Attempt on Lenin. Fanny Kaplan
98 years ago, on August 30, 1918, the most notorious attempt was made on Lenin: terrorist Fanny Kaplan shot at the leader of the world revolution. During the Soviet era, her name was known to every schoolchild, and the opinion about her was unequivocal: the crime was organized by the Socialist Revolutionaries, and the exalted and fanatical Fanny Kaplan became the perpetrator. Nowadays, alternative versions are being expressed - that Fanny was just a pawn in someone else’s game, or even was not involved in the crime at all. Who was she really?
Her real name is Feiga Khaimovna Roydman (or Roitblat), that’s what she was called until she was 16 years old, until her parents left for America, and the girl became interested in revolutionary ideas and anarchism. Under the name Fanny Kaplan, she carried out various assignments, mainly transporting seditious literature. However, modern researchers suggest that her participation in revolutionary activities was indirect.
Fanny Kaplan
She joined the anarchists during the revolution of 1905, under the influence of a young man with whom she was in love. Then a group of anarchist agitators appeared in the Volyn province, among whom was Viktor Garsky (aka Yashka Shmidman, aka Mika) - for his sake the girl was ready to do a lot. In revolutionary circles she was known under the name Dora or Fanya. The “Southern Group” was preparing an assassination attempt on the Kyiv Governor-General Sukhomlinov. In December 1906, Fanya and Mika rented a room at the Kupecheskaya Hotel. There, the lovers assembled a bomb, but due to incorrect assembly there was an explosion.
Convict women after liberation. Fanny Kaplan in the middle row near the window. March 1917
Garsky managed to convince the girl that it was she who should divert the attention of the police, since he would have faced an inevitable death penalty, and they should have shown leniency towards her. He disappeared, and the naive Fanya appeared in court. For attempted murder, she also faced the death penalty, but as a minor she was sentenced to... lifelong hard labor. In prison, she met the famous revolutionary Maria Spiridonova, and under her influence she changed her anarchist views to Socialist Revolutionary ones. While in hard labor, the girl began to experience attacks of blindness as a result of shell shock after a bomb explosion. She was often sick and would probably have died in hard labor, but the February Revolution occurred, and Fanny was released.
Lenin speaking at a rally
In a Yevpatoria sanatorium in 1917, the paths of Fanny Kaplan and Lenin’s younger brother Dmitry Ulyanov unexpectedly crossed. It is not known exactly what kind of relationship they had; according to one version, it was he who sent the girl to an eye clinic in Kharkov. After surgery in this clinic, my vision partially returned. In Kharkov, Kaplan learned about the October Revolution, and perceived it extremely negatively. Allegedly, it was then that her plan matured to kill Lenin as a traitor to the revolution, which, in her opinion, had been strangled by the Bolshevik dictatorship.
Investigative experiment of the assassination attempt on V.I. Lenin in 1918 (1 – the place where Lenin stood, 4 – the place from which Kaplan shot)
The rebellion of the Socialist Revolutionaries in Moscow was suppressed, and the murder of Lenin became Fanny Kaplan’s only chance to continue the fight against the Bolsheviks. How she learned that Lenin would appear at a workers’ meeting in the courtyard of the Mikhelson plant is difficult to say, as well as to answer the questions about who entrusted her with this assassination attempt and who, besides her, participated in it. She had poor eyesight, although she had undergone treatment, which may explain her miss, although she shot from a very close range. The girl was immediately captured and shot 3 days later without trial. After that, her body was doused with gasoline and burned.
Assassination attempt scene from the film *Lenin in 1918*
According to the official version, Kaplan fired the shots. Although, apart from her confession, there was no other evidence of this: there were no witnesses, and she had no weapons. The opinion about Kaplan was unequivocal, it was expressed by N. Bukharin in the Pravda newspaper on September 1, 1918: “A narrow-minded, fanatical petty bourgeois who, perhaps, sincerely believes that Lenin ruined Russia; who, perhaps, really does not understand that she was willed by the hand of those who drive along the 5th alley in New York after business conversations on the street of bankers - Wall Street. It becomes a shame for these small people, small and insignificant, like road dust.”
Fanny Kaplan
According to one version, the assassination attempt was staged by the Bolsheviks themselves: this made it possible to unleash bloody terror against the Socialist Revolutionaries and strengthen their own power. Be that as it may, the wounds undermined Lenin’s health and caused a serious illness, which became the reason for his departure from power and death. Already in our time, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation reviewed the case and came to the conclusion: it was Kaplan who shot Lenin.
100 great mysteries of the 20th century Nepomnyashchiy Nikolai Nikolaevich
WHO SHOOT LENIN?
WHO SHOOT LENIN?
(Material by E. Latia, V. Mironova)
The year 1918 for the Russian Empire began two months earlier - on October 25, 1917, or November 8 according to the new style. It was on the night of 25 to 26 that a coup d'etat took place in Petrograd, later called the Great October Revolution. Waking up on the morning of the 26th, the frightened Petrograd man in the street was surprised to find that many shops and institutions were not working, the Kerensky government had been overthrown, he himself had fled, and power had been seized by the Bolsheviks - the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, headed by a little-known time in Russia Vladimir Ulyanov. This reddish, short, son of a teacher from the provincial Volga town of Simbirsk, a lawyer by profession, a revolutionary with twenty years of experience, was well known only to the Tsarist secret police.
The last time Vladimir Ulyanov was arrested was in 1895, exiled to Siberia and after exile he went abroad, where he spent 16 years. More of a theorist than a practitioner, he, possessing enormous organizational abilities, created a party abroad that set as its goal the seizure of power in Russia.
Taking care of the party treasury, Lenin did not disdain either the gifts of large manufacturers, or the robbery of his party terrorists who robbed banks and ships - two of them went down in the history of the party: the legendary Kamo (Ter-Petrosyan) and the no less legendary Koba, aka Joseph Dzhugashvili , whom the whole world will know under a different name - Joseph Stalin. But all money runs out someday. Meanwhile, the First World War began. Lenin makes an absolutely incredible and fantastic proposal to the Germans: to take Russia out of the war. Germany maintained 107 divisions on the Eastern Front, almost half of its troops. Who would refuse such a tempting deal, especially since Lenin did not at all look like a joker? And in two years - from 1915 to 1917 - more than 50 million gold marks migrated to the Bolshevik party treasury, according to modern researchers - a considerable amount!
Lenin kept his word. On October 25, 1917, the Bolsheviks, raised with German money, forcibly seized power, and on March 3, 1918, Soviet Russia signed a peace treaty with Germany, according to which 1 million square kilometers of our country’s territory was given to the Germans. Lenin also pledged to pay Germany 50 billion rubles in indemnity.
Having taken power, Lenin began with populist declarations, promising universal peace, land to the peasants, freedom and democratic rights to everyone else. But Lenin’s party was not popular among the masses, but the people knew another party well - the Socialist Revolutionaries, the Socialist Revolutionaries. It was the Socialist Revolutionaries who mainly carried out underground work, raised peasant uprisings, organized strikes at factories, and it was they who gained the aura of fighters against tsarism in the popular consciousness. Therefore, when in the fall of 1917, after the October revolution, elections were held to the Constituent Assembly - the main, as it was then supposed, legislative body of the new revolutionary Russia - the Socialist Revolutionaries won a convincing victory, while Lenin’s supporters gained only a quarter of the votes. On January 5, 1918, when the Constituent Assembly began its first meeting, the Bolsheviks suddenly realized that they had lost power...
It was a dark day in Lenin's life. And then he dissolved the Constituent Assembly without any sentimentality. And to be more precise in definitions - overclocked. The proletarian writer Maxim Gorky later claimed that this was done by the “conscious anarchist” sailor Anatoly Zheleznyakov, who, by his own admission, was ready to kill a million people, but together with his drunkard brother managed to shoot only 43 officers, assuring that after that “he himself , you know, it’s nice to do, and your soul is calm, as if angels are singing...” The Social Revolutionaries organized a protest demonstration, but the Bolsheviks immediately shot it.
