Yakov Sverdlov: "black devil". Ode to the most terrible executioner of the Bolshevik coup - Sverdlov's birthday

The "Black Devil", as he was called, was born 130 years ago. There is no unity in the date of birth of Yakov Sverdlov, some call the third, others - the fourth of June.

In 1994, a letter from Genrikh Yagoda to I.V. Stalin dated July 27, 1935. In it, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs reported: a personal safe of Ya.M. Sverdlov, which has not been opened for 16 years since his death, and the key to which has been lost. There were gold coins of royal minting for an astronomical amount, over seven hundred gold items with precious stones, a lot of blank passports and completed passports in the name of Sverdlov himself and unknown persons, bonds of the tsarist time.

Why and for what purposes the “fiery revolutionary” kept all this in a personal safe remains a mystery to this day.

Yakov Sverdlov is generally considered one of the most mysterious figures of the Russian revolution.
Firstly, his real name is not Sverdlov at all. His father, a tradesman Miraim-Movsha Izrailevich Gauhmann, with his wife Elizaveta Solomonovna, moved from the Pale of Settlement into the depths of Russia and settled in Nizhny Novgorod, where he signed up as an artisan under the name of Movsha Sverdlin, later turning into Sverdlov. Not everything is clear with the name. According to the historian I.F. Plotnikov, "according to some sources, Sverdlov was called Yeshua-Solomon Movshevich from birth, and according to others - Yankel Miraimovich." And when he became a revolutionary, then his name was either "Comrade Andrei", then "Max", then "Mikhail Permyakov", then "Smirnov" ...

The fate of his relatives was also surprising. His older brother Zinovy ​​became the godson of Maxim Gorky, who actually adopted him, turning him into Peshkov. Which, however, did not prevent Zinovy ​​from emigrating, ending up in France, then enrolling in the Foreign Legion, becoming a French general and receiving the Order of the Legion of Honor. The career of another brother, Benjamin, was less successful. After mysterious adventures in the USA in 1938, he was arrested and then shot as a "Trotskyite".

Like many other Bolsheviks, young Yasha did not abuse his studies at all. He graduated from only four classes of the gymnasium, then began to study pharmacy. But soon he retrained as a professional revolutionary - he became a well-known underground worker in Nizhny Novgorod. Then everything was the same as with his other colleagues: agitation, proclamations, expropriations, prisons, exiles, escapes ...

He “sat” successfully: in 1912, in Narym, Yakov Mikhailovich met Stalin. And then Turukhansk ended up with him. They even lived in the same house for a while. Here is how Stalin describes some of the details of their life together with Sverdlov in exile: “We mainly hunted by catching nelma. It didn't take much specialization. They also went hunting. I had a dog, I named her "Yashka". Of course, this was unpleasant for Sverdlov: he is Yashka, and the dog is Yashka ... ".

In general, the revolutionaries in tsarist exile did not know any special problems. They lived on government benefits, so they could not work. In addition, they were also fed from the party fund, which was made up of expropriations, that is, bank robberies, as well as contributions from capitalists who sympathized with them.

At the 7th (April) conference of the RSDLP, Sverdlov first personally met with V.I. Lenin and began to carry out his instructions. Then he was elected a member of the Central Committee and headed the then created Secretariat of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, becoming the main organizer of the promotion and placement of personnel in key positions.

It was then that he received the nickname "Black Devil" - the color of the leather jacket, which he never took off in public, and which later became the Bolshevik fashion. However, he also had leather riding breeches, and even a cap. Outwardly, Sverdlov was a brunette with sharp features and a thick, powerful bass. “Nothing, Sverdlov will say it to them in a Sverdlovsk bass, and the matter will be settled,” Lenin usually said in difficult cases.

Unlike the eloquent Leon Trotsky, Sverdlov did not make pathetic speeches, did not travel around the fronts in luxurious royal carriages, did not give interviews to the foreign press, did not flash on the pages of newspapers. He always remained as if in the shadows.
His intelligent appearance with the same pince-nez and wedge-shaped beard suggested, rather, a university professor than a leader of the party of revolutionaries. Anatoly Lunacharsky wrote about Sverdlov as follows: “Of course, there was a lot of inner fire in him, but outwardly he was an absolutely icy person. When he was not on the podium, he always spoke in a quiet voice, walked quietly, all his gestures were slow. Sverdlov had a phenomenal memory, he was called "Lenin's notebook", he remembered everything and everyone.

When the Bolsheviks began to be hunted as German spies, Sverdlov personally came to Lenin and organized his transition to an underground position, hiding him near the Razliv station near Sestroretsk, while he himself remained in Petrograd to organize the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks.

However, the "Black Devil" Sverdlov was called, probably, not only for a black leather jacket. Historians give data on his involvement in black magic. So, in exile, Sverdlov acquired a dog, which he named Dog. The dog was endlessly attached to his master and never parted with him. At the end of 1916, the Dog died. Yakov Mikhailovich grieved terribly. He asked a local hunter to tear off the skin from the corpse of his faithful friend and dress it. And then he took it everywhere with him. In the Kremlin, this skin was always lying by Sverdlov's bed. This is a ritual of black magic. With such rituals, they try to “pull” the spirit of a deceased creature to the earth, not to allow him to go to another world in order to use it for his own purposes.

