Who financed the revolution in Russia. Lenin and money: bookkeeping of the October Revolution Money doesn't smell

In April 1921, the New York Times reported that Lenin's account in one of the Swiss banks received 75 million francs in 1920 alone, Trotsky had 11 million dollars and 90 million francs, Zinoviev and Dzerzhinsky - 80

The sources of funding for the Russian Revolution of 1917 and its main ideologues have occupied historians for many years. Interesting facts were made public in the 2000s, after some documents from the German and Soviet archives were declassified. Researchers of the biography of Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin) have repeatedly noted that the leader of the world proletariat was not scrupulous in obtaining money to fan the “revolutionary fire”. Who benefited from inciting a civil war in Russia, how German and American bankers financed the Bolsheviks - read in our material.

Outside interest

One of the main reasons for the beginning of revolutionary unrest in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century was the country's participation in the First World War. The international armed conflict, which had no analogues at that time, was the result of intensified contradictions between the largest colonial powers that formed in the Entente (Great Britain, France, Russia) and the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy).

Conspiracy theorists also note that British and American bankers and industrialists had their own interests in this war - the destruction of the old world order, the overthrow of monarchies, the collapse of the Russian, German and Ottoman empires and the capture of new markets.

However, attacks on the Russian autocracy from abroad were inflicted even before the global world conflict. In 1904, the Russo-Japanese War began, the money for which the Land of the Rising Sun was lent by American bankers - the Morgans, the Rockefellers. The Japanese in 1903-1904 themselves spent huge sums on various political provocations in Russia.

But even here the Americans could not do without: a colossal amount of 10 million dollars for those times was lent by the banking group of the American financier of Jewish origin Jacob Schiff. The future leaders of the revolution did not disdain this money, guided by the principle "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." In this case, the enemies were all those who opposed the reactionary forces in Russia.

Destructive processes

As a result of the war with the Japanese, the Russian Empire lost the struggle for dominance in the Far East and the Pacific. According to the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth concluded in September 1905, Japan was given the Liaodong Peninsula along with a branch of the South Manchurian Railway, the southern part of Sakhalin Island. In addition, Korea was recognized as a sphere of influence of Japan, the Russians withdrew their troops from Manchuria.

Against the backdrop of the defeats of the Russian Empire on the battlefields, dissatisfaction with the foreign policy and social structure of the state was ripening in the country. Destructive processes within Russian society began at the end of the 19th century, but only at the beginning of the 20th century did they gain strength capable of crushing the empire, without whose approval until recently “not a single gun in Europe could fire”.

The dress rehearsal of the 1917 revolution took place in 1905 after the well-known events of January 9, which went down in history as Bloody Sunday - the execution by the imperial troops of a peaceful demonstration of workers led by the priest Gapon. Strikes and numerous speeches, unrest in the army and navy forced Nicholas II to establish the State Duma, which somewhat relieved the situation, but did not solve the problem at the root.

War has come

By 1914, the beginning of the First World War, the reactionary processes in Russia were already of a systemic nature - Bolshevik propaganda was unfolding throughout the country, numerous anti-monarchist newspapers were published, revolutionary leaflets were printed, strikes and rallies of workers acquired a mass character.

The global armed conflict, in which the Russian Empire was drawn into, made the already difficult existence of workers and peasants unbearable. In the first year of the war, the production and sale of consumer goods in the country fell by a quarter, in the second - by 40%, in the third - by more than half.

During the war years, it has more than halved, shoes and clothing have risen in price by 3-4 times during this time. By 1917, the diet of workers in factories and factories began to be called "hungry".

"Talents" and their fans

By February 1917, when the “popular masses” in the Russian Empire were finally ripe for the overthrow of the autocracy, Vladimir Lenin (Ulyanov), Leon Trotsky (Bronstein), Matvey Skobelev, Moses Uritsky and other leaders of the revolution had already lived abroad for many years. What kind of money did the ideologists of the "bright future" exist in a foreign land all this time, and not badly at that? And who sponsored the leaders of the smaller proletariat who remained in their homeland?

It is no secret that the radical Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) raised money to fight the bourgeois capitalists by far from always legal methods, or rather, often illegal ones. In addition to donations from altruists and provocateurs, such as the big industrialist Savva Morozov or Trotsky's uncle, the banker Abram Zhivotovsky, expropriations (or, as they were called, "exes"), that is, robberies, were common for the Bolsheviks. By the way, the future Soviet leader, Iosif Dzhugashvili, who went down in history under the name Stalin, took an active part in them.

Friends of the revolution

With the outbreak of the First World War, a new upsurge of the revolutionary movement in Russia begins, fueled, among other things, by money from abroad. This was helped by the family ties of the revolutionaries operating in Russia: Sverdlov had a banker brother in the United States, the uncle of Trotsky, who was hiding abroad, turned over millions in Russia.

Israel Lazarevich Gelfand, better known as Alexander Parvus, played an important role in the development of the revolutionary movement. He was a native of the Russian Empire, had connections with influential financial and political circles in Germany, as well as with German and British intelligence. According to some reports, it was this man who was one of the first to pay attention to the Russian revolutionaries Lenin, Trotsky, Markov, Zasulich and others. In the early 1900s, he helped publish the Iskra newspaper.

Viktor Adler, one of the leaders of the Austrian Social Democracy, became another true "friend of the Russian revolutionaries". It was to him that in 1902 Lev Bronstein, who had escaped from Siberian exile, went, having left his wife with two small children in his homeland. Adler, who later saw in Trotsky a brilliant demagogue and provocateur, provided the guest from Russia with money and documents, thanks to which the future People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs of the RSFSR successfully reached London.

At that time, Lenin and Krupskaya lived there under the surname Richter. Trotsky conducts propaganda activities, speaks at meetings of social-democratic circles, and writes to Iskra. The sharp-tongued young journalist is sponsored by the party movement and wealthy "comrades-in-arms." A year later, Trotsky-Bronstein in Paris meets his future common-law wife, a native of Odessa, Natalya Sedova, who was also fond of Marxism.

