In Petrograd, a prominent figure in the party, M. S. Uritsky, and shortly before that, M. M. Volodarsky, were killed. They were all links in the same chain. secret war against Soviet Republic, her government.

Woe be to those who stand in the way of the working class! An extraordinary session of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on September 2 adopted a severe resolution:
“The All-Russian Central Executive Committee gives a solemn warning to all the serfs of the Russian and allied bourgeoisie, warning them that all counter-revolutionaries and all their inspirers will be held accountable for every attempt on the leaders of the Soviet government and the bearers of the ideas of the socialist revolution.”

Assassination attempt on Vladimir Ilyich

On August 30, 1918, villainous shots were fired at the Michelson plant, he was seriously wounded. The event raised a powerful wave of anger in the country. Days filled with pain and anxiety. Special bulletins informed the country about Lenin's well-being. But they are short, with medical terms, and requests, letters, calls came from all sides: how is Vladimir Ilyich's health?
Crowds gathered at the Trinity Gate in the morning. Everyone wanted, if not to get to the Kremlin, then at least to convey a heartfelt word. Detachments of workers going to the front walked along Red Square on their toes. The mail delivered from the Oryol region the protocol of the Volost Council: "Get up, our glorious leader, we will help you, do not be sad, all the socialist peasantry is with you." Telegraph:

“If you need my care for Ilyich, immediately telegraph Lipetsk, post office, paramedic Nina.”

And a newspaper with a cap on all six columns: “Lenin is fighting the disease, He will defeat it! This is how the proletariat wants, this is its will, this is how it commands fate!”
The whole world responded differently to three shots from a Browning.

Publications in foreign newspapers about the assassination attempt on V.I. Lenin

The newspaper of the Italian workers "Avanti!" publishes the article "Lenin":
“This blood - if our dear comrade really has to pay with his life for the bold and majestic contribution he made to the cause for which we are all fighting ... - baptism, not waste ... Lenin goes ahead ... Perhaps he has already died. We do not know this and are full of anxiety for his fate. But we are sure that ... the Russian proletariat, which has raised the red Bolshevik banner high and has been rebuffing the bourgeoisie of the whole world for a year, will certainly win.

“A happy event,” exulted the Parisian Matin, “Lenin, apparently, is dead.” At the same time, tubs of slander about the "Red Terror" poured from the pages of the bourgeois press.

Eyewitness account of events

In the quiet hall of the Lechsanupra Kremlin hospital with an old man, an eyewitness and a direct participant in those dramatic days. Tall, gray-haired, with a firm, open look. I asked him:
- "Izvestia" for September 4 of the eighteenth year, I looked at the message about the execution. But I also heard the legend that this terrorist was not executed after all, but died many years later of her own death in the settlement. What is the truth in this?
- It's not true. After the assassination attempt on Ilyich, they lied a lot about raids throughout Russia, the atrocities of the Cheka, the flow of blue blood, and the like. But Fanny Royd, aka Kaplan, was shot.
He raised a strong, bony working fist and repeated:
Yes, with this very hand.
After a pause, he continued with pauses between phrases:
- It is difficult to shoot... Even dangerous criminals... But this one... - His still clenched fist turned white in the bones.
- Delivered her to a dead end behind the Grand Palace. Started the truck engine. And here, out of nowhere, Demyan Poor, he then lived in the Kremlin. I told him: - Go away, comrade Demyan, it's not supposed to. And he told me: - Nothing, he says, I will be a witness, maybe it will be useful for history ...

Then I read in the book of a veteran of the revolution:

"Resolution of the Cheka: Kaplan - shoot

The sentence was carried out. I, a member of the Bolshevik Party, a sailor of the Baltic Fleet, commandant of the Moscow Kremlin, Pavel Dmitrievich Malkov, performed it with my own hand. And if history were to repeat itself, if the creature that raised its hand against Ilyich again appeared before the muzzle of my pistol, my hand would not tremble, pulling the trigger, just as it did not tremble then.
... Bulletins about the state of health of Vladimir Ilyich became more and more definite, more cheerful. It's been four days, five, a week. Lenin is already worried that not a single issue of the newspapers he receives should be lost. Doctors says:
- Why are you sitting next to me, don't you have business in the hospital?
He is already getting up, waiting for permission and will be able to go out. Instead of a coat torn by bullets, they are preparing him a new one - light, with a sleeve not sewn up, but fastened with buttons so as not to injure a sore arm.
Only doctors and closest friends are allowed to see Lenin.
How are you feeling, Vladimir Ilyich? - an invariable question. And the answer:
- In the best possible way. Time to serve!
And when they condoled, sympathized, he answered:
- In war as in war. It won't be over soon...

Lenin's extract

Lenin courageously overcame a dangerous wound, and on September 16, with his hand in a sling, still pale, haggard, but with the same lively, cheerful gleam characteristic of him, he already participated in a meeting of the Central Committee, and the next day he chaired a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, again led the country .

Soon, on a fine day, an invaluable, but such a short film was shot. This short film, entitled "Vladimir Ilyich's Walk in the Kremlin," was first shown in workers' clubs, and then began to be shown everywhere. When Lenin appeared on the screen, the audience jumped up from their seats, applauded, seeing their leader recovered and cheerful.
Vladimir Ilyich immediately threw himself into work, but the doctors knew that his body was not yet strong, and insisted on at least a three-week distraction from business. Lenin obeyed and went to Gorki to rest.
Rest?
During this time he wrote a book