At the suggestion of Lenin, Sverdlov, as the chief personnel officer, was appointed chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. He carried out the main work on the creation of Soviet authorities in the center and in the field. “Sometimes it seemed that as V.I. Lenin came to Russia after the victory of the February Revolution with ready-made political blueprints for the entire revolution, so Ya.M. Sverdlov came from a distant exile with ready-made organizational drawings for all the work of the party and with a ready-made plan for the distribution of the main groups of workers by industry, ”Grigory Zinoviev later recalled.

It was Sverdlov who opened the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly on January 5, 1918, announcing the "Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People", in which Russia was proclaimed a republic. He was also chairman of the commission for drafting the Constitution of the RSFSR, which declared the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Things went to the fact that not Lenin, but Sverdlov began to be called the "red tsar." But still, until the complete "accession" of Sverdlov, the authority of Ilyich, who was much higher, interfered.

In this regard, the assassination attempt on Lenin on August 30, 1918 looks very mysterious. Researcher V.E. Shambarov directly points to Sverdlov's attempt to kill Lenin in order to completely seize power.
“If you look at who at that moment benefited from eliminating Lenin, then Sverdlov won the most,” he writes. - After the assassination attempt, Sverdlov was the first to arrive in the Kremlin. Sverdlov's wife reports that on the same evening he occupied Lenin's office, crushing under him the Council of People's Commissars, the Central Committee, and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Roy Medvedev writes the same thing: “When Lenin was seriously wounded by the Socialist-Revolutionary Kaplan, Sverdlov became the de facto head of the Soviet state for several weeks.”

It was Sverdlov who conducted a hasty investigation into the case of Fani Kaplan, it was on his orders that Kaplan was hastily shot and burned in a metal barrel on the territory of the Kremlin. Although she was a friend of Yakov Sverdlov's sister.

Through his relatives, Yakov Mikhailovich was connected with the foreign backstage. Researcher Pyotr Multatuli writes that even before the revolution, his brother Benjamin traveled to the United States, where he worked as a banker for some time. And there he entered into contacts with the Kuhn, Leib and K bank and the banker Jacob Schiff, who, as already established, financed the Bolsheviks, as well as the “transfer” of Trotsky and a group of his militants from the USA to Russia.

Sverdlov was famous for pathological cruelty. His desire to always go to extremes surprised even his party comrades. In the Urals, on the eve of the 1905 revolution, Sverdlov created an organization called the Combat Detachment of People's Armaments. It was an honor to be in the "brigade" of Sverdlov, but not everyone passed the test. So, one of the future killers of the royal family, Yermakov, "on the instructions of the party" in 1907 killed a police agent and cut off his head.

Sverdlov was the author of cruel directives prescribing fierce punitive measures in the suppression of Cossack uprisings against Soviet power on the Don. After the assassination attempt on Lenin, Sverdlov signed an appeal "on the transformation of the Soviet Republic into a single military camp", supplemented by the decree "On the Red Terror" issued on September 5 by the Council of People's Commissars.

In May 1918, Sverdlov provoked the start of a fratricidal war in the countryside. In his report “On the Tasks of the Soviets in the Countryside,” he says: “Only if we can split the countryside into two irreconcilably hostile camps, if we can kindle there the same civil war that was going on not so long ago in the cities, if we succeed in restoring the rural poor against the rural bourgeoisie, only if we can say that we are doing in relation to the countryside what we were able to do for the cities. And in July 1918, he declared: “I want to dwell on the issue of the death penalty. I must point out that the Revolutionary Tribunal, in its first decision on the death penalty, showed, in my deep conviction, that it correctly takes into account the moment that we are experiencing at this time.

Regicide was an obsession for him. At the time of the massacre in Yekaterinburg, Sverdlov was in Moscow. Adventurer V.N. Orlov, who posed as a white counterintelligence officer, recalled: “In July 1918, when I was interviewing agents in the Cheka building, a messenger brought a telegram addressed to Dzerzhinsky, who was next to me. He quickly read it, turned as pale as death, jumped to his feet and, exclaiming "Again they act without consulting me!", He rushed out of the room. Dzerzhinsky hastened to the Kremlin. What in the name of all that's holy happened?

We found out the next day. The imperial family was shot without the knowledge of the Cheka! Independently, at the direction of Sverdlov and one of the highest bosses in the Central Committee of the Communist Party!
According to the general opinion that prevailed in the Cheka, in the Revolutionary Tribunal and the Kremlin, the decision to kill was made and implemented by the government of Sverdlov. He carried out the preparations in secret from his comrades, and only after the execution he confronted them with a fait accompli.

The "Black Devil" died unexpectedly, at the age of only 34, although, as they said, he had good health. According to the official version, he allegedly fell ill with a Spanish flu. And so, on March 16, 1919, Sverdlov died and was buried with pomp near the Kremlin wall. “We lowered the proletarian leader into the grave, who did the most for the organization of the working class, for its victory,” Lenin said mournfully at the funeral.

Doctor of Law Arkady Vaksberg wrote: “The exact cause of his death is unknown. At the same time, a rumor, apparently not without foundation, spread that in the city of Orel he was mortally beaten by workers, but this fact was supposedly hidden so as not to “disgrace the revolution” and “not to stir up even more anti-Semitic passions.”