In the spring of 1904, Trotsky was invited to visit his estate near Munich by Alexander Parvus. The banker not only introduces him to the circle of European supporters of Marxism, devotes him to the plans for the world revolution, but also develops with him the idea of creating Soviets.

Parvus was also one of the first to predict the inevitability of the First World War for new sources of raw materials and markets. Trotsky, who by that time had become deputy chairman of the St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies, took part with Parvus in the revolutionary events of 1905 in Petrograd, which, to their chagrin, did not lead to the overthrow of the autocracy. Both were arrested (Trotsky was sentenced to eternal exile in Siberia) and both soon fled abroad.

After the events of 1905, Trotsky settled in Vienna, generously sponsored by his socialist friends, lived in grand style: he changed several luxurious apartments, became a member of the highest social democratic circles in Austria-Hungary and Germany. Another sponsor of Trotsky was the German theorist of Austro-Marxism, Rudolf Hilferding, with his support, Trotsky published the reactionary newspaper Pravda in Vienna.

Money doesn't smell

During the outbreak of the First World War, Lenin and Trotsky were in the territory of Austria-Hungary. They, as Russian subjects, were almost arrested, but Viktor Adler stood up for the leaders of the revolution. As a result, both left for neutral countries. Germany and the United States were preparing for war: in America, President Woodrow Wilson, close to the bigwigs of the financial world, came to power and the Federal Reserve System (FRS) was created, the former banker Max Warburg was put at the head of the German intelligence services. Under the control of the latter, Nia-Bank was established in Stockholm in 1912, which later financed the activities of the Bolsheviks.

After the failed revolution of 1905, for some time the revolutionary movement in Russia remained almost without "feeding" from abroad, and the paths of its main ideologists - Lenin and Trotsky - diverged. Significant sums began to arrive after Germany was bogged down in the war, and again largely thanks to Parvus. In the spring of 1915, he proposed to the German leadership a plan to incite revolution in the Russian Empire in order to force the Russians to withdraw from the war. The document described how to organize an anti-monarchist campaign in the press, conduct subversive agitation in the army and navy.

Parvus' plan

The key role in terms of overthrowing the autocracy in Russia was assigned to the Bolsheviks (although the final division in the RSDLP into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks took place only in the spring of 1917). Parvus urged "against the backdrop of a losing war" to direct the negative feelings of the Russian people against tsarism. He was also one of the first to offer support for separatist sentiments in Ukraine, stating that the formation of an independent Ukraine "can be seen both as a liberation from the tsarist regime and as a solution to the peasant question." The Parvus plan cost 20 million marks, of which the German government at the end of 1915 agreed to lend a million. It is not known how much of this money reached the Bolsheviks, since, as German intelligence reasonably believed, part of the money was pocketed by Parvus. Part of this money definitely reached the revolutionary cash desk and was spent for its intended purpose.

The well-known Social Democrat Eduard Bernstein, in an article published in 1921 in the newspaper Vorverts, claimed that Germany paid the Bolsheviks more than 50 million gold marks.

Dvuliky Ilyich

Kerensky claimed that Lenin's associates received a total of 80 million from the Kaiser's treasury. The funds were transferred, among other things, through Nia-Bank. Lenin himself did not deny that he took money from the Germans, but he never named specific amounts.

Nevertheless, in April 1917 the Bolsheviks were publishing 17 dailies with a total weekly circulation of 1.4 million. By July, the number of newspapers increased to 41, and circulation rose to 320,000 a day. And this is not counting the numerous leaflets, each circulation of which cost tens of thousands of rubles. At the same time, the Central Committee of the Party acquired a printing house for 260,000 rubles.

True, the Bolshevik Party also had other sources of income: in addition to the already mentioned robberies and robbery, as well as membership fees of the party members themselves (an average of 1-1.5 rubles per month), money came from a completely unexpected direction. So, General Denikin reported that the commander of the Southwestern Front, Gutor, opened a loan of 100 thousand rubles to finance the Bolshevik press, and the commander of the Northern Front, Cheremisov, subsidized the publication of the newspaper "Our Way" from state money.

After the October Revolution of 1917, funding for the Bolsheviks through various channels continued.

Conspiracy theorists claim that the material support of the Russian revolutionaries was provided by structures of large financiers and bankers-masons like the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds. U.S. Secret Service documents dated December 1918 noted that large sums for Lenin and Trotsky went through Fed Vice President Paul Warburg. The leaders of the Fed asked for another million dollars from the Morgan financial group - for emergency support of the Soviet government.

Tags: Lenin, revolution, money

Sponsors of the revolution: mysteries and secrets of financing the Bolshevik party

The period from October 25 (November 7, New Style) 1917 to December 25, 1991 is not just the “Soviet era”, not just the “Soviet Empire”, it is millions of destinies who happened to live in this time period. The Soviet empire is a controversial concept, everyone can understand it in their own way. Someone may not like the term “Soviet Empire” at all, because it was a time of relative calm, confidence in the future, a time when peoples united on one sixth of the land lived in harmony, and this country itself was respected all over the world. For others, this is a time of fear, when an inadvertently dropped word could turn into decades of oblivion for a person, a time of “forced friendship”, a time when a huge empire was a nuclear scarecrow for the whole world. It seemed to the first that this country, even an empire, was immortal, while the second (of which there were very few at first, but every year there were more and more) remembered a well-known historical principle: empires are not eternal, and in historical terms, their life time is very, very short.

One way or another, the Soviet empire arose, stayed for some time in the historical horizon and left it. And this means that in its history there were secrets and mysteries. Naturally, there were many more of them than those that we will try to tell about in this book. Five mysteries and mysteries are only a small part of them, however, we hope that the reader will be interested in learning something new from the history of the state, which until recently was the common homeland for three hundred million people.

Let's start with the mystery of the emergence of the empire, from the time when it was in its infancy and only a few believed that it would come into being. How did these few manage to defeat another empire? Readers, of course, know that there was a pre-revolutionary situation, a world war, the first revolution, the second revolution, and then - 74 years of the empire or era - as you like.

