Boris Savinkov

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Boris Viktorovich Savinkov is a Russian politician, writer, and former terrorist. As a young man, he joined the Combat Organization of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. His participation in the assassinations of high-ranking Imperial ministers and subsequent writings brought him worldwide fame.

When the February Revolution broke out, Savinkov returned from exile to Russia and eventually became Assistant Minister of War in the Provisional Government. A fierce opponent of the Bolsheviks, he aided the White movement by during the Russian Civil War by organizing anti-communist uprisings. After the war, Savinkov founded the NRPR. The Duma attempted to ban his Party, but failed due to Lavr Kornilov's support.

History[]

Early life[]

Boris Savinkov was born in Kharkiv, then part of the Russian Empire, and grew up in Warsaw. His father, Victor Mikhailovich, was a justice of the peace, and his mother, Sofia Alexandrovna, was the sister of a well-known artist. They gave Boris and his five siblings a liberal, intellectual upbringing.

Savinkov attended the Warsaw Gymnasium and in 1897 went to the St. Petersburg Imperial University to study law. That year he was arrested for the first time by the Imperial police along with his brother Alexander for participating in student protests against Russian oppression in Poland (Alexander would eventually be exiled to Siberia, where he would commit suicide in 1905). Boris continued to engage in student activism, which eventually led to his expulsion from the university in 1899. That same year, he married his first wife Vera Glebovna Uspenskaya, with whom he would have two children, Tatyana and Viktor. Savinkov left to study Russia to study in Heidelberg and Paris, where he became further involved in radical circles.

In 1901, Savinkov returned to St. Petersburg as a committed revolutionary and wrote as a propagandist for socialist publications. This resulted in another arrest by the authorities and a harsh ten month's imprisonment. However, in 1902 he was released for internal exile in Vologda, a backwater city full of former political prisoners. There he worked as a secretary and literary critic, and mingled with other dissident intellectuals such as Alexander Bogdanov, Nikolai Berdyaev, and Aleksey Remizov. It was here that Savinkov gravitated towards the Socialist Revolutionaries and the idea of terrorism as a political weapon for revolution.

The SR Combat Organization[]

In 1903, Savinkov escaped from Vologda and made his way to Geneva, Switzerland, where the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party was seated. He offered his services to the SRs as a terrorist, and though he had no real relevant experience, he made a favorable impression on SR leader Mikhail Gots. Gots agreed to assign him to the Combat Organization, the SRs' terrorist wing, and introduced Savinkov to Yevno Azef, head of the Combat Organization and secretly an informant to the Okhrana, the Imperial government's secret police.

In November, Azef sent Savinkov to St. Petersburg to help organize the assassination of Minster of the Interior Vyacheslav von Plehve. Though Savinkov's team struggled at first, they were eventually successful on July 28th, when Yegor Sozonov threw a bomb at von Plehve's carriage, killing him instantly. Most of the team was able to escape, and back in Geneva Savinkov was lauded for his role in the operation's success. The Combat Organization's next target was Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, governor-general of Moscow and brother of the Tsar himself. Savinkov was elevated to second-in-command behind Azef and returned with his comrades in secret to Russia. On February 15th, 1905, Savinkov succeeded yet again when Ivan Kalyayev killed the Grand Duke by lobbing a bomb at his carriage just outside the Kremlin.

Savinkov continued to plot the assassination of high-ranking government officials, but the efficacy of the Combat Organization suffered as many of its agents were discovered and arrested by the Okhrana. At the same time, the outbreak of the Revolution of 1905 made the necessity of revolutionary action seem unavoidable. In May of 1906, Savinkov was captured in Sevastopol while plotting the assassination of Vice-Admiral Grigoriy Chukhnin, who had brutally suppressed the Potemkin mutiny the previous year. Though sentenced to death for his terrorism, Savinkov was broken out of prison and escaped to Romania in a sailboat.

Back in Geneva, Savinkov was disappointed to learn that the announcement of the formation of the State Duma had cooled the enthusiasm of the SR leadership for political terrorism. Moreover, the Combat Organization was rocked by the accusation that Yevno Azef was in fact working for the Okhrana. Savinkov and the Central Committee were unwilling to believe at first, but the evidence eventually became undeniable. In January of 1909, the Central Committee made Azef's betrayal public, though the man himself had escaped to Germany. As new leader of the Combat Organization, Savinkov tried his hardest to keep it alive, but the loss of so many agents and declining support from the Central Committee left it a shell of its former self. By the end of 1910, a bitterly disappointed Savinkov formally dissolved the Combat Organization.

During this time, Savinkov lived among the Russian émigré community in France, splitting his time between Paris and the French Riviera. He had by this time separated from his wife and married Evgeniya Zilberberg, the brother of one of his late terrorist-comrades, with whom he would have a son, Lev. His literary interests brought him into contact with the writers Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Zinaida Gippius, who became his patrons and major intellectual influences. Savinkov began writing his Memoirs of a Terrorist, which would not see publication until 1917. He also wrote The Pale Horse, a novel based on the von Plehve assassination, and published it in 1909 under "V. Ropshin", a pseudonym given to him by Gippius. The Pale Horse was translated into several languages and became a minor literary sensation; most importantly, it provided Savinkov income, as he was living primarily on the patronage of his associates. Politically sidelined, depressed, and largely alienated from his fellow SRs, Savinkov gloomily believed that his career had reached a dead end.

