRs!
But you can't hide the “sewn in a sack”, and facing the threat of arrest, Blumkin was forced to return three and a half million rubles to the bank. But what happened to another 500 thousand is unknown. But it is known that Peter Lazarev then fled from the front and even from the post of army commander. And archival documents show that 80 thousand rubles (the amount is also considerable for that time!) Of these four million disappeared with him.
After that, in May 1918, Blumkin ended up in Moscow, but happily escaped the trial, he was not sent to prison, but made for all his "exploits" … a Chekist! Yes, the leadership of the Left SR Party sent him to the Cheka as the head of the department for combating international espionage !!! And since June, he became the head of the counterintelligence department for monitoring the security of the embassies in connection with their possible criminal activities! That is, a very, very significant figure in the Cheka hierarchy. How, why, for what such merits he was put on this extremely responsible post is unknown. Is that for some knowledge of the German language?
It is interesting that in the recommendation of the Central Committee of the Left Social Revolutionaries, according to which he got into the Cheka, he was called "an expert in disclosing conspiracies." But what, when, and where did he reveal conspiracies? After all, he himself does not mention any such exposed conspiracy in his memoirs, and, probably, he could, right? No, it is not for nothing that it is said very correctly - “loot wins over good”. Probably, if he had grabbed not 500 thousand, but all 4 million, he would have sat down in the chair of Dzerzhinsky himself. And what? Why not? In a revolution, anything is possible. It is not without reason that recalling Yakov Blumkin, Leon Trotsky once wrote: "The revolution chooses young lovers for itself." In his own words, Blumkin "had a strange career behind him and played an even stranger role." It turns out that he was almost one of the "founding fathers" of the Cheka, and he himself eventually became a victim of his own creation.
Meanwhile, by the summer of 1918, the party of the Left Social Revolutionaries had increased in number to 100 thousand people. And this force, having before our eyes the experience of the Bolsheviks, was furiously striving for power. It was supported by a large peasantry, and it was the SRs who developed the tactics of terror to the point of subtlety. Finally, the glory of "honest revolutionaries" was on their side. Many believed that it was the Socialist-Revolutionaries who could correct the "distortions of October" and in a real way soften the "revolutionary dictatorship" of the presumptuous Bolsheviks. This was a very important circumstance, which at the same time was superimposed on another …
Another circumstance was the arrival in Moscow in April 1918 of the German diplomatic representative in Russia, Count Wilhelm von Mirbach, who was also endowed with special powers. Mirbach's task was very difficult: to keep Soviet Russia from dissolving the Brest Peace. Germany needed to get 1 million prisoners of war from camps in Siberia to replenish the army on the Western Front, then it needed the Black Sea Fleet, bread, lard, leather from Ukraine, as well as steel, rolled metal, coal, timber, flax, foam - and everything that Kaiser's Germany siphoned off for free from Soviet Russia and you don’t remember. He was deservedly considered a master of political intrigue, since Mirbach managed to maintain contacts even with obvious opponents of the Brest Peace. And … in words they scolded him, but in deeds … as Germany received everything she needed, she continued to receive. Captured Germans, Austrians and Hungarians, who were blocked, fortunately for the Entente, by the revolted Czechoslovakians in Siberia, became a problem.
It is not known exactly how Blumkin got to the German ambassador, although, perhaps, through his relative, the captive officer of the Austrian army Robert von Mirbach, who since April 1918 lived in one of the Moscow hotels after his release from captivity. The Swedish actress M. Landström also lived there, and then unexpectedly committed suicide. What's the connection? Yes, nothing like … Yes, only in such cases, there are usually no accidents and there is always some kind of connection.
Blumkin recruited the former officer as an informant and at the same time negotiated with the count through him. About what? God only knows! Did money play any role in their relationship? Without any doubt! Who gave them and to whom? Of course, Mirbach and, of course, Blumkin. But what did they go for and to whom? Most likely, too radical opponents of the Brest-Litovsk Peace were “smeared” with them. But … those who take money from strangers should always be wary of their own. Can you imagine if Lenin had learned about the receipt of bribes from the Germans by the Socialist-Revolutionaries? Like, in words you are all "against", but put in your pocket ?! It would have been such a scandal that its consequences would have hit the entire party of the Left SRs!
