The Crash of Russia

"Thank you for praying for me. You have made a vow of chastity to God, so follow it," the prince replied to the princess. - "In Kazan, I talked with Elder Grigory Rasputin. He blessed me. He wanted to raise money for the construction of a church in his village in the Tobolsk province and went to St. Petersburg for this. As soon as I meet him, I'm thinking of donating 200 rubles to him, I'll do it as soon as I go to St. Petersburg and ask him to pray for you to leave your sin," she continued. "Let's not talk about it," Sergei said, finishing his glass of champagne. Elizabeth also finished her champagne and had a bite of grapes. Then they had dinner in silence, at the end of the dinner they drank tea, wished each other good night, and went to bed each in their own rooms, they always slept separately from each other. Before going to bed, the princess prayed for a long time at the icon of the Kazan Mother of God, which hung in her bedroom in the corner. The next day, on February 4, at about 3 p.m., the Grand Duke drove off in a carriage from the Nicholas Palace in the Kremlin; upon approaching the Nikolskaya Tower, he was torn apart by an "infernal car" thrown by a member of the "Militant Organization of the Socialist Revolutionary Party" Ivan Kalyaev, who was detained by the police on the spot. (two days before, on February 2, Ivan refused to throw a bomb at the carriage, seeing that his wife and young nephews were sitting next to the Grand Duke); he died immediately, the coachman was fatally wounded, the carriage was blown apart. The Grand Duke's body was dismembered by the explosion. The wounded driver, Andrey Rudinkin, was taken to the Yauz hospital, where he died shortly afterwards. Elizabeth was informed of her husband's death by a policeman and fainted when he told her this. The Grand Duke was buried with great honors, and a memorial service was held on February 10, 1905, in the Alekseevskaya Church of the Chudov Monastery. His remains were soon interred in a shrine built under the Alekseevskaya Church. His remains were soon interred in a shrine built under the Alekseevskaya Church. On February 7, Grand Duchess Elizabeth visited her husband's murderer, terrorist Kalyaev, in prison and forgave him on her husband's behalf. "She, who is forgiving by nature, felt the need to say a word of comfort to Kalyaev, who had so inhumanely taken her husband and friend away from her." After learning that Kalyaev was a believer, she presented him with the Gospel and a small icon, calling him to repentance. She even asked the emperor to pardon the murderer. "On April 23, at noon, a prosecutor appeared in Kalyaev's cell and told Ivan Kalyaev that his execution was scheduled for 2 o'clock. Not a single muscle twitched on the convict's face. The prosecutor submitted to him for signature a petition for pardon addressed to Nicholas II. Kalyaev resolutely refused this and asked to be given tea and food. The prosecutor left, but re-entered 8 times and begged Kalyaev to sign the petition in the "highest name." The convict categorically refused each time. "He asked the confessor who came to him to leave, saying that he had his own religion, an internal one, that his conscience was calm, that he was convinced that he had done nothing wrong. Kalyaev came out of the cell so calmly, with such confidence, as if he were going for a walk. The authorities of the Schlisselburg fortress have never seen such iron calm, in which, however, many victims have already died. Ivan Kalyaev was executed by hanging.

After her husband's murder, Elizabeth Feodorovna left the secular life and founded the Martha and Mary Monastery, but she did not become a nun herself, but did a lot of charity work. The tsar attended the funeral service in Moscow and then went back to St. Petersburg. The murder of Grand Duke Sergei shocked conservative monarchical circles of society, but among revolutionaries and opposition intellectuals, the news was greeted with satisfaction, as evidenced by a cynical joke of the time: "Finally, the Grand Duke had to think about it!" "Blood causes blood,— wrote the French newspaper Gil Belge».

Chapter 22. The spiritual seance of Doctor Papus.