Provisional Government and Kornilov Coup[]

Savinkov returned to Russia in April 1917, after the Russian February Revolution, and resumed his political activities: He was appointed Commissar of the Provisional Government in the 7th Army, and on June 28 Commissioner of the whole South-Western Front, as Russia was still at war with the Central Powers at the time. Savinkov actively advocated for the continuation of the war, with the hope to regain control over German-occupied territories in Poland, Lithuania and the Baltics. Savinkov was known as a staunch supporter of then-War Minister Alexander Kerensky and General Lavr Kornilov; In mid-July it was Savinkov who advised Kenrensky to replace Commander-in-Chief Aleksei Brusilov with Kornilov.

In the same month Savinkov was appointed Deputy War Minister, only second to Kerensky himself. At that point, he had become a real contender for full dictatorial power in the country. Savinkov planned to create a "Revolutionary Dictatorship" with centralized power under three ministers; Savinkov entered into talks with Kornilov and managed to convince the latter from his plans. A coup attempt was planned by Kornilov in early September, however, the plot failed when Kornilov attempted to launch it too early - what followed was the infamous Kornilov affair. After the plot, Savinkov said to Kerensky: "If you trust me I'll arrest Kornilov, but otherwise you'll arrest me." Kerensky did not mention any suspicion, but the Socialist Revolutionaries decided to expel Savinkov from the party a few weeks after.

October Revolution and Russian Civil War[]

In October 1917 the Bolsheviks rose up against Kerensky's Government. Savinkov, who was far away in Kuban at the time, demanded amnesty and the reappointment of General Kornilov, though his demands were declined by Kerensky. Savinkov was immensely antagonized by the October Socialist Revolution and believed that it was nothing more than "a seizure of power by a handful of people, made possible only by the weakness and unreasonableness of Kerensky". He rushed back to Petrograd, tried to help the Provisional Government, besieged in the Winter Palace, but to no avail. When he realized that resistence in Bolshevik-dominated Petrograd was hopeless, he returned down to the Kuban and began to get in contact with high-ranking White Russian generals and military officers like Mikhail Alekseyev or Pyotr Krasnov and helped to establish the famous Volunteer Army.

In early 1918, Savinkov went to Moscow and created the Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom, an underground militant anti-Bolshevik paramilitary with around 800 members supported by the Volunteer Army. The objectives of this organization were to overthrow the Soviet regime, establish a military dictatorship and to continue the war with Germany, which had been ended only shortly before via the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. During summer, the organization was responsible for several uprisings against the Soviets to the east of Moscow, namely in Yaroslavl, Murom and Rybinsk, but all attempts failed - except the one in Rybinsk, led by Savinkov personally. Surviving paramilitary fighters regrouped in Rybinsk and, united with Savinkov's forces, defeated the Soviets’ chasing forces from Yaroslavl in the outskirts of Rybinsk; Yaroslavl itself was captured only shortly after.

Savinkov was celebrated as a hero by many fellow White Russians following that. Around the same time, Entente troops landed en masse in Karelia and near Arkhangelsk - Savinkov knew that he had to capitalize on this situation and move northwards as soon as possible to assist the British troops in capturing Arkhangelsk; This would firmly entrench the White positions in Northern Russia and drastically increase Savinkov's reputation. He departed with his troops from Yaroslavl in early August, heading towards Vologda and Velsk first.

WORK IN PROGRESS. THE REST OF SAVINKOV'S INVOLVEMENT IN THE CIVIL WAR IS TBA ONCE THE RUSSIA REWORK IS REVEALED

Post-Civil War[]

WIP!

After the end of the Russian Civil War, Savinkov left the Right SRs to form the national-populist NRPR party. In the wake of the 1932 economic collapse, his party became popular among military officers, industrialists, and peasants.

Savinkov worked to pull the Right SRs away from the Provisional Government. By using Kerensky's "cowardly" policies and alliance with the increasingly syndicalist Left SRs, he was able to convince them to join in a coalition with him. However, Kerensky knew that Savinkov was planning to overthrow and eventually absorb Kerensky's moderate party. Kerensky began appointing conservative moderates to the powerless Senate, then empowering them with veto powers so that Kerensky's party could continue to exert authority if they were not in power. However, this backfired when Kerensky was forced to announce policies that both the Left and Right SRs disliked before the elections. Following the immediate collapse of Kerensky's coalition, the NRPR's coalition managed to take 25% of the votes, placing second behind Kerensky's new coalition with various liberal parties.

Quotes[]

"One Nation, One Country, One Russia".
"One day, the Great Russian Republic will be much stronger, richer and freer than the old Tsarist Empire. But how much blood will be shed".
"The Crimea. New Russia. Little Russia. White Russia. Our lands. Our people. They are waiting for us. The Great Russians, the Little Russians and the White Russians are under the German Yoke. Will we leave them in trouble? Never. Will we save them? Yes. Because we don't forget about our brothers and sisters. The era of the betrayal is over. We are the Phoenix, that was destroyed by the German aggressors, but was reborn. Wait for us. We will come. The Russians should help the Russians".
"You, sons of the steppes. And you, nomads in the deserts. And many of you, who live all over the Russian land. Many of you betrayed us, when Russia needed your help. Many of you didn't give a helping hand to your compatriots, when they struggled against the red menace. We cannot forget it. But we can forgive you. New Russia needs your help in the restoration of its might. Help your country to make it great once again. Glory to Russia and glory to its heroes. It is your country too".

Works[]

The Pale Horse, 1909
What Never Happened: A Novel of The Revolution, 1912
Memoirs of a Terrorist, 1917
The Black Horse, 1924