On August 30, 1918, at the Michelson plant in the capital, 28-year-old Social Revolutionary Fanny Kaplan attempted to assassinate Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.
First organized assassination attempt on Vladimir Lenin took place on the first day of the new year 1918. Lenin was returning from a rally in the Mikhailovsky Manege, where he spoke to the Red Army soldiers who were leaving for the front. On the Simeonovsky bridge from the side of the Fontanka, his car was fired upon. The body was perforated by bullets, some of them went right through the front glass. Lenin was not hurt. The terrorists, and there were 12 of them, fled.
In the future, there were several more attempts to assassinate Lenin.
The most famous happened on August 30, 1918 at the Michelson factory in the Zamoskvoretsky district of Moscow, where Lenin spoke at a workers' rally. After a rally in the courtyard of the factory, Lenin was wounded by three shots fired by Socialist-Revolutionary Fanny Kaplan. She fired four bullets at the leader. Despite a dangerous wound in the neck, Lenin survived. On the same day, Fanny Kaplan was caught and interrogated. She never said who was behind the organization of the assassination, the case was closed on this. Without trial, she was shot on September 3, 1918 in the courtyard of the Moscow Kremlin to the sound of car engines, her corpse was doused with gasoline and burned in an iron barrel in the Alexander Garden by the Kremlin commandant Pavel Malkov.
Lenin's wounds were not life-threatening, and soon the "leader of the revolution" recovered.
This is one of the most mysterious assassination attempts in history. Until now, historians are arguing whether it really was, or is it just a skillful staging of the Bolsheviks. And if the attempt was really real, then who was behind it, and who still shot. The official version is the Social Revolutionary Fanny Kaplan, however, this version has been questioned more than once, if only because a woman with very poor eyesight (which is medically confirmed) could not make accurate shots from a sufficiently large distance.
On the day of the assassination attempt, four mercenaries were on duty in the city.
The Social Revolutionaries carefully prepared an attempt on the leader. At that time, Lenin spoke at rallies almost every day. The terrorists' agents knew in advance several alleged places for the leader's performances. There were four key places, respectively, one performer was on duty in each. By the way, they are all women. However, it was decided to send Kaplan to the Michelson plant. There was the best chance for Lenin to come. And Kaplan, like no one else, was obsessed with killing the leader.
Children helped to detain Fanny Kaplan.
After Kaplan fired the shots, she dropped her weapon and began to make her way through the crowd. The children helped to detain Kaplan. During the revolutions, children completely lost their fear of shots, so the volleys that were heard did not frighten them. While the adults were running in all directions, the boys who were running around in the yard during the assassination attempt ran after Kaplan and shouted, showing where she had disappeared.
Bullets fired at the leader were poisoned.
During interrogation, one of the organizers of the assassination attempt, Grigory Semenov, admitted that the bullets loaded in the pistol for greater destruction were incised and poisoned with curare poison. Doctors also spoke about the incision of bullets, who noted uncharacteristic wounds on the body of the leader. As for the presence of poison, it still remains a mystery. However, experts argue that all the properties of the poison were in any case destroyed by high temperature (from heating, bullets flying out of a pistol).
The incredible willpower of the leader.
Immediately after the assassination attempt, Lenin was taken to the Kremlin. According to the recollections of the driver of the leader, Vladimir Ilyich independently climbed to the third floor along a rather steep staircase. In addition, the wounded Lenin undressed himself and went to bed. By the way, some historians have repeatedly used this fact as evidence that the assassination attempt was staged. However, medical evidence still suggests otherwise. In addition, after some time, Lenin was taken to the Botkin hospital, where he underwent surgery. By the way, at present, a memorial plaque hangs next to the ward where Vladimir Ilyich lay.
Fanny Kaplan - Lenin's "murderer"?
Fanny Efimovna Kaplan was born in 1890 in the Volyn province in Ukraine. Her real name and surname is Feiga Khaimovna Roydman, under this surname she lived until she was 16 years old. Her father was a melamed teacher of a cheder, a Jewish elementary school. The family was large - Fanny had three sisters and four brothers. Feiga received her primary education at home from her father. Being a pious and loyal person to the authorities, Nachum Roidman did not even suspect that his daughter would become a revolutionary and a terrorist.
Then her parents left for America, and the girl changed her passport data, confusing this fact in her biography to such an extent that no one has yet established for sure: what surname did she choose? And later she “borrowed” her passport from the Socialist-Revolutionary Fanny Kaplan.
Left without parental care, she chose the profession of seamstress. And at the same time she leaned into the revolution: she carried out various assignments with pleasure - most often she transported seditious literature, and even bombs, from city to city. With the latter, she was caught in Kyiv by the tsarist secret police. On December 30, 1906, the court-martial sentenced the revolutionary to death penalty, replaced due to the minority of the terrorist with indefinite hard labor.
At first, F. Kaplan was in the Maltsev hard labor prison, and then in the Akatui prison in the Nerchinsk mountain district of Transbaikalia. In Akatui, she met a famous figure revolutionary movement Maria Spiridonova. Under the influence of Spiridonova, F. Kaplan's views on hard labor changed: from an anarchist, she became a socialist-revolutionary (socialist-revolutionary).

In prison, twenty-year-old Fanny (by the way, in revolutionary circles she was known under the name Dora) began to go blind from a head wound received while still at large. This shocked her so much that she wanted to commit suicide. The tsar's manifesto of 1913 reduced the term of her penal servitude by twenty years, and the order of the Minister of Justice A.F. Kerensky of March 3, 1917 granted the failed suicide full freedom.
Fanny Kaplan got to Moscow only in April, from the hardships and unrest of the road, her eyesight again deteriorated sharply. But there was another convict friend nearby. Socialist-Revolutionary Anya Pigit was a relative of the owner of the Dukat tobacco factory, on whose order the famous house No. 10 on Bolshaya Sadovaya, known today as Bulgakovskiy, was built. And then the Muscovites called it Pigit's house - after the name of the owner and the main tenant. A wealthy relative provided Anya with apartment No. 5, which immediately acquired a reputation among residents as “bad” - its inhabitants were poorly dressed, smoked continuously, strewn with ashes not only in their apartments, but also in the front staircase, street dirt from their broken shoes soiled the polished floor of the lobby.
In the house on Sadovaya Fanny recovered a little, but her eyesight continued to deteriorate. The recently created Bureau of Resort and Sanatorium Assistance gave Kaplan a referral to Evpatoria, to the House of Convicts - this was the name of one of the best sanatoriums there. Before leaving for the Crimea, Fanny thought about how she should live on. She no longer had relatives in Russia - the entire extensive Roidman family had lived in America since 1911. A letter with a new address then arrived in the Akatuy prison, but Kaplan decided not to go to her relatives: the only close people for her during the years of prison were her revolutionary friends.
In Evpatoria, Fanny again learned to enjoy life. About 40 people comfortably accommodated in the House of Convicts, anarchists, socialist-revolutionaries and Bolsheviks coexisted peacefully here. Kaplan quickly got acquainted with everyone, her sociability and cheerful disposition gradually returned to her. Even her appearance changed: Fanny recovered, her sunken cheeks were slightly rounded, even a blush appeared. The male population of the sanatorium considered her very attractive, some even tried to look after her. Simultaneously with Kaplan, Dmitry Ulyanov, the brother of Vladimir Lenin, was resting in the sanatorium. True, they practically did not communicate with each other, which did not prevent later rumors about a romance between Kaplan and Ulyanov Jr.
It was especially emphasized that it was thanks to Dmitry Ulyanov that Fanny was able to regain her sight again. Allegedly, it was Lenin's brother who sent Kaplan to Kharkov, to the eye clinic of the famous Leonard Girshman, and even wrote a letter to the professor with a request to accept the former convict for treatment. This is a legend. Girshman was famous for the fact that he operated on all poor patients for free. But Fanny heard about the miracle doctor in the sanatorium, so after the rest in Moscow she did not return, but went to Kharkov. After the operation in the Hirshman clinic, vision was restored almost completely. Kaplan was not going to stay in Ukraine for a long time - she wanted to go to Moscow, she yearned for her friends.


March 1917: convicts after their release. Fanny Kaplan in the middle row near the window
In Kharkov, Kaplan learned about the October Revolution, which she perceived negatively. From there she returned to the Crimea, where for some time she worked as the head of courses for the training of workers of volost zemstvos. It is possible that their paths crossed again with Dmitry Ulyanov at that time. According to Kaplan herself, it later became known that it was then in the Crimea that she came to the conclusion that it was necessary to kill Lenin as a traitor to the revolution. With this thought, she went to Moscow in 1918, where she discussed the assassination plan with the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Another thing - did she still shoot at the leader of the world revolution?
Fanny was again traveling on a false passport, now she was again Dora Roydman. Making her way through all of Russia to Moscow, she became more and more convinced that the Bolshevik dictatorship had strangled the revolution. Fanny almost reached the capital when an uprising of the Left SRs led by Maria Spiridonova broke out in Moscow. Kaplan rushed to help her friend, but a few days later a message came - the rebellion was suppressed, Spiridonova was arrested. Fanny decided to continue the fight, but now she had to act differently. It was necessary to eliminate the main figure in the Bolshevik camp - Lenin ...
The last month and a half of Fanny Kaplan's life is unlikely to ever be restored. She passed through August Moscow like a shadow, leaving no traces, only versions. I was looking for SRs. It seems to be. But found or not - it is impossible to say. As if she was at one of the headquarters, she offered to organize an assassination attempt on Lenin. But again, no evidence, only rumors and speculation. Where was, with whom did Kaplan meet? All assumptions on this score remain versions. One thing is known for certain - on August 30, 1918, Fanny appears in the courtyard of the Michelson factory, where the leader of the world proletariat was supposed to come to a workers' meeting.
All the events of that day are scheduled minute by minute, all the materials of the case have been studied many times, both then and years later. The only conclusion that could be drawn was the impossibility of reliably answering whether Fanny herself decided to eliminate the dictator of the revolution or acted in a group of conspirators? Did she distract her pursuers or did she shoot? Of the four bullets, two hit the target, but two missed. Although a blind man would not have missed from such a distance, and Fanny had by then undergone a course of treatment, her eyesight improved. Supporters of the Kaplan version of innocence explain it by the fact that Fanny did not know how to handle weapons, but she saw and held weapons in her hands during the first revolution, back in Odessa. And probably knew how to fire a shot.
But here new incomprehensible moments arise, for example, the phrase uttered by Kaplan at the time of his arrest. By the way, she stood alone in the confused crowd quite calmly and did not try to hide. But what exactly did she say? Her words are conveyed exactly the opposite. In the first case, Fanny allegedly said: “I didn’t do it,” according to another version, she immediately confessed to the attempt. At the same time, the Left SR Alexander Protopopov was detained, he was shot the next day, the investigation was practically not carried out. In the case of Fanny, the interrogations began immediately, but the matter only got confused - there were two Brownings: one in Kaplan's purse, the second was brought in a couple of days by the factory workers. It turned out that there was another victim - one of the women, who was next to Lenin, was wounded by another bullet.