Yesterday's comrades-in-arms in the fight against the Tsar suddenly became enemies. The Right Socialist Revolutionaries organized their government in Samara, on the Volga. Thanks to the Czech uprising, they took power in the Volga regions and captured most of the gold reserves of the former tsarist government. The other part of the Socialist Revolutionary Party - the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, although they were offended by the Bolsheviks, remained in the government, in the Cheka (the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Sabotage and Counter-Revolution, which was organized on December 7, 1917 and from which the KGB later grew) and in the All-Russian Central Executive Committee - in the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, in the lowest floor of which the Soviets stood. These latter formally belonged to power, since the time of the famous Leninist slogan “All power to the Soviets!” It will formally belong to them until the collapse of the Red Empire in 1991, although from the very first day of the revolution power in Soviet Russia belonged only to the Bolshevik Communist Party, or rather to its leaders: the big ones at the top, and the small ones at the bottom, in the localities.
In addition to the internal troubles of the Bolsheviks, external troubles were added. In March 1918, the intervention of the former allies - England, America and France - began. The Japanese landed in the Far East, the Turks invaded Transcaucasia, and Kolchak seized power in Omsk, declaring himself the Supreme Ruler of Russia. In the south, an anti-Bolshevik army was assembled by Kaledin and Denikin. By mid-summer 1918, the Bolsheviks barely controlled only one-fourth of all of Russia. It seemed to everyone that Lenin’s power was living its last days...
On June 20, 1918, the Bolshevik Commissioner for Press Affairs, Moses Volodarsky, was killed in Petrograd. A month and a half later, on August 30, the head of the Petrograd Cheka, Moisei Uritsky, was shot dead. On the same day, August 30, 1918, in the evening in Moscow, 4 shots were heard in the courtyard of the Michelson plant. A short man in a cap, standing near the car, jerked and fell backwards to the ground. The crowd surrounding him scattered in different directions, the women screamed. They ran up to the fallen man and turned him over.
Did they catch him or not? - the victim said in a dull whisper. No one could answer him. Another hour later, terrible news spread across Moscow: Lenin was killed...
...Six days before the assassination attempt, three people met on the boulevard near the Smolensky market: Dmitry Donskoy, Grigory Semenov and Fanny Kaplan. Donskoy, a military doctor by profession, also controlled the fighting groups of the Socialist Revolutionaries. One of these groups was led by Grigory Semenov, a member of the same party. Donskoy looked around nervously: all three could easily be taken to the Cheka. Two days ago, Felix Dzerzhinsky, who had resigned from his post after the events of July 6 in Moscow, returned to the chairman’s seat. Then Cheka officers Blyumkin and Andreev shot the German ambassador Wilhelm Mirbach, and Dzerzhinsky - he went to Popov’s detachment, which was formally considered a Cheka detachment, to arrest Blumkin - was disarmed and himself arrested. This infuriated Lenin: what kind of leader of the Cheka is this, who is arrested by his own fighters?!
Ilyich did not have a good relationship with Peters, who became chairman of the Cheka after Dzerzhinsky left. Felix ran to the Kremlin almost every day and reported everything in detail, consulted, followed instructions, and Peters only sent reports. Ilyich preferred to keep the Cheka in his immediate field of vision. So he returned Felix to his place. Dzerzhinsky is now engaged in the liquidation of the “National Center”, security officers are prowling the city, and here on you - on a bench sits Mr. Semyonov himself, under whose leadership Moses Volodarsky was killed in Petrograd, and with him the notorious terrorist Fanya Kaplan and the military Socialist Revolutionary leader Dmitry Donskoy . Good company!
Semenov introduced Fanny to Donskoy - they were technically strangers - and gave her the floor. Fanya declared that she was ready to kill Lenin...
To the portrait of Kaplan: “Open sheet number 2122. Compiled in the office of the Akatuy prison on October 1913, 1 day. Kaplan Feiga Khaimovna, exiled convict of the 1st category. Dark brown hair, 28 years old, pale face, brown eyes, height 2 arshins, 3 1/2 inches, ordinary nose. Special features: above the right eyebrow there is a longitudinal scar 2.5 centimeters long. Additional information: from the burghers of the Rechitsa Jewish Society. Born in 1887. Maiden. Has no real estate. Parents left for the USA in 1911. Has no other relatives. For making a bomb against the Kyiv governor, she was sentenced to death; he was commuted to life in hard labor. While making a bomb, she was wounded in the head, went blind in hard labor, and later her vision partially returned. At hard labor I wanted to commit suicide. According to his political views, he is in favor of the Constituent Assembly.”
From Donskoy’s review of Kaplan: “A rather attractive woman, but, without a doubt, crazy, in addition to this with various ailments: deafness, semi-blindness, and in a state of exaltation - complete idiocy.” Note that Donskoy is a professional doctor...
I didn't understand what you said? - Dmitry Dmitrievich asked Fanny.
“I want to kill Lenin,” Kaplan replied.
For what? - Donskoy did not understand.
Because I consider him a traitor to the revolution, and his very existence undermines faith in socialism.
What does it undermine? - Donskoy asked.
I don't want to explain! - Fanny was silent. - He removes the idea of socialism for decades!
Donskoy laughed:
Go get some sleep, honey! Lenin is not Marat, and you are not Charlotte Corday! And most importantly, our Central Committee will never agree to this. You've come to the wrong place. I give good advice - throw it all out of your head and don’t tell anyone else!
Kaplan was dismayed by this response. Donskoy said goodbye to them and quickly began to leave. Semyonov caught up with him, talked about something, returned to Kaplan and unexpectedly announced that everything was in order.
Donskoy approved my plan!
But he said something completely different,” Kaplan did not understand.
Do you want him to say to the first person he meets: go kill Lenin?! Conspiracy, my dear! I completely forgot in hard labor how this is done! Let's go, now we need to get ready!
And they slowly moved along the boulevard towards the market...
August 27, 1918. Kremlin. Lenin was working in his office as usual when Yakov Sverdlov came to see him...
To the portrait of Sverdlov: Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov was born into a poor Jewish family in Yekaterinburg. 33 years. At the age of 16 he joined the party, worked underground and was in exile. In 1918 - Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the main legislative body of the Soviet Republic. The Cheka and the Revolutionary Tribunal report to Sverdlov. He is the second person after Lenin in the party hierarchy. Energetic, ambitious, smart, flexible, soberly assesses the situation. In his personal safe there are passport forms of the tsarist type - for possible flight abroad (one of them is filled out in his name), as well as a large sum in the form of gold, diamonds and tsarist banknotes...
Sverdlov brought Lenin an addition to the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. Today it was to be signed. After the murder of the German ambassador in Moscow, the Germans tore up the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, and Lenin, with great difficulty, managed to extinguish the conflict by agreeing to new, even more predatory conditions of the Germans. They had to give up railways, oil, coal, and gold mining for a long-term concession. In addition, Russia pledged to transfer 245,564 kilograms of gold to Germany, with the first export scheduled for September 5. Sverdlov, having shown Lenin the addition, expressed concern: famine is approaching Moscow, there is no fuel for cars, resistance to the authorities and outright sabotage are growing. And this agreement will only add fuel to the fire and give the Socialist-Revolutionaries a trump card in the fight against them.
Saboteurs, conspirators and even those who hesitate must be shot on the spot! - Lenin said temperamentally. - Let them form troikas on the ground and shoot everyone without any delay! For possession of weapons - execution! For speaking out against Soviet power - execution! Unreliable people should be arrested and taken to concentration camps, which should be organized right outside populated areas: let everyone see what awaits them for such actions!
Ilyich rose from the table and began energetically waving his hand, as if he was dictating another telegram. Sverdlov knew that many telegrams with such content went to Penza, Samara, Kostroma, Saratov. The Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was overcome with horror as he watched this bloody hysteria of the leader.
We already shoot hundreds a day and push away many sympathizers of our government with these cruel methods, playing into the hands of Kolchak and Denikin. They have already begun to intimidate the people with the Bolsheviks. In order for us to survive and defeat the counter-revolution, the sympathy of the masses is now essential, they must be won over to our side! - Sverdlov objected.
Here you go! You are the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the head of the legislative branch, and I am the executor! I shoot saboteurs, counter-revolutionaries and all the rest of the scum! And you solve problems on a more global scale!
