1907 Tiflis bank robbery
Encyclopedia
The 1907 Tiflis bank robbery, also known as the Yerevan Square expropriation, was an armed robbery by Bolshevik
revolutionaries of a bank cash shipment in the Georgian
city of Tiflis (now Georgia's capital, Tbilisi
). The robbery occurred on 26 June 1907 in Yerevan Square
(now Freedom Square). The bank stagecoach was attacked while transporting money between the Post Office and the Tiflis branch of the State Bank of the Russian Empire
. The robbers attacked the bank stagecoach and surrounding security forces using bombs and guns in the crowded city square resulting in the deaths of forty people and the injuring of fifty others, according to official archive documents. The robbers escaped the attack with 341,000 rubles
(estimated as US $3.4 million in 2008) from the robbery.
The robbery was planned and/or executed by many high-level Bolshevik
s, including Vladimir Lenin
, Joseph Stalin
, Maxim Litvinov
, Leonid Krasin
, Alexander Bogdanov
, and Kamo
, to fund their revolutionary activities. The resulting bad press from this incident was later used against Lenin and Stalin, both of whom tried to distance themselves from the robbery.
During the Soviet era, Yerevan Square was renamed Lenin Square, with a statue to that revolutionary leader. A grave and monument to Kamo, the leader of the group that executed the robbery, was located near the square in Pushkin Gardens during the early Soviet era but was later removed.
("RSDLP"), the predecessor to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
, was formed in 1898. The goal of RSDLP was to change the economic and political system in the Russian Empire
through a proletarian revolution
according to Marxist doctrine
. Alongside their political activities, RSDLP and other revolutionary groups (such as anarchists and Socialist Revolutionaries) practiced a range of militant operations, including "expropriations", a euphemism for armed robberies of government or private funds to support revolutionary activities.
From 1903 onwards, the RSDLP was divided between two major groups, the Bolshevik
s and the Menshevik
s. In May–June 1907, the RSDLP held its 5th Congress
in London
with the hopes of resolving differences between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. One issue that still separated the two groups was the divergence of their views on militant activities, and in particular, "expropriations". The most militant Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin
, who was present at the 5th Congress, supported continuation of the use of robberies, while Mensheviks advocated more peaceful and gradual approach to revolution, and opposed militant operations. At the 5th Congress, a resolution passed condemning participation in or assistance to all militant activity, including "expropriations" as "disorganising and demoralizing", and called for all party militias to be disbanded. This resolution passed with 65 percent supporting and 6 percent opposing (others abstained or did not vote) with all Mensheviks and even some Bolsheviks supporting the resolution.
Despite the unified party's prohibition on separate committees, during the 5th Congress the Bolsheviks elected their own governing body, called the Bolshevik Centre
, and kept it secret from the rest of the RSDLP. The Bolshevik Centre was headed by a "Finance Group" consisting of Lenin, Leonid Krasin
and Alexander Bogdanov
. Among other party activities, the Finance Group had already planned a number of "expropriations" in different parts of Russia by the time of the 5th Congress and was awaiting a major robbery in Tiflis, which occurred only weeks after the 5th Congress ended.
, Germany, in April 1907, to discuss staging a robbery to obtain funds to purchase arms. Attendees included Lenin, Krasin, Bogdanov, Maxim Litvinov
, and Joseph Stalin
. The group decided that Stalin, who was then known by his earlier nickname Koba, and fellow Georgian Simon Ter-Petrossian
, known as Kamo, should organize a bank robbery in the city of Tiflis.
Stalin, who was 29 at the time of the meeting, lived in Tiflis with his wife Ekaterina
and newborn son Yakov. Stalin was experienced at organizing robberies, and these exploits had helped him gain a reputation as the Centre's principal financier. Kamo, who was four years younger than Stalin, had a reputation for ruthlessness; later in his life he reportedly cut a man's heart from his chest. At the time of the conspiracy, Kamo ran a criminal organization called "the Outfit." Stalin said that Kamo was "a master of disguise" and Lenin called Kamo his "Caucasian bandit." Stalin and Kamo had grown up together, and Stalin had converted Kamo to Marxism
.
After the April meeting, Stalin and Litvinov traveled to Tiflis to inform Kamo of the plans and to organize the raid. According to Roman Brackman's The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life, while Stalin was working with the Bolsheviks to organize criminal activities, he was also acting as an informant for the Okhrana, the Russian secret police. Brackman alleges that once the group returned to Tiflis, Stalin informed his Okhrana contact, Officer Mukhtarov, about the bank robbery plans and that Stalin promised to provide the Okhrana more information at a later time.
Once back in Tiflis, Stalin began planning for the robbery. He was able to establish contact with two individuals with inside information about the State Bank's
operations: a bank clerk named Gigo Kasradze and an old school friend of Stalin's named Voznesensky who worked at the Tiflis banking mail office. Voznesensky later stated that he had greatly admired Stalin's romantic poetry and it was because of this admiration that he decided to help out in the theft. Voznesensky had access to the secret schedule of cash stagecoaches to the Tiflis branch of the State Bank because he worked in the Tiflis banking mail office. Voznesensky notified Stalin that there was going to be a large shipment of money by horse-drawn carriage to the Tiflis Bank on 26 June 1907.
In preparation for the robbery, Krasin helped manufacture bombs to use to attack the vehicle. Kamo's gang smuggled bombs into Tiflis by hiding them inside a sofa. Only weeks before the robbery, Kamo accidentally set off one of Krasin's bombs while trying to set the fuse. The blast from the bomb severely injured Kamo's eye, leaving a permanent scar. Kamo was confined to his bed for a month due to intense pain, and had not fully recovered by the time of the robbery.
While the group planned for the robbery, the Russian authorities became aware that a large action was being planned by revolutionaries in Tiflis, although they did not know the details. For this reason, they increased the security presence in the main square.
On the day of the robbery, 26 June 1907, the 20 organizers, including Stalin, met near Yerevan Square (just 2 minutes from the seminary, bank and viceroy's palace) to finalize their plans, and after the meeting, they went to their designated places in preparation for the attack. The police had been tipped off prior to the robbery and were guarding every street corner in Yerevan Square. To deal with the increased security, there was a gang member spotting each security officer prior to the robbery and gang members were looking down on the square from lookouts above the main street.
The gang members mostly dressed themselves as peasants and waited on street corners with revolvers and grenades. In contrast to the other robbers, Kamo was disguised as a cavalry captain and came to the square in a horse–drawn phaeton
, a type of open carriage.
The conspirators took over the Tilipuchuri tavern facing the square in preparation for the robbery. A witness to the robbery, David Sagirashvili, later stated that he had been walking in Yerevan Square when a friend named Bachua Kupriashvili, who later turned out to be one of the robbers, invited him into a tavern and asked him to stay. Once inside the tavern, Sagirashvili realized that armed men were stopping people from leaving. When the armed men received a signal that the bank stagecoach was nearing the square, the armed men left the building quickly with pistols drawn.