But what is a revolution? Let us turn to one of the symbols of the Soviet era, a source, in our opinion, very appropriate in this case - the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. So:

“A social revolution, a way of transition from a historically obsolete socio-economic formation to a more progressive, fundamental, qualitative revolution in the entire socio-economic structure of society. The content of R. is classically revealed by K. Marx in the Preface to the “Critique of Political Economy”: “At a certain stage of its development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of which they have been developing so far. From the forms of development of the productive forces, these relations are transformed into their fetters. Then comes the era of social revolution ... "

Classes and social strata, which, by their objective position in the system of production relations, are interested in the overthrow of the existing system and are capable of participating in the struggle for the victory of a more progressive system, act as the driving forces of revolution. A revolution is never the fruit of a conspiracy of individuals or arbitrary actions isolated from minority masses."

Let's take a look at the last sentence. It naturally leads to the conclusion that the revolution requires some kind of organization, a strict structure, leading the masses. Moreover, although the encyclopedia does not mention this, over time the revolution became the business of professionals, people for whom the actions to prepare a revolutionary situation and directly implement a change of power are their work.

All this rather long prelude actually boils down to a simple formula: for a revolution to happen, you need professionals who can make it, and they, in turn, need money. But the money must be taken from somewhere, or someone must give it. The financing of the revolution and the revolutionaries is the first mystery of the Soviet empire.

To begin with, let's ask the reader: is he familiar with such a concept - "Bolshevik Center"? If so, then practically everything that we are going to tell about in the future in this chapter of our book is unlikely to be any special secret for him. But it seems that there are very few such enlightened readers. It is interesting that in Soviet times, when the history of the RSDLP - VKP (b) - CPSU was studied to the last comma, when every Soviet citizen was obliged to know this history, only a very small group of historians who had access to the most strictly protected archives knew about the Bolshevik Center . For example, in the "History of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)", published in 1923 under the leadership of G. E. Zinoviev, the same one who ten years later was declared one of the leaders of the "Trotsky-Zinoviev bloc" and disappeared in the dungeons of the Lubyanka, about The Bolshevik center is still mentioned, although somehow in passing, very reservedly. But, for example, in the "Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks", edited personally by Stalin, nothing is said about him.

Where does such mystery and mystery come from? After all, among other things, the most prominent Bolsheviks, including V. I. Lenin himself, took part in the work of the Center. The fact is that the Bolshevik faction in the RSDLP, headed by Lenin, was constantly in need of funds. As you know, the leaders of the faction spent most of their time abroad, where they organized the production of legal and illegal press and literature, trained personnel for the party, as was the case, for example, in the famous school of propagandists in the suburb of Paris, Longjumeau. Those who remained in Russia, through party contributions and voluntary donations, barely covered their expenses for current activities and, as a rule, did not have the opportunity to transfer even minimal deductions to their leaders abroad. In this situation, the leaders of the Bolshevik faction of the RSDLP decided to create an organization, later called the "Bolshevik Center", whose tasks included financial and material support for the needs of the faction.

Historians disagree as to exactly when the Center was established. Some call May 1906 - then the Stockholm Congress of the RSDLP took place, others - the next May, 1907, referring to the London Congress of Russian Social Democrats. Obviously, such disagreements are explained by the fact that the idea of creating the Center was first announced in Stockholm, while it was officially formalized in London. In the capital of the British Empire, the factional branch of the Bolsheviks received its organizational base and official name. The leadership of the Center included 15 people: A. A. Bogdanov, I. P. Goldenberg (Meshkovsky), I. F. Dubrovinsky, G. E. Zinoviev, L. B. Kamenev, L. B. Krasin, V. I. Lenin, G. D. Lindov, V. P. Nogin, M. N. Pokrovsky, N. A. Rozhkov, A. I. Rykov, V. K. Taratuta, I. A. Teodorovich, and V. L. Shantser.

The Bolshevik Center had three tasks. The first, and obviously the most important, is fundraising. The second is the technical support of underground work, first of all, this concerned printing houses where illegal literature, fake documents, etc. were printed. The third is the provision of necessary contacts abroad both with the authorities and legal structures and parties, as well as illegal organizations.

The core, the center of power in the Bolshevik center was the so-called "Big Three" - Vladimir Lenin, Alexander Bogdanov, Leonid Krasin. “In the summer and autumn of 1904, we finally agreed with Bogdanov, like beks (Bolsheviks. - Auth.), and concluded that tacit and tacitly eliminating philosophy as a neutral area, a bloc that ... gave us the opportunity to jointly carry out the revolution ... the tactics of revolutionary social democracy, ”Lenin wrote in one of his letters to Gorky about his relationship with Bogdanov. In 1904, Lenin, whose relations with his colleagues on the editorial board of Iskra (Noskov, Krasin, Krzhizhanovsky, and others) had completely deteriorated, was in political solitude, because of which he experienced serious financial difficulties and did not have the opportunity to publish his works. It was at this moment that Alexander Bogdanov, a member of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, offered his help, literally pulling him out of the political hole. Bogdanov, on the other hand, managed to bring Krasin and some other members of the RSDLP to the side of Lenin. Both Lenin and Bogdanov were aware of their differences in their views on philosophy and the social democratic movement, which, nevertheless, did not prevent them from concluding a strategic alliance.

The main sources of replenishment of the cash desk of the Bolshevik Center were, firstly, income from expropriations carried out by military squads, and secondly, the amounts received from donations and various kinds of fees.

Expropriations as a form of replenishment of the party budget by the leaders of social democratic organizations have never been officially encouraged. Except for one - the faction of the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin.

One of the first major expropriations carried out by the Bolsheviks together with the Latvian Social Democrats was the robbery of the State Bank branch in Helsingfors in February 1906. The operation was led by Janis Luther, one of the founders of the Latvian Social Democratic Labor Party and the head of all its paramilitary formations, a Bolshevik since 1903; In total, 15 people participated in it. Having stolen 170 thousand rubles, the raiders fled. True, most of them were then detained by the police, and part of the money was returned to the state. However, about 110 thousand were handed over to Krasin and fell into the hands of the Bolshevik Center.