Lenin grinned, not without malice. Sverdlov did not understand this Leninist absolute calm. He once told Ilyich that their reserves of power would only last for two weeks - that’s how much food and kerosene remained in Moscow. Lenin was happy: he thought that everything had long been over. But what to do next?
Requisition the surplus from the rich! War communism! Share with a neighbor. If you don't want to share, go to the wall!
But the people will not understand us,” said Sverdlov.
Really? - Lenin was surprised. - It's a pity! We have just started this experiment! The people will not understand the villain. Therefore, we need to pretend to be orphans: they are offending us, help! Think about it!
Sverdlov thought about it. He gathered his secretaries - Enukidze, Avanesov, member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the All-Russian Cheka Kingisepp, the chairman of the All-Russian Cheka Peters, the security officer Yakov Yurovsky, who quite recently, on behalf of Sverdlov and Lenin, liquidated the entire royal family in Yekaterinburg. They secluded themselves and took all precautions so that this conversation would not go beyond the walls of the office. Sverdlov took a firm vow of silence from everyone. And he proposed his plan to save power: unexpected, cunning and forced...
...Semyonov’s combat flying detachment was the central group of the Right Socialist Revolutionary Party. On June 20, a member of this detachment, Sergeev, shot Moisey Volodarsky on Semenov’s orders. The Central Committee of the Right Social Revolutionaries, having learned about this terrorist attack, was outraged that Semenov carried it out without permission and publicly refused to take responsibility.
Thus, Semyonov actually turned into the leader of the gang, and Volodarsky’s death now lay solely on him. He subsequently testified: “This statement was an unexpected and morally huge blow for us... I saw and spoke with Rabinovich, and as a representative of the Central Committee, Rabinovich, on behalf of the Central Committee, told me that I did not have the right to commit the act.”
Semyonov understood well that sooner or later Donskoy and Gots, the leaders of the Right Socialist Revolutionary Party, would hand him over to the security officers without much trepidation. After the murder of Uritsky, it was dangerous to remain in Petrograd, and Semenov, together with Sergeev, moved to Moscow. Then he called another fighter from his group here - Konopleva.
On the eve of her arrival, Enukidze invited him to his place. He was Sverdlov's secretary and dealt with military intelligence issues. They had known Semyonov since their youth. Enukidze treated Semenov to dinner and they drank wine. And Enukidze invited his old friend, about whom he knew almost everything, including his involvement in the murder of Volodarsky, to work for the Bolshevik military intelligence. We were talking about a delicate matter.
What's the matter, Avel Safronovich? - asked Semenov.
Attempts on Lenin and Trotsky,” answered Enukidze. - We need you to kind of prepare these murders. I selected a group, obtained the consent of the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, and found a suitable performer. Then all responsibility will fall on your Central Committee and this executor.
Will there be an assassination attempt itself? - asked Semenov.
It's not your concern! - Enukidze answered...
To the portrait of Semenov: Semenov-Vasiliev Grigory Ivanovich, born in the Estonian city of Yuriev (Dorpt, now Tartu), 27 years old, self-taught, member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party from the age of 24. He was a commissar of a cavalry detachment, from the end of 1917 a member of the military commission of the Central Committee of the Right Socialist Revolutionaries, and the leader of the combat group of the Right Socialist Revolutionaries. The writer Viktor Shklovsky, who knew Semenov, characterizes him this way: “A short man in a tunic and trousers, with glasses on a small nose... A stupid person suitable for politics. He can’t speak.”
...And Semyonov began to work. The plan he compiled was “edited” by Cheka investigator Yakov Agranov. According to it, Moscow was divided into four districts, each of which was supervised by a specific militant. Other militants should take turns on duty at rallies where the leaders of the republic came to speak. As soon as Lenin appeared, the duty officer informed the district “curator” about this, and he appeared to carry out the terrorist attack...
To implement this plan, Semenov needed a meeting with Donskoy. Not being satisfied with her, he went twice to Gotz, who lived in a dacha in the Moscow region, but was refused everywhere. However, when coming to meetings of his battle group, Semenov said that both Donskoy and Gots approved of their plans. Four perpetrators were selected to assassinate Lenin: Usov, Kozlov-Fedorov, Konopleva and Kaplan...
...On August 30 at 17.00 Lenin has lunch in the Kremlin with his wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya. In the afternoon, a message arrived that the head of the Petrograd branch of the Cheka, Moisei Uritsky, had been shot dead in Petrograd. Lenin asked Dzerzhinsky to immediately go to St. Petersburg and investigate this murder. The leader's appetite was not affected by this circumstance. He ate with pleasure and joked with his wife, who tried to dissuade him from performing. Lenin planned two of them this Friday: at the Bread Exchange and at the Mikhelson Factory. Topic: “The dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the dictatorship of the proletariat.” In response to his wife’s reminder that the district party committee had temporarily banned Lenin from speaking at rallies, he jokingly remarked that Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov strictly required all leading officials to participate in rallies and would strongly scold him for such a refusal.
At about eight in the evening Lenin arrived at the Bread Exchange. The car was driven by driver Kazimir Gil. One of Semenov’s militants, Kozlov-Fedotov, was at the Bread Exchange. Later he would testify during the investigation: “I had a loaded revolver with me and, according to the detachment’s resolution, I had to kill Lenin. I did not dare to shoot at Lenin because I hesitated about the permissibility of killing a representative of another socialist party.” The explanation is very strange: a professional fighter behaves like a schoolgirl. Lenin spoke at the Bread Exchange for 20 minutes, answered questions for another half hour, and then left. From the testimony of driver Gil: “I arrived with Lenin at about 10 o’clock in the evening at the Mikhelson plant.”
On August 30 at 10 pm it is already dark outside. No one met Lenin, and he himself went to the factory floor where the rally was taking place. At the rally, Lenin also spoke for half an hour. I answered questions for another half hour.
From Semenov’s testimony: “Kaplan, on my instructions, was on duty near the plant on Serpukhov Square.” This is about two hundred meters from the factory yard...
At about 11 pm Lenin left the workshop and headed to the car. Together with Lenin, those who listened to the leader also came out into the courtyard. He was about to get into the car when shots rang out. Lenin fell. Many people ran in fear from the yard to the street. Assistant Commissar of the Infantry Regiment Batulin shouted: “Stop the killer!” and also rushed out into the street.
From Batulin’s testimony: “Having reached the so-called “Strelka” on Serpukhovka, I saw... near a tree... with a briefcase and an umbrella in her hands, a woman who caught my attention with her strange appearance. She had the appearance of a person fleeing persecution, intimidated and hunted. I asked this woman why she came here. To these words she replied: “Why do you need this?” Then I, having searched her pockets and taking her briefcase and umbrella, invited her to follow me. On the way, I asked her, sensing in her the face that had attempted to assassinate Comrade. Lenin: “Why did you shoot comrade. Lenin?”, to which she replied: “Why do you need to know this?”, which finally convinced me of this woman’s attempt on Comrade’s life. Lenin".
The absurdity of this testimony is obvious. But it is important to note that Kaplan stood where she was placed. It is also obvious what follows from Batulin’s testimony: he was ordered to identify Kaplan. Another thing is surprising: why did Kaplan admit that it was she who shot Lenin? Perhaps, given her tendency to exaltation, the organizers of the assassination attempt “calculated” this confession too - for she was already being led as a murderer, the crowd was roaring, demanding lynching, and Bakulin himself says that he saved the terrorist from reprisal. Kaplan had a congenital neurosis since 1906, when she was sentenced to death and then pardoned. It was because of this that she immediately took all the blame upon herself, categorically refusing to answer other questions. Her hysterics and sobs gave way to stony silence.