Investigative experiment of the assassination attempt on V. I. Lenin in 1918:
1. Lenin stood here.
2. Here is a worker who was hit by one of the bullets.
3. The driver Stepan Gil watched what was happening from the car.
4. And from this position, Fanny Kaplan allegedly shot at Vladimir Ilyich.
So how many shots were there? How many shooters? And most importantly, on the same day Uritsky was killed in Petrograd. The murderer, Leonid Kannegiser, by a strange coincidence, also turned out to be a terrorist SR and also a loner. The Chekists could not believe in such a coincidence, it was necessary to grab the end of the thread and unravel the pattern of the new SR conspiracy. Fanny's testimony became more and more important, and she carried some kind of nonsense - she recalled the soap she bought in Kharkov, about the shawl of Maria Spiridonova ... Kaplan answered all questions, and each answer cut off all the hopes of the investigators.
She confessed that she shot at Lenin out of conviction… she came from the Crimea… she is not connected with anyone in Moscow. “I won’t say who gave the revolver”, “I won’t say who gave the money”, “I don’t remember where I got the Tomilino-Moscow ticket”, “I found the trade union ticket” ... The inquiry reached a dead end. The only clue was an envelope with a stamp, which for some reason was in Kaplan's shoe. It turned out that nails were sticking out of a broken shoe, Fanny went into the first institution she came across, asked for an envelope and put it under her heel so that she could move around.
Three days later, a decision was made: to stop the investigation, since there is the main thing - an admission of guilt. By personal order of Sverdlov, she was sentenced to death. Fanny was transferred from the Lubyanka to the Kremlin, and on September 3, 1918, at 4:00 pm, the commandant of the Kremlin, sailor Pavel Malkov, shot Kaplan in the back of the head with his own hand. She was 28 years old, and she spent 10 of them in prison. The investigators and executioners from Lubyanka still had one more problem: where to bury? Decided - nowhere. They put the body in an iron barrel, doused it with gasoline and burned it. The proletarian poet Demyan Bedny helped to add gasoline and even gave the sailor a lighted match. But when it smelled of burnt meat, he still fainted.
She took her secret to her grave. Yes, this woman certainly went down in history. After all, they wrote about her in all Soviet textbooks. There was even a movie. “Lenin in 1818”, where in one of the scenes an angry crowd of workers at the Michelson plant tore apart the “killer of Lenin”. But its inglorious end is a good example of what a departure from tradition and a passion for the ideas of "universal equality and happiness" can be fraught with.

Writer Demyan Bedny (right) loved the leader so much that he personally attended the execution of Fanny Kaplan in the Kremlin garage
Two days later, on September 5, 1918, the Bolsheviks unleashed a large-scale terror, its wheel crushed thousands of lives, and then overtook those who launched it ... All subsequent years, the myth of Fanny Kaplan acquired new details - during the years of great terror, several Fanny Kaplan. The few Socialist-Revolutionaries who survived the repression assured that they had met her on Solovki, she appeared under the surname both Roytblat and simply Royt. There were rumors about Fanny's pardon on Lenin's personal order, about organizing an escape and leaving for America ... But these speculations are unlikely to matter. Fanny Kaplan acted at her own peril and risk, her half-blind eyes saw the danger in the dictatorship of the Bolsheviks, Fanny decided to eliminate Lenin, save freedom and revolution.
So she went down in history, and the attempt on Lenin became one of the most famous episodes revolutionary era, the same as the shot of the Aurora and the famous phrase of the sailor Zheleznyak: “The guard is tired!” From the very beginning, those distant events began to turn into a legend, which is worth at least the version of the poisoned bullets that the gloomy SR fanatic shot at Ilyich. No matter how much historians, doctors, and memoirists refute this legend, faith in the mighty power of poisoned bullets is still alive today. Indeed, these little bits of lead have proved to be an essential argument on the scales of history. The wounds undermined Lenin's health, becoming one of the main reasons for his serious illness, almost complete resignation from power, and then death.

How the attempt to kill the leader of October was thwarted

In the twelve-volume Biochronicle V.I. Lenin, day after day, scrupulously fixing everything known facts great life, only twelve lines are devoted to this event. This is the nature of the publication: a chronicle means maximum conciseness. Something else has surprised me for a long time. An event about which in question, by no means ordinary, and yet even in Soviet time few people knew about him.

It so happened to me that even as a child I talked with a person who can be called one of the main actors that dramatic story. It was the driver of Lenin's car fired upon by terrorists in Petrograd on January 1, 1918. The endurance, resourcefulness and skill of the driver, who was able, without being taken aback by surprise, to instantly maneuver and get the car out of the shelling, actually saved the life of the leader of a very young Soviet republic.

It should be noted that the Swiss Social Democrat Fritz Platten, who would soon become a communist, who was sitting next to Lenin in the car, also showed resourcefulness. At the decisive moment, he sharply bent Vladimir Ilyich's head, covered him, and the bullet, intended precisely for Ilyich, wounded Platten in the arm.

I knew all this for a long time. However, recently, while reading the book by Lev Danilkin "Lenin", published by the publishing house "Young Guard" in the famous series "ZhZL", I experienced a real shock from a new discovery for myself. It turns out that there was one more person in that story, thanks to whom the dramatic event did not become tragic. He was supposed, according to the plan of the conspirators, to throw a bomb at Lenin's car. But he didn't quit. And the reason is amazing.

I think that this and something else, very significant, should certainly be told to the readers of Pravda.

MET NEW, 1918

So, January 1, 1918. This is according to the old style, and according to the new one it will be January 14th. However, the new account of time has not yet entered into force, and the first post-October year was celebrated in Petrograd according to the old calendar - on the night of December 31. Lenin, together with Nadezhda Konstantinovna, goes to the Vyborg side, to the "regional meeting of the New Year", where mostly working youth gathered.

"The boys and girls who danced the waltz," L. Danilkin wrote in his book, "quickly realizing what was happening, burst out" Internationale "- in a thousand throats." But the visit did not last long: "Lenin was in no condition to walk all night."

Indeed, not in that.

About one story that began on the morning of December 31, Danilkin talks about the “diamandi case”. At the same time, he recalls that half a century ago, the famous Soviet writer Savva Dangulov, based on his motives, created the script for the wonderful film "On the Same Planet", where Lenin is played by I. Smoktunovsky.

And the essence of that matter is serious: the Romanians, who decided to snatch Bessarabia from Russia, which found itself in an extremely difficult situation, disarmed an entire division of the Russian army, returning from the battles, and confiscated its property. Moreover, the Bolsheviks were arrested and shot!

"In response, Lenin, without delay, takes an unprecedented, scandalous step for a "civilized society" - he orders the arrest of the Romanian ambassador Diamandi: both him and the entire staff of the embassy - to Petropavlovka, and an ultimatum: immediately release the Russian soldiers. The ambassador is a member of his corporation , and within a few hours, a whole group of diplomats sends the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars - who until then for the most part was ignored as a non-existent authority - a strong protest, moreover, looking more like a threat than like an offended sob. Lenin snaps his fingers in satisfaction: he has long been trying to fix things with diplomatic corps of relations; he invites all the "opposition" to come to him for a reception - tomorrow.