Battle groups operated not only in the north of the empire. The Bolsheviks of Transcaucasia, headed by Simon Ter-Petrosyan, known under the party nickname Kamo, practiced the “exes” very actively. It was this group that carried out the most high-profile "political robbery" in the Russian Empire - the so-called "Tiflis expropriation", an attack on the treasurer of the Tiflis Bank on Erivan Square.

On the afternoon of June 13, 1907, the head of the special department of the Tiflis police, Colonel Babushkin, sent a telegram to the Main Police Department with the following content:

“Today at 11 a.m. in Tiflis on Erivan Square, a treasury transport of 350 thousand was showered with seven bombs and fired from corners with revolvers, two policemen were killed, three Cossacks were mortally wounded, two Cossacks were wounded, one shooter was wounded, 16 from the public were wounded, stolen money, with the exception of a sack with nine thousand withdrawn from circulation, until found, searches, arrests are made, all possible arrests are accepted.

A little later, Babushkin sent another telegram: “Despatch No. 5657, the figure is incorrect, the check established a robbery of two hundred and fifty thousand.”

Despite the fact that the initial stolen amount “decreased somewhat”, the case was very high-profile. The best police forces were involved in his investigation and detention of the hijackers, but even emergency measures were ineffective. All 250 thousand "our Caucasian robber" (as Lenin called Kamo) personally brought to the headquarters of the Bolshevik center in Kuokkala. It was here that the Bolsheviks began to have difficulties. 150 thousand rubles were in small denominations and their exchange was not dangerous, this money immediately came to the disposal of the "big three". But 100 thousand were in banknotes of 500 rubles. Realizing that an attempt to sell or exchange these banknotes could lead to the trace of the raiders and those who sent them (by the way, it is alleged that at that time the notorious Iosif Dzhugashvili was the main leader and organizer of all the actions of the Georgian combat squads), the Center decided to take out these 100 thousand abroad, which was done by the Bolshevik M. N. Lyadov.

Krasin, who oversaw the entire operation, decided to exchange "dangerous money" simultaneously in several European cities. Perhaps he also assumed that the numbers of the stolen 500-ruble notes might be known to the police and that the tsarist government might pass these numbers on to foreign banks. It is possible that Krasin understood that some of the “exchangers” could be detained. But not “some”, but almost all of them were detained - the exchange operation ended in complete failure. In Paris, for example, Max Wallach, better known as Maxim Litvinov, the future People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, was arrested. The Bolsheviks were detained with banknotes in Munich, Stockholm, Geneva and other cities.

The failure was due to the fact that the foreign branch of the Security Department in Paris was well aware of Krasin's preparations and notified the police of those countries where the exchange was carried out in advance. It turned out that among the people involved in this operation was a certain Zhitomirsky (Fathers), a trusted person of Lenin in the affairs of the Bolshevik groups in exile and at the same time an informer of the security department.

However, the role of Zhitomirsky became known only after 1917, at the same time, in 1908, the failure of the operation eventually led to a break between Lenin and Krasin, and then with Bogdanov. After that, Lenin called Krasin a "fraudster", and then completely accused him of stealing no more than 140 thousand rubles from the party fund. Naturally, there was no theft in sight. In the end, after the revolution of 1917, Lenin attracted Krasin to work in the Soviet government, making him first chairman of the Extraordinary Commission for the Supply of the Red Army, then People's Commissar for Trade and Industry, and from March 1919 - People's Commissar of Railways. It is hard to imagine that a person who “once stole something” was appointed to such responsible, including from a financial point of view, positions.

What was the real reason for the collapse of the "Big Three"? The well-known historian and revolutionary B. M. Nikolaevsky writes about a possible scenario in his book, who was arrested eight times by the police before the 1917 revolution, and after that he was forced to emigrate abroad.

“Both of his colleagues in this triumvirate were too big individuals and too independent people for Lenin to hope to turn them into mere pawns in his hands ... Both of them, especially Bogdanov, in whose mood there were many elements of primitive revolutionary romance, valued exceptionally highly and recognized his leading role, but were able to think independently politically, independently understood people and events, and were able to defend their opinions, refusing them only after they were given convincing arguments. Therefore, while the "board of three" in the indicated composition was the governing body of the BC, with all the dimensions of Lenin's personal influence, the leadership of the Bolshevik faction was a collective leadership.

That is, according to the historian, we are talking about the struggle for power in the faction. As another well-known historian Yuri Felshtinsky notes: “The fact is that at that very time Lenin received news of the successful completion of another operation that gave a lot of money to the cashier of the BC. So big that it became profitable not to share them with old comrades-in-arms - Krasin and Bogdanov, but to quarrel with them, accusing them of embezzling money from the Tiflis expropriation, and take the new money for yourself.

Why did people like Kamo, the fighters of the very front line of the struggle against tsarism, end up being relegated not even to the background, but at least to the background? And why is the activity of the Bolshevik Center hushed up? Is it really the fact that their methods of fighting for banknotes were subsequently recognized as "unseemly"? It seems that in fact this was of little concern to those who subsequently wrote and, more importantly, edited textbooks on the history of the party. Obviously, the reasons for this must be sought in another plane.

Firstly, against the background of the "Robin Hoods - expropriators", the revolutionary struggle of the main leaders of the Bolsheviks looked somehow unconvincing. Take at least the same Vladimir Ilyich. Yes, there was underground activity, yes, there was a link to Shushenskoye and the like. But no matter how you make this reference "painful and full of hardships", it, by and large, does not look like it. And even more so, this is not life in exile, in which Lenin, as you know, spent ten years from 1908 until the February Revolution of 1917. The fate of Comrade Stalin in this sense looked more attractive, and yet it faded against the backdrop of the danger to which Kamo and other "getters" of money for the party exposed themselves for the cause of the revolution.