Nicholas II thought a lot about what his late father would do in his place. On all sides, the emperor was demanded to introduce a constitution in Russia, a parliament with deputies - the State Duma, freedom of assembly and concessions for workers, but there were also sensible voices of supporters of absolute monarchy. Nikolai Alexandrovich often dreamed of his father, who did not say anything in his dreams, but looked his son straight in the eyes and was silent, as if afraid to say something. And Nikolai remembered that Papus and Nizier Philip were successfully engaged in spiritualism, and the tsar decided to summon the spirit of Alexander III and invited the magician Papus to come to Russia once more. In October 1905, Mason Mage Papus arrived in St. Petersburg, Moscow was terrorized by the uprising, and some mysterious organization announced a general railway strike. The magician was immediately invited to Tsarskoye Tselo. After a brief conversation with the tsar and tsarica, the next day he held a solemn ceremony to summon the spirits of the deceased in the Alexander Palace in the emperor's office. The electric light was turned off and candles were lit. It was half past eleven at night. Apart from the tsar and the tsarica, there was only one person present at this secret liturgy: the emperor's young adjutant, Captain Mandrygka, who later became a major general and governor of Tiflis. There was a Ouija board on the table. Nikolai, Alexandra Feodorovna and Papus put their hands on a triangular pointer called a tablet. The tablet is lying on the board itself, on which the words "yes" and "no" are written in the upper corners, the letters of the alphabet are in the center, and the phrase "Goodbye" is at the bottom. By the intense concentration of his will, by the amazing exaltation of his fluid dynamism, Papus succeeded in evoking the spirit of the most pious Tsar Alexander III; the unmistakable signs testified to the presence of an invisible shadow. Despite the horror that gripped his heart, Nicholas II asked his father whether he should or should not fight the liberal trends that threatened to captivate Russia. The spirit responded by moving the tablet across the board, which the magician interpreted as follows: "that Nicholas should suppress all revolutionary actions," then the table shook, and the spirit of Alexander III entered Papyrus and the magician said in Alexander III's voice: "You must, by all means, suppress the incipient revolution; but it will still be revived, and it will be all the stronger, the more severe the repression must be now. Whatever happens, cheer up, my son. Don't stop fighting." After that, the spirit of Emperor Alexander III left the spiritualist's body and the table stopped shaking. The astonished tsar and tsarina were still puzzling over this ominous prediction when Papus declared that his mental strength gave him the opportunity to prevent the predicted catastrophe, but that his spell would cease as soon as he himself disappeared "from the physical plane." Then he solemnly performed the incantation ritual. The Tsar thanked the Teacher (as he called him) for the session, and then adjutant Mandrygka turned on the light in the office. The conversation continued on the topic of Christianity in general, the advent of the last times, the coming of the Antichrist and the ideas of Martinism. The teacher proposed to establish a Martinist lodge in Russia, and the tsar replied that he would think about it. Then we drank port wine with snacks and went our separate ways.

Chapter 23. The end of the war.

And the Russian squadron under the command of Vice-Admiral Rozhestvensky was destroyed in the area of Tsushima Island in the Korean Strait on May 15, 1905.

Russia lost the war and concluded the unfavorable Portsmouth Peace Treaty on August 23, 1905 in the city of Portsmouth in the North American States. According to the Treaty, the treaty between Russia and China, which provided for a military alliance of Russia and China against Japan, was terminated, as well as the termination of the Russo-Chinese Convention of 1898 on the lease of the Liaodong Peninsula, including Port Arthur, and the payment of a large compensation to Japan (the Tsar did not fulfill the last point, later calling it impudence on the part of Japan).

Rasputin horrified everyone with his prediction of the death of the 2nd Russian squadron, and the impressionable Montenegrin princesses Militsa and Stana, who had already met Rasputin in Kyiv on a pilgrimage to the courtyard of the Mikhailovsky Monastery, when they arrived at the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, saw in him even then a man with a spiritual gift.

Now in Petersburg, the princesses invited Rasputin to dinner at their Znamenka estate near Peterhof. There was dinner and conversations on spiritual topics.

They talked about Rasputin's prediction, the princesses remembered Master Philippe and drank to his repose, they recently learned of his recent death on August 5, drank a lot of French wines, which Rasputin refused. Rasputin said to the princesses:

- "Let's drink vodka for the repose of Philip" and he drank it together with the princesses. He drank two decanters of vodka, and then some Crimean port wine - Grigory drank all of this, and the ladies drank two bottles of Bordeaux, refusing vodka.

The next day they arrived at the Sergeyevka estate, located nearby, and continued to communicate there.