I specifically cited this lengthy paragraph from Lev Danilkin's book. After all, it is very important to imagine and comprehend the first attempt to assassinate the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars in the context of other, most intense and difficult events that literally fell on Lenin in those days and hours.

These are all the ambassadors whom he appointed to receive at four o'clock in the afternoon on January 1st. The most important meeting! The point is not even to "punish" Romania, although, of course, the Soviet government did not need a war with the Romanian kingdom at all. But the main thing is to make it clear through the ambassadors to everyone, including the great powers: Soviet Russia will not allow you to be treated like a rag. And during a half-hour sharp meeting (for which he prepared for half a day!) Lenin solved this problem in his own way.

And at the door of Smolny, Fritz Platten, the one who helped organize the passage of Lenin from Switzerland through Germany, collides with the ambassadors leaving from there. And Vladimir Ilyich invites him to the meeting with him. We must go urgently: in the Mikhailovsky Manege, the leader must speak before the volunteer fighters of the new, socialist army are sent to the front.

THIS LENIN SPEECH WAS ONE OF AN UNNUMBERABLE MANY

Describing the rally that took place, Lev Aleksandrovich Danilkin emphasizes that Lenin's speech here, "unlike all the others, was not very convincing." He refers to the words of an eyewitness and also in this case a speaker - the American journalist A. Williams (comrade John Reed), which I just quoted, putting in quotation marks.

Moreover, Danilkin has a reference to Lenin himself, who that same evening, or rather, at night, in a conversation with a Norwegian socialist he knew, allegedly admitted: “I am no longer an orator. And even shared two cherished desires: "to have the voice of Alexandra Kollontai" and "to take a nap for half an hour."

Could it be? Probably, fatigue, ordinary human fatigue, once overcomes even a genius whose abilities seem supernatural. After all, how many speeches had Lenin made by that time day after day! Innumerable. Because I felt and understood their need. And the popular reaction to them, which followed every time, John Reed called "human storm."

I'm sure there was such a storm after his speech. But to the one who approached this moment fatigue in the speaker's self-esteem, Lenin's over-demanding to himself was probably added. What is surprising if he himself was not completely satisfied?

But what was "not too convincing" for others, there is good reason to doubt it. Very weighty! Danilkin actually leads him further, and I will, of course, bring him too.

The name of that foundation is German Ushakov.

SHELLING OCCURRED ON THE BRIDGE THROUGH THE FONTANKA

But for now, we will return to the Mikhailovsky Manege, where the rally ended. The fighters, who received the leader's parting words, will have to go to the front, and a car has already arrived for Lenin and his companions to return to Smolny. I will notice, as well as on the way here, there is no security. And there are two satellites: in addition to Platten, Lenin's sister is Maria Ilyinichna. What happened next is her memoir. Quite recently, the Moscow publishing house "Algorithm" published a book by the historian Ilya Ratkovsky "The Chronicle of the White Terror in Russia", where these memories are given.

In general, it is noteworthy that a very voluminous volume, containing many hundreds of documentary evidence of the White Terror during the Civil War, at the very beginning contains pages precisely about January 1 (14), 1918, when this first attempt was made on Vladimir Ilyich. The author of the book reports:

“Lenin’s car Delaunay Belleville 45 (driver Taras Gorokhovik) was fired upon by unknown persons on the way of the car from the rally in the Mikhailovsky Manege back to Smolny. The shelling was carried out while crossing the bridge over the Fontanka River, when the car slowed down. , some of them flew right through, breaking through the front window of the car. The Swiss socialist F. Platten, who bent Lenin's head down, was slightly wounded in the arm ... "

And here - from the memoirs of Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova, which are quoted right there:

"Shoot," I said. This was confirmed by Platten, who, as a first duty, grabbed Vladimir Ilyich's head (they were sitting behind) and took it aside, but Ilyich began to assure us that we were mistaken and that he did not think that it was shooting. After the shots were fired, the driver accelerated, then, turning a corner, stopped and, opening the doors, asked: "Are you all alive?" - "Did they really shoot?" Ilyich asked him. "Well, how about it," the driver answered.

Everything around was really white from the thick Petersburg fog. Having reached Smolny, we began to examine the car. It turned out that the body was perforated in several places by bullets, some of them flew right through, breaking through the front glass "...

The driver's face was thickly covered with glass fragments, but at that moment he did not lose his head and nevertheless gave full throttle - to rescue.

Indeed, they got off happily,” Lenin said. - Thank you, comrade mechanic, for your resourcefulness.

I will meet this historical "mechanic" for the first time when I am only 6 years old. And then I learn his full name - Taras Mitrofanovich Gorokhovik. However, at first they will tell me: "Your uncle Taras."

This will happen in Moscow, almost a quarter of a century after the shelling on the Petrograd bridge across the Fontanka. Next, I will tell you more about Taras Mitrofanovich. And now it’s worth watching how that January 1st day ended for Lenin and who still tried to kill him.

TERRORISTS' EXTRAORDINARY TRANSFORMATION

In his book, Lev Danilkin notes that Vladimir Ilyich's endless New Year's day did not end with the sending of the bloodied Platten to the hospital. Surprisingly, after all that he had experienced, at 8 pm, as if nothing had happened, he was leading a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars in Smolny. One feels like exclaiming: Lenin is Lenin! Very difficult problems are being discussed: the incident with the Romanian ambassador, questions about the annulment of government loans and the creation of revolutionary tribunals...

Well and then - rest? No, it doesn't work again. A member of the French military mission, Sadoul, has arrived, and a sharp, lengthy conversation follows about relations with the Entente.

It was only after midnight that Vladimir Ilyich went to the Smolensk dining room to have tea with the Norwegian socialist who had arrived. It was to him, according to his recollections, that he lamented the loss of his oratorical abilities. But in vain! If I knew WHAT the investigation of the assassination case would soon reveal ...

The question of who organized it could be answered immediately and very briefly: enemies. It is clear that the Soviet Republic had enough of them, and, as we see, they aimed right at the heart of the revolution. Danilkin again refers, in particular, to the already mentioned American journalist Williams. Even a few weeks before the assassination attempt, he and John Reed told their Bolshevik acquaintances what a stir the offer of a businessman to pay a million for the murder of Lenin caused in the bourgeois environment. Almost an auction began: everyone was ready to pay more. And no wonder: already in December 1917, Lenin recommended that the arrested capitalist saboteurs be sent to forced labor.

However, even in I. Ratkovsky's latest book "The Chronicle of the White Terror in Russia" I read about this assassination attempt: "The circumstances of this terrorist attack are still contradictory, in particular, it is impossible to name the direct organizers with absolute accuracy."

In fact, the author names several different anti-Soviet groups and surnames as possible organizers of the assassination attempt, but he does not have a final certainty here. But I also see inconsistency regarding the perpetrators of the terrorist act. If Danilkin has three young St. George Knights, then Ratkovsky has four surnames, moreover, with the addition of "and others", not named.

Apparently, the scientific investigation is worth continuing, but I will now highlight the main and indisputable. First, to participate in the murder of Lenin, no matter how many there were, the officers associated with the "Union of St. George Knights" that arose in Petrograd, that is, they went not because of money, but "out of ideological convictions." And secondly, their convictions were greatly shaken along the way. This happened, apparently, with all the participants, but especially brightly - with 23-year-old Lieutenant German Ushakov.

He came from Moscow to St. Petersburg, where a plan had already matured to kill the "German spy" - a man whom Ushakov had never seen or heard of, about whom he actually knew nothing. In his car, he undertook to throw a bomb, that is, he took on the main task. But when I heard this man's speech, when I saw how many hundreds of people crammed into the huge arena perceived this speech, he experienced an unexpected and profound inner upheaval.