The Tiflis branch of the State Bank of the Russian Empire
had arranged to transport funds between the Post Office
and the State Bank by horse-drawn stagecoach
. Inside the stagecoach was the money, two guards with rifles, the State Bank's cashier, and the State Bank's accountant. A phaeton filled with guards rode behind the stagecoach, and horse-mounted guards rode in front, next to, and behind the carriages.
Witnesses reported that bombs were thrown from all directions. The Georgian newspaper Isari reported that "No one could tell if the terrible shooting was the boom of cannons or explosion of bombs ... The sound caused panic everywhere ... almost across the whole city, people started running. Carriages and carts were galloping away ..." The blasts from the bombs were so strong that they reportedly knocked over nearby chimneys and broke every pane of glass for a mile around. Ekaterina Svanidze
, Stalin's wife, was standing on a balcony at their home near the square with her family and young child. When they heard the explosions, they rushed, terrified into the house.
Though the explosions had killed many of the guards and horses, one of the horses harnessed to the stagecoach was injured but still alive. The bleeding animal bolted from the scene pulling the stagecoach with it. Three of the robbers, Kupriashvili, Datiko Chibriashvili, and Kamo, chased after the runaway money-laden stagecoach. Kupriashvili threw a grenade at the escaping stagecoach, and the blast from the bomb blew off the horse's legs, killing the horse and stopping the stagecoach. The blast also threw Kupriashvili into the air, and he fell to the ground stunned. Kupriashvili later regained consciousness and managed to sneak out of the square before security forces arrived. After the stagecoach stopped, Datiko Chibriashvili went into the stagecoach to snatch the sacks of money while Kamo, firing his pistol as he rode his phaeton, raced to the stopped stagecoach. Once Kamo reached the stagecoach, Chibriashvili and another robber that arrived at the stagecoach helped throw the stolen money into Kamo's phaeton. Pressed for time, the robbers inadvertently left twenty thousand rubles in the stagecoach. After the robbery, a surviving stagecoach driver attempted to pocket some of this remaining money and was later arrested for the theft.
Kamo then rode to the gang's headquarters where he changed out of his uniform. All of the robbers quickly scattered, and none were caught in the act by the authorities Eliso Kupriashvili even managed to leave the square, steal a teacher's uniform he found nearby, and then came back to the square to admire their handiwork. What he saw was a scene of bloody carnage.
Fifty people lay wounded in the square along with the dead humans and horses. The authorities stated that only three people had died, but documents in the Okhrana archives reveal that the true number was around forty.
The State Bank was not sure how much it actually lost from the robbery, but the best estimates were that around 341,000 rubles
were stolen, worth approximately $3.4 million in 2008 United States Dollars. Mikhail Bochoridze and his wife Maro sewed the money into a mattress which was hidden on a couch at the observatory where Stalin worked. Of the 341,000 in rubles taken, about 91,000 were in small untraceable bills, but around 250,000 rubles were in large 500-ruble notes with serial numbers known to the police. This made them very difficult to exchange undetected.
Stalin's exact actions on the day of the robbery are unknown and disputed.
After the robbery, there were rumors that Stalin threw the first grenade from the roof of a nearby mansion. One source, P. A. Pavlenko, claimed that Stalin attacked the carriage itself and had been wounded from a bomb fragment. Kamo was later reported as stating that Stalin took no active part in the robbery but had watched it from a distance. Another source stated in a police report that Stalin "observed the ruthless bloodshed, smoking a cigarette, from the courtyard of a mansion." Another source claims that Stalin was actually at the railway station during the robbery and not at the square. Stalin's sister-in-law stated that the night of the robbery, Stalin came home and told his family about the success of the robbery.
Stalin's role in the robbery was later questioned by some of his fellow revolutionaries, notably Leon Trotsky
and Boris Nicolaevsky
. In his book Stalin – An Appraisal of the Man and his Influence, Trotsky analysed many publications describing the Tiflis expropriation and other Bolshevik militant activities of that time, and concluded that "Others did the fighting; Stalin supervised them from afar". According to Nicolaevsky, in general "[t]he role played by Stalin in the activities of the Kamo group was subsequently exaggerated".
However Kun later discovered official archive documents clearly showing that "from late 1904 or early 1905 Stalin took part in drawing up plans for expropriations" and that "[i]t is now certain that [Stalin] controlled from the wings the initial plans of the group" that carried out the Tiflis robbery.
of London a story with the headline "Tiflis Bomb Outrage", Le Temps
in Paris a story with the headline "Catastrophe!", and The New York Times
a story with the headlines "Bomb Kills Many; $170,000 Captured".
In response to the robbery, authorities mobilized the army, closed roads, and surrounded the square, hoping to secure money and conspirators. The police launched an investigation of the crime, and a special detective unit was brought in to lead the case. Unfortunately for investigators, witness testimony was confusing and conflicting. Additionally, the authorities did not know which group was responsible for the robbery. Rumors blamed Polish socialists
, Armenians
, anarchists
, Socialist-Revolutionaries
, or even the Russian State
itself.
According to Brackman, several days after the robbery the Okhrana agent Mukhtarov questioned Stalin in a secret apartment. The agents had heard rumors that Stalin had been seen watching passively during the robbery. Mukhtarov asked Stalin why he hadn't informed them about the robbery, but Stalin stated that he had provided adequate information to the authorities to prevent the theft. This questioning escalated into a heated argument; Mukhtarov hit Stalin in the face and had to be restrained by other Okhrana officers. After this incident, Muktarov was suspended from Okhrana, and Stalin was ordered to leave Tiflis and go to Baku
to await a decision from officials regarding the case. Stalin left Baku along with 20,000 rubles in stolen money in July 1907. Whether Stalin cooperated with the Okhrana during his early life has been a subject of debate among historians for many decades.
A large portion of the stolen money was eventually moved by Kamo, who took the money to Lenin in Finland
, which was then part of the Russian Empire
. Kamo then spent the remaining summer months staying with Lenin at his dacha
. That fall, Kamo left Finland to buy arms for future activities; he traveled to Paris, then to Belgium
to buy arms and ammunition, then to Bulgaria
to buy 200 detonators.
After his purchase in Bulgaria, Kamo traveled to Berlin and delivered a letter from Lenin to a prominent Bolshevik physician, Yakov Zhitomirsky
, asking the doctor for medical assistance to treat Kamo's still injured eye. Lenin had been hoping to help the man who had successfully executed the robbery, but unintentionally turned Kamo over to a double agent. Zhitomirsky had been secretly working as an agent of the Russian government and quickly informed the Okhrana about his encounter with Kamo. The Okhrana then asked the Berlin police to arrest Kamo. When they did so, they found a forged Austrian passport and a suitcase with 200 detonators, which he was planning to use in another large bank robbery.