The submarine "Yersh" was stationed near the Lower Palace of Peterhof, where the royal family lived in 1905. Nicholas II himself wrote about this submarine in his diary on October 11, 1905: We visited the submarine "Yersh," which has been stationed in front of our windows for the past five months. The sea was like a mirror. After tea, I received Bulygin. In the evening, I took Alix to Sonya Orbeliani's house and returned home. I spent the evening reading. A week later, two fast German destroyers approached Peterhof. Nicholas II noted in his diary: "The naval agent Gintze arrived with two German destroyers from Memel, carrying the embassy's mail." The Tsar received the destroyer commanders at the Peterhof Palace. During the dinner, His Majesty asked them, "Will the Kaiser be able to receive us if we are forced to flee a possible revolution?" "Undoubtedly, the German side will provide you and your family with a warm welcome and support," the destroyer commander replied. "We can take our submarine to Tallinn, where you will meet us."

Chapter 24. Threads of conspiracy. Grand Duchesses Stanitsa and Militsa.

Two days later, Grand Duchess Stanitsa and Grand Duchess Militsa escorted Rasputin from the Sergeyevka estate after a long dinner, having received his blessing and donated money to him for the construction of a church in his native village of Pokrovskoe. After which an Englishman, sent by British intelligence, came to their estate under the guise of a business visit. A servant reported to Militsa and Stanitsa when they were sitting in the living room: "A gentleman has come from the King of Great Britain, Sir Michael Gere." "Invite him," Militsa answered. A man of medium height, dressed in the latest fashion, entered and, bowing slightly to the ladies, began a conversation in English: "Hello, Your Excellencies, I am sent by His Majesty." "Sit down, what will you drink?" asked Stanitsa (the conversation continued in English). – “Scotch whiskey,” the Englishman answered and sat down on the sofa opposite the coffee table. The princesses were sitting opposite him on chairs. “Bring whiskey,” Stanitsa said to the servant who had been standing in the doorway all this time. The servant went for whiskey and returned with a bottle of “Old Highland” and a shot glass. Then he put the bottle on the table and poured whiskey into the shot glass and left. Sir Gere took a sip of whiskey and began: “There was a meeting in the lodge at which it was decided that YOU should somehow convince (without reference to England) the Empress that the Tsar should not prevent the businessman Emmanuel Nobel from buying up oil wells in Azerbaijan; let her say that he is her friend in spiritual interests and is a member of a secret society, and that the policy pursued by Russia – to achieve a state monopoly on oil – interferes with his business. And you also need to gain the trust of Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich (the time will come and he will replace Nikolai), you need to make friends with Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, also with Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich and you need to meet with Prince Felix Yusupov Jr. and give him a letter from his friend from college at Oxford University, Samuel Hoare. Having said this, he pulled out an envelope sealed with wax and handed it to Stanitsa. She took the envelope and asked: "And what if Nikolai is soon toppled from the throne and there will be Mikhail?" - "We are working on this and a lot depends on you, but do not tell Mikhail anything about his role right away, just gain his trust and tell him that the king will be glad to meet him in London unofficially for a confidential conversation this year," the Englishman finished his speech, finishing his glass of whiskey. - "Okay, we are at His Majesty's service, tell him that we will do everything," said Militsa. Sir Richard stood up, saying, "I will convey everything, allow me to take my leave," and left.

Chapter 25. Lenin and Gapon.

After the Bloody Sunday, Father Gapon initially left the capital, and soon crossed the border to Switzerland. In February, Gapon arrived in Geneva, where he took part in an inter-party conference and even temporarily joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party. The Geneva "inter-party conference" took place in April 1905. Representatives of 11 revolutionary parties of Russia gathered there. The Bolsheviks did not participate in this conference; they held their "III Congress of the RSDLP(b)" in London. After the II Congress of the "RSDLP", Ulyanov-Lenin ceased his activity in the Central Organ of the newspaper "Iskra", and left it, since he could no longer freely dispose of the party's publishing fund. Gapon was elected chairman of the conference, and Nikolai Annensky, who was still an Socialist Revolutionary, was elected secretary. Lenin created his own faction of supporters in the "RSDLP" back in 1904. Meanwhile, in Russia, on March 10, 1905, the Governing Synod, on the recommendation of Metropolitan Anthony (Vadkovsky) on March 4, defrocked Georgy Gapon and expelled him from the clergy. Gapon became a secular person. In Geneva, Gapon met Lenin. The meeting took place "tete-a-tete" in a cafe. Lenin was noticeably nervous. There was Bavarian beer in mugs on the table, Lenin drank a mug with Gapon to their acquaintance and they became friends, and Gapon "lent" him "money for the revolution." Gapon always had money and gave it out "on credit" in bundles, without counting, at the first request. Georgy Gapon personally led the life of an ascetic. Ulyanov-Lenin, in a conversation with Georgy Gapon, warmly supported the idea of unification and promised Gapon to return the "borrowed" money in the near future and to speak out with the "idea of unification" at the upcoming congress of the "RSDLP". Following the meeting, Ulyanov-Lenin wrote an article "On a Combat Agreement for an Uprising", in which he cited the text of Gapon's "letter-appeal" and expressed support for him. Speaking at a meeting of 24 of his supporters and friends in the spring of 1905 in London, which was later renamed the III Congress of the "RSDLP", Bolsheviks, Lenin characterized Gapon as "a man who is unconditionally devoted to the revolution, proactive and intelligent, although, unfortunately, without a consistent revolutionary worldview", caring too much about the lives of the workers. 21 people from those who arrived were declared delegates from various Russian committees of the "RSDLP", and Ulyanov-Lenin was "registered" as a delegate with a mandate from the Odessa Committee. The Geneva "inter-party conference" took place in April 1905. Representatives of 11 revolutionary parties of Russia came to it. The Bolsheviks did not participate in this conference, they gathered their "III Congress of the RSDLP(b)" in London. Georgy Gapon was elected chairman of the "Conference", and Nikolai Annensky, a former Socialist Revolutionary, was elected secretary.