Result? The bomb remained unexploded! If you call everything by their proper names, the young officer of the former tsarist army saved the life of the leader of the socialist revolution.

I’ll tell you right away what will happen a little later: Lenin, in fact, will save the life of this officer, and more precisely, all his comrades in misfortune, who, in accordance with the laws of revolutionary times, of course, should have been shot.

But Lenin, "bloodthirsty" Lenin... He did not allow them to be shot and ordered them to be released.

How could this happen? Serious reason to think about a lot! There is evidence that Lenin closely followed the course of the investigation, which was headed by Vladimir Dmitrievich Bonch-Bruevich, the manager of the affairs of the Council of People's Commissars and at the same time the chairman of the commission to combat pogroms in Petrograd. The leader was interested in his impressions of conversations with the arrested, more than once advised: "Let them read more newspapers."

Coincidentally, when the investigation of the assassination was already nearing its end, the German troops, violating the truce, took Pskov and moved to Petrograd. The cradle of the revolution was under siege. Lenin's famous proclamation "The Socialist Fatherland is in Danger!" is published. And then the participants in the assassination asked to go to the front. Upon learning of this, Lenin immediately ordered: "The matter is stopped. Release. The request is fulfilled."

It was an act of trust, which in the first months after October, the young Soviet government showed to many of its opponents. Apparently, in this case, those released from arrest justified their trust. So, German Ushakov successfully commanded a red armored train. And his comrades, who at first also did not accept the October Revolution, now honestly came to its defense. "They fought, as promised, bravely and cold-bloodedly, atoned for their guilt with blood and caused great destruction in German troops", - wrote V.D. Bonch-Bruevich in 1931 on the pages of the newspaper "Beeps of the Petrograd Proletariat".

GERMAN USHAKOV: FROM HATE TO GREAT LOVE

However, German Grigorievich Ushakov must still be said separately. Precisely because the change in his attitude towards Lenin turned out to be absolutely extraordinary in depth and strength. From instilled hatred as to the destroyer of Russia to conscious and great love as to its true savior. He was imbued with this love, feeling the rare human virtues of Vladimir Ilyich, to whom he felt a special closeness - personal in all the subsequent years of his life.

In January 1924, he made his way to Bonch-Bruevich with a most convincing request: to stand at least a little at the coffin of such a dear person. And three years later, in 1927, he went to Shushenskoye to touch the places of exile of the young Ulyanov-Lenin and communicate with people who personally knew him.

He spent four months in lengthy discussions with them. Simple, who did not pretend to anything, they remembered the exile in their village not as a great leader known to the whole world, but as Vladimir Ilyich, a person well known from their joint life. Then Ushakov writes:

“There is a lot of sincere sincerity in their good memory of Lenin, warmth, which speaks for the fact that it could not be caused by anything other than the personal qualities of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ... As for us, then ... in the stories of these village realists, the official icon-painting portrait of the leader acquired the features of living humanity and in our eyes received much greater importance and value.

And there is! I am convinced of this, now reading those seven essays under the general title "Lenin in Shushenskoye", which were born from the pen of German Ushakov. The manuscript was kept for a long time in the Central Party Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, where it arrived as part of the personal archive of V.D. Bonch-Bruevich after his death in 1955. Here, for the first time, in 1982, the former head of the House-Museum V.I. Lenin in Shushensky Yu.P. Volchenkov. With his preface and a chapter about the author, the essays are now published by the museum-reserve in a book, which (thanks to him!) I received from L.A. Danilkin.

Most interesting reading. Again and again you are convinced that the truth about Lenin is bright, irresistible and limitless. And this truth is especially necessary to know today, when black clouds are trying to cover it from all sides.

For example, along with the reviews about Lenin by Siberians who knew him, I read in the government's Rossiyskaya Gazeta enthusiastic about yet another caricature of this man. We are talking about the staging by the Moscow Theater of Nations under the direction of Yevgeny Mironov of a cycle of scenes based on Solzhenitsyn's "Red Wheel". Here is what is said about the fragment called "Polonso system car":

"Evgeny Mironov plays Lenin, Evgeny Dmitriev - Krupskaya, Lyudmila Troshina - her mother Elizaveta Vasilievna. This is the funniest, for all the hopelessness and ruthlessness, thing in the cycle. The car of the latest system travels around Europe. For many years this car, the larva of a future catastrophe, wears to himself who, according to the author, is a fanatic, not connected with his homeland either by memory or love, dreaming only of a worldwide slaughter, he even drives his mother-in-law to snore with his speeches and dictations.Only a devoted and jealous wife looks into his mouth, plays along in the slightest undertaking and is happy with any of his casual, party-like asexual touches.

And it's not a shame to give this out to the public! What would Lenin's contemporaries, the Shushensky peasants, say when they saw this evil caricature on stage? What would German Grigoryevich Ushakov, who wrote down their memoirs, and Lenin's driver Taras Mitrofanovich Gorokhovik, who carefully kept in their souls a completely different, completely different image, say? ..

THE LEADER'S SISTER WAS GRATEFUL TO THE DRIVER GOROHOVIK UNTIL THE END OF LIFE

Two people - two destinies. Personally, they did not know each other, German Ushakov and Taras Gorokhovik, but that January 1st evening of 1918 united their names forever. Both, each in his own way, came to Lenin's truth. And both then became the saviors of Lenin's life.

German Grigorievich was born in large family village priest of the Vyatka province. He could also become a priest, because he studied at the seminary with great success. However, shortly before the end, he left it, and with the outbreak of war in 1914 he went to the front. Participating in the famous Brusilov breakthrough, was wounded and awarded the George Cross for his courage. And yet - he received an officer's rank and with him title of nobility, although without the right to inherit.

After a long treatment in the hospital, he was appointed to the post of adjutant under the commander of the Moscow Military District. Let me remind you that from Moscow at the end of the revolutionary 1917, he went with several of his comrades to Petrograd - "to clarify the situation" in the capital after the October events.

Meanwhile, Taras Mitrofanovich Gorokhovik understood this situation in the main: after all, he himself became an active participant in October. A peasant son from the village of Nikolaevka (now the Krasnogorsk district of the Bryansk region) was drafted into the army in 1910, where he became a military driver. With the choice of which side to be during the revolution, the future Bolshevik did not hesitate. And as the best driver, he is sent to the disposal of the motor depot of the Council of People's Commissars. However, he hardly thought then that he would drive Lenin himself in a car ...

And so it happened that this man from the Bryansk region turned out to be the husband of my father's cousin, Aunt Marusya. He is from Nikolaevka, and his father is from Aleksandrovka, a village next door. After graduating from the Leningrad Forest Engineering Academy already in Soviet times (already at the age of 35!) my father was sent to work in the Ryazan region, where I was later born. And when we traveled from our Mozharsky forestry and then from Shatsky to Moscow, we usually stopped at the Gorokhovikovs: their apartment was located on Sadovaya-Samotechnaya.

It was then, as a preschooler, that I learned for the first time about the first attempt on Lenin's life. Probably my father told me, I don’t remember exactly. But I remember very well with what impatience and excitement I waited for the first time the appearance of this " historical man". He came home from work, obviously tired, in a gray worn raincoat on a tall, stooped figure, which, taken together, did not correspond to my idea of ​​\u200b\u200b historical personality. The most everyday look.

And he remained so ordinary, very modest, in fact, always, during all our subsequent visits, already after the war. Continuing, despite his age, to work in the motor depot of the administration of the Council of People's Commissars, and then the Council of Ministers of the USSR, apparently, he himself did not drive cars for some time, but was engaged in repairs and prevention. That's what I assumed, but he didn't talk about his work. And in general he was not very talkative, although I literally caught his every word. And I wanted to ask a lot of questions!