After hearing of Kamo's arrest in Berlin in 1907, Lenin feared that he too might be arrested and planned to flee from Finland
with his wife. In order to leave Finland without being followed, Lenin walked for 3 miles (4.8 km) across a frozen lake at night to a catch a steamer at a nearby island. On his trek across the ice, Lenin and his two companions nearly drowned when the ice started to give way underneath them making Lenin think "Ah, what a stupid way to die." Lenin did escape from Finland with his wife and headed to Switzerland.
The unmarked bills from the robbery were easy to exchange, but the serial numbers of 500-ruble notes were known to the authorities, making these notes impossible to exchange in Russian banks. By the end of 1907, Lenin decided to exchange the remaining 500-ruble notes abroad. In preparation for the exchange, Krasin had his forger try to change some of the serial numbers. Two hundred of these notes were transported abroad by Martyn Lyadov (they were sewn into his vest by the wives of Lenin and Bogdanov at Lenin's headquarters in Kuokkala). Lenin's plan was to have various individuals exchange the stolen 500-ruble notes simultaneously at a number of banks throughout Europe in January 1908. Zhitomirsky heard of the plan and reported this information to the Okhrana. The Okhrana contacted police departments throughout Europe and asked them to arrest anyone who tried to cash the notes.
In January 1908, a number of individuals were arrested while attempting to exchange the notes. The New York Times reported that one woman who had tried to cash a marked 500-ruble note tried to swallow the evidence after the cashier called the police, but the police grabbed her throat before she could swallow. Most prominent among those arrested was Maxim Litvinov, who was caught with twelve 500-ruble notes stolen from the robbery while boarding a train with his mistress at Paris's Gare du Nord
. Litvinov had been planning to go to London
to cash the notes. Russia requested Litvinov's extradition; instead, the French Minister of Justice decided to expel Litvinov and his mistress from French territory. The failure to extradite Litvinov outraged the Russian government. Officially the French government stated that Russia's request for extradition had been submitted too late, but some accounts have speculated that the French government denied the extradition because French socialists had applied political pressure to secure Litvinov's release.
Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin's wife, discussed these events in her memoirs:
Brackman claims that despite the arrests, Lenin continued his attempts to exchange the 500-ruble notes and did manage to trade some 500-ruble notes for 10,000 rubles from an unknown woman in Moscow. However, according to Nicolaevsky, after the arrests of January 1908 Lenin abandoned any attempts to exchange these notes. Bogdanov and Krasin, however, made several more attempts. According to Nicolaevsky, Bogdanov tried (and failed) to exchange some notes in North America, while Krasin succeeded in changing serial numbers and managed to exchange several more notes. Soon after, Lenin's associates burned all the 500-ruble notes remaining in their possession.
In 1909, Kamo was extradited to a Russian prison where he continued to feign insanity. In April 1910, Kamo was tried for his role in the Tiflis robbery. At trial, Kamo continued to act insane by ignoring the proceedings and instead openly feeding a pet bird that he had snuck into the proceedings in his shirt. The trial was suspended while officials examined Kamo's sanity. The court eventually found that he was sane when he committed the Tiflis robbery, but was presently mentally ill and should be confined until he recovered.
In August 1911, after feigning insanity for more than three years, Kamo escaped from the psychiatric ward of a prison in Tiflis by sawing through his window bars and climbing down a homemade rope.
Kamo later discussed his experiences at feigning insanity for over three years:
After escaping, Kamo met up with Lenin in Paris. Kamo was distressed to hear that a "rupture had occurred" between Lenin, Bogdanov, and Krasin. Kamo told Lenin about his arrest and how he had simulated insanity while in prison. After leaving Paris, Kamo eventually met up with Krasin and planned another armed robbery. Kamo was caught before the robbery took place and was put on trial in Tiflis in 1913 for his exploits including the Tiflis bank robbery. This time while imprisoned, Kamo did not feign insanity but he did pretend that he had forgotten all that happened to him when he was previously "insane". The trial was brief and Kamo was given four death sentences.
Seemingly doomed to death, Kamo then had the good luck along with other prisoners to have his sentence commuted to a long prison term as part of the celebrations of the Romanov dynasty tricentennial. Kamo was released from prison after the February Revolution
in 1917.
While none of the major organizers apart from Kamo was ever brought to trial, the notoriety of the robbery had a significant impact on internal politics within both the RSDLP and the Bolshevik faction.
Initially it was not clear who was behind the raid, but after the arrest of Kamo, Litvinov and others, the Bolshevik connection became obvious. After the discovery that Bolsheviks had been involved in the robbery, the Mensheviks felt betrayed and angry. It transpired that the Bolshevik Centre operated independently from the unified Central Committee and was taking actions explicitly prohibited by the party congress. The leader of the Mensheviks, Georgy Plekhanov, called for separation from the Bolsheviks. Plekhanov's colleague, Julius Martov
, called the Bolshevik Centre something between a secret factional central committee and a criminal gang. The Tiflis Committee of the Party expelled several members, including Stalin, for the robbery, and party members investigated Lenin and others concerning the incident. However these internal investigations were stalled by the Bolsheviks, which impaired the ability of the investigators to get anything accomplished.
The robbery further increased Bolshevik unpopularity in Georgian society and left the Bolsheviks in Tiflis without effective leadership. After the robbery and the death of his wife Ekaterina Svanidze in November 1907, Stalin rarely returned to Tiflis. Other leading Bolsheviks in Georgia, such as Mikhail Tskhakaya and Filipp Makharadze
, followed the same pattern and were largely absent from Georgia after 1907. Another major figure among the Tiflis Bolsheviks, Stepan Shahumyan
moved to Baku
. This left their social-democratic rivals, Georgian Mensheviks, without any significant opposition. The Mensheviks would lead Georgia during its short-lived independence
from 1918 to 1921.
Besides the fallout within the party, the robbery also made the Bolshevik Centre unpopular among the wider European social-democrat groups. Lenin's desire to distance himself from the legacy of the robbery may have been one of the sources of the rift between him and Bogdanov and Krasin. In turn, Stalin distanced himself from Kamo's gang and never publicised his role in the robbery.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917
, many of the Bolsheviks who had been involved in the robbery gained political power in the new Soviet Union
. Lenin went on to become the first Premier of the Soviet Union. On Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin became the leader of the Soviet Union until his own death in 1953. Maxim Litvinov became a Soviet diplomat, serving as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs (1930–1939). Leonid Krasin initially quit politics after the split from Lenin in 1909, but rejoined the Bolsheviks after the revolution and was appointed People's Commissar for Foreign Trade.
