Spiridonova lenin biography

In January she shot provincial councilor G. Luzhenovsky at the Borisoglebsk Railroad Station, carrying out the death sentence that the Tambov Socialist Revolutionaries SRs had passed on Luzhenovsky for his cruel suppression of peasant unrest in the district. Spiridonova's case excited national interest, thus distinguishing her from the many other SR terrorists throughout the empire.

A letter Spiridonova wrote from prison was published in a liberal newspaper and debated widely in the national press because it described her torture at the hands of police officials, hinting as well at sexual abuse. Liberal newspapers in particular waxed eloquent about the brutalities inflicted on this beautiful and chaste young woman of the Russian upper classes who had killed a sadistic bureaucrat.

In Marchhowever, a court-martial sentenced Spiridonova to spiridonova lenin biography, then commuted her sentence to life imprisonment, the usual practice in cases of females convicted of political crimes until mid Charged with maintaining contacts abroad, she was sentenced to three more years of administrative exile twice extendedthis time in Ufacapital of the Bashkir Republic.

She lived with her former prison partner Izmailovich during the whole period of exile. Kakhovskaya also spent time with them as often and as long as she was permitted to. The group was accused of plotting to create a united counter-revolutionary center and to assassinate Bashkir Communist leaders. Spiridonova underwent cruel interrogation in prison in Ufa and in Moscow for several months, without admitting any guilt, although a confession was extorted from her husband.

However, she concluded what was later called her "last testament" with a vibrant heart-felt plea against capital punishment, twice abolished in the aftermaths of the February and October Revolutions and twice re-established by subsequent governments despite vehement protests from the Left Social-Revolutionaries: I only disagree with the fact that the death penalty remains in our system.

Today the State is powerful enough to build socialism without resorting to the death penalty and should not include such a statute among its laws. The axe, the guillotine, the rope, the bullet, and the electric chair are representative of the Middle Ages. When, however, powerful means of defense such as we have exist, capital punishment becomes an institution of evil, corrupting in countless ways those who make use of it.

I think constantly about the psychology of thousands of people, about those dealing with technical questions, the executioners, members of the firing squads, those who conduct the condemned to their deaths, about the platoon of soldiers shooting in the semidarkness at the bound, defenseless, and half-crazed prisoner. This should never, never be permitted in our country.

As champions of the peasantry, the LSRs were strongly opposed to such heavy-handed tactics. Despite the differences between the parties, Spiridonova tried to keep the coalition together for as long as possible. However, by June, she had become convinced that working with the Bolsheviks was no longer possible. She and the other LSR leaders then decided to take action to express their displeasure both with the Bolsheviks in general and their relations with Germany in particular.

In the terrorist tradition of the party, Spiridonova organized the assassination of the German ambassador to Russia, Count Wilhelm von Mirbach, in the hopes that it would spark a revolutionary war with Germany. Spiridonova herself spoke that day and the next, trying to convince the Bolsheviks to change their policies. She accused the Bolsheviks of betraying the cause of the peasantry, and of being more interested in abstract theories than in the needs of the poor.

The Bolsheviks were unmoved. In the chaotic hours following the assassination, the LSRs seized the Cheka headquarters, and held its head, Felix Dzherzhinsky, hostage. However, they did not press their advantage, and the Bolsheviks counterattacked the following day, retook the Cheka headquarters and arrested many leaders of the LSRs, including Spiridonova.

At her trial, Spiridonova took full responsibility for organizing the assassination of Mirbach, although in her testimony she denied that there had been any plans to overthrow the Bolshevik government: I organized the assassination of Mirbach from beginning to end. What happened was merely a result of the excitement with which the Russian Government rushed to the defense of the assassinated agents of German imperialism, and of an attempt at self-defense on the part of the Central Committee of the party which carried out the assassination.

Whatever the intentions of the LSRs, the Soviets came closer to being toppled in July than they ever had before or would be again for decades. Spiridonova was tried on November 27 and sentenced to a year in prison. Others on the LSR Central Committee received sentences of three years, which might illustrate that the Bolsheviks were aware of her immense popularity with the Russian people.

Grigorii Zinoviev, a leading Bolshevik at the time, called her a "wonderful woman" with a "heart of gold" whose imprisonment kept him awake at night. After her release from prison, Spiridonova immediately entered the Russian underground and went to meetings with workers, peasants and soldiers, trying to provide the people with a socialist alternative to the Bolsheviks.

She was rearrested on February 18,in a countrywide sweep aimed at the LSRs and sentenced to a year in a mental sanatorium. She escaped and returned to the underground, only to be arrested one final time on October 26, The rest of her life was spent in a spiridonova lenin biography of prison establishments, hospitals and remote exile towns. Inat the height of Stalin's murderous purges, Spiridonova was seized from her place of internal exile, the Ural town of Ufa, and, along with 12 other former LSRs members, accused of plots against the Bashkir Communist leadership.

While they were held on these charges, however, the entire Bashkir government itself was arrested, so charges of plots against Stalin and Politburo member Klementi Voroshilov were substituted. On December 25,she was sentenced to 25 years in prison, and sent to Orel to serve her time. In Septemberas the Germans advanced on their position, the prisoners at Orel, including Maria Spiridonova, were murdered by Soviet forces.

Bunyan, James, ed. I used to go there and she would tell me interesting stories.

Spiridonova lenin biography

One day I took in a Russian girl who belonged to the Menshevik party and who, therefore, was opposed to Spirodonova. She sat silent and listened to her for two hours. When we came out on the street the girl stopped and her eyes were full of tears. Until today I was her enemy-now I know she is the greatest woman in Russia! I have not met a woman her equal in any country.

The last time I saw her she talked to me about the war and the possibility of a decent peace being secured at Brest-Litovsk. She had no faith in the success of the negotiations, and she was seriously working on what she called a "Socialist army. She spoke sadly of the sabotagers, especially of the intellectuals. It is the beginning of social revolution all over the world; it is social revolution here in full suing!

The whole country is taking part in it now. My reports come in from the remotest districts. The peasants are already conscious and are making social changes everywhere. Spirodonova smiled at my question. You will remember that before the revolution as many women as men went to Siberia; some years there were even more women Now that was all a very different matter from holding public office.

It needs temperament and not training to be a martyr. Politicians are usually not very fine, they accept political positions when they are elected to them-not because they are especially fitted for them.