Alas, the children of Aunt Marusya and Uncle Taras - Misha and Kolya, Galya and Nina - got to my share more. Friendship with the last two lasted for many years, until they were gone. Parents, of course, did not become even earlier. And to this day I am tormented by a dream that was not realized in its time - to write down the memories of Lenin's driver.

But what is it that especially stuck in your memory from the impressions of that apartment on Sadovaya-Samotechnaya? Aunt Marusya once mentioned that all the years, until her death, Maria Ilyinichna, Lenin's sister, called them. She asked about life and whether she needed help with something. Sometimes Nadezhda Konstantinovna called with the same thing, but Maria Ilyinichna - all the time. She also visited the Gorokhovikovs at home. She invited Taras Mitrofanovich to join Pravda, where, as you know, she was an executive secretary.

Yes, I thought, this is Leninist. Don't forget the good.

What are you facing now? Having gathered to write these notes, I decided to ask what materials about Taras Mitrofanovich Gorokhovik are in his small homeland, in the Bryansk region. And the first secretary of the Krasnogorsk district committee of the Communist Party, Vasily Mikhailovich Melnikov, greatly upset me.

It turns out that there were such materials in the museum of school No. 1 of the Krasnaya Gora regional center, while Vasily Mikhailovich himself passed something interesting there from Gorokhovik's relatives, but now ... there is nothing!

How is it? I gasped.

Well, you understand, it has become "unfashionable" to expose Ilyich and his comrades.

Understand. In the "dashing nineties" he himself saw the bitter fate of many school museums, which were destroyed not even partially, but entirely. It turns out that destruction has not ended?

And Vasily Mikhailovich talks about enthusiastic ascetics, the creators of the museum in Krasnaya Gora. They became Chief Editor of the district newspaper "Leninsky Way" Alexander Ivanovich Snytko and his wife Elena Vasilievna - a history teacher at the school. They worked hard to collect and present to everyone the invaluable historical and local history wealth.

Collecting and creating is never easy. It's easier to destroy and scatter. But will history forgive? Will the future forgive?

And the concepts of "fashionable" or "unfashionable" have nothing to do with Lenin's titanic personality and all his activities.

From me:

Now, across the vastness of our information space, enemies of the people have launched stable, but false ideas about V.I. Lenin. The greatness of the leader of the Russian proletariat and peasantry, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin), lies in the fact that he, heading the Bolshevik Party, developed and implemented a social model prohibiting any form of slavery.

In the USSR created by Lenin, the main sources of mass suffering and fear were eliminated - poverty, unemployment, homelessness, hunger, criminal and interethnic violence, as well as mass death in wars with a stronger enemy.

Now think for what reason and who is spreading lies about the person who created the conditions for us to realize our freedom, equality and justice.

On August 30, 1918, at the Michelson plant in the capital, 28-year-old Social Revolutionary Fanny Kaplan attempted to assassinate Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

First organized assassination attempt on Vladimir Lenin took place on the first day of the new year 1918. Lenin was returning from a rally in the Mikhailovsky Manege, where he spoke to the Red Army soldiers who were leaving for the front. On the Simeonovsky bridge from the side of the Fontanka, his car was fired upon. The body was perforated by bullets, some of them went right through the front glass. Lenin was not hurt. The terrorists, and there were 12 of them, fled.

In the future, there were several more attempts to assassinate Lenin.

The most famous happened on August 30, 1918 at the Michelson factory in the Zamoskvoretsky district of Moscow, where Lenin spoke at a workers' rally. After a rally in the courtyard of the factory, Lenin was wounded by three shots fired by Socialist-Revolutionary Fanny Kaplan. She fired four bullets at the leader. In spite of dangerous neck injury Lenin survived. On the same day, Fanny Kaplan was caught and interrogated. She never said who was behind the organization of the assassination, the case was closed on this. Fanny Kaplan was shot on September 3, 1918 in the courtyard of the Moscow Kremlin to the sound of car engines, her corpse was doused with gasoline and burned in an iron barrel in the Alexander Garden by the Kremlin commandant Pavel Malkov.

Lenin's injuries were not life-threatening, and he soon recovered.

This is one of the most mysterious assassination attempts in history. Until now, historians are arguing whether it really was, or is it just a skillful staging of the Bolsheviks. And if the attempt was really real, then who was behind it, and who still shot. The official version is the Social Revolutionary Fanny Kaplan, however, this version has been questioned more than once, if only because a woman with very poor eyesight (which is medically confirmed) could not make accurate shots from a sufficiently large distance.

On the day of the assassination attempt, four mercenaries were on duty in the city.

The Social Revolutionaries carefully prepared an attempt on the leader. At that time, Lenin spoke at rallies almost every day. The terrorists' agents knew in advance several alleged places for the leader's performances. There were four key places, respectively, one performer was on duty in each. By the way, they are all women. However, it was decided to send Kaplan to the Michelson plant. There was the best chance for Lenin to come. And Kaplan, like no one else, was obsessed with killing the leader.

Children helped to detain Fanny Kaplan.

After Kaplan fired the shots, she dropped her weapon and began to make her way through the crowd. The children helped to detain Kaplan. During the revolutions, children completely lost their fear of shots, so the volleys that were heard did not frighten them. While the adults were running in all directions, the boys who were running around in the yard during the assassination attempt ran after Kaplan and shouted, showing where she had disappeared.

Bullets fired at the leader were poisoned.

During interrogation, one of the organizers of the assassination attempt, Grigory Semenov, admitted that the bullets loaded in the pistol for greater destruction were incised and poisoned with curare poison. Doctors also spoke about the incision of bullets, who noted uncharacteristic wounds on the body of the leader. As for the presence of poison, it still remains a mystery. However, experts argue that all the properties of the poison were in any case destroyed by high temperature (from heating, bullets flying out of a pistol).

The incredible willpower of the leader.

Immediately after the assassination attempt, Lenin was taken to the Kremlin. According to the recollections of the driver of the leader, Vladimir Ilyich independently climbed to the third floor along a rather steep staircase. In addition, the wounded Lenin undressed himself and went to bed. By the way, some historians have repeatedly used this fact as evidence that the assassination attempt was staged. However, medical evidence still suggests otherwise. In addition, after some time, Lenin was taken to the Botkin hospital, where he underwent surgery. By the way, at present, a memorial plaque hangs next to the ward where Vladimir Ilyich lay.

Fanny Kaplan

Fanny Efimovna Kaplan was born in 1890 in the Volyn province in Ukraine. Her real name and surname - Feiga Khaimovna Roidman, under this surname she lived until the age of 16. Her father was a melamed teacher at a cheder, a Jewish elementary school. The family was large - Fanny had three sisters and four brothers. Feiga received her primary education at home from her father. Being a pious and loyal person to the authorities, Nachum Roidman did not even suspect that his daughter would become a revolutionary and a terrorist.

Then her parents left for America, and the girl changed her passport details, "borrowing" her passport from the Socialist-Revolutionary Fanny Kaplan.

Left without parental care, she chose the profession of seamstress. And at the same time she leaned into the revolution, with pleasure fulfilling various assignments. Fanny transported revolutionary literature from city to city, and sometimes bombs. With the latter, she was caught in Kyiv by the tsarist secret police.

On December 30, 1906, the court-martial sentenced the revolutionary to death, which was replaced by indefinite hard labor due to the minority of the terrorist.

At first, Fanny Kaplan was in the Maltsev hard labor prison, and then in Akatuiskaya - in the Nerchinsk mountain district of Transbaikalia. In Akatui, she met the famous leader of the revolutionary movement Maria Spiridonova. Under the influence of Spiridonova, F. Kaplan's views on hard labor changed: from an anarchist, she became a socialist-revolutionary (socialist-revolutionary).