Not only the absurdity of Batulin’s testimony proves that Kaplan was not involved in the shots. During the search, a Browning car was found on her, but, apparently, no one fired from it, because it was not included in the case. The decisive piece of evidence in the case is another “Browning”, which on September 2 the worker Kuznetsov brought to the Zamoskvoretsky military commissariat, assuring that this was the same “Browning” from which they shot at Lenin. In his first statement - to the commissariat - Kuznetsov wrote: “Lenin was still lying, a weapon was thrown near him, from which 3 shots were fired at Comrade Lenin (a Browning system weapon), having picked up this weapon, I rushed to run after that person, who made the attempt, and other comrades ran with me to detain this scoundrel, and the comrades who ran ahead of me detained this man who made the attempt and, together with other comrades, I transported this man to the military commissariat.” Kuznetsov's words - “scoundrel”, “this man” clearly indicate that the detainee was a man. But in a statement to the Cheka, made on September 2, instead of the words “scoundrel” and “man”, Kuznetsov writes another word - “woman”. And this was clearly done not without the help of “competent comrades.”
Lenin himself testifies to the man-killer. Driver Gil recalls: “I knelt down in front of Vladimir Ilyich, leaned towards him... “Did they catch him or not?” “he asked quietly, obviously thinking that a man had shot him.”
The same Gil makes an amendment in the interrogation report: “After the first shot, I noticed a woman’s hand with a Browning.” This amendment is quite remarkable and was added the very next day, when it became known that Kaplan had been arrested and confessed. It is possible that Gil was gently pressured to write down this amendment. Lenin’s remark “was he caught or not?” very important. This is not a disclaimer. After the first shot, which wounded the woman talking to Ilyich, Lenin instinctively turned around. This saved his life. The doctor who treated him, Weisbrod, stated: “Only an accidental and happy turn of his head saved him from death.”
Immediately after the assassination attempt on Lenin, Semyonov reported to the Central Committee of the Right Socialist Revolutionaries that it was a “vigilante” who did it. Subsequently, during the trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries, this detail will emerge and take Semyonov by surprise: he will not be able to answer who he had in mind then. And again, as in the case of Volodarsky, the Central Committee of the Right Socialist Revolutionaries publicly declares that it has nothing to do with this assassination attempt...
At the rally at the Mikhelson plant on August 30, two Socialist Revolutionary vigilantes were present: Novikov and Protopopov. Novikov would later act as a witness at the trial in 1922 and say that he stopped the crowd leaving the workshop after the rally at the door, giving Kaplan the opportunity to shoot at Lenin, but the same driver Gil noted that there was no crowd at the door.
The figure of Protopopov is even more curious. He was shot without trial or investigation on the night of September 1, 1918. Protopopov, a former sailor, was the deputy commander of a combat detachment of the Cheka (the same Popov detachment that took an active part in the July 6 mutiny). It was Protopopov who arrested Dzerzhinsky, who arrived in the detachment in search of the murderer of Mirbakh, an employee of the Cheka, Blumkin. After the rebellion was suppressed, Protopopov was arrested. An investigation began, led by Viktor Kingisepp - he also led the investigation into the assassination attempt on Lenin. But in the verdict of the court on the rebellion of the left Socialist Revolutionaries, the name of Protopopov is no longer present. He disappeared, unexpectedly resurfacing only on August 30. And, most likely, he is the “scoundrel” who shot Lenin. But, guessing who shot, we will not clarify the whole picture of the assassination attempt if we do not answer the main question: who was behind Semyonov, Kaplan, Protopopov?
...On the evening of August 30, Sverdlov’s appeal appeared: “A few hours ago a villainous attempt was made on comrade. Lenin. Upon leaving the meeting, Comrade. Lenin was wounded. Two shooters have been detained. Their identities are being revealed. We have no doubt that traces of right-wing Socialist Revolutionaries, mercenaries of the British and French will be found here too.”
The appeal is dated to a specific hour: 10 hours 40 minutes. “A few hours ago” means at eight o’clock. But Lenin arrived at the plant only at 10 pm, and finished speaking at 11.00. And who are these “two shooters”? Kaplan and Protopopov? The first fit better into the scheme conceived by Sverdlov. Therefore, Sverdlov had no doubt that “traces” would be found.
We have already mentioned that Viktor Kingisepp led the investigation. At one time, Sverdlov introduced him to the Revolutionary Tribunal. Kingisepp was a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and was directly subordinate to Sverdlov. The second investigator in the assassination case is Yakov Yurovsky, a fellow countryman of Sverdlov, also from Yekaterinburg, who shot the royal family on the orders of the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Sverdlov appreciated the efforts of the Ural security officer and took him to Moscow. Sverdlov’s secretary Avanesov was also present at Kaplan’s first and other interrogations.
Sverdlov did not let the matter out of his hands for a second. Semyonov was in close friendship with another of Sverdlov’s secretary, Avel Enukidze. Semenov will be arrested on September 8, and soon he will become a most valuable employee of military intelligence and the Cheka - and all this through the efforts of Enukidze. He will also give the organizer of the assassination attempt on Lenin a recommendation to join the Leninist party. Stalin himself will read and edit Semenov’s main work, “The Military and Combat Work of the Social Revolutionary Party in 1917–18.” This work will be published as a separate brochure in Germany, and at the trial of the right Socialist Revolutionaries in 1922, by resolution of the Party Central Committee, the first speaker of the country of Soviets, Bukharin, will defend Semenov. After the trial, Semenov will be given an amnesty and sent on a free vacation to the south. Touching concern for the main terrorist of the republic! All this suggests that even before the assassination attempt Semenov was led by important people, such as, for example, Sverdlov and Enukidze.
On September 1, by order of Sverdlov, Kremlin commandant Malkov will take Kaplan from the Cheka prison and transport her to the Kremlin, and on September 3, by order of the same Sverdlov, Kaplan will be shot and her body will be burned - right there, in the Kremlin, under the roar of engines, in the courtyard of the Automatic Combat Detachment. And this is one of the main pieces of evidence indicating that Sverdlov was involved in the assassination attempt, since only it was beneficial for him to quickly destroy the witnesses. After all, the investigation has only just begun. On September 2, a Browning was brought in - Kaplan had to identify it. Confrontations were required with witnesses who had to confirm her presence in the courtyard of Mikhelson's plant - after all, they were shooting at the leader of not only Red Russia, but the entire world proletariat! However, here Kaplan’s confession would most likely have collapsed, because no one in the yard could see her. Moreover, Sverdlov was informed: Kaplan was falling into hysterics, tears, the revolutionary fervor had passed, and she could not only refuse to confess, but also tell the true story of the assassination attempt. Then they will bring in Semenov and Novikov, they will start talking about Protopopov, why and who shot him, and then... Sverdlov is even scared to think about it. It was necessary to quickly hide the ends in the water. No Kaplan - no investigation.
A. Balabanova, who visited the leader’s family in September 1918, gives a remarkable description: “I got the impression that he was especially shocked by the execution of Dora Kaplan...” This phrase makes us understand that the decision about this was made not by Lenin, but by someone then another (it’s clear who: Yakov Sverdlov). And that Ilyich was not very happy with this decision. But Sverdlov managed to convince him, to subordinate him to his decision, which means that the degree of Sverdlov’s influence on Lenin in some issues was very strong.
Krupskaya recalls what happened in the Kremlin apartment when the wounded Lenin was brought from the rally: “Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov stood near the hanger, and he looked somehow serious and decisive. Looking at him, I decided that everything was fine. “What will happen now?” - I said. “Ilyich and I have agreed on everything,” he replied. “It’s agreed, it means it’s over,” I thought.”
The word “conspired” itself is curious. It can be “agreed” between two sidekicks or accomplices. “Conspired” means a secret agreement has been concluded that no one can or should know about. But what was “conspired” between Sverdlov and Lenin? An attempt on Lenin's life, when it was supposed to fire blank shots, but someone mistakenly fired live shots? Or was it “conspired” that Lenin, assuming the worst, transferred all power to Sverdlov? This is exactly how Krupskaya understood Sverdlov. This means that Sverdlov had another reason to eliminate Lenin - he was clearing the way for himself to sole power.
We already talked at the beginning about the reasons that prompted Sverdlov to come up with this “rescue plan.” Recently, versions have appeared that Lenin was not shot at all, and all traces of bullets were staged. This would be the original version, but there are too many documents that talk about bullets and operations. German doctors took part in the latter, and it was probably impossible to force them to lie. Therefore, we agree that there were still shots and injuries. Another thing is that it really turned out to be easy. Lenin himself went up to his room in the Kremlin, undressed himself, and on September 5 he got up and began to work. It was for the sake of this “jewelry work” that the experienced shooter Protopopov was perhaps invited - to fake this slight injury. According to the plans of the directors of the assassination attempt, it probably should have been even easier - tangent, touching only the skin, burning... But excitement, Lenin’s involuntary turn - and everything changed. The wound turned out to be more severe; the bullet almost hit a vital artery. That’s why the angry “directors” shot Protopopov...