And the second point. Exes exes, but they could not fully meet the needs of those who were preparing the revolution. There was another source of money - donations from people who sympathized with the revolutionaries. There were absolutely amazing twists and turns here, such as the fate of the famous Savva Morozov, one of the prominent figures of Russian entrepreneurship, who helped the Bolsheviks organize underground activities and workers' strikes.

Strictly speaking, Savva Morozov and those like him were representatives of the very class that the Bolsheviks sought to eradicate. That, however, did not prevent them from accepting money from the "bourgeois" at all. From the point of view of the editors of textbooks on the history of the CPSU, the fact is "not very heroic." But again, this is not the reason why the activities of the Bolshevik Center, like the entire system of financing revolutionary activities, from 1905 to 1917, were practically a closed topic. As Boris Nikolaevsky wrote, “acquaintance with materials about the BC (Bolshevik Center. - Auth.) makes it possible to understand the reasons for the silence: there were too many such aspects in its history that Soviet historians consider undesirable to draw attention to.

Let us try to shed light on those "sides" that were undesirable for Soviet historians, and dwell on the fate of two "sponsors of the revolution" - Savva Morozov and his relative Nikolai Shmit.

At first glance, the life of Savva Morozov has been studied in more than detail. Much has been written and said about his death. But still there is some innuendo and inconsistency. Was the death of Savva Timofeevich a suicide, as was announced after the official investigation? If not, then where did the shot that ended his life come from - right or left? All these questions are not just one of the mysteries of history, they directly relate to the topic of this essay.

Like so many Russian merchant dynasties, the Morozov family was of the simplest origin. Savva Vasilievich Morozov, a serf in the village of Zueva in the Moscow province, who was born in 1770 into an Old Believer family, worked as a weaver in a small factory of a certain Kononov. Having saved up money, in 1797 he started his own workshop, while remaining in serfdom from his landowner Ryumin. At first, Savva's affairs went neither shaky nor roll, but after 1812 they went uphill sharply. The fact is that the famous fire destroyed almost all the weaving workshops in Moscow. The need for fabrics was enormous, and Savva managed to get rich thanks to this - so much so that in 1820 he managed to redeem himself and his entire large family from serfs for fabulous money at that time - 17 thousand rubles. In 1850, Savva Vasilievich retired, and ten years later he died, leaving the business to his sons.

Back in 1837, the eldest son of Savva Vasilievich Elisey opened a dye factory in the village of Nikolsky (now the city of Orekhovo-Zuevo, Moscow Region), thus actually separating himself from his father. His son, Vikula Eliseevich, significantly expanded the business - in 1872 he founded a paper-spinning factory, and in 1882 he established the share partnership Vikula Morozov with his sons. That is why this branch of the Morozov family is often called the Vikulovichi.

Savva Morozov

The head of another branch of the Morozovs for a long time was Timofey Savvich Morozov, the youngest son of Savva Vasilyevich. Timofei Morozov is the quintessential Russian businessman of the second half of the 19th century. The person is incredibly enterprising and tough, severe in relation to others, including relatives, and energetic. Morozov equipped his factories with the latest English machine tools and other equipment, invited the most progressive engineers of his time, both from abroad and Russians, to work. But at the same time, he squeezed the last juices out of his workers. The 15,000th population of the village of Nikolskoye was actually in feudal dependence on the owner. Timofey Morozov has introduced a severe system of fines for the slightest violations. On average, the workers were forced to give the owner from a quarter to a half of their already small earnings (for the years 1882-1884 it decreased five times).

If we also take into account the hellish working conditions, it is not surprising that it was at the factory of Timofey Morozov that the first mass strike of workers in Russia broke out. The strike, which began on January 7, 1885, initially resembled an ordinary pogrom - the workers smashed the office, shops, apartments of the director and craftsmen. However, the leaders of the strike quickly managed to stop the pogrom and turn the action of the workers into an organized channel. At first, the government acted in the usual manner - to disperse and arrest. On January 17, the strike was crushed, more than 600 people were arrested. However, the scale of the Morozov strike and the speeches that followed it forced the government to make very significant concessions. For example, the Law on Fines, issued in July 1886, reflected many of the demands of the Nikolsky strikers. Moreover, at the trial of the instigators of the strike, the all-powerful Timofey Morozov, who was called as a witness, turned into the main accused in the eyes of the public. Savva Morozov recalled this trial: “They look at him through binoculars, like in a circus. Shouting: "Screw! Bloodsucker! The parent got lost. He went to the witness stand, fussed, stumbled on the smooth parquet - and with the back of his head on the floor, as if on purpose in front of the dock itself. Such a mockery arose in the hall that the chairman had to interrupt the meeting.

The court, which revealed many of the abuses of the Morozovs, made such a depressing impression on Timofey Savvich that he fell ill for a month, and then intended to sell the factory, and only persuasion and the iron will of his wife Maria Fedorovna did not allow this to be done. However, he completely retired from business and died four years later.

The Morozov strike caused a huge resonance in the Russian Empire. Lenin also wrote about it: “This huge strike made a very strong impression on the government, which saw that the workers, when they act together, represent a dangerous force, especially when the mass of workers acting together directly puts forward their demands.”

However, in 1885, the future leader of the world proletariat was still a fifteen-year-old schoolboy and hardly thought that he would prepare a revolution with the money of the son of that same “bloodsucker” Timofey Morozov.

We will not dwell on the childhood and youth of Savva Morozov, we will only say that he was born on February 3 (15), 1862, was brought up in the traditional Old Believer spirit, while he was hot-tempered, impulsive and did not differ in special obedience. Savva graduated from the 4th Moscow Gymnasium, in 1885 he entered the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Moscow University, and then went to England, to Cambridge, where he entered the Faculty of Chemistry and at the same time studied textile business.

And Savva Morozov was also an enthusiastic person and was ready to spend a lot of money on his various hobbies, especially since he became the head of the family business (here, by the way, it should be noted that Savva managed his father’s inheritance, but was not his sovereign owner - according to the will of Timofey Morozov, most of the shares went to Maria Fedorovna, Savva's mother). Morozov's most famous philanthropic project was, of course, the Moscow Art Theatre. The role of Savva Timofeevich in the creation of the most famous theater in Russia is no less than that of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko. Morozov not only financed all the expenses of the theater, he, according to Stanislavsky's memoirs, “... took upon himself the entire economic part. He delved into all the details of the case and gave him all his free time. Savva Timofeevich was touching with his endless devotion to art.