The French communist writer Louis Aragon wrote: “Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov, Lenin’s most faithful comrade, who became the first chairman of the Central Executive Committee, that is, the first head of the new Soviet state, and who, unfortunately for the whole world, had to die from a Spanish flu at thirty-four of the year. I said “unfortunately for the whole world”, because, of course, if he had survived, Sverdlov, and not Stalin, would have succeeded Lenin. Probably, Stalin understood this no worse than Aragon.

However, there could be another reason for the unexpected death of the Black Devil, a very banal one - money. The fact is that Sverdlov was the keeper of a kind of "Bolshevik obshchak". This was done by his second wife - Claudia Timofeevna, nee Novgorodtseva. The "Diamond Fund of the Politburo" was hidden in her apartment. Part of this "common fund" was probably later discovered in a safe in Sverdlov's office.

... They say that when a person dies, all his vices or virtues are imprinted on his face. As usual, the death mask was removed from the "fiery revolutionary". Seeing her, psychiatrist Yevgeny Chernosvitov exclaimed: "The Sverdlov mask is the embodiment of evil, it is unpleasant to look at it!"

Brief biography of the "devil of the revolution" Y. Sverdlov

Yakov Sverdlov. "Black Devil of the Revolution"

"Military Review", 06/03/2015

Samsonov Alexander

130 years ago, on June 3, 1885, Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov was born. The chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (the formal head of the RSFSR) was a real gray cardinal of the revolution. Together with Trotsky, Sverdlov was one of the most sinister figures in the history of Soviet Russia. All the most terrible blows to Russian civilization were initiated and organized by Sverdlov. Cruel and vindictive, nicknamed the "black devil of the revolution", Sverdlov openly advocated revolutionary terror, initiated the "red terror", a strike on the village and decossackization (in fact, the genocide of the military class of Russia - the Cossacks). It is believed that Sverdlov was also behind the brutal murder of the Romanov family, the former sovereign. Regicide was a fixed idea for him.

At the same time, Sverdlov was distinguished by phenomenal organizational skills, a unique memory (he remembered everything and everyone), a talent for selecting and placing the necessary personnel in their places. He became a real gray cardinal of the revolution. Therefore, it is not surprising that, according to the English journalist R. Wilton, who visited revolutionary Russia, "at first, the Bolshevik regime was dominated not by Lenin (Ulyanov), the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, but by Sverdlov ... the chairman of the all-powerful All-Russian Central Executive Committee." Lenin headed the Central Committee of the party and the government, and Sverdlov - the Secretariat of the Central Committee and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets (VTsIK). But the Secretariat of the Central Committee was the only apparatus of the Central Committee, so work with party bodies in the field closed on Yakov Sverdlov. And the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) acted through the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. A very convenient formula was created: “The All-Russian Central Executive Committee, in the person of its Presidium, decides,” that is, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee did not collect, everything was decided by the Presidium, in fact, Sverdlov himself. "Leader number two" had his own grouping within the party - "Sverdlovites". Moreover, his supporters were so strong that at the end of his life, Yakov Mikhailovich was ready to oppose Lenin himself. After his death, almost all the "Sverdlovites" went over to Trotsky's camp, became "Trotskyists". Many were later "cleansed" under Stalin.

Yakov Mikhailovich (Yankel Movshovich) Sverdlov was born into a wealthy Jewish family in Nizhny Novgorod. His father was the master engraver Movsha Izrailevich Sverdlov. Mother - housewife Elizaveta Solomonovna. Yankel-Yakov learned to read at home, graduated from the city elementary school and was assigned to the gymnasium. Yakov had an amazing mind, memory, curiosity, he read a lot since childhood. He was distinguished by energy and exceptional performance. At the same time, he was a teenager with "character". Already in the gymnasium, he became interested in the “revolution”, dreamed of “secret societies”.

Yakov left the gymnasium, left his father's house. The exact reason is unknown. Perhaps it's a hooligan trick. Yakov moved to the Nizhny Novgorod suburb of Kanavino, where he got a job as a student in a pharmacy. However, Yakov did not stay long in the pharmacy. He was proud and wanted more than to slowly climb the corporate ladder. Argued with a pharmacist and lost his job. For some time, Yakov lived as a free semi-intellectual (“free artist”), interrupted by odd jobs, tutoring, correspondence of roles for theaters, etc. In fact, Yakov lived at that time at the “bottom”, having the appropriate acquaintances in the criminal and semi-criminal environment. He was pulled out from the “bottom” by his childhood best friend Lubotsky, who became interested in politics and joined the local social democratic organization. Marxism was then a completely legal idea, not persecuted. Jacob was actively involved in revolutionary activities.