All this, of course, is just speculation; we are unlikely to ever know the true picture of those events: there are no witnesses for a long time, and no evidence either. And if they exist, they are unlikely to be made public soon. We can only name the author of the script and director of this interlude: Yakov Sverdlov. In 1919, as if by fate’s retribution, he died. This production was completed by his spiritual disciple Stalin.
“The Assassination of Lenin” is a truly talented dramatization of the Bolsheviks. But thanks to her, the regime survived. Having defeated their comrades in the revolutionary struggle, the Bolsheviks began to rule the country single-handedly. Lies, intrigues, conspiracies, executions, terror became the fertile soil on which Stalin’s dictatorial regime grew in full bloom. The Red Empire entered the life of humanity in the 20th century as a great monster with its incredible experiments on the souls and lives of millions of people...
This text is an introductory fragment.
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The official version of the assassination attempt on Lenin in 1918 is well known. However, the question still remains open: how true is it? A little over twenty years ago, the General Prosecutor's Office of Russia, having examined the materials of the criminal case against Fanny Kaplan, found that the investigation was carried out superficially and issued a resolution to “initiate proceedings based on newly discovered circumstances.” 75 years after the crime? In a country with a different social system? There was, therefore, something to excite... In the end it turned out: so many of these “circumstances” were discovered that they are still being considered. Maybe we should try, if possible, to understand what actually happened on August 30, 1918? Immediately after the shots were fired at the leader, an appeal was published by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, signed by Yakov Sverdlov. “A few hours ago a villainous attempt was made on Comrade Lenin. Two shooters were detained. Their identities are being ascertained. We have no doubt that traces of the right Socialist Revolutionaries, traces of British and French mercenaries will be found here too.” One of those detained was former left Socialist Revolutionary Alexander Protopopov. It is known that he was one of the sailors, and that during the speech of the Left Social Revolutionaries in July 1918, he personally disarmed Dzerzhinsky himself. Most likely, this is precisely what they did not forgive him for, and after his arrest, without engaging in empty interrogations and finding out where he was and what he was doing during the attempt on Lenin, he was quickly shot. But the second detainee was a woman, and she was detained by the assistant military commissar of the 5th Moscow Infantry Division Batulin. In his testimony, given again in hot pursuit, he stated: “I was 10-15 steps from Lenin at the moment of his exit from the rally, that is, still in the courtyard of the factory. Then I heard three shots and saw Lenin lying face down on the ground. I shouted: “Hold it!” and behind me I saw a woman presented to me, who was behaving strangely... When I detained her and when screams began to be heard from the crowd that this woman was shooting, I asked if this was so. "She answered that yes. We were surrounded by armed Red Guards, who did not allow her to be lynched and were brought to the military commissariat of the Zamoskvoretsky district." Only a week passed, and Batulin began to speak differently. It turns out that he mistook revolver shots for ordinary “motor sounds” and only then understood what was happening when he saw Lenin lying on the ground. And he detained the woman not in the yard, but on Serpukhovskaya Street, where the crowd, frightened by the shots, rushed, and everyone fled, but she stood, which attracted the attention of the vigilant commissar. The most amazing thing is that when asked by Batulin whether she shot at Lenin, the woman, without being arrested and not in the Cheka, answered in the affirmative, although she refused to name the party on whose behalf she shot.
The woman who took responsibility for the assassination attempt on Lenin turned out to be Feiga Khaimovna Kaplan, also known under the names Fanny and Dora and under the names Royd and Roitman. She was brought to the Zamoskvoretsky military registration and enlistment office. There Fanya was stripped naked and thoroughly searched. They didn’t find anything worthwhile except pins, hairpins and cigarettes. There was also a Browning in the briefcase, but Fanya did not explain how it got there. Then she was handed over to the security officers, and they took her to the Lubyanka. There they took it much more seriously and, so to speak, professionally. The protocols of these interrogations have been preserved; let’s read at least some of them. “I arrived at the rally at eight o’clock,” said Fanya. “I won’t say who gave me the revolver. I won’t answer where I got the money. I shot out of conviction. I haven’t heard anything about the terrorist organization associated with Savinkov. Is there I have friends among those arrested by the Cheka, I don’t know.” And what can be understood from this interrogation? Never mind. And here is the protocol of another interrogation, in which there is a little more information: “I am Fanya Efimovna Kaplan, under this name I was imprisoned in Akatui. I have carried this name since 1906. Today I shot at Lenin. I shot out of my own conviction. How many times did I shoot, I don’t remember. I won’t say from which revolver. I was not familiar with those women who spoke with Lenin. The decision to shoot Lenin had matured for me a long time ago. I shot Lenin because I considered him a traitor to the revolution and his continued existence undermined faith in socialism". Subsequent events developed so rapidly that there are simply no more or less reasonable explanations for them. Judge for yourself. The investigation is in full swing, and suddenly on September 4, a completely unexpected message appears in the Izvestia of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee: “Yesterday, by order of the Cheka, the right-wing Socialist Revolutionary Fanny Royd (aka Kaplan) who shot Comrade Lenin was shot.” A unique document has been preserved - the memoirs of the Kremlin commandant Pavel Malkov, who carried out the sentence. Here is what he writes, in particular: “On the instructions of the secretary of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Avanesov, I brought Kaplan from the Cheka to the Kremlin... Avanesov showed me the All-Russian Cheka resolution on the execution of Kaplan. “When?” I asked briefly. “Today, immediately,” he answered. And after a moment of silence: “Where do you think is better?” - “Perhaps, in the courtyard of the motorized combat detachment, in a dead end.” - “I agree.” After this, the question arose of where to bury. Ya. M. Sverdlov resolved it. “Bury Kaplan we will not. The remains were destroyed without a trace, he ordered." Having received such authorization, Malkov began to act. First of all, he ordered several trucks to be rolled out and the engines started, and a passenger car to be driven into a dead end, turning its radiator towards the gate. Then Malkov went to get Kaplan, whom he left in the basement room. Without explaining anything, Malkov led her outside. It was four o'clock, the bright September sun was shining - and Fanya involuntarily closed her eyes. Then I saw the silhouettes of people in leather jackets and long overcoats, distinguished the outlines of cars and was not at all surprised when Malkov ordered: “To the car!” - She was transported so often that she got used to it. At that moment, some kind of command was heard, truck engines roared, a car howled subtly, Fanya stepped towards the car and... shots rang out. She no longer heard them, because Malkov unloaded the entire clip into her.
According to the rules, a doctor must be present during the execution of a death sentence - it is he who draws up the death certificate. This time they did without a doctor; he was replaced by the great proletarian writer and fabulist Demyan Bedny. He lived in the Kremlin at that time and, having learned about the upcoming execution, asked to be a witness. While they were shooting, Demyan remained cheerful. He did not turn sour either when he was asked to pour gasoline over the woman’s body, as well as at that moment when Malkov could not light damp matches - and the poet generously offered his own. But when the fire flared up and the smell of burning human flesh flared up, the singer of the revolution fainted. The news of the execution of the vile terrorist who attempted to assassinate the leader of the revolution was greeted with great enthusiasm by the progressive proletariat. But the old revolutionaries and former political prisoners saw in this act a violation of the highest principles, for the sake of which they rotted in dungeons, or even went to the scaffold. Lenin himself reacted to the news of Kaplan’s execution in a very unique way: according to people who knew him well, “he was shocked by the execution of Dora Kaplan,” and his wife Krupskaya “was deeply shocked by the thought of revolutionaries condemned to death by the revolutionary government, and cried bitterly.” . Like this: Lenin is shocked, but cannot do anything to save Dora. Krupskaya cries, but is also completely powerless. So who is the leader then, who decides the fate of the country and the people living in it? This name is well known, but more on that later. In the meantime, let’s talk about the anti-Leninist conspiracy that matured towards the end of the summer of 1918. The position of the Bolsheviks at that time was critical: the size of the party decreased, peasant rebellions broke out one after another, and workers went on strike almost continuously. And if we also take into account the brutal defeats at the fronts, as well as the deafening defeat during the elections to local Soviets, then it became clear to all sensible people: the days of Lenin’s supporters in power were numbered. It is no coincidence that it was then that Leon Trotsky met with the German ambassador Mirbach and told him with communist directness: “Actually, we are already dead, but there is still no one who could bury us.” But there were many, many people who wanted to do this! Moreover, all potential conspirators considered the physical elimination of Lenin an indispensable condition for coming to power. It must be said that the leader knew about this, he even asked in one of his conversations with Trotsky: “Will Sverdlov be able to cope with Bukharin if the White Guards kill you and me?” If we replace the word “White Guards,” which, of course, could not reach the Kremlin, with any other word, then Lenin’s anxiety can be understood: he either felt or knew that tragic events were brewing.