However, there was another reason for such a passionate passion for the theater, besides "endless devotion to art."

Zinaida Zimina

The marriage of Savva Morozov to Zinaida Grigorievna Zimina made a lot of noise at one time and was the subject of a wide variety of gossip for a long time. The fact is that Morozov fell in love with a married woman without memory. In those days, divorce was no longer something completely unthinkable, although it was condemned by society, however, Savva "managed" to recapture his wife from his relative, cousin-nephew Sergei Vikulovich Morozov.

At first, the passion was mutual and all-consuming. Zinaida Grigoryevna was distinguished by her beauty and intelligence, which was rare for merchant wives and which, obviously, attracted Savva. But with all her intelligence, Zinaida was vain and adored luxury. So soon the passion was replaced by mutual indifference, and even four children could not save the marriage.

It is not surprising that Savva Morozov fell in love again. He met his love at the Moscow Art Theater. A stormy romance with Maria Fedorovna Zhelyabuzhskaya, better known under the stage name Andreeva, again became the number one event for the Moscow public. Andreeva was considered, if not the most talented, then at least the most beautiful actress on the Russian stage. Her first husband, a high-ranking official of the Moscow-Kursk Railway, could hardly have captivated such an adventurous and adventurous nature as Maria Fedorovna for a long time.

We would not mention all these love ups and downs, if not for one "but". Maria Andreeva combined her acting career ... with revolutionary activities. "Comrade Phenomenon" - that's what Lenin called her, meaning not her beauty and acting talents, but her ability to raise money for the party with their help. It was under the influence of Andreeva that Savva Morozov began to make the first donations to the "cause of the revolution." The largest Russian entrepreneur financed the publication of Lenin's Iskra, the legal Bolshevik newspapers Novaya Zhizn and Borba, smuggled forbidden literature to his factory, etc., etc. And in 1904 (as they say, under the influence of all that or Maria Andreeva), he appointed a man named ... Leonid Borisovich Krasin to the post of director of the Nikolskaya manufactory.

However, one should not think that Savva Morozov was so blind from love for Andreeva and just as blindly carried away by the ideas of Lenin that he gave money for anything and as much as he wanted, not meaning to get something in return. Many Russian entrepreneurs, although they were at completely different poles with representatives of the Social Democratic and other leftist movements, were just like them dissatisfied with the autocracy, considering it a brake on the development of Russia. And Savva Morozov was one of those. It should also not be forgotten that although he was not devoutly religious, like his father and mother, he nevertheless came from an Old Believer environment. And at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, although the Old Believers were not persecuted, as in the 17th-18th centuries, they were still partly deprived of their rights.

In 1900, another character intervened in the "love-financial" relationship between Maria Andreeva and Savva Morozov - Maxim Gorky. In 1903, Andreeva became the writer's common-law wife. An ordinary Russian merchant would immediately leave his unfaithful lover, not to mention stop supplying her with money. But Savva Morozov was a man of a different type. He continued to anxiously take care of her, moreover, of her new lover. When on tour in Riga, Maria Fedorovna fell ill with peritonitis and was on the verge of death, it was Savva Morozov who took care of her. And at the beginning of 1905, he also paid 10,000 rubles in bail for the arrested Gorky.

And one more financial moment. When Morozov and Andreeva were still close, Savva Timofeevich insured his life. He gave the bearer policy to Maria Feodorovna, along with a letter in which, as the actress claimed, he “entrusts the money to me, since I alone know his desires, and that he cannot trust anyone but me, even his relatives.” Andreeva later went to another, but Savva Timofeevich did not withdraw his policy, although it was a very significant amount - 100 thousand rubles. In the future, this policy will be mentioned more than once as evidence that Savva Morozov did not die by his own hand.

Meanwhile, the First Russian Revolution broke out in Russia. After January 9, 1905, Morozov submitted a note to Prime Minister S.Yu. education, public control over the state budget, etc. Savva went into a frank quarrel with the government, openly expressed his position and, it seemed, should have found support from the Bolsheviks led by Lenin. However, this did not happen. Moreover, in fact, with Morozov's money, using the very forbidden literature that Savva brought to his manufactory, Krasin organized one of the most powerful performances of workers in the first period of the revolution in Nikolskoye. And this despite the fact that the position of the workers of Morozov's manufactories was incomparably better than in other factories. Morozov did not want to follow in his father's footsteps and tried to improve the living conditions of his workers, building hospitals and schools for them. Nothing helped - in the end, he turned out to be a “bloodsucker”.

Nevertheless, Morozov, seeking to negotiate with the workers, decided to reform the manufactory so that each worker was interested in the successful operation of the enterprise and had his share in its profits. He demanded from his mother the right to single-handedly manage the family business, but met with a decisive refusal. Moreover, Savva was removed from the management of the Nikolskaya manufactory and, in fact, from now on he had to completely obey the will of his mother.

All these events could undermine the will of a person who has the most iron nervous system, but meanwhile Savva Morozov was not one. His great-nephew K. Krivoshein wrote this about Savva and his relatives: “The third generation of the Morozovs fully accepted European culture, but with iron health, some brokenness of the spirit, often even oddities (“Morozov’s oddities”), depression, neurasthenia, painful hesitation when making the simplest decision, such as whether to go or not to go for a walk, imaginary ailments - all this with great intellectual abilities, innate nobility, refined breeding, at least slightly softening the torturous severity of their characters for the environment. Morozov himself said about himself: “I am very lonely, I have no one! And there is one more thing that confuses me: I'm afraid to go crazy. They know this, and they also try to intimidate me with this. Our family is not very normal. I'm really afraid of madness. This is worse than death."