As a revolutionary, he showed organizational talent, the party authorities sent him as an emissary to other cities to form party organizations. During the revolution of 1905, Yakov was sent to Yekaterinburg to restore the local defeated party organization. In the Urals, Sverdlov deployed widely, began to create fighting squads of social democrats, socialist revolutionaries, anarchists and criminals. At the same time, Jacob showed another of his leading qualities - pathological cruelty. He united around himself the most aggressive and cruel elements. Sverdlov's "brigade" was called the "Combat Detachment of People's Arms" (BONV). The activities of the "brigade" covered a significant territory, including Perm, Yekaterinburg, Ufa, Nizhny Tagil, Chelyabinsk and other cities and settlements. BONV acted within the framework of strict secrecy. The checks of future fighters were very characteristic, similar to those that existed in various world mafia and terrorist organizations. So, one of the future murderers of the Romanov family, Yermakov, on assignment in 1907, killed a police agent and cut off his head. Thus, the fighters of the "brigade" were tied with blood.

They "hunted" the "Black Hundreds" (right-wing leaders), the police. The treasury was replenished with "ex" (from the word "expropriation"), attacking the post office, transports with money, treasuries. They organized a racket of wealthy people: either give money for "revolutionary needs", or die.

In 1906 Sverdlov was arrested. But there were no witnesses (apparently, they wanted to live), and good lawyers were hired. Therefore, the terrorist received only 2 years in prison. Jacob did not suffer in prison. The frail bespectacled man was a real "authority", the head of a large organized crime group. Meanwhile, his brother - Veniamin Mikhailovich Sverdlov, who was also a revolutionary, fled abroad, went to the USA, organized a bank there. One of his comrades was the famous Sydney Reilly. Thus, one of the channels of influence of the "financial international" on the revolutionary movement in Russia was created. In the future, Sverdlov and Trotsky will become the main conductors of the plans for the "financial international" ("world behind the scenes") in Russia.

Sverdlov continued to follow the revolutionary path. More than once he was arrested, imprisoned, in 1910 he was exiled to the Narym Territory for 3 years, but escaped. Settled in St. Petersburg, for some time he was the editor of the Pravda newspaper. In 1911 he was again exiled to the Narym Territory of the Tomsk Governorate for 4 years. Fled in 1912. In 1913 he was exiled to Turukhansk. The February Revolution freed Sverdlov. He arrived in the Urals. He organized a party conference and moved to the capital as the "leader" of the Urals.

At the 7th (April) conference, the RSDLP tried to get closer to Lenin, supporting his line "on behalf of the Urals" and becoming his "right hand". In the new composition of the Central Committee, he fussed and took the post of head of the Secretariat. The organ was considered secondary, but under Sverdlov it gained paramount importance. Sverdlov got the opportunity to control local party cadres and finances. It was Sverdlov who ensured the unification of the supporters of Lenin and Trotsky, who arrived from the USA and tried to take the place of the leader. After the October Revolution, Yakov Sverdlov proposed Trotsky to the post of People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, and he himself climbed into the post of chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

Sverdlov turned out to be an indispensable person. Provided the leaders of the Bolsheviks with food, things, apartments. Especially courted Lenin. Controlling the cadres, he skillfully placed his people, creating his own power group. Attached his relatives and friends. His wife became the head of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, brother Veniamin, called from America, became People's Commissar of Railways, a distant relative, Heinrich Yagoda, ended up in the Cheka. In the Soviets, he ousted the competitors of the Bolsheviks - the Mensheviks, anarchists, the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, and after the rebellion, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries.

Having become the second person in the Soviet state, Sverdlov initiated the most terrible measures aimed at the pogrom of "old Russia". Yakov Sverdlov actively fomented the "Red Terror", launched an attack on the Russian peasantry, that is, provoked a real peasant war, which became one of the bloodiest pages of the Civil War and cost Russia hundreds of thousands of lives. Sverdlov, apparently, was the organizer of the murder of the Romanov family, which was of a symbolic nature.

Apparently, it was Sverdlov who ordered the assassination attempt on Lenin. Fanny Kaplan was a friend of Yakov Sverdlov's sister. In 1918, Sverdlov concentrated enormous power in his hands. He not only decided how to carry out political decisions, but also determined what to carry out and what not. The last obstacle on the way to full power was Lenin. No wonder Fanny was shot and burned on the orders of Sverdlov, before she spoke. The classic "ends in the water." After Lenin was wounded, Yakov Sverdlov seized full power in the country for a short period of time. At the same time, Sverdlov used the failed assassination attempt to his advantage - he began a campaign of mass terror and decossackization.

Then he began a new offensive against the peasantry - the forced creation of communes. "Communization" was very different from the future collectivization. All property was subject to socialization, the peasants had to live in common barracks, give their children for collective education and work for a portion of food. In fact, they planned to drive the entire Russian peasantry into a giant concentration camp, turning most of the population into slaves, and even take their children away from them. More information about the destructive activities of Sverdlov can be found in the book of the historian V. Shambarov “Sverdlov. Occult Roots of the October Revolution.

Sverdlov's death is mysterious. Yakov Sverdlov was in excellent health, but died at the age of 33. According to the official version, Sverdlov was mowed down by a Spanish flu (Spanish flu) when he was traveling from Kharkov to Moscow. According to another version, His Majesty chance intervened in the course of history. In Orel, Sverdlov's special train was stopped due to a railroad strike. Yakov Sverdlov decided to personally intervene, go out and reassure people. He was a good speaker, he knew how to take control of the crowd, manipulate people, cut off opponents with sharp phrases. The head of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was the permanent chairman at all congresses and conferences, spoke at rallies. However, the workers were furious and pelted Sverdlov with stones and logs prepared for steam locomotives. The chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee fell, lost consciousness, and lay on the frozen ground for some time. The guard dispersed the people, but the deed was done. Sverdlov arrived in Moscow beaten and sick. I developed pneumonia. March 16, 1919 Sverdlov died.