Alexander Bogdanov and Kamo enjoyed less prominence. Bogdanov was expelled from the party in 1909, ostensibly over philosophical differences. After the Bolshevik Revolution, he became the leading ideologist of Proletkult
, an organisation designed to foster a new proletarian culture. Kamo, after his release from prison and the creation of the Soviet Union, worked in the Soviet Customs office, by some accounts because he was too unstable to work for the secret police
. Kamo died in a 1922 road accident when a truck hit him while he was cycling. While there is no proof, some have theorized that Kamo's death was no accident, with the orders for his demise given by Stalin.
Yerevan Square, where the robbery took place, was renamed Lenin Square
by the Soviet authorities in 1921 and a large statue of Lenin was erected in his honour in 1956. Furthermore, Kamo, the man who had been found guilty and sentenced to death for the bloody robbery that took place in the square, was buried and had a monument erected in his honor in Puskin Gardens, near Yerevan Square. Kamo's monument—authored by the sculptor Iakob Nikoladze
—was later removed during Stalin's rule and his remains moved to another location. The statue of Lenin was torn down in August 1991 in the final months of the Soviet Union
to be replaced by the Liberty Monument
in 2006. The name of the square was changed from Lenin Square to Freedom Square in 1991.
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
revolutionaries of a bank cash shipment in the Georgian
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
city of Tiflis (now Georgia's capital, Tbilisi
Tbilisi
Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...
). The robbery occurred on 26 June 1907 in Yerevan Square
Freedom Square, Tbilisi
Freedom Square , formerly known as Erivan Square under Imperial Russia and Lenin Square under the Soviet Union, is located in the center of Tbilisi at the eastern end of...
(now Freedom Square). The bank stagecoach was attacked while transporting money between the Post Office and the Tiflis branch of the State Bank of the Russian Empire
State Bank of the Russian Empire
The State Bank of the Russian Empire was the main bank of the Russian Empire from 1860 to 1917. This bank is considered to be the predecessor of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.- History :...
. The robbers attacked the bank stagecoach and surrounding security forces using bombs and guns in the crowded city square resulting in the deaths of forty people and the injuring of fifty others, according to official archive documents. The robbers escaped the attack with 341,000 rubles
Russian ruble
The ruble or rouble is the currency of the Russian Federation and the two partially recognized republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Formerly, the ruble was also the currency of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union prior to their breakups. Belarus and Transnistria also use currencies with...
(estimated as US $3.4 million in 2008) from the robbery.
The robbery was planned and/or executed by many high-level Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
s, including Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
, Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, Maxim Litvinov
Maxim Litvinov
Maxim Maximovich Litvinov was a Russian revolutionary and prominent Soviet diplomat.- Early life and first exile :...
, Leonid Krasin
Leonid Krasin
Leonid Borisovich Krasin July 1870, Kurgan – November 24, 1926) was a Russian and Soviet Bolshevik politician and diplomat.-Early years:Krasin was born in Kurgan, near Tobol'sk in Siberia. His father, Boris Ivanovich Krasin was the local chief of police...
, Alexander Bogdanov
Alexander Bogdanov
Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov –7 April 1928, Moscow) was a Russian physician, philosopher, science fiction writer, and revolutionary of Belarusian ethnicity....
, and Kamo
Kamo (Bolshevik)
Kamo, real name Semeno Aržakovitš Ter-Petrossian , was a Georgian revolutionary of Armenian descent, and an early companion to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin...
, to fund their revolutionary activities. The resulting bad press from this incident was later used against Lenin and Stalin, both of whom tried to distance themselves from the robbery.
During the Soviet era, Yerevan Square was renamed Lenin Square, with a statue to that revolutionary leader. A grave and monument to Kamo, the leader of the group that executed the robbery, was located near the square in Pushkin Gardens during the early Soviet era but was later removed.
Background
The Russian Social Democratic Labour PartyRussian Social Democratic Labour Party
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party , also known as Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or Russian Social Democratic Party, was a revolutionary socialist Russian political party formed in 1898 in Minsk to unite the various revolutionary organizations into one party...
("RSDLP"), the predecessor to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
, was formed in 1898. The goal of RSDLP was to change the economic and political system in the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
through a proletarian revolution
Proletarian revolution
A proletarian revolution is a social and/or political revolution in which the working class attempts to overthrow the bourgeoisie. Proletarian revolutions are generally advocated by socialists, communists, and most anarchists....
according to Marxist doctrine
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
. Alongside their political activities, RSDLP and other revolutionary groups (such as anarchists and Socialist Revolutionaries) practiced a range of militant operations, including "expropriations", a euphemism for armed robberies of government or private funds to support revolutionary activities.
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
s and the Menshevik
Menshevik
The Mensheviks were a faction of the Russian revolutionary movement that emerged in 1904 after a dispute between Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov, both members of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. The dispute originated at the Second Congress of that party, ostensibly over minor issues...
s. In May–June 1907, the RSDLP held its 5th Congress
5th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
The 5th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party was held in London between May 13 and June 1, 1907. The congress was the largest in attendance of the congresses of the unified RSDLP. Thirty-five session of the congress were held in the Brotherhood Church in Hackney, during which...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
with the hopes of resolving differences between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. One issue that still separated the two groups was the divergence of their views on militant activities, and in particular, "expropriations". The most militant Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
, who was present at the 5th Congress, supported continuation of the use of robberies, while Mensheviks advocated more peaceful and gradual approach to revolution, and opposed militant operations. At the 5th Congress, a resolution passed condemning participation in or assistance to all militant activity, including "expropriations" as "disorganising and demoralizing", and called for all party militias to be disbanded. This resolution passed with 65 percent supporting and 6 percent opposing (others abstained or did not vote) with all Mensheviks and even some Bolsheviks supporting the resolution.
Despite the unified party's prohibition on separate committees, during the 5th Congress the Bolsheviks elected their own governing body, called the Bolshevik Centre
Bolshevik Centre
The Bolshevik Centre was a select group of Bolsheviks that led the organization in secret. The Centre conducted its activities in secret in part so as to avoid the prohibition by the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party on separate committees outside of the RSDLP.The Bolshevik Centre was headed...
, and kept it secret from the rest of the RSDLP. The Bolshevik Centre was headed by a "Finance Group" consisting of Lenin, Leonid Krasin
Leonid Krasin
Leonid Borisovich Krasin July 1870, Kurgan – November 24, 1926) was a Russian and Soviet Bolshevik politician and diplomat.-Early years:Krasin was born in Kurgan, near Tobol'sk in Siberia. His father, Boris Ivanovich Krasin was the local chief of police...
and Alexander Bogdanov
Alexander Bogdanov
Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov –7 April 1928, Moscow) was a Russian physician, philosopher, science fiction writer, and revolutionary of Belarusian ethnicity....
. Among other party activities, the Finance Group had already planned a number of "expropriations" in different parts of Russia by the time of the 5th Congress and was awaiting a major robbery in Tiflis, which occurred only weeks after the 5th Congress ended.