However, “broken down” or even “nervous breakdown” is not exactly the same as “crazy”. Namely, at that moment, rumors began to creep around Moscow that Savva Morozov had gone crazy. Moreover, some sources claim that they came from the "revolutionary friends" of the entrepreneur - Andreeva and Krasin, while others - that from a family dissatisfied with Morozov's attempts to negotiate with the workers.

At the same time, it becomes quite obvious that Savva began to become disillusioned with the Bolsheviks. “What are these anarchists doing, where are they leading unfortunate people!” - so he, according to some contemporaries, then spoke about them. And that when Krasin, Lenin's main "financial agent", came to Morozov at his house on Spiridonovka in Moscow, they clearly did not have a conversation. So, at least, the legal wife of the businessman Zinaida Grigoryevna claimed in her memoirs.

Here we will pause and note that the vast majority of sources relating to the last days of the life and death of Savva Morozov, although quite detailed, are largely biased and adhere to one chosen version and do not try to consider others. Our task is to consider the riddle (both this one and all the others that we will talk about in this book) from different positions and, if not completely dot the “i”, then at least get as close as possible to unraveling the mystery.

The version that the dissemination of information about the alleged madness was beneficial to the Bolsheviks, on the one hand, certainly has the right to life. But there is another opinion: the family decided to declare Savva “sick”. From some sources it is known that Morozov often appeared in society in February-March 1905, was quite sane and did not give the impression of a completely depressed person. “Today it is published in the newspapers and there is a rumor that Savva Timofeevich has gone mad,” Konstantin Stanislavsky wrote to his wife on April 13, 1905. “It seems that this is not true.”

Nevertheless, at the insistence of Savva Timofeevich's mother and wife, a medical consultation was convened on April 15, which stated that he had "a severe general nervous breakdown, expressed either in excessive excitement, anxiety, insomnia, or in a depressed state, bouts of melancholy, and so on." Doctors recommended Savva Morozov to continue treatment in Europe, which was done. A few days later, accompanied by his wife and personal doctor N. N. Selivanovskiy, Morozov left for France, first to Vichy, then to Cannes, where he stayed at the Royal Hotel.

It seemed that Savva was on the mend, he was quite cheerful and was in a normal mood. On May 12, Dr. Selivanovsky made an entry in his diary: “Everything is going well. Savva Timofeevich is no longer irritated, calm. I think that in 5-6 days you can already think about returning to Moscow.”

On May 13, according to his wife, in the morning Savva Timofeevich did gymnastics, swam for a long time, then sat by the sea for about an hour. Then the conversation turned to the fact that the children should be sent to the Crimea, to the sea. After the second breakfast, Morozov said to his wife: "It's hot today, I'll rest until dinner," and went to his room. Zinaida Grigoryevna talked for some time with Dr. Selivanovskii, and then went up to her room. Here, sitting by the mirror, she heard the sound of a gunshot.

Savva Timofeevich was lying on the couch, next to him was a Browning, and on the floor was a piece of paper with the words: “I ask you not to blame anyone for my death,” without a signature or date. Soon Dr. Selivanovsky came running. He immediately drew attention to two details, which then most of all aroused the suspicion that it was suicide: Savva Timofeevich's eyes were closed, and his hands were folded on his stomach. "Did you close his eyes?" Selivanovsky asked Zinaida Grigoryevna. She shook her head negatively and said that she saw a man running away through the window in the park ...

The version that Savva Morozov did not commit suicide, but that the Bolsheviks actually killed him and Krasin did it personally, simply could not help but appear. And that's exactly what a lot of authors do. Morozov, disappointed in the Bolsheviks, refused to finance them. At first, through Krasin, they tried to convince him, but when it didn’t work out, they resorted to blackmail and threats. Savva continued to persist. And then the "faithful Leninists" decided to eliminate him. Moreover, there was another, very weighty financial argument - the same insurance policy for 100 thousand rubles, which Morozov handed over to the "comrade phenomenon" - actress Maria Andreeva.

According to the memoirs of Zinaida Grigorievna Morozova, at the end of April 1905 they left Berlin for France, in Vichy. Savva Timofeevich was cheerful and cheerful, began to joke again, but then Krasin appeared, who, obviously, had come to France from London, where the Third Congress of the RSDLP was being held at that time. The appearance of Leonid Borisovich clearly upset Morozov. Zinaida Grigoryevna left the men alone, but at some point she heard a fragment of the conversation. “Krasin began to say something,” she recalled, “lowering his voice. Savva, stubbornly silent, suddenly exploded: “No! No and no! I have no more money for you, gracious sirs!” Zinaida Grigorievna entered the room and offered coffee. It was clear that both Krasin and Savva Timofeevich were very excited. "It's hard to understand you, Savva Timofeevich!" - the uninvited guest exclaimed, refused coffee and, saying that he was in a hurry to get to the train, left.

Soon the Morozovs left for Cannes, where Krasin found them again. But this time there was no conversation - Savva Timofeevich refused to talk. And a few days later they found him in the room on the couch with a bullet in his heart ...

The version that the suicide was staged and that the fighting squads led by Krasin did it looks so harmonious and convincing that it seems that there is no need to look for another scenario. Still, let's not rush to conclusions. In all this harmony, there are several points to which we, following the principle of an impartial assessment, cannot but pay attention. What did the Bolsheviks get by killing Morozov? Polis Andreeva? Indeed, iron argument. But didn't they leave too obvious evidence against themselves? And who could vouch for the fact that, having broken, as they say, relations with the revolutionaries, the entrepreneur would not cancel his policy? Moreover, for this money Andreeva had to sue Savva's widow. Was there a 100% guarantee that after Morozov's death these 100 thousand would have gone to his former lover? No, although she eventually won the court and received the money. However, the Bolsheviks did not get all 100 thousand, but only 60.

As a proven fact, it is also said that Savva refused to finance the Bolsheviks. But by and large, there is no reliable evidence for this. Krasin allegedly visited Morozov in Moscow in February 1905 and demanded money. But Leonid Borisovich knew perfectly well, if only because he worked at the Nikolskaya manufactory, that at that time Savva was removed from business by his own family and could not manage large sums. And why did the most experienced conspirator have to shine so brightly and come home to Morozov? Was it really not possible to meet somewhere else, at the same Nikolskaya manufactory, where such a meeting would not have aroused the slightest suspicion?