The death of Sverdlov was a positive development for the history of Russia. A number of his projects were cancelled. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee was headed by Lenin's protege - Kalinin. Yakov Mikhailovich was much smarter than Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev and other "internationalists", and his death made it much easier for Stalin and his supporters to fight for the future of Russia.

Biography

Family

Youth

He graduated from the four classes of the gymnasium, then studied pharmacy. Already in his youth he was a well-known underground worker in Nizhny Novgorod.

1901-1917

Yakov Sverdlov, 1904

From June 10, 1906 to September 1909, Sverdlov was in the prisons of the Urals - in the Perm correctional detainee department and in the Nizhneturinsky Nikolaev correctional detainee department. His associates and wife were also arrested. On December 19, 1909, he was again arrested in Moscow. March 31, 1910 was exiled to the Narym Territory for 3 years. He fled without staying even four months.

In 1910, he fled from the Narym exile to St. Petersburg, and while I. Stalin was at the Krakow meeting, he was the editor of the Pravda newspaper. Entered into active correspondence with Lenin, and was co-opted to the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP.

Links to Narym and Turukhansk

Leon Trotsky, in his book Portraits of Revolutionaries, argued that "Sverdlov tried to give the Presidium (CEC) political significance, and on this basis he even had friction with the Council of People's Commissars, and partly with the Politburo."

Sverdlov was chairman of the commission for drafting the Constitution of the RSFSR. The Constitution prepared by him declared the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia with the aim of establishing socialism in the state in the form of the Republic of Soviets on the basis of a free union of free nations as a federation of Soviet national republics (that is, the power of the Soviets on the principles of national autonomy), in which

The soviets of regions that are distinguished by their special way of life and national composition can unite into autonomous regional unions, at the head of which, as well as at the head of any regional associations that can be formed in general, are regional congresses of Soviets and their executive bodies ...

Moreover, this Constitution specifically emphasized that

The Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic grants the right of asylum to all foreigners who are persecuted for political and religious crimes.

At a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on May 20, 1918, Sverdlov for the first time proclaimed a policy of splitting the countryside into two warring camps of poor peasants and kulaks. Sverdlov is credited with the authorship of the directive of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) dated January 24, 1919, which prescribed the implementation of harsh punitive measures in the suppression of Cossack uprisings against Soviet power on the Don. During the revolt of the Left SRs in the summer of 1918, the arrest of Sverdlov was one of the main goals of the rebels, in response to which Sverdlov and Lenin ordered the arrest of the leadership of the Left SRs, who were in the Bolshoi Theater at a meeting of the Fifth Congress of Soviets.

While Lenin was being treated, Sverdlov categorically refused to elect an interim chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and personally performed his functions, working in Lenin's office and signing documents for him, and held meetings of the Council of People's Commissars.

In addition, Sverdlov did a lot of international work: he prepared the 1st Congress of the Communist International, participated in organizing congresses of the Communist Parties of Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine.

Death

According to the official version, he fell ill with Spanish flu while returning to Moscow from Kharkov (left Kharkov on March 6, 1919). Returned to Moscow on March 8. The fact that he was "gravely ill" was reported on 9 March. He died March 16, 1919. On March 18, 1919 he was buried near the Kremlin wall.

Participation in the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly

Participation in the organization of the execution of the royal family

Organization of the fight against the Cossacks

Addresses in Petrograd

September 1917 - January 1918 - tenement house - Voskresensky Prospekt, 17, apt. 46.

Lenin about Sverdlov

• “Comrades, the first word at our congress,” Lenin said, opening the Eighth Party Congress, “should be dedicated to Comrade. To Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov ... if for the whole party as a whole and for the entire Soviet Republic Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov was the main organizer ... then for the party congress he was much more valuable and closer ... Here his absence will affect the entire course of our work, and the congress will feel his absence especially sharp."

• Speech dedicated to the memory of Sverdlov: “In this era, at the very beginning of the 20th century, we had Comrade. Sverdlov, as the most chiselled type of professional revolutionary ... ".

• “We lowered into the grave,” Vladimir Ilyich said mournfully at the Kremlin wall on March 18, “the proletarian leader who did the most to organize the working class, to win it.”

• “Memory of Comrade. Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov ... - said Lenin, - will serve not only as an eternal symbol of the revolutionary's devotion to his cause, will serve not only as an example of a combination of practical sobriety and practical skill, complete connection with the masses, with the ability to direct them, - but will also serve as a guarantee of that more and more masses of the proletarians, guided by these examples, will go forward and forward towards the complete victory of the world communist revolution.