And it is not surprising that since June 1918, Blumkin and all the same ever-memorable Muravyov began to convince the Central Committee of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries that they would kill Mirbach and thereby provoke the beginning of a "revolutionary liberation war against German imperialism", and at the same time remove from power and direct accomplices of the "obscene "Peace of Brest, that is, Lenin and his supporters!
Already on June 24, 1918, the Central Executive Committee of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party decided that the time had come. That it is impossible to put up with the ratification of the Brest-Litovsk Peace by the Bolshevik government, but it is necessary to resort to the tactics of terror against "prominent representatives of German imperialism."
Then it was Blumkin who volunteered to kill Ambassador Mirbach and developed his plan, approved by the Socialist-Revolutionary Central Committee, and the attempt itself was scheduled for July 5, 1918. But for some unknown reason, Jacob postponed it for one day.
Interestingly, Blumkin left a farewell letter, something like a political testament, in which he wrote: “Since the beginning of the war, the Black Hundreds-anti-Semites have accused Jews of Germanophilism, and now they are blaming the Jews for the Bolshevik policy and for a separate peace with the Germans. Therefore, the protest of a Jew against the betrayal of Russia and its allies by the Bolsheviks in Brest-Litovsk is of particular importance. I, as a Jew, as a socialist, undertake the act of this protest. "The whole world should learn that the "Jewish socialist" was not afraid to sacrifice his life in protest … ".
Everything else was a matter of technique. On the letterhead of the Cheka, they printed an official paper that, they say, Comrade Blumkin was sent for negotiations with the German ambassador "on a matter directly related to the German ambassador himself." Dzerzhinsky's signature on the document was forged by the Left Socialist-Revolutionary P. Proshyan, and V. Aleksandrovich, who held the post of Dzerzhinsky's deputy, "attached" a seal to the mandate and ordered that the car be handed over to Blumkin from the Cheka's garage.
Two bombs (I wonder what type they were? And Blumkin received two revolvers at Proshyan's apartment. Nikolai Andreev, who was known to him again from Odessa and who also ended up in Moscow, and also a Black Sea sailor, also from the Cheka, went to assist him.
On July 6, 1918, at 14 o'clock, Blumkin and Andreev, leaving the sailor and driver in the car at the gates of the embassy, entered its building and demanded an audience with the ambassador. Since the ambassador was having lunch at this time, the guests were asked to wait. They were approached by Counselor of the Embassy Count Bassewitz and Senior Counselor Riezler, but representatives of the Cheka continued to insist on a personal meeting with Count Mirbach.
As a result, Mirbach did come out to them. Blumkin began to tell him about the arrest of his nephew, and then reached into his briefcase to get the necessary documents. However, he grabbed a revolver from his briefcase and fired first at Mirbach, and then at the two officers accompanying him at that time. He fired three times and ran. But Andreev noticed that Mirbakh was only wounded, not killed! He threw a briefcase with bombs at the ambassador's feet, but they did not explode, but simply rolled to the floor. Then he lifted one of the bombs and threw it with force towards the victim. The explosion was deafening. Glass flew out in the hall.
Blumkin and Andreev jumped out the window, but since they had to jump from the second floor, Blumkin twisted his leg. The embassy guards began to shoot, and nevertheless, both terrorists managed to climb over the fence, were able to get into the car and disappeared into a nearby alley. Mirbach, riddled with shrapnel, died a few minutes later.
There is another version of this terrorist attack according to which Blumkin, climbing over the fence, received a bullet in the buttock. It was the sailor who killed Mirbach, and he took Blumkin off the grate, on which he hung, hooked by his pants. But it is not known exactly how everything was there. Panic, explosion, blood, shooting, everyone is running - it is very difficult to restore the truth here.