This is confirmed by employees of the German embassy in Moscow. In August 1918, they reported to Berlin that the leadership of Soviet Russia was transferring “significant funds” to Swiss banks, that the inhabitants of the Kremlin were asking for foreign passports, that “the air of Moscow is saturated with assassination as never before.” Now let’s compare some facts... Who signed the first appeal of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee about the assassination attempt on Lenin and, before any facts were clarified, indicated the address where the organizers of the assassination should be looked for? Yakov Sverdlov. Who instructed Kingisepp to conduct the investigation into the assassination attempt? Sverdlov. Who, at the height of the investigation, ordered Kaplan to be shot and her remains destroyed without a trace? Sverdlov again. Is his name repeated too often in connection with this case? No, considering that, according to contemporaries, by the summer of 1918 all party and Soviet power was concentrated in his hands. Concentrated in fact, but not officially - after all, the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, i.e. Lenin remained the head of the government. The version that the organizer of the assassination attempt was Sverdlov, and not without the participation of Dzerzhinsky, sounds, of course, wild, but that’s the problem: it has not yet been possible to refute it with evidence. Consider at least one inexplicable fact that surfaced only in 1935, that is, sixteen years after Sverdlov’s death. The then People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, Genrikh Yagoda, decided to open Sverdlov's personal safe. What he discovered there shocked him, and Yagoda immediately wrote to Stalin that the safe contained: “Gold coins of tsarist minting worth 108,525 rubles, 705 gold items, many of which with precious stones. Blank passport forms of the tsarist type, "seven completed passports, including in the name of Sverdlov. In addition, royal money in the amount of 750 thousand rubles."
Now remember the reports from the German embassy about Kremlin residents asking for foreign passports and transferring significant amounts of money to Swiss banks. But let's return to where we started. There are a huge number of facts, as well as versions. In principle, it is possible to understand them, but to draw conclusions... Only the Prosecutor General can draw conclusions. I would like to hope that he will still have time to familiarize himself with case No. 2162, and he will finally decide whether Fanny Kaplan shot at Lenin or not. And if it turns out that she didn’t shoot, she will give instructions for the rehabilitation of Fanny Kaplan as a victim of political repression.
On August 30, 1918, after speaking to the workers of the Mikhelson plant in Moscow, an attempt was made on Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, as a result of which he received seriously injured.
After the end of the rally, Lenin went out into the courtyard of the plant, continuing the conversation with the audience and answering their questions.
According to the recollections of Bonch-Bruevich, with reference to the driver Gil, the latter sat behind the wheel and looked, half-turned, at Lenin as he approached.
Hearing the shot, he immediately turned his head and saw a woman on the left side of the car near the front fender, who was aiming at Lenin’s back.
Then two more shots rang out and Lenin fell.
These memories became the basis of all historical works and were reproduced in the classic assassination scene in the Soviet film “Lenin in 1918”: a brunette woman with a clearly Jewish appearance aims a revolver at the back of the leader of the Russian revolution...
According to the official version, the perpetrator of this terrorist attack was the Socialist Revolutionary Fanny Kaplan (Feiga Khaimovna Roitblat), who was shot on September 3, 1918.
Neither her contemporaries nor historians characterized her otherwise as a “socialist-revolutionary terrorist,” and no doubts arose about her involvement in the assassination attempt on the “leader of the world proletariat.”
However, all the circumstances of this attempt still remain not entirely clear, and even the most superficial acquaintance with the documents shows how contradictory they are and do not give a clear answer to the question of Kaplan’s guilt...
If we look at the documents, it turns out that the time of the assassination attempt was never precisely determined and the discrepancy in time reaches several hours.
The Mossovet's appeal, which was published in the Pravda newspaper, stated that the assassination attempt occurred at 7:30 pm, but the chronicle of the same newspaper reported that this event took place around 9 pm.
A very significant amendment in determining the time of the assassination attempt was made by Lenin’s personal driver S. Gil, a punctual man and one of the few real witnesses. In his testimony, which he gave on August 30, 1918, Gil stated: “I arrived with Lenin at about 10 o’clock in the evening at the Michelson plant”... 
Based on the fact that, according to Gil, Lenin’s speech at the rally lasted about an hour, the assassination attempt was most likely carried out around 23:00, when it finally got dark and night fell. Perhaps Gil’s testimony is closest to reality, since the protocol of Fanny Kaplan’s first interrogation clearly records “11:30 pm.”
If we assume that the detention of Kaplan and her delivery to the nearest military commissariat, where the interrogations began, took 30-40 minutes, then the time indicated by Gil should be considered the most correct.
It is difficult to imagine that Fanny Kaplan, the suspect in the assassination attempt, remained unquestioned for more than three hours, if the assassination attempt took place at 19:30.
Where did this discrepancy in time come from?
Most likely, the shift in the time of the assassination attempt to a lighter part of the day was made quite deliberately in his memoirs by Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich, the manager of the affairs of the Council of People's Commissars. His memoirs, which became the basis of the textbook story about the assassination attempt on Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, were reproached at the time of their appearance for inaccuracies and omissions, the introduction of insertions and details that the author could not remember...
Bonch-Bruevich claims that he learned about the assassination attempt at 18:00, when he returned home from work for a short break. He needed this to create a false picture of Kaplan’s detention in daylight, since he added clearly fictitious details...
Bonch-Bruevich’s memoirs include the so-called “driver Gil’s story,” which was reported as if personally to the author. This gives the memories the necessary authenticity, and both Soviet and Western historians invariably refer to them in the future.
But the “driver’s story” according to Bonch-Bruevich contradicts Gil’s own testimony. He could not see what happened after the assassination attempt, that is, the episode of Kaplan’s detention, since he was near the wounded man
, and then took him to the Kremlin. The details associated with this episode were composed by Bonch-Bruevich and added directly to “Gil’s story” for greater persuasiveness... 
During interrogation, Gil gave the following testimony: “I saw... a woman’s hand with a Browning reaching out from behind several people.” Consequently, the only witness Gil did not see the man who shot Lenin, but only noticed the woman’s outstretched hand.
Let us remember that everything happened late in the evening, and he could actually see at a distance of no more than three steps from the car. Maybe Gul misspoke?
But, unfortunately, this assumption should be discarded. The observant driver made an important amendment to the protocol: “I am correcting myself: after the first shot, I noticed a woman’s hand with a Browning.”
Based on this, there can be no doubt: Gul did not see the woman who was shooting, and the entire scene described by Bonch-Bruevich, which has become canonical, was fictitious...
Commissioner S. Batulin, who detained Fanny Kaplan some time after the assassination attempt, at the time of her exit
from the factory was at a distance of 10 - 15 steps from him. Later he changed his initial testimony, indicating that he was 15 to 20 steps away and that: “The man who shot comrade. I haven’t seen Lenin.”
Thus, it should be considered an established fact that none of the interrogated witnesses present at the scene of the assassination saw the man who shot Lenin in the face and could not identify Fanny Kaplan as the perpetrator of the assassination...
After the shots, the situation developed as follows: the crowd began to scatter, and Gil rushed in the direction from which the shots were fired. What is important: not towards a specific person, but in the direction of the shots. Here's a quote from Gul's own memoirs:
“... The woman who was shooting threw a revolver at my feet and disappeared into the crowd.”