This meeting and the alleged quarrel between Morozov and Krasin is known from the words of Zinaida Morozova. She, as we remember, insisted on her husband's departure abroad. She was the last to see Savva Morozov alive, and the first to find him dead. She also noticed a certain man running away, whom no one else saw. And most importantly, if the Bolsheviks received 60 thousand after the death of Savva Timofeevich, then Zinaida Grigorievna, according to the will, and according to the so-called spiritual, not notarized, millions. After all, the Nikolskaya manufactory was only part of the possessions of Savva Morozov: they also included mines, forests, steamships, other factories and factories, etc., etc. Other members of the Morozov family did not remain at a loss. By the way, all attempts to conduct a thorough investigation into the case of Savva Morozov were decisively suppressed by his mother, Maria Fedorovna, who allegedly said: “Let's leave everything as it is. I will not allow a scandal.

All this absolutely does not mean that we are trying to lead the reader to the conclusion that his wife or any other of his relatives is to blame for the death of Savva Morozov. This means that in this case there are a lot of questions that are difficult or even impossible to answer. For example, like this. Suppose that someone, for example, Leonid Krasin, who has already been repeatedly mentioned by us, really planned to commit a murder, staging it as a suicide. But then why show the investigation that this is a staging, why close the dead man's eyes and fold his hands on his stomach? Sentimentality? God forbid, the Bolsheviks can be accused of anything but sentimentality. Therefore, another possible version suggests itself - let's call it "staging a staged suicide." That is, it was beneficial for someone to portray that Savva Morozov committed suicide, but to do it in such a way that doubts arose. Doubts, which are then conveniently directed in the right direction.

Who benefits from this option? The sources rarely mention the security department as the contractor, and the tsarist government as the customer. But, actually, why? “The politicking merchant is born with us. Slowly and not very skillfully, he turns the levers of his millions and waits for the decayed power of the Romanovs to fall into his hands like an overripe girl. When a revolution breaks out in our country, the bourgeoisie will not find the strength to resist, and it will be swept away like garbage ”- these are far from the strongest statements in which Morozov expressed his attitude to power. And the fact that he quarreled with the Bolsheviks (which, we recall once again, has not been absolutely reliably proven), does not mean at all that Savva Timofeevich has changed his attitude towards the Romanovs and the government.

“But why did the tsarist secret police need to kill a talented, well-known industrialist and patron of the arts in Russia, in whose house both the all-powerful S.Yu. - ask the authors of some publications. “Probably, the tsarist secret police, if it set itself the task of destroying Morozov, would be more interested in the murder of Ulyanov, Trotsky, or the same Krasin ?!”

We, in turn, will not insist that Morozov was killed by people from the Security Department. But to argue that the death of Savva Morozov was unprofitable for the Okhrana is more than unreasonable. For the government in 1905, Morozov was much more dangerous than Lenin, Trotsky and Krasin combined. Without money, especially Morozov's, they were "revolutionary impotent." Lenin and Krasin could have been arrested quite calmly, sent into exile, isolated in exile. And now let's imagine what kind of resonance the arrest of Savva Morozov would have caused, how industrial and merchant circles would have reacted to this! After all, Savva Timofeevich, although he was distinguished by “non-standard” views (at the same time, I must say, he was by no means alone in this), nevertheless, for the “millionaires”, he was one of his own, one of the first. The authors of the above statement would also like to recall that six years later, the head of the executive branch of the Russian Empire, Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin, was killed in Kyiv. Already he was well received, not only to the uncle of the emperor - he had to meet with Nicholas II himself on duty. Nevertheless, there is a lot of convincing evidence that the Security Department, at least, knew about the upcoming attempt on Stolypin, but did nothing to prevent it, moreover, it was in the Okhrana that Dmitry Bogrov received a ticket to the theater, where he later and shot at the prime minister.

Another version of the possible murder of Savva Morozov, partly coinciding with the previous one, is the work of the Black Hundreds. It is known that in addition to legal Black Hundred organizations, there were also illegal ones, such as, for example, the "Holy Squads", which were suspected of organizing political assassinations. The fact that Morozov was repeatedly threatened "from the right" for his financing of the revolution of 1905 was confirmed by more than one witness.

The official attitude of the relevant bodies of the Russian Empire towards the Morozov case is also surprising. In some articles about the death of Savva Timofeevich, one can find the following passage: “The Russian gendarmerie was also not at all up to the murder of a millionaire manufacturer - the year was 1905.” I do not want to offend the authors of such articles, but such statements have nothing to do with reality. The Russian gendarmerie more than closely followed the millionaire revolutionary who financed this very year of 1905, and many involved in it, she simply could not ignore one of the largest moneybags in Russia, who openly (!) Called for at least a radical reform of the autocracy . However, for some reason, she did not show much interest in investigating the mysterious death of such a person, quickly being satisfied with the conclusions of the French police.

But why the French investigators did not show much zeal, you can just understand. It is one thing for a Russian millionaire who, for reasons known to him alone, put a bullet in his heart, and quite another thing is the murder of a foreign citizen on the territory of the French Republic. The first option is a personal file of the deceased's family, the second is an international scandal. And since there were visible signs that Savva Morozov himself had pulled the trigger of his Browning, the Cannes Police Department concludes that this is suicide. A day later, in the mayor's office of Cannes, in the presence of witnesses, a death certificate was drawn up and permission was given to take the body of "engineer Morozov" to Moscow. As a matter of fact, this is where the official investigation into the death of Savva Morozov ended. He was buried at the Old Believer Rogozhsky cemetery in Moscow, and the case was handed over to the archive. National attempts to uncover the mystery of the death of the “restless merchant” have been made repeatedly, up to now. But none of them, in fact, has ever refuted with complete certainty the fact that Savva Morozov voluntarily interrupted his earthly journey ...

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