Articles by Sverdlov

He also wrote articles: “Essays on the Turukhansk Territory” (), “Mass Exile (1906-1916)”, “Split in German Social Democracy”, “The Collapse of Capitalism”, “Essays on the History of the International Labor Movement”, variants of the article “War and Siberia” (), “Events of July 3-6 in Petrograd”, “Letter to comrades about the raid on the editorial office of Pravda” (), “Soviet power in the countryside” (n / a), proclamation on behalf of the St. Petersburg Committee RSDLP (b) on the July events of 1917, appeal “To all workers and peasants, all working people, all councils, everyone, everyone, everyone!” (on the convening of the V Congress of Soviets) ().

... My friend [Stalin] and I differ in many ways.
He is a very lively person and retained, despite his forty years, the ability to react vividly to a variety of phenomena. In many cases, he has new questions where there are none for me. In that sense, he is fresher than me. Don't think that I put him above me. No, I'm bigger, he himself is aware of this.
Theoretical questions cause little controversy. Yes, and there is no particular interest in arguing with him, because I have a significant advantage ... We argued, played a game of chess, I gave him checkmate, then parted after a late hour. And in the morning we will meet again, and so every day: there are only two of us on Kureika ...

The image of Sverdlov

Sverdlov was not tall, very thin, lean, dark-haired, with sharp features of a thin face. His strong, perhaps even mighty voice might seem out of proportion to the physical warehouse. To an even greater extent, however, this could be said about his character. But such could be the impression only at first. And then the physical appearance merged with the spiritual, and this short, thin figure, with a calm, unyielding will and a strong, but not flexible voice, appeared as a complete image.

Nothing, - Vladimir Ilyich sometimes said in some difficult case, - Sverdlov will tell them this in a Sverdlovsk bass, and the matter will be settled ...

There was a love irony in these words.

In the first to October period, the enemies called the Communists, as you know, "leather" - according to their clothes. I think that the example of Sverdlov played a big role in the introduction of the leather “uniform”. In any case, he himself walked in leather from head to toe, that is. from boots to a leather cap. From him, as from the central organizational figure, these clothes, which somehow corresponded to the character of that time, spread widely. Comrades who knew Sverdlov from the underground remember him differently. But in my memory, the figure of Sverdlov remained dressed in black leather armor - under the blows of the first years of the civil war.

It was a born organizer and combinator. Each political question presented itself to him primarily in its organizational concreteness, as a question of the relationship between individuals and groups within the party organization and the relationship between the organization as a whole and the masses. In algebraic formulas, he immediately and almost automatically substituted numerical values. In this way, he gave the most important test of political formulas, since it was a matter of revolutionary action.

Memory of Sverdlov

In Soviet times, the name of Sverdlov was immortalized in the names of geographical objects and enterprises. In almost every city in the country there were streets named after him, some of which have now been renamed.

Ekaterinburg

Monument to Yakov Sverdlov in Yekaterinburg

Leningrad region

Novosibirsk

Kharkiv

Sverdlovsk (Ukraine)

• Sverdlovsk was the name of a city formed in 1938 in the Voroshilovgrad region of Ukraine.

Moscow

Moscow region

• In the Shchelkovsky district of the Moscow Region there is a village of Sverdlovsky

Nizhny Novgorod

Monument to Ya.M. Sverdlov in Nizhny Novgorod

• The main street of the city Bolshaya Pokrovskaya - on which Yakov Mikhailovich was born in house number 6 - until the early 1990s was named after Sverdlov.
• In the park at the corner of Sverdlov (now again Bolshaya Pokrovskaya) and Oktyabrskaya streets, near the Sverdlov Palace of Culture (the former building of the Nobility Assembly), on November 5, 1957, a monument to Ya. M. Sverdlov was opened.
• Garden named after Sverdlov (former Bishop's Garden) on Piskunov Street (former Malaya Pecherskaya).

Irkutsk

• Street in Irkutsk.

Oryol Region

Minsk

• Street in Minsk.

Ulan-Ude

• Street in Ulan-Ude.

Literature about Sverdlov

• Sverdlov K. T. Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov - 3rd ed. - M.: Mol. Guard, 1976. - 400 s, ill. LBC 66.61(2)8 ZKP1(092); С 70302-308 / 078(02)-76 BZ-053-017-76
• L. Trotsky. In memory of Sverdlov. Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov. Collection of memoirs and articles. Guise 1926 March 13, 1925

Films about Sverdlov

• Boris Poltavtsev
  • "Great Glow" ()
• Leonid Lyubashevsky
  • "Baltic Glory" ()
  • "Andreika" ()
  • "In the days of October" ()
  • "The first day" ()
• Alexander Kutepov
  • "Red Square. Two stories about the worker-peasant army "()
• Vladimir Tatosov
  • "Train to Tomorrow" ()
  • "Heart of Russia" ()
• Alexander Palees
  • Karl Liebknecht. Part 1 "While life is in me" (GDR, "Defa") ()
  • Karl Liebknecht. Part 2 "Despite everything!" (GDR, "Defa") ()
• Igor Kvasha
• Daniil Bombrovsky
• Arseniy Kovalsky
• Vladimir Svekolnikov
  • "Nikolai Podvoisky (pages of life)" ()
  • "20th of December"
• Kirill Kozakov

Documentaries

• Yakov Sverdlov. Bloody Mechanic of the Soviet Power ”- an investigative documentary film (directed by S. Kraus).