Despite the absence of the Bolshevik Social Democrats at the Conference, it yielded valuable practical results. As a result of the Conference, two declarations were adopted, which proclaimed the common goals of the assembled parties: an “armed uprising,” the convocation of a “Constituent Assembly,” the proclamation of a “Democratic Republic,” and the “Socialization of the Land.” At the Conference, an agreement was reached to create a “United Combat Committee,” which was to lead the preparations for the uprising. In addition to Gapon himself, the committee included Breshko-Breshkovskaya and Prince Khilkov. The purpose of the “Combat Committee” was to increase the moral strength of the revolution, create faith in the unity of revolutionary forces, and facilitate “combat agreements” between parties within Russia. Before that, on the initiative of Ulyanov-Lenin, in 1904, the All-Russian Bolshevik Party Center, the "Bureau of Majority Committees" (BKB), was created to convene the III Congress of the "RSDLP" of the Bolsheviks. This was announced for the legal cover of the activities of the "Combat Center", which began to prepare for the implementation of "expropriations", "ex", as Ulyanov-Lenin called robberies and armed attacks on state banks and money depositories. Other currents of revolutionaries, socialist revolutionaries, "SRs" and anarchists, who preferred to rob manufacturers, merchants, shopkeepers, did not climb into the state treasury, were also engaged in obtaining money, robberies, for party activities and the life of "professional" revolutionaries.

Chapter 26. Traitors and informers (secret employees of the Secret Police).

Meanwhile, Japanese military intelligence sponsored the transportation of weapons for Russian revolutionaries on the steamship John Grafton. On August 26, 1905, the steamship John Grafton, carrying weapons for the Socialist Revolutionaries, purchased by the international group of Connie Zilliacus, Akashi Motojiro and priest Georgy Gapon, who wanted the House of Romanov to die soon, ran aground on a rocky shoal 22 kilometers from the Finnish island. The crew was unable to transport the weapons to the island and blew up the ship. The militant organization of the Socialist Revolutionaries was led by the Okhranka (Russian Secret Police Service) gent provocateur Yevno Azef, who received a huge reward from the Okhranka for the fact that the steamship would not reach Russia and would sink. Yevno gave part of the reward to the captain of the ship, and he ran it aground.

In April 1906, the IV Congress of the RSDLP in Stockholm rejected "expropriations" as a form of obtaining money and resolved: "... not to seize the capital of the State Bank, the treasury and other government institutions." Lenin did not agree with the resolution. And in May, by a majority vote, the ban on "expropriations" was adopted. One of the active militants was Joseph Dzhugashvili, acting under the pseudonym Koba, a former seminarian expelled from the seminary along with Anastas Mikoyan. Koba organized successful raids on banks in order to replenish the party coffers.

After being arrested in 1906, Joseph was recruited by the head of the Tiflis Gendarmerie Department and agreed to cooperate with the Okhrana as an agent of the Koba police. He provided valuable intelligence about his comrades, leading to arrests and the sentencing of some of them to hard labor in Siberia. Later, in 1908, Koba provided information to the head of the Baku Security Department, and then, upon his arrival in St. Petersburg, he became an agent of the St. Petersburg Security Department with a high salary, allowing him to live comfortably in the capital.