He doesn't give any other details...
The fate of the abandoned weapons is curious. “No one raised this revolver in front of me,” Gul claims. Only on the way, one of the two people accompanying the wounded V.I. Lenin explained to Gul: “I pushed him under the car with my foot.”
The Kaplan revolver was not presented during interrogations, nor did it appear as evidence during the investigation.
Among the questions Kaplan asked about the things found on her (papers and money in her purse, train tickets, etc.), only one had to do with the assassination weapon. Apparently, the chairman of the Moscow Revolutionary Tribunal, A. Dyakonov, who interrogated Fanny Kaplan, did not have a revolver in his hands. He asked only about the weapon system, to which Kaplan replied: “I won’t say which revolver I shot from, I wouldn’t like to give details”... 
Most likely, if the revolver had been lying in front of Dyakonov and Kaplan on the table, her answer about her reluctance to go into details would have looked at least ridiculous.
While the missing evidence was being pushed under the car, an eyewitness to the assassination attempt, S. Batulin, shouted: “Hold it, catch it!”
However, later, in the written testimony that Batulin sent to Lubyanka on September 5, 1918, he delicately corrects his market cry with a more politically literate exclamation: “Stop the murderer, Comrade. Lenin!
With this cry, he ran out of the factory yard onto Serpukhovskaya Street, along which people, frightened by shots and general confusion, were running in groups and alone in various directions.
Batulin explains that with these cries he wanted to stop those people who saw Kaplan shoot at Lenin and attract them to the pursuit of the criminal. But, apparently, no one responded to Batulin’s cries and expressed a desire to help him find the killer.
Such indifference of the working masses was critical for the creators of the legend about the killer Kaplan, which is why Bonch-Bruevich appears with children who were in the yard during the assassination attempt, who seemed to “run in a crowd after the shooter and shouted: “Here she is!” Here she is!" But in the newspaper, which was dedicated to the fifth anniversary of the assassination attempt, the same vigilant Soviet children are already going to play on the street, where they help the worker Ivanov to pick up the trail of the fleeing Kaplan...
But Commissioner Batulin, who twice presented his testimony, did not see any children, and what were the children to do on a gloomy and cold autumn evening on a dark street?..
Having run from the plant to the tram stop on Serpukhovskaya Street, S. Batulin, not seeing anything suspicious, stopped. Only then did he notice a woman behind him near a tree with a briefcase and an umbrella in her hands. The commissioner repeated twice in his testimony on August 30, 1918, a detail that he remembered: he saw a woman not running in front, but standing behind him. He was not catching up with her, and she could not overtake Batulin and come running first or follow him and suddenly stop.
In these short moments of intense attention, he would certainly have noticed a figure running with an absurd umbrella, trying to hide under a tree. In addition, women's clothing in 1918, with a long dress reaching to the toes, hardly allowed a woman to run as fast as a man ran.
And what is important is that at these moments Fanny Kaplan found it difficult not only to run, but also to walk, as it turned out a little later, since she had nails in her shoes that tormented her when walking...
It remains to be assumed that Fanny Kaplan did not run anywhere at all, and perhaps simply stood all the time in one place, on Serpukhovskaya Street, at a sufficiently far distance from the factory yard where the shots were fired.
But there was a strangeness in it that so amazed Batulin. “She had the appearance of a person fleeing persecution, intimidated and hunted,” he concludes...
Commissioner Batulin asks her a simple question: who is she and why did she come here? “To my question,” says Batulin. - she replied: “IT wasn’t me who did it.”
The most striking thing about the answer is its inconsistency with the question. At first glance, it is given simply out of place, but the impression is deceptive: the answer opens your eyes to a lot.
Initially, he refutes the false claim that Fanny Kaplan immediately and voluntarily confessed to the assassination attempt on Lenin. However, the main thing in the answer is its psychological coloring: Fanny is so absorbed in herself that she does not hear the question being asked.
Her first reaction is one of justification, but Kaplan is justified at a time when no one is accusing her. Moreover, her childish response shows that Kaplan, in essence, does not know the details of what happened. She could not hear the shots and saw only people running, shouting “Catch, hold!”
Therefore, she says in the most general form: “I didn’t do THIS”...
This rather strange answer aroused the suspicion of Batulin, who, having searched her pockets, took her briefcase and umbrella, offering to follow him. He had no evidence of the detainee’s guilt in the assassination attempt, but the very fact of detaining a suspicious person created an atmosphere of a completed task and instilled the illusion that the detention was justified...
However, what further served as the basis for accusing Fanny Kaplan of the assassination attempt on V.I. Lenin does not fit into the legal framework.
“On the road,” Batulin continues, “I asked her, sensing in her the face that had attempted to assassinate Comrade. Lenin: “Why did you shoot comrade. Lenin? , to which she replied: “Why do you need to know this?” which finally convinced me of this woman’s attempt on Comrade’s life. Lenin".
This simple conclusion contains a synthesis of the era: class instinct instead of evidence, conviction of guilt instead of evidence of guilt...
At this time, the crowd, stunned by the assassination attempt, began to riot around the detainee: someone volunteered to help Batulin accompany the detainee, someone began to shout that it was she who shot. Later, after newspaper reports about the guilt and execution of Fanny Kaplan, it seemed to Batulin that someone in the crowd recognized this woman as the person who shot Lenin. This unknown “someone,” of course, was not interrogated and did not leave his testimony. However, in the original, most recent testimony, Batulin only claims that there were screams from the crowd and that this woman fired.
By this time the crowd was in a frenzy, angry workers shouting: “Kill! Tear me to pieces!"...
In this atmosphere of mass psychosis of the crowd, which was on the verge of lynching, Kaplan, in response to Batulin’s repeated question: “Did you shoot comrade. Lenin? the detainee unexpectedly answered in the affirmative. 
The confirmation of guilt, so undeniable in the eyes of the crowd, caused such a fit of rage that it was necessary to create a chain of armed people in order to prevent lynching and contain the raging mass that demanded the death of the criminal.
Kaplan was brought to the military commissariat of the Zamoskvoretsky district, where she was interrogated for the first time...
During interrogation by security officer Peters, Fanny Kaplan described her short life as follows: “I am Fanya Efimovna Kaplan. She lived under this surname since 1906. In 1906, I was arrested in Kyiv in connection with an explosion. Then she sat as an anarchist. This explosion came from a bomb and I was injured. I had the bomb for a terrorist act. I was tried by the Military Field Court in the city. Kyiv. She was sentenced to eternal hard labor.
She was imprisoned in the Maltsevskaya convict prison, and then in the Akatui prison. After the revolution she was released and moved to Chita. Then in April I came to Moscow. In Moscow, I stayed with a convict friend, Pigit, with whom I had come from Chita. And she stopped at Bolshaya Sadovaya, 10, apt. 5. I lived there for a month, then went to Yevpatoriya to a sanatorium for political amnesties. I stayed in the sanatorium for two months, and then went to Kharkov for surgery. Then she went to Simferopol and lived there until February 1918.
In Akatui I sat with Spiridonova. In prison, my views were formed - I turned from an anarchist into a socialist-revolutionary. I also sat there with Bitsenko, Terentyeva and many others. I changed my views because I became an anarchist very young.
The October Revolution found me in a Kharkov hospital. I was dissatisfied with this revolution and greeted it negatively.
I stood for the Constituent Assembly and now I stand for it. Along the lines of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, I am more aligned with Chernov.
My parents are in America. They left in 1911. I have four brothers and three sisters. They are all workers. My father is a Jewish teacher. I was educated at home. She held a [position] in Simferopol as the head of courses for training workers for volost zemstvos. I received a salary of 150 rubles a month.
I accept the Samara government entirely and stand for an alliance with the allies against Germany. I shot at Lenin. I decided to take this step back in February. This idea matured in me in Simferopol, and since then I began to prepare for this step.”
The identity of the woman detained by Batulin was immediately established, since the protocol of the first interrogation began with the words: “I, Fanya Efimovna Kaplan...”, but this did not prevent the Cheka from making a statement the next day that the shooter and the detained woman refused to give her last name.. .