Preparation
Before the 5th Congress met, high ranking Bolsheviks held a meeting in BerlinBerlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Germany, in April 1907, to discuss staging a robbery to obtain funds to purchase arms. Attendees included Lenin, Krasin, Bogdanov, Maxim Litvinov
Maxim Litvinov
Maxim Maximovich Litvinov was a Russian revolutionary and prominent Soviet diplomat.- Early life and first exile :...
, and Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
. The group decided that Stalin, who was then known by his earlier nickname Koba, and fellow Georgian Simon Ter-Petrossian
Kamo (Bolshevik)
Kamo, real name Semeno Aržakovitš Ter-Petrossian , was a Georgian revolutionary of Armenian descent, and an early companion to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin...
, known as Kamo, should organize a bank robbery in the city of Tiflis.
Stalin, who was 29 at the time of the meeting, lived in Tiflis with his wife Ekaterina
Ekaterina Svanidze
Ekaterina "Kato" Svanidze was the Georgian first wife of Joseph Stalin. They were married in 1906.She was a daughter of Semon Svanadze and Sephora...
and newborn son Yakov. Stalin was experienced at organizing robberies, and these exploits had helped him gain a reputation as the Centre's principal financier. Kamo, who was four years younger than Stalin, had a reputation for ruthlessness; later in his life he reportedly cut a man's heart from his chest. At the time of the conspiracy, Kamo ran a criminal organization called "the Outfit." Stalin said that Kamo was "a master of disguise" and Lenin called Kamo his "Caucasian bandit." Stalin and Kamo had grown up together, and Stalin had converted Kamo to Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
.
After the April meeting, Stalin and Litvinov traveled to Tiflis to inform Kamo of the plans and to organize the raid. According to Roman Brackman's The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life, while Stalin was working with the Bolsheviks to organize criminal activities, he was also acting as an informant for the Okhrana, the Russian secret police. Brackman alleges that once the group returned to Tiflis, Stalin informed his Okhrana contact, Officer Mukhtarov, about the bank robbery plans and that Stalin promised to provide the Okhrana more information at a later time.
Once back in Tiflis, Stalin began planning for the robbery. He was able to establish contact with two individuals with inside information about the State Bank's
State Bank of the Russian Empire
The State Bank of the Russian Empire was the main bank of the Russian Empire from 1860 to 1917. This bank is considered to be the predecessor of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.- History :...
operations: a bank clerk named Gigo Kasradze and an old school friend of Stalin's named Voznesensky who worked at the Tiflis banking mail office. Voznesensky later stated that he had greatly admired Stalin's romantic poetry and it was because of this admiration that he decided to help out in the theft. Voznesensky had access to the secret schedule of cash stagecoaches to the Tiflis branch of the State Bank because he worked in the Tiflis banking mail office. Voznesensky notified Stalin that there was going to be a large shipment of money by horse-drawn carriage to the Tiflis Bank on 26 June 1907.
In preparation for the robbery, Krasin helped manufacture bombs to use to attack the vehicle. Kamo's gang smuggled bombs into Tiflis by hiding them inside a sofa. Only weeks before the robbery, Kamo accidentally set off one of Krasin's bombs while trying to set the fuse. The blast from the bomb severely injured Kamo's eye, leaving a permanent scar. Kamo was confined to his bed for a month due to intense pain, and had not fully recovered by the time of the robbery.
While the group planned for the robbery, the Russian authorities became aware that a large action was being planned by revolutionaries in Tiflis, although they did not know the details. For this reason, they increased the security presence in the main square.
Day of the robbery
The gang members mostly dressed themselves as peasants and waited on street corners with revolvers and grenades. In contrast to the other robbers, Kamo was disguised as a cavalry captain and came to the square in a horse–drawn phaeton
Phaeton (carriage)
Phaeton is the early 19th-century term for a sporty open carriage drawn by a single horse or a pair, typically with four extravagantly large wheels, very lightly sprung, with a minimal body, fast and dangerous. It usually had no sidepieces in front of the seats...
, a type of open carriage.
The conspirators took over the Tilipuchuri tavern facing the square in preparation for the robbery. A witness to the robbery, David Sagirashvili, later stated that he had been walking in Yerevan Square when a friend named Bachua Kupriashvili, who later turned out to be one of the robbers, invited him into a tavern and asked him to stay. Once inside the tavern, Sagirashvili realized that armed men were stopping people from leaving. When the armed men received a signal that the bank stagecoach was nearing the square, the armed men left the building quickly with pistols drawn.
The Tiflis branch of the State Bank of the Russian Empire
State Bank of the Russian Empire
The State Bank of the Russian Empire was the main bank of the Russian Empire from 1860 to 1917. This bank is considered to be the predecessor of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.- History :...
had arranged to transport funds between the Post Office
Post office
A post office is a facility forming part of a postal system for the posting, receipt, sorting, handling, transmission or delivery of mail.Post offices offer mail-related services such as post office boxes, postage and packaging supplies...
and the State Bank by horse-drawn stagecoach
Stagecoach
A stagecoach is a type of covered wagon for passengers and goods, strongly sprung and drawn by four horses, usually four-in-hand. Widely used before the introduction of railway transport, it made regular trips between stages or stations, which were places of rest provided for stagecoach travelers...
. Inside the stagecoach was the money, two guards with rifles, the State Bank's cashier, and the State Bank's accountant. A phaeton filled with guards rode behind the stagecoach, and horse-mounted guards rode in front, next to, and behind the carriages.
Attack
The stagecoach made its way through the crowded square at about 10:30 am. When the stagecoach was close enough, Kupriashvili gave a signal to the robbers to attack. Once the signal was given, robbers pulled the fuses on their grenades and threw them at the carriage. The resulting explosions killed horses and guards. The robbers then began shooting at the various security men guarding the stagecoach, as well as those securing the square.Witnesses reported that bombs were thrown from all directions. The Georgian newspaper Isari reported that "No one could tell if the terrible shooting was the boom of cannons or explosion of bombs ... The sound caused panic everywhere ... almost across the whole city, people started running. Carriages and carts were galloping away ..." The blasts from the bombs were so strong that they reportedly knocked over nearby chimneys and broke every pane of glass for a mile around. Ekaterina Svanidze
Ekaterina Svanidze
Ekaterina "Kato" Svanidze was the Georgian first wife of Joseph Stalin. They were married in 1906.She was a daughter of Semon Svanadze and Sephora...
, Stalin's wife, was standing on a balcony at their home near the square with her family and young child. When they heard the explosions, they rushed, terrified into the house.