The weapon from which Fanny Kaplan fired shots at Lenin:

In prison, twenty-year-old Fanny (by the way, in revolutionary circles she was known under the name Dora) began to go blind from a head wound received while still at large. This shocked her so much that she wanted to commit suicide. The tsar's manifesto of 1913 reduced the term of her penal servitude by twenty years, and the order of the Minister of Justice A.F. Kerensky of March 3, 1917 granted the failed suicide full freedom.

Fanny Kaplan got to Moscow only in April, from the hardships and unrest of the road, her eyesight again deteriorated sharply. But there was another convict friend nearby. Socialist-Revolutionary Anya Pigit was a relative of the owner of the Dukat tobacco factory, on whose order the famous house No. 10 on Bolshaya Sadovaya, known today as Bulgakovskiy, was built. And then the Muscovites called it Pigit's house - after the name of the owner and the main tenant. A wealthy relative provided Anya with apartment No. 5, which immediately acquired a reputation among residents as “bad” - its inhabitants were poorly dressed, smoked continuously, strewn with ashes not only in their apartments, but also in the front staircase, street dirt from their broken shoes soiled the polished floor of the lobby.

In the house on Sadovaya Fanny recovered a little, but her eyesight continued to deteriorate. The recently created Bureau of Resort and Sanatorium Assistance gave Kaplan a referral to Evpatoria, to the House of Convicts - this was the name of one of the best sanatoriums there. Before leaving for the Crimea, Fanny thought about how she should live on. She no longer had relatives in Russia - the entire extensive Roidman family had lived in America since 1911. A letter with a new address then arrived in the Akatuy prison, but Kaplan decided not to go to her relatives: the only close people for her during the years of prison were her revolutionary friends.

In Evpatoria, Fanny again learned to enjoy life. About 40 people comfortably accommodated in the House of Convicts, anarchists, socialist-revolutionaries and Bolsheviks coexisted peacefully here. Kaplan quickly got to know everyone, sociability and a cheerful disposition gradually returned to her. Even her appearance changed: Fanny recovered, her sunken cheeks were slightly rounded, even a blush appeared.

Fanny was able to restore her sight in the Kharkov eye clinic of the famous Leonard Girshman. Girshman was famous for the fact that he operated on all poor patients for free. But Fanny heard about a miracle doctor in a sanatorium, so after a vacation in Moscow she did not return, but went to Kharkov. After the operation in the Hirshman clinic, vision was restored almost completely. Kaplan was not going to stay in Ukraine for a long time. She planned to come to Moscow.

March 1917: convicts after their release. Fanny Kaplan in the middle row near the window

In Kharkov, Kaplan learned about the October Revolution. She did not like the proletarian revolution. From Kharkov, she returned to the Crimea, where for some time she worked as the head of courses for the training of workers of volost zemstvos. According to Kaplan herself, it later became known that it was then in the Crimea that she came to the conclusion that it was necessary to kill Lenin as a traitor to the revolution. With this thought, she went to Moscow in 1918, where she discussed the assassination plan with the Socialist-Revolutionaries.

Fanny was again traveling on a false passport, now she was again Dora Roydman. Fanny almost reached the capital when an uprising of the Left SRs led by Maria Spiridonova broke out in Moscow. Kaplan rushed to help her friend, but a few days later a message came - the rebellion was suppressed, Spiridonova was arrested. Fanny decided to continue the fight, but now she had to act differently. She had to eliminate the main figure in the Bolshevik camp - Lenin.

The last month and a half of Fanny Kaplan's life is unlikely to ever be restored.

On August 30, 1918, Fanny appears in the courtyard of the Michelson factory, where Lenin was supposed to come to a workers' meeting.

All the events of that day are scheduled minute by minute, all the materials of the case have been studied many times, both then and years later.

Simultaneously with Kaplan, the Left SR Alexander Protopopov was detained, he was shot the next day. In Fanny's case, the interrogations began immediately. It turned out that there was another victim - one of the women, who was next to Lenin, was wounded by another bullet.

On the same day, Uritsky was killed in Petrograd. The killer, Leonid Kannegiser, also turned out to be a terrorist SR and also a loner. The Chekists understood that this was a new SR conspiracy.

Fanny Kaplan was justly sentenced to death and transported from Lubyanka to the Kremlin, and on September 3, 1918, at 4:00 pm, the commandant of the Kremlin, sailor Pavel Malkov, shot Kaplan in the back of the head with his own hand. She was 28 years old. Her body was placed in an iron barrel, doused with gasoline and burned.

Two days later, September 5, 1918,.ist

How and when the great man who created the first people's state of the USSR in the history of mankind died

DEAR VLADIMIR ILYICH DIED...

TOMORROW IS TO LIVE, TODAY IS SORRY (1924)

Ilyich lies dead in the Hall of Columns, and Russia passes by him day and night.

It could have happened not today, but five years ago, when a hysterical woman drove her bullets into this huge, angular skull in which the future of proletarian Russia thought and throbbed. Lenin could not have died then - the revolution, still young in those days, would have collapsed with him ...

It was a miracle all these years of unheard of work, never once or almost never interrupted for rest. It was believed that this is how it should be: over the Kremlin wall, white lights go out in the morning and in the evening, white lights are lit; strings of people come and go. They come embittered, sick with inner uncertainty, bewildered; they leave saturated, knowing why, how and where, they leave, spreading pieces of his sleepless brain around Russia, and Lenin always sits somewhere there.

And the disease was already sitting in him, slowly killing huge and delicate brain cells, overcoming the walls of blood vessels with a dry and brittle shell of sclerosis. How many times he tore the ropes on himself, slowly thrown over, slowly tightened by illness. He escaped from the clutches of paralysis, lashed his dead memory with whips of will, kicked up his fallen consciousness from the ground in exhaustion, and twice thrown back by blows into childhood, twice grew out of it into a giant: he learned to speak, lost one area of ​​​​perception after another and won them back …

Lenin paid with his life for the revolution that he carried on his shoulders ... Now he is leaving for the ground, as Liebknechts and Rose, Sverdlov and Reed, who were brought into world battles by him, went under the banners, and thousands of our soldiers eaten by typhoid lice, and thousands more, frozen along of the great Siberian highway, and thousands of thousands, dried up by hunger and lying in piles from Nizhny to Astrakhan.

Ilyich now has a long, perhaps endless life ahead of him. He will rise with every rising revolution, he will die with every broken one.

Larisa Reisner, writer, fighter, commissar

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)died at 6:50 p.m. January 21, 1924 in the former Gorki estate near Moscow at the age of 53.

Consequences of injury and congestion led Lenin to a serious illness. In March 1922, Lenin directed the work of the XI Congress of the RCP(b) - the last party congress at which he spoke. In May 1922 he fell seriously ill, but returned to work in early October.

Leading German specialists in nervous diseases were called in for treatment. Lenin's chief physician from December 1922 until his death in 1924 was Otfried Förster. Last thing public speaking Lenin took place on November 20, 1922 at the plenum of the Moscow City Council.

On December 16, 1922, his health deteriorated sharply again, and in May 1923, due to illness, he moved to the Gorki estate near Moscow. In Moscow last time Lenin was on October 18-19, 1923.

Spread by the enemies of Soviet power "historical" fake the fact that "Lenin was ill with syphilis, which he allegedly contracted in Europe" has never been confirmed by anyone.

The official conclusion on the cause of death in the autopsy report read:

“The basis of the disease of the deceased is widespread atherosclerosis of blood vessels due to their premature wear (Abnutzungssclerosis). Due to the narrowing of the lumen of the arteries of the brain and the violation of its nutrition from insufficient blood flow, focal softening of the brain tissues occurred, explaining all the previous symptoms of the disease (paralysis, speech disorders).

The immediate cause of death was:

one). Increased circulatory disorders in the brain;

2). Hemorrhage in the pia mater in the region of the quadrigemina. source

Funeral procession, seeing Lenin to the station, 1924

The first wooden and temporary version of the Mausoleum, erected on the day of the funeral of Vladimir Lenin, Moscow, 1924.