This message Cheka pointedly hinted at the presence of some data that indicated a connection between the assassination attempt and a certain organization. At the same time, there was a sensational message about the discovery of a grand conspiracy of diplomats who tried to bribe the Latvian riflemen guarding the Kremlin.
The next night, the British consul Bruce Lockhart was arrested, who was indeed in contact with representatives of the Latvian riflemen, who were allegedly opposed to the Soviet regime, but in fact were agents of the Cheka.
Of course, the Cheka did not have any information about the connection between the attempt on Lenin and the so-called “Lockhart conspiracy,” although Peters, who at that moment was replacing F. Dzerzhinsky, who had left for Petrograd to investigate the murder of Uritsky, had a tempting idea to connect the attempt on Lenin and the Lockhart case into one vast conspiracy, uncovered thanks to the resourcefulness of the Cheka...
The first question that was asked to Lockhart, who was arrested and taken to Lubyanka, was this: does he know a woman named Kaplan?
Of course, Lockhart had no idea who Kaplan was...
Against the backdrop of the disclosure of the “Lockhart conspiracy,” Kaplan’s interrogations took place and, accordingly, the nervous atmosphere of these days could not but affect her fate.
Researchers have 6 interrogation protocols of F. Kaplan at their disposal. The first was launched at 11:30 pm on August 30, 1918.
On the night of September 1, Lockhart was arrested, and at 06:00 hours Fanny Kaplan was brought into his cell at Lubyanka. It is likely that Peters promised to spare her life if she pointed to Lockhart as an accomplice in the assassination attempt on Lenin, but Kaplan remained silent and was quickly taken away.
The impressions left by Lockhart from this visit are unique, since they provide the only surviving portrait and psychological description of Fanny Kaplan at the moment when she had already taken her own life. This description deserves to be quoted in its entirety:
“At 6 o’clock in the morning a woman was brought into the room. She was dressed in black. She had black hair, and her eyes, fixed intently and motionlessly, were surrounded by black circles.
Her face was pale. The facial features, typically Jewish, were unattractive.
She could be any age, from 20 to 35 years old. We realized that it was Kaplan. Undoubtedly, the Bolsheviks hoped that she would give us some kind of sign.
Her calm was unnatural. She went to the window and, leaning her chin on her hand, looked through the window at the dawn. So she remained motionless, silent, apparently resigned to her fate, until the sentries came in and took her away.” 4
And this is the last reliable evidence of a person who saw Fanny Kaplan alive...
In her testimony, Kaplan wrote: “My Hebrew name is Feiga. My name was always Fanya Efimovna.”
Until the age of 16, Fanya lived under the surname Roydman, and from 1906 she began to bear the surname Kaplan, but she did not explain the reasons for changing her surname.
She also had another name, Dora, under which Maria Spiridonova, Yegor Sazonov, Steinberg and many others knew her.
Fanny ended up in the royal penal servitude as a very young girl. Her revolutionary views changed greatly in prison, mainly under the influence of famous figures of the Socialist Revolutionary Party with whom she was imprisoned, especially Maria Spiridonova.
“In prison, my views took shape,” Kaplan wrote, “I turned from an anarchist into a socialist-revolutionary.”
But Fanny is talking about formalizing her views, and not about formally joining the Socialist Revolutionary Party, and her official party affiliation remains highly controversial. Fanny Kaplan herself, at the time of her arrest and her first interrogation, stated that she considered herself a socialist, but did not belong to any party. Later she clarified that in the Socialist Revolutionary Party she rather shared the views of Viktor Chernov. This was the only, albeit rather shaky, basis for declaring F. Kaplan to belong to the Right Socialist Revolutionary Party.
During interrogations, Kaplan, without restraining herself, said that she believed
a traitor to the revolution and that his continued existence undermines faith in socialism: “The longer he lives, he removes the idea of socialism by decades.”
Its manic aspiration is beyond doubt, as is its complete organizational and technical helplessness. 
According to her, in the spring of 1918, she offered her services in the assassination attempt on Lenin to Nil Fomin, a former member of the Constituent Assembly who was later shot by Kolchak’s men, who was then in Moscow. Fomin brought this proposal to the attention of V. Zenzinov, a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, and he conveyed this to the Central Committee.
But since, recognizing the possibility of conducting an armed struggle against the Bolsheviks, the Socialist Revolutionary Party had a negative attitude towards terrorist acts against the Bolshevik leaders, the proposal of N. Fomin and Kaplan was rejected. 6
After this, Kaplan was left alone, but in the summer of 1918, a certain Rudzievsky introduced her to a small group of very motley composition and uncertain ideology, which included: the old convict Socialist Revolutionary Pelevin, not inclined to terrorist activities, and a twenty-year-old girl named Marusya 7 . This was the case, although later attempts were made to portray Kaplan as the creator of a terrorist organization.
This version firmly came into use thanks to the light hand of the leader of the actual combat organization of the Socialist Revolutionaries, G. Semenov (Vasiliev).
Before the February Revolution, Semyonov did not show himself in any way; he appeared on the surface of political life in 1917, distinguished by exorbitant ambition and a penchant for adventurism.
At the beginning of 1918, Semenov, together with his partner and friend Lydia Konopleva, organized a flying combat detachment in Petrograd, which included mainly Petrograd workers - former Socialist Revolutionary militants. The detachment committed expropriations and prepared terrorist acts. The first proposals to assassinate Lenin came from Semenov’s group.
In February-March 1918, practical steps were taken in this direction, which did not produce any results, but on June 20, 1918, a member of Semenov’s detachment, worker Sergeev, killed the prominent Bolshevik Moses Volodarsky in Petrograd. Sergeev managed to escape.
Semenov's vigorous activity worried the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. The Socialist Revolutionary Party dissociated itself from the murder of Volodarsky, which was not sanctioned by the Central Committee, and Semenov and his detachment, after sharp clashes with members of the Central Committee, were asked to move to Moscow.
In Moscow, Semenov began preparing attempts on the lives of Trotsky, which was unsuccessful, and Lenin, which ended with shots fired on August 30, 1918. Semyonov managed to commit several impressive expropriations until he was finally arrested by the Cheka in October 1918. He offered armed resistance during arrest and tried to escape, injuring several Cheka employees.
Semenov was charged with creating a counter-revolutionary organization that set itself the goal of overthrowing Soviet power. Semenov was also accused of providing armed resistance during arrest.
All this pepper was more than enough for inevitable execution, so Semenov’s further fate was not in doubt. But unexpectedly, Semenov, having weighed all the chances, realized that he could only save himself from execution by offering his services to the Cheka.
In 1919, he was released from prison as a member of the RCP(b) with a special assignment to work in the Socialist Revolutionary organization as an informant, which bought amnesty and freedom not only for himself, but also for Konopleva, who remained an active assistant to Semyonov and soon also joined RKP(b).
At the beginning of 1922, Semenov and Konopleva, as if on cue, came out with sensational revelations. At the end of February 1922 in Berlin, Semenov published a brochure about the military and combat work of the Socialist Revolutionaries in 1917-1918. At the same time, the newspapers published the testimony of Lydia Konopleva sent to the GPU, which was devoted to “exposing” the terrorist activities of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in the same period.
These materials gave the GPU grounds to bring to trial the Socialist Revolutionary Party as a whole and a number of its leading figures, who had been imprisoned for several years in the prison dungeons of the Cheka-GPU.
The trial of the Socialist Revolutionary Party was the first major political trial staged with the help of denunciations, slander and false testimony.
At this trial, we are only interested in information related to the assassination attempt on V.I. Lenin on August 30, 1918 and the name of Fanny Kaplan.
Information sources:
1. Wikipedia website
2. Large encyclopedic dictionary
3. Orlov B. “So who shot Lenin?” (magazine “Source” No. 2 1993)
4. Bruce-Lockhart R. N. Memoires of a British Agent.
5. Bonch-Bruevich V. “Attempt on Lenin”
6. Zenzinov V. “Coup d’etat of Admiral Kolchak in Omsk on November 18, 1918”
7. "Testimony of Pelevin on the npouecce of the right Socialist Revolutionaries." (newspaper “Pravda” dated July 21, 1922 N 161)