Though the explosions had killed many of the guards and horses, one of the horses harnessed to the stagecoach was injured but still alive. The bleeding animal bolted from the scene pulling the stagecoach with it. Three of the robbers, Kupriashvili, Datiko Chibriashvili, and Kamo, chased after the runaway money-laden stagecoach. Kupriashvili threw a grenade at the escaping stagecoach, and the blast from the bomb blew off the horse's legs, killing the horse and stopping the stagecoach. The blast also threw Kupriashvili into the air, and he fell to the ground stunned. Kupriashvili later regained consciousness and managed to sneak out of the square before security forces arrived. After the stagecoach stopped, Datiko Chibriashvili went into the stagecoach to snatch the sacks of money while Kamo, firing his pistol as he rode his phaeton, raced to the stopped stagecoach. Once Kamo reached the stagecoach, Chibriashvili and another robber that arrived at the stagecoach helped throw the stolen money into Kamo's phaeton. Pressed for time, the robbers inadvertently left twenty thousand rubles in the stagecoach. After the robbery, a surviving stagecoach driver attempted to pocket some of this remaining money and was later arrested for the theft.
Escape and aftermath
After securing the money, Kamo quickly rode out of the square and encountered a police carriage ridden by the deputy police chief. Instead of turning away, Kamo pretended to be part of the security forces and shouted to the deputy that "the money's safe. Run to the square." The deputy obeyed the apparent captain of cavalry, and it was only much later that he realized that he had been fooled by an escaping robber.Kamo then rode to the gang's headquarters where he changed out of his uniform. All of the robbers quickly scattered, and none were caught in the act by the authorities Eliso Kupriashvili even managed to leave the square, steal a teacher's uniform he found nearby, and then came back to the square to admire their handiwork. What he saw was a scene of bloody carnage.
Fifty people lay wounded in the square along with the dead humans and horses. The authorities stated that only three people had died, but documents in the Okhrana archives reveal that the true number was around forty.
The State Bank was not sure how much it actually lost from the robbery, but the best estimates were that around 341,000 rubles
Russian ruble
The ruble or rouble is the currency of the Russian Federation and the two partially recognized republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Formerly, the ruble was also the currency of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union prior to their breakups. Belarus and Transnistria also use currencies with...
were stolen, worth approximately $3.4 million in 2008 United States Dollars. Mikhail Bochoridze and his wife Maro sewed the money into a mattress which was hidden on a couch at the observatory where Stalin worked. Of the 341,000 in rubles taken, about 91,000 were in small untraceable bills, but around 250,000 rubles were in large 500-ruble notes with serial numbers known to the police. This made them very difficult to exchange undetected.
Stalin's role
After the robbery, there were rumors that Stalin threw the first grenade from the roof of a nearby mansion. One source, P. A. Pavlenko, claimed that Stalin attacked the carriage itself and had been wounded from a bomb fragment. Kamo was later reported as stating that Stalin took no active part in the robbery but had watched it from a distance. Another source stated in a police report that Stalin "observed the ruthless bloodshed, smoking a cigarette, from the courtyard of a mansion." Another source claims that Stalin was actually at the railway station during the robbery and not at the square. Stalin's sister-in-law stated that the night of the robbery, Stalin came home and told his family about the success of the robbery.
Stalin's role in the robbery was later questioned by some of his fellow revolutionaries, notably Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
and Boris Nicolaevsky
Boris Nicolaevsky
Boris Ivanovich Nicolaevsky was a revolutionary Russian Marxist activist, archivist, and historian. Nicolaevsky is best remembered as one of the leading Menshevik public intellectuals of the 20th Century.-Early years:...
. In his book Stalin – An Appraisal of the Man and his Influence, Trotsky analysed many publications describing the Tiflis expropriation and other Bolshevik militant activities of that time, and concluded that "Others did the fighting; Stalin supervised them from afar". According to Nicolaevsky, in general "[t]he role played by Stalin in the activities of the Kamo group was subsequently exaggerated".
However Kun later discovered official archive documents clearly showing that "from late 1904 or early 1905 Stalin took part in drawing up plans for expropriations" and that "[i]t is now certain that [Stalin] controlled from the wings the initial plans of the group" that carried out the Tiflis robbery.
Security response and investigation
The robbery was reported widely by the press: the London Daily Mirror ran a story with the headline "Rain of Bombs: Revolutionaries Hurl Destruction among Large Crowds of People", The TimesThe Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
of London a story with the headline "Tiflis Bomb Outrage", Le Temps
Le Temps (Paris)
Le Temps was one of Paris's most important daily newspapers from April 25, 1861 to November 30, 1942.Founded in 1861 by Edmund Chojecki and Auguste Nefftzer, Le Temps was under Nefftzer's direction for ten years, when Adrien Hébrard took his place...
in Paris a story with the headline "Catastrophe!", and The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
a story with the headlines "Bomb Kills Many; $170,000 Captured".
In response to the robbery, authorities mobilized the army, closed roads, and surrounded the square, hoping to secure money and conspirators. The police launched an investigation of the crime, and a special detective unit was brought in to lead the case. Unfortunately for investigators, witness testimony was confusing and conflicting. Additionally, the authorities did not know which group was responsible for the robbery. Rumors blamed Polish socialists
Polish Socialist Party
The Polish Socialist Party was one of the most important Polish left-wing political parties from its inception in 1892 until 1948...
, Armenians
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
, anarchists
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
, Socialist-Revolutionaries
Socialist-Revolutionary Party
thumb|right|200px|Socialist-Revolutionary election poster, 1917. The caption in red reads "партия соц-рев" , short for Party of the Socialist Revolutionaries...
, or even the Russian State
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
itself.
According to Brackman, several days after the robbery the Okhrana agent Mukhtarov questioned Stalin in a secret apartment. The agents had heard rumors that Stalin had been seen watching passively during the robbery. Mukhtarov asked Stalin why he hadn't informed them about the robbery, but Stalin stated that he had provided adequate information to the authorities to prevent the theft. This questioning escalated into a heated argument; Mukhtarov hit Stalin in the face and had to be restrained by other Okhrana officers. After this incident, Muktarov was suspended from Okhrana, and Stalin was ordered to leave Tiflis and go to Baku
Baku
Baku , sometimes spelled as Baki or Bakou, is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, which projects into the Caspian Sea. The city consists of two principal...
to await a decision from officials regarding the case. Stalin left Baku along with 20,000 rubles in stolen money in July 1907. Whether Stalin cooperated with the Okhrana during his early life has been a subject of debate among historians for many decades.
Moving the money and Kamo's arrest
The funds from the robbery were originally kept at the house of Stalin's friends, Mikha and Maro Bochoridze, who lived in Tiflis. There the money was sewn into a mattress so that it could be moved and stored easily without arousing suspicion. The mattress with the concealed rubles was moved first to another safe house and later onto the director's couch at the Tiflis Meteorological Observatory. Stalin had worked at the observatory prior to the robbery, and this might have been the reason why the money was hidden here. Some sources even claim that Stalin himself helped put the money in the observatory. The director stated that he never knew that the stolen money had been stored under his very roof.A large portion of the stolen money was eventually moved by Kamo, who took the money to Lenin in Finland
Grand Duchy of Finland
The Grand Duchy of Finland was the predecessor state of modern Finland. It existed 1809–1917 as part of the Russian Empire and was ruled by the Russian czar as Grand Prince.- History :...