The act of pathoanatomical examination of the body of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)

The autopsy was carried out by Prof. Abrikosov, in the presence of prof. Ferster, prof. Osipova, prof. Deshina, prof. Weisbrod, prof. Bunak, Dr. Getye, Dr. Elistratov, Dr. Rozanov, Dr. Obukh and People's Commissar of Health of the USSR Semashko.

OUTSIDE INSPECTION

The corpse of an elderly man of the correct physique, satisfactory nutrition. On the skin of the anterior surface of the chest, small pigment spots (aspe) are noticed. In the back of the trunk and limbs, there are clearly pronounced cadaveric hypostases. On the skin in the area of ​​the anterior right clavicle, a linear scar about 2 cm is noticeable. On the outer surface of the left shoulder region there is another scar of irregular shape, 2x1 cm in size. On the skin of the back, at the angle of the left shoulder blade, a roundish scar about 1 cm in diameter is noticeable. Rigor mortis is very clearly expressed. On the side of the left humerus, on the border with the lower and middle third, a thickening of the bone (bone callus) is felt. Above this place, at the posterior edge of the deltoid muscle, a dense roundish body is felt in depth. On the section of this place on the border between the subcutaneous fat layer and the tissue of the deltoid muscle, deformed bullet surrounded by a connective tissue membrane.

INTERNAL INSPECTION

The integument of the skull is not changed. When removing the cranial cover, a dense adhesion of the dura mater with the inner surface of the bone is noticed, mainly along the longitudinal sinus. The outer surface of the dura mater is dull, pale, and in the left temporal and part of the frontal region, pigmentation of its yellowish tint is noticed. The anterior part of the left hemisphere appears somewhat sunken compared to the corresponding part of the right hemisphere. The longitudinal sinus contains a small amount of liquid blood. The inner surface of the dura mater is smooth, moist-shiny, easily separated from the underlying pia mater, except for the parts closest to the sagittal groove, where there are adhesions in the areas of swelling of Pachyon granulations. The dura mater of the base of the skull is unchanged, the sinuses of the base contain liquid blood.

Brain. Weight without dura mater immediately after taking out 1340. In the left hemisphere of the brain:

1) in the region of precentral gyri,

2) in the region of the parietal and occipital lobes,

3) in the area ... and

4) in the region of the temporal gyri, areas of strong retraction of the surface of the brain are seen.

In the right hemisphere, on the border of the occipital and parietal lobes, two rows of lying areas of the retraction of the surface of the brain are also seen. The pia mater of the cerebral hemispheres under the above-described areas of depressions appears cloudy, whitish, sometimes with a yellowish tint. In some places, above the grooves and outside the areas of depressions, whitish places are noticed in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bwhich the pia mater is dense and thickened on cuts. From the courts of the base of the brain. Both ... and also ... are thickened, do not fall off; their walls are dense, unevenly thickened, whitish in places with a yellow tint. Their lumen on the section is strongly narrowed in places to the size of a small gap. The same changes are noticeable from the side of the branches of the arteries, and also appear to be dense with a wall that is unevenly thickened and the lumen is noticeably narrowed in places. The left internal carotid artery in her there is no intracranial part of the lumen and appears in the form of a continuous dense whitish cord on the section. The left Sylvian artery is very thin, compacted, and retains a small slit-like lumen on the cut. On a section of the superior cerebellar vermis, no changes in the brain tissue are seen. The fourth ventricle is free of any pathological contents. When the brain is cut, it is noted that the ventricles of the brain, especially the left one, are dilated and contain a clear liquid. In the above-described places of brain depressions, foci of softening of the tissue of its yellowish color are noticed with the formation of numerous racemose cavities filled with a cloudy liquid. Foci of softening capture both the white and gray matter of the brain. In other parts of the brain, its tissue is moist and pale. The choroid plexus covering the quadrigemina is full-blooded, and foci of fresh hemorrhage are seen in it.

When opening the integument of the body, a good development of the subcutaneous fat layer is noted. The muscular system is developed to a sufficient degree. Muscle tissue is usually red.

The position of the abdominal organs is correct, with the exception of the caecum, which lies slightly above normal. The omentum and mesentery are rich in fat. Diaphragm on the right at the level of the 4th rib, on the left at the level of the 4th intercostal space. In the cavity of the right pleura, fibrous synechiae are seen in the region of the apex of the lung. In the region of the left pleura, there are also synechia in the region of the lower lobe between it and the diaphragm. In the cavity of the heart shirt, pathological accumulations are not noticed; mediastinum without any changes.

A heart; dimensions: transverse 11 cm, longitudinal 9 cm, thickness 7 cm. The surface of the epicardium is smooth and shiny: under the epicardium, mainly in the region of the right ventricle, there is a decent accumulation of fat. The semilunar valves of the aorta are somewhat thickened at their base. On the side of the bicuspid valve, there is some thickening along the edge of its closure and whitish, opaque plaques on the front flap. Valves of the right heart without any special changes. On the inner surface of the ascending aorta there is a small amount of protruding yellowish plaques. The thickness of the wall of the left ventricle is 3/4 cm, of the right ventricle -1/2 cm. The coronary arteries gape on the cut, their walls are strongly compacted and thickened; the lumen is clearly narrowed. On the inner surface of the descending aorta, as well as on the inner surface, in general, of the larger abdominal arteries, numerous, strongly protruding yellowish plaques are seen, some of which are in a state of ulceration and petrification.

Lungs. The right one is of the usual sizes and configurations, soft airy consistency everywhere. On section, the lung tissue is plethoric and secretes a foamy fluid. A small elongated scar is seen at the top of the piebald. The left lung of usual sizes and configurations is soft throughout. In the posterior lower part of the upper lobe there is a scar penetrating from the surface at a distance of 1 cm deep into the lung tissue. At the apex of the lung there is a slight fibrous thickening of the pleura.

The spleen is somewhat enlarged and on section, moderately plethoric.

The liver is normal in size and shape, the edge of the left lobe is somewhat pointed. The surface is smooth. On the section, a weak degree of the so-called nutmeg, the gallbladder and ducts without any special changes. The stomach is empty. His cavity is asleep. The mucosa has well-defined and usually located folds. From the side of the intestine, no special phenomena are noted.

Kidneys of normal size. Their fabric pattern is distinct; the cortical substance differs well from the modular one. The tissue is in a state of moderate blood supply. The capsule is removed easily. The surface of the kidney is smooth, with the exception of small areas where shallow depressions of the surface are seen. The lumen of the branches of the renal arteries gapes on the cut. Pancreas of normal size. On the section, no special changes are noted. Endocrine glands. The appendages of the brain without any special changes.

The adrenal glands are somewhat smaller than normal, in size, especially the left one; the cortical substance is rich in lipoids medullary pigmented in a brownish color.

ANATOMICAL DIAGNOSIS

Widespread arteriosclerosis of the arteries with a pronounced lesion of the arteries of the brain. Arteriosclerosis of the descending aorta. Hypertrophy of the left ventricle of the heart. Multiple foci of yellow softening (on the basis of vascular sclerosis) in the left hemisphere of the brain in the period of resorption and transformation into cysts. Fresh hemorrhage in the choroid plexus of the brain under the quadrigemina. Bone callus of the left humerus. Encapsulated bullet in the soft tissues of the upper part of the left shoulder.

CONCLUSION

The basis of the disease of the deceased is widespread arteriosclerosis of vessels due to their premature wear.

Due to the narrowing of the lumen of the arteries and disruption of its nutrition from insufficient blood flow, focal softening of the brain tissue occurred, explaining all the previous symptoms of the disease (paralysis of the speech disorder). The immediate cause of death was:

1. Increased circulatory disorders in the brain.

2. Hemorrhage in the pia mater in the region of the quadrigemina.