Sverdlov in philately

Notes

1. I.F. Plotnikov. WHO IS THE REGION NAMED IN HONOR? // Orthodox newspaper, 2007, No. 36. Reprint from Bulletin of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences "Science, Society, Man"
2. indicate the middle name of the revolutionary Movshevich.
3. Stress in the surname - see TSB (any edition)
4. Plotnikov I.F. Ural Historical Encyclopedia. Institute of History and Archeology, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
5. Geifman A. Revolutionary terror in Russia, 1894-1917 / Per. from English. E. Dorman. - M.: KRON-PRESS, 1997. - 448 p. - (Series "Express"). ISBN 5-232-00608-8, page 6
6. Confessions of the regicides. The murder of the Royal Family in the materials of the preliminary investigation and in the memoirs of persons involved in the commission of this crime / Ed. Yu. A. Zhuk. - M .: LLC Publishing House "Veche", 2008. ISBN 978-5-9533-2965-1, pp. 4-5
7. Ph.D. S.N. Dmitriev Way of the Cross of the thirteenth emperor. About the historian S. P. Melgunov and his book”
8. Regicide in Russia. Interview with Dr. i. n. O. Budnitsky
9. The shooters knew they were committing a crime. Interview with Dr. i. n. S. Mironenko
10. Philip's Court. By whose order was the royal family shot? D. i. n. G. Ioffe in the journal "Science and Life", N8, 2010
11. d.h.s. Bokhanov A. N. Nicholas II / A.N. Bokhanov. - M.: Veche, 2008. - 528 p.: ill. - (Imperial Russia in persons). ISBN 978-5-9533-2541-7, page 388
12. See for example: A. G. Latyshev. ISBN 5-88505-011-2. pp. 119 - 138; regarding Lenin: V.V. Alekseev. The death of the royal family: results and objectives of the study. [Not earlier than 1998].
13. Sverdlov, Yakov Mikhaylovich. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2010
14. A. G. Latyshev. Declassified Lenin. - 1st. - Moscow: March, 1996. - 336 p. - 15,000 copies. - ISBN 5-88505-011-2
15. Bazhanov BG Memoirs of the former secretary of Stalin. - M., 1990. p. 97.
16. Stolyarov K. Executioners and victims. - M., 1997. S. 337-338.
17. Tasks of councils in the countryside. Speech at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the IV convocation on May 20, 1918
18. Golub P.A. Truth and lies about the "decossackization" of the Cossacks. M., 2009. - 144 p.
19. Red Book of the Cheka. Volume 1

Yakov Sverdlov and his brothers...

The personality of Sverdlov can rightly be attributed to the genius infernal personalities, if only such a term can be attributed to the supporters of the underworld. Having lived a very short life, at the time of his death he was not 34 years old, Yakov Sverdlov had so much time to contribute to the victory of the world revolution, to set such rates of mass bloodletting that few world villains can compete with. The crimes of Sverdlov and his cabal can only be compared with the crimes of the Nazis during World War II. Leon Trotsky was very fond of, and it flattered him when he was called the "demon of the revolution."

But it must be said that in comparison with Sverdlov, the phrase-monger and demagogue Trotsky was clearly losing. The name of the “demon of the revolution” was rightfully deserved not by him, but by Sverdlov. Unlike Vladimir Lenin and Trotsky, Sverdlov did not make hysterical and pompous speeches, did not travel around the fronts in the former tsarist carriages, did not give interviews to the foreign press, and hardly appeared on the pages of newspapers and magazines. He, occupying the highest post in the Soviet state, all the time remained as if in the shadows, preferring to lead from behind a curtain. His speech, always calm and reasonable, his intelligent appearance with the same pince-nez and goatee, his almond-shaped, always slightly sad eyes, more likely suggested a zemstvo doctor than the leader of one of the bloodiest regimes in world history. Anatoly Lunacharsky wrote about Sverdlov: “Of course, there was a lot of inner fire in him, but outwardly he was an absolutely icy person. When he was not on the podium, he always spoke in a quiet voice, walked quietly, all his gestures were slow.

But those who knew Sverdlov closely knew how deceptive this image of an intelligent doctor was. In Sverdlov one felt such a powerful force, such an iron conviction in the work he was doing, that he was involuntarily recognized as the unspoken leader of the entire party. The quiet voice of Sverdlov inspired horror many times greater than the heart-rending cries of Lenin. It was this man who transmitted the order to kill the royal family, it was he who unleashed the monstrous Red Terror, it was he who initiated the so-called “Decossackization”, when about 1 million Don Cossacks were brutally killed, including buried alive, including women and infants. Until March 1919, there was not a single bloody global action of the Bolsheviks, which was not initiated by Sverdlov. No wonder he was called the "brain of the party." “We have no doubts,” wrote Pavel Paganutsi, “that the monstrous crimes of the Bolsheviks (in 1918 - Auth.), which surpassed all measures of cruelty, were committed by order from the center, Moscow, and the main responsibility for them lay with Sverdlov.” ..

Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov was born on May 22, 1885 in Nizhny Novgorod in the family of the owner of an engraving workshop. In Yiddish, his full name sounded like Yankel Movshevich Sverdlov. Mikhail Parkhomovsky writes that Sverdlov's great-grandfather, a tradesman from the city of Polotsk, was a skilled driller. “Apparently,” Parkhomovsky believes, “the surname came from the Belarusian word “sverdlo”.”