, which was then part of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
. Kamo then spent the remaining summer months staying with Lenin at his dacha
Dacha
Dacha is a Russian word for seasonal or year-round second homes often located in the exurbs of Soviet and post-Soviet cities. Cottages or shacks serving as family's main or only home are not considered dachas, although many purpose-built dachas are recently being converted for year-round residence...
. That fall, Kamo left Finland to buy arms for future activities; he traveled to Paris, then to Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
to buy arms and ammunition, then to Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
to buy 200 detonators.
After his purchase in Bulgaria, Kamo traveled to Berlin and delivered a letter from Lenin to a prominent Bolshevik physician, Yakov Zhitomirsky
Jacob Zhitomirsky
Dr. Jacob Zhitomirsky was prominent Bolshevik best known for being a secret agent of the Okhrana.- Biography :...
, asking the doctor for medical assistance to treat Kamo's still injured eye. Lenin had been hoping to help the man who had successfully executed the robbery, but unintentionally turned Kamo over to a double agent. Zhitomirsky had been secretly working as an agent of the Russian government and quickly informed the Okhrana about his encounter with Kamo. The Okhrana then asked the Berlin police to arrest Kamo. When they did so, they found a forged Austrian passport and a suitcase with 200 detonators, which he was planning to use in another large bank robbery.
Cashing the marked notes
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
with his wife. In order to leave Finland without being followed, Lenin walked for 3 miles (4.8 km) across a frozen lake at night to a catch a steamer at a nearby island. On his trek across the ice, Lenin and his two companions nearly drowned when the ice started to give way underneath them making Lenin think "Ah, what a stupid way to die." Lenin did escape from Finland with his wife and headed to Switzerland.
The unmarked bills from the robbery were easy to exchange, but the serial numbers of 500-ruble notes were known to the authorities, making these notes impossible to exchange in Russian banks. By the end of 1907, Lenin decided to exchange the remaining 500-ruble notes abroad. In preparation for the exchange, Krasin had his forger try to change some of the serial numbers. Two hundred of these notes were transported abroad by Martyn Lyadov (they were sewn into his vest by the wives of Lenin and Bogdanov at Lenin's headquarters in Kuokkala). Lenin's plan was to have various individuals exchange the stolen 500-ruble notes simultaneously at a number of banks throughout Europe in January 1908. Zhitomirsky heard of the plan and reported this information to the Okhrana. The Okhrana contacted police departments throughout Europe and asked them to arrest anyone who tried to cash the notes.
In January 1908, a number of individuals were arrested while attempting to exchange the notes. The New York Times reported that one woman who had tried to cash a marked 500-ruble note tried to swallow the evidence after the cashier called the police, but the police grabbed her throat before she could swallow. Most prominent among those arrested was Maxim Litvinov, who was caught with twelve 500-ruble notes stolen from the robbery while boarding a train with his mistress at Paris's Gare du Nord
Gare du Nord
Paris Nord is one of the six large terminus railway stations of the SNCF mainline network for Paris, France. It offers connections with several urban transportation lines, including Paris Métro and RER...
. Litvinov had been planning to go to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to cash the notes. Russia requested Litvinov's extradition; instead, the French Minister of Justice decided to expel Litvinov and his mistress from French territory. The failure to extradite Litvinov outraged the Russian government. Officially the French government stated that Russia's request for extradition had been submitted too late, but some accounts have speculated that the French government denied the extradition because French socialists had applied political pressure to secure Litvinov's release.
Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin's wife, discussed these events in her memoirs:
The money obtained in the Tiflis raid was handed over to the Bolsheviks for revolutionary purposes. But the money could not be used. It was all in 500-ruble notes, which had to be changed. This could not be done in Russia, as the banks always had lists of the note numbers in such cases...The money was badly needed. And so a group of comrades made an attempt to change the 500-ruble notes simultaneously in various towns abroad, just a few days after our arrival....Zhitomirsky had warned the police about the attempt to change the ruble notes, and those involved in it were arrested. A member of the Zurich group, a Lett, was arrested in Stockholm, and Olga Ravich, a member of the Geneva group, who had recently returned from Russia, was arrested in Munich with Bogdassarian and Khojamirian. In Geneva N. A. Semashko was arrested after a post card addressed to one of the arrested men was delivered to his house.
Brackman claims that despite the arrests, Lenin continued his attempts to exchange the 500-ruble notes and did manage to trade some 500-ruble notes for 10,000 rubles from an unknown woman in Moscow. However, according to Nicolaevsky, after the arrests of January 1908 Lenin abandoned any attempts to exchange these notes. Bogdanov and Krasin, however, made several more attempts. According to Nicolaevsky, Bogdanov tried (and failed) to exchange some notes in North America, while Krasin succeeded in changing serial numbers and managed to exchange several more notes. Soon after, Lenin's associates burned all the 500-ruble notes remaining in their possession.
Trials of Kamo
After Kamo was arrested in Berlin and awaiting trial, Kamo received a note from Krasin through his lawyer Oscar Kohn telling Kamo to feign insanity so that he would be declared unfit to stand trial. To demonstrate his insanity, Kamo refused food, tore his clothes, tore out his hair, attempted suicide by hanging himself, slashed his wrists, and ate his own excrement. In order to make sure that Kamo was not faking his condition, German doctors stuck pins under his nails, struck him in the back with a long needle, and burned him with hot irons, but he did not break his act. After all of these tests, the chief doctor of the Berlin asylum wrote in June 1909 that "there is no foundation to the belief that [Kamo] is feigning insanity. He is without doubt mentally ill, is incapable of appearing before a court, or of serving sentence. It is extremely doubtful that he can completely recover."In 1909, Kamo was extradited to a Russian prison where he continued to feign insanity. In April 1910, Kamo was tried for his role in the Tiflis robbery. At trial, Kamo continued to act insane by ignoring the proceedings and instead openly feeding a pet bird that he had snuck into the proceedings in his shirt. The trial was suspended while officials examined Kamo's sanity. The court eventually found that he was sane when he committed the Tiflis robbery, but was presently mentally ill and should be confined until he recovered.
In August 1911, after feigning insanity for more than three years, Kamo escaped from the psychiatric ward of a prison in Tiflis by sawing through his window bars and climbing down a homemade rope.
