The Russian Revolution полностью

Stolypin was in virtual disgrace when he departed in late August 1911 for Kiev for celebrations attending the unveiling of a monument to Alexander II. He had long had premonitions of violent death: in his last will, drawn up in 1906, he had requested to be buried near the site of his murder.¹⁰⁷ Before leaving, he told Kryzhanovskii that he feared he might not return, and entrusted to him a strongbox with secret papers, which he asked to be destroyed if anything happened to him.* He took no precautions to protect himself, however, leaving behind his bodyguards as well as his bulletproof vest.

In Kiev, he was ignored by the Imperial couple and high dignitaries: the humiliation was unmistakable.

In the evening of September 1, the Kiev Municipal Theater scheduled a performance of Rimskii-Korsakov’s The Story of Tsar Saltan. Nicholas, accompanied by his daughters, occupied the governor’s loge on the orchestra level. Stolypin sat nearby, in the front row. During the second intermission, around 10 p.m., as he stood chatting in front of the orchestra pit with Counts Potocki and Fredericks, a young man in coattails drew near. He pulled a Browning from under the program with which he had concealed it and fired twice at the Prime Minister. Both bullets struck, one in the hand, the other in the chest: the first ricocheted and wounded a musician; the other hit Stolypin’s chest but was deflected by a medal and lodged in the liver. According to an eyewitness, Stolypin at first seemed not to realize what had happened:

He lowered his head and stared at his white tunic, which on the right side, under the chest, was beginning to stain with blood. With slow and sure motions he put his service hat and gloves on the barrier, unbuttoned the tunic, and seeing the waistcoat thick with blood, made a motion as if to say, “It’s all over.” He then sank into a chair and clearly, distinctly, in a voice audible to all who were nearby, said, “I am happy to die for the Tsar.” On seeing the Tsar enter the loge and stand in front, he lifted his hands motioning him to withdraw. But the Tsar did not move, remaining in place, whereupon Peter Arkadevich, in full view of all, blessed him with a broad sign of the cross.¹⁰⁸

Stolypin was rushed to a hospital. He seemed to be making a good recovery when an infection set in; he died in the evening of September 5.* The next day, the central Kiev railroad terminal teemed with panic-stricken Jews. Thanks to the firm action by the authorities, however, no anti-Jewish violence occurred.

The assassin, who had been caught and pummeled while attempting to flee the scene of the crime, turned out to be a twenty-four-year-old lawyer, Dmitrii Grigorevich Bogrov, the son of a wealthy Jewish Kievan family.¹⁰⁹ At home and on his frequent trips abroad he had flitted in and out of SR and anarchist circles. Although well provided for by doting parents, he often ran out of money because of his passion for gambling and it is fairly certain that it was financial need that drove him to become a police agent. According to his testimony, from the middle of 1907 until late 1910 he had served as an informer for the Kiev Okhrana, supplying information that enabled it to apprehend SR and anarchist terrorists.

The revolutionaries grew suspicious of Bogrov. At first they accused him of embezzling party funds, but eventually concluded that he had to be a police agent. On August 16, 1911, Bogrov was visited by a revolutionary who told him that his role as a police informer had been established beyond doubt and that he faced “execution”: he could save himself only by committing a terrorist act, preferably against Colonel N. N. Kuliabko, the chief of the Kiev Okhrana. This had to be done by September 5. Bogrov visited Kuliabko, but he received from him such a warm welcome that he could not go through with his mission. He next considered assassinating the Tsar, due in Kiev in a few days, but gave up this plan for fear of precipitating anti-Jewish pogroms. He finally settled on Stolypin as the “man mainly responsible for the reaction which had established itself in Russia.”†

To divert attention from himself and his plans, Bogrov concocted an imaginary plot against Stolypin and L. A. Kasso, the Minister of Education, by two fictitious terrorists. On August 26, he told Colonel Kuliabko that the pair would come to Kiev during the celebrations and use his apartment as a base of operations. Kuliabko, who is said to have been of a “soft” and “trusting” disposition,¹¹⁰ had no reason to disbelieve Bogrov, since he had proven a reliable informant in the past. He had Bogrov’s apartment house surrounded with agents, giving Bogrov the run of the city. On August 29, Bogrov stalked Stolypin in a park, and on September 1 daytime approached him as he was being photographed in the Hippodrome, but on neither occasion could he get close enough to shoot.