Lenin and His Comrades: The Bolsheviks Take Over Russia 1917-1924 by Yuri Felshtinsky

Author:Yuri Felshtinsky [Felshtinsky, Yuri]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781936274154
Google: xlHrXDnmOeQC
Published: 2010-10-26T04:04:24+00:00

A page later Malkov indicates that he shot Kaplan on September 3 at 4 p.m.48 And although Malkov really did not want to admit it, it is easy to figure out that, on the night of August 31 at the latest, Sverdlov interrupted the interrogations and took Kaplan away to the Kremlin in order to have her shot “at once.” The perplexity of researchers concerning this matter has been expressed by one author as follows:

Probably the reader has become convinced that many details about the assassination attempt against Lenin remain unclear, casting serious doubts on the generally accepted account of the event. What is remarkable is the feverish haste with which Fanny Kaplan was convicted and eliminated in circumstances that are so dark and unnatural that it is difficult to find a reasonable explanation for them. Why was she transferred from the completely secure cellars of the Cheka at the Lubyanka to the Kremlin? Even if we make allowances for the harsh conditions that existed at the time, it is impossible to understand why it was necessary to eliminate Kaplan specifically inside the Kremlin, where the Soviet government was located. Why was the Cheka’s death sentence not carried out by the Chekists themselves? For what reason did the chairman of the VTsIK assume personal responsibility for organizing the execution, appointing the commandant of the Kremlin as its executor? One forms the impression that the organizers of this execution were afraid of something. Kaplan’s last recorded interrogation took place on August 31, and she was shot on September 3. Could she have, perhaps, begun giving testimony that did not suit the investigators and was for this reason so hastily transferred from the Cheka to the Kremlin? Could it have become increasingly likely that she would have to be returned to the Lubyanka? Could this increasing likelihood have been linked to Dzerzhinsky’s return from Petrograd? Could this not have been the reason why the execution was carried out in such haste, inside the Kremlin, where no one could interfere?49

We shall try to unravel the reasons for such strange behavior on Sverdlov’s part. The basic facts of the case are as follows. A certain woman, who was referred to as “Kaplan,” was arrested, subjected to several brief and quite general interrogations by various people, and, not earlier than August 31 and not later September 3, was taken to the Kremlin on orders from Avanesov, who was acting on orders from Sverdlov. In the Kremlin, she either was or was not subjected to further questioning, and on September 3 she either was or was not shot by Malkov. And since Sverdlov, for reasons that are quite mysterious, gave orders to “destroy the remains without a trace,”50 we have no material proof of Kaplan’s execution apart from one author’s assertion that Kaplan’s corpse was doused with gasoline and burned in an iron barrel in Aleksandrovsky Garden.51 Malkov did state, however, that the execution had been witnessed by the Bolshevik poet Demyan Bedny, who was living in the Kremlin and who had come out to the courtyard of the Kremlin after hearing a strange noise.

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