Kamo later discussed his experiences at feigning insanity for over three years:
"What can I tell you? They threw me about, hit me over the legs and the like. One of the men forced me to look into the mirror. There I saw − not the reflection of myself, but rather of some thin, ape-like man, gruesome and horrible looking, grinding his teeth. I thought to myself, 'Maybe I've really gone mad!' It was a terrible moment, but I regained my bearings and spat upon the mirror. You know I think they liked that....I thought a great deal:'Will I survive or will I really go mad?' That was not good. I did not have faith in myself, see?...[The authorities], of course, know their business, their science. But they do not know the CaucasiansCaucasian peoplesThis article deals with the various ethnic groups inhabiting the Caucasus region. There are more than50 ethnic groups living in the region.-Peoples speaking Caucasian languages:...
. Maybe every Caucasian is insane, as far as they are concerned. Well, who will drive whom mad? Nothing developed. They stuck to their guns and I to mine. In Tiflis, they didn't torture me. Apparently they thought that the Germans can make no mistakes."
After escaping, Kamo met up with Lenin in Paris. Kamo was distressed to hear that a "rupture had occurred" between Lenin, Bogdanov, and Krasin. Kamo told Lenin about his arrest and how he had simulated insanity while in prison. After leaving Paris, Kamo eventually met up with Krasin and planned another armed robbery. Kamo was caught before the robbery took place and was put on trial in Tiflis in 1913 for his exploits including the Tiflis bank robbery. This time while imprisoned, Kamo did not feign insanity but he did pretend that he had forgotten all that happened to him when he was previously "insane". The trial was brief and Kamo was given four death sentences.
Seemingly doomed to death, Kamo then had the good luck along with other prisoners to have his sentence commuted to a long prison term as part of the celebrations of the Romanov dynasty tricentennial. Kamo was released from prison after the February Revolution
February Revolution
The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...
in 1917.
Aftermath
Initially it was not clear who was behind the raid, but after the arrest of Kamo, Litvinov and others, the Bolshevik connection became obvious. After the discovery that Bolsheviks had been involved in the robbery, the Mensheviks felt betrayed and angry. It transpired that the Bolshevik Centre operated independently from the unified Central Committee and was taking actions explicitly prohibited by the party congress. The leader of the Mensheviks, Georgy Plekhanov, called for separation from the Bolsheviks. Plekhanov's colleague, Julius Martov
Julius Martov
Julius Martov or L. Martov was born in Constantinople in 1873...
, called the Bolshevik Centre something between a secret factional central committee and a criminal gang. The Tiflis Committee of the Party expelled several members, including Stalin, for the robbery, and party members investigated Lenin and others concerning the incident. However these internal investigations were stalled by the Bolsheviks, which impaired the ability of the investigators to get anything accomplished.
The robbery further increased Bolshevik unpopularity in Georgian society and left the Bolsheviks in Tiflis without effective leadership. After the robbery and the death of his wife Ekaterina Svanidze in November 1907, Stalin rarely returned to Tiflis. Other leading Bolsheviks in Georgia, such as Mikhail Tskhakaya and Filipp Makharadze
Filipp Makharadze
Filipp Makaradze was a Bolshevik revolutionary and government official.-Life:...
, followed the same pattern and were largely absent from Georgia after 1907. Another major figure among the Tiflis Bolsheviks, Stepan Shahumyan
Stepan Shahumyan
Stepan Gevorgi Shahumyan was a Bolshevist Russian communist politician and revolutionary active throughout the Caucasus. Shahumyan was an ethnic Armenian and his role as a leader of the Russian revolution in the Caucasus earned him the nickname of the "Caucasian Lenin", a reference to the leader...
moved to Baku
Baku
Baku , sometimes spelled as Baki or Bakou, is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, which projects into the Caspian Sea. The city consists of two principal...
. This left their social-democratic rivals, Georgian Mensheviks, without any significant opposition. The Mensheviks would lead Georgia during its short-lived independence
Democratic Republic of Georgia
The Democratic Republic of Georgia , 1918–1921, was the first modern establishment of a Republic of Georgia.The DRG was created after the collapse of the Russian Empire that began with the Russian Revolution of 1917...
from 1918 to 1921.
Besides the fallout within the party, the robbery also made the Bolshevik Centre unpopular among the wider European social-democrat groups. Lenin's desire to distance himself from the legacy of the robbery may have been one of the sources of the rift between him and Bogdanov and Krasin. In turn, Stalin distanced himself from Kamo's gang and never publicised his role in the robbery.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
, many of the Bolsheviks who had been involved in the robbery gained political power in the new Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. Lenin went on to become the first Premier of the Soviet Union. On Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin became the leader of the Soviet Union until his own death in 1953. Maxim Litvinov became a Soviet diplomat, serving as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs (1930–1939). Leonid Krasin initially quit politics after the split from Lenin in 1909, but rejoined the Bolsheviks after the revolution and was appointed People's Commissar for Foreign Trade.
Alexander Bogdanov and Kamo enjoyed less prominence. Bogdanov was expelled from the party in 1909, ostensibly over philosophical differences. After the Bolshevik Revolution, he became the leading ideologist of Proletkult
Proletkult
Proletkult was movement which arose in the Russian revolution and was active from 1917 to 1925 which aspired to provide the foundations for what was intended to be a truly proletarian art devoid of bourgeois influence.The name is a portmanteau of "proletarskaya kultura" , which are better-known as...
, an organisation designed to foster a new proletarian culture. Kamo, after his release from prison and the creation of the Soviet Union, worked in the Soviet Customs office, by some accounts because he was too unstable to work for the secret police
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....
. Kamo died in a 1922 road accident when a truck hit him while he was cycling. While there is no proof, some have theorized that Kamo's death was no accident, with the orders for his demise given by Stalin.
Yerevan Square, where the robbery took place, was renamed Lenin Square
Freedom Square, Tbilisi
Freedom Square , formerly known as Erivan Square under Imperial Russia and Lenin Square under the Soviet Union, is located in the center of Tbilisi at the eastern end of...
by the Soviet authorities in 1921 and a large statue of Lenin was erected in his honour in 1956. Furthermore, Kamo, the man who had been found guilty and sentenced to death for the bloody robbery that took place in the square, was buried and had a monument erected in his honor in Puskin Gardens, near Yerevan Square. Kamo's monument—authored by the sculptor Iakob Nikoladze
Iakob Nikoladze
Iakob Nikoladze was a Georgian sculptor and artist. He is perhaps best known as the designer of the previous state flag of Georgia....
—was later removed during Stalin's rule and his remains moved to another location. The statue of Lenin was torn down in August 1991 in the final months of the Soviet Union
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the disintegration of the federal political structures and central government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , resulting in the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union between March 11, 1990 and December 25, 1991...
to be replaced by the Liberty Monument
Freedom Monument (Tbilisi)
The Freedom Monument , commonly known as the St. George Statue, is a memorial located in Tbilisi, Georgia, dedicated to the freedom and independence of the Georgian nation. Unveiled in 2006 in Tbilisi's central square, the monument of granite and gold is high and is easily spotted from any point...
in 2006. The name of the square was changed from Lenin Square to Freedom Square in 1991.