Isidor Ramishvili, a Menshevik, was the secretary of the Batumi Committee of the RSDLP. In 1903, he publicly accused Joseph Dzhugashvili of being a secret agent of the Okhrana (the Tsarist secret police), but he was unable to prove it. In 1905, Joseph returned to Batumi from Stockholm, where he had attended the first conference of the RSDLP alongside Lenin.

Ramishvili, who was a former member of the first State Duma from the Kutaisi province, met with Dzhugashvili in an outdoor cafe. They had a conversation over a glass of Kindzmarauli wine:

"You can't blame me for anything after Stockholm, where you were and saw that Lenin and all the comrades consider me the best in the Caucasus," Joseph said to Isidor in Georgian, sipping his wine.

"I saw you in 1903 at the Kutaisi Gendarmerie Department, where you shook hands with the police chief as if he were your friend," Ramishvili replied.

They broke you there!"

"That's a lie, I stood my ground despite all the torture and hardship. I didn't shake hands with the police chief, you're lying. He interrogated me," Jukashvili replied sharply.

"It was me who was interrogated in 1903, but I didn't tell them anything, just like you were expelled from the Tiflis Theological Seminary. For your involvement with your friend Anastas Mikoyan. "You should be expelled from the party and tried for treason, Judas!" exclaimed Isidore.

"You're a gossip and a fool, no one will listen to you," said Joseph, throwing a glass of wine in Isidore's face, and then stood up and left. Isidore shouted after him, "Secret agent!".

Koba was also involved in expropriations, looting money for the party coffers for the needs of the RSDLP. He organized a robbery (in the language of the RSDLP members, "expropriation" or ex), committed on June 13, 1907, on Tbilisi's Erivan Square, which went down in history as one of the most daring and major crimes of the early twentieth century. The attackers, who killed three people who were accompanying the armored car and injured 50 others, escaped with 250,000 rubles. Max (Meer) Wallach (Litvinov), Joseph Stalin, and Simon Ter-Petrosyan (Kamo), a resident of Tbilisi, were tasked by Vladimir Lenin, who was in Berlin at the time, with preparing the robbery. The bombs were made by Leonid Krasin, the future People's Commissar for Foreign Trade of the USSR.

The robbers had accomplices in the Tiflis branch of the State Bank, who informed them about the time and place of the collectors' passage, as well as the amount of money they were carrying. Kamo provided practical guidance in place of Koba. Together with him, Tbilisi criminals Eliso Lomidze, Datiko Chiabrishvili, Bochua Kupriashvili, Stepko Intskirveli, Vano Kalandadze, as well as ladies – Anneta Sulakvelidze and Patia Goldava, took part in the attack on the collectors. These same names were mentioned in the memoirs of Kamo's widow, Sofia Medvedeva-Ter-Petrosyan. The girls tracked the route of theинкассаторов' phaeton, warned their accomplices, and helped them escape in the labyrinthine streets of Tbilisi after the attack. The "expropriators" threw several bombs (according to various sources, eight, as stated by the guard Zhilyayev during the interrogation) at the phaeton. Revolvers were also used in the attack. Kamo, dressed in an officer's uniform, caught up with the horses that had carried the phaeton after the first explosion and, using a revolver, seized two bags of money, after which the attackers fled, and none of them were detained. Koba was an informant for the Tsarist secret police and was supposed to inform the police department about the planned attack. However, he did not do so, as he had taken most of the stolen money for himself, and little reached the party's coffers. During the robbery, Koba stood in the doorway of the house, smoking and observing the bloody scene as one of the organizers. The revolutionaries managed to transfer some of the stolen funds abroad, specifically to Paris and Munich, where they attempted to exchange them for local currency. The French and German police arrested several couriers carrying large amounts of money, and these arrests were quickly linked to the "ex" incident in Tiflis. In the autumn of the same year, 1907, Ter-Petrosyan was arrested in Berlin, and the local police found weapons, explosives, and revolutionary literature in his apartment. He feigned insanity in the Moabit prison and was extradited to Russia. Three years later, he escaped from a psychiatric hospital in Tiflis and managed to cross the border. In Paris, he met with Lenin. Upon his return to Russia, he attempted to organize another party "ex" on the Korjok Highway, but the attack failed and most of the gang members fled.