In childhood, nothing foreshadowed the bloody nature of the boy ...

His father, Movsha Izrailevich, had three sons: Zavey (Zinovy), Jacob, Benjamin, and two daughters: Sarah and Sophia. In addition, Movsha Sverdlov had two sons from his second marriage - German and Alexander. At the beginning of the 20th century, Movsha took a young man named Hershel Gershelevich Yehuda as an engraver's apprentice, who later turned into Genrikh Genrikhovich Yagoda, the future bloody head of the OGPU. Yagoda, despite the fact that he robbed his master twice, managed to intermarry with the Sverdlov family by marrying Yankel's niece, Ida Averbakh.

For his help to the revolutionaries, Movsha Sverdlov was under the supervision of the Nizhny Novgorod gendarme department.

Yakov's elder brother, Zavel Movshovich Sverdlov, bore the name of Zinovy ​​Alekseevich Peshkov. Zinovy ​​Sverdlov (Peshkov) was a very difficult figure. Here are the data from the French directory “Who's who in France” for 1955-1956: “Zinovy ​​Peshkov, diplomat and general. Born October 16, 1884 in Nizhny Novgorod (Russia). Volunteer in the French army (1914). Participated in missions: in the USA - 1917, China, Japan, Manchuria and Siberia - 1918-1920.

Peshkov joined the revolutionary movement from his youth, but quickly moved away from it. However, in this act, Zinovy ​​was guided not by ideological considerations, but by some much more subtle reasons. Belonging to secret societies and close ties with Gorky allowed Zinovy ​​Peshkov to keep in touch with the most influential people of the revolutionary and Masonic camp. In 1906, Zinovy, together with Gorky, made a long trip to the United States, where they raised money to support the revolution. It is curious that Zinovy ​​was on friendly terms with the widow and daughters of the great Russian doctor Sergei Botkin, father of Evgeny Botkin, the life physician of Emperor Nicholas II.

In 1911, Zinovy ​​Sverdlov again left for the United States, where he certainly maintained close ties with his brother Veniamin, and almost certainly with Jacob Schiff. Interestingly, after Zinovy ​​was seriously wounded at the front during the World War, “his many friends and patrons in the French “higher spheres” suddenly remembered that Zinovy ​​had lived in America for a long time, spoke English and had great acquaintances there. At this time, France made every effort to involve the United States in the war on its side. It was decided to use Zinovy ​​to send him to the United States to promote entry into the war on the side of the Allies. Zinovy ​​did everything to contribute to this. How an ordinary officer of the French army could contribute to such a grandiose event as the entry into the war of the United States is not clear, if you do not take into account Zinovy's connections with American financial circles ...

Brothers: Zinovy ​​Peshkov, far left, Yakov Sverdlov, second right

Of course, Zinovy ​​​​always kept in touch with his brother Yankel, despite the fact that there was alleged enmity between them. His adoptive father, Maxim Gorky (aka Aleksey Maksimovich Peshkov), took a prominent part in preparing a coup d'état against the sovereign. It is obvious that Zinovy ​​Peshkov also took a direct part in this coup: he was an intermediary between the Masonic circles in France and the revolutionary circles in Russia. It is no coincidence that in the summer of 1917, the captain of the French army, Zinovy ​​Peshkov, was appointed representative of France under the government of Alexander Kerensky. Kerensky even awarded him the Order of St. Vladimir 4th degree.

During the Bolshevik coup, Zinovy ​​Peshkov was in Petrograd and outwardly opposed the pro-German policy of the Bolsheviks. He wrote a letter to the named father Gorky, in which he urged him to change his pacifist position: “The more Germany seizes territories,” he wrote, “the less we can make peace without annexations. In this decisive battle waged by the best forces of mankind against brutal forces, can Russia remain peaceful?

Nevertheless, when the Bolsheviks came to power, the French sent Zinovy ​​to Moscow, and he had a meeting "on official business" with his brother Yakov. It is not known what was discussed between them, but in the summer of 1918 Peshkov was sent to Siberia. However, let's give the floor to Peshkov himself. In his questionnaire of the 1930s, listing the stages of his military service, he writes: “On January 16, 1918, the War Ministry called me to Paris to send me to Russia by the Northern route. On March 7, 1918, I received an order from the General Staff to go to Eastern Siberia, through America and Japan. At the same time, I had a special assignment in Washington from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On June 1, 1918, I arrived in Tokyo, then in Beijing, at the end of July I was in Siberia.

Peshkov meets in Siberia in September the coming to power of Admiral Alexander Kolchak. Under Kolchak, Zinovy ​​Sverdlov played a very important role. Alexander Amfiteatrov wrote about him: “Carrying out his military-diplomatic service in a French uniform, he was an active agent of communication between the French government and the army command. The act of recognition by France of Kolchak as the supreme ruler was delivered to Omsk by Zinovy ​​Peshkov.

By a strange coincidence, the brother of one of Kolchak's main enemies becomes a military adviser to the French representative to the Kolchak government, General Maurice Janin. Let's not forget that Jeanin, a major freemason, was the curator of the French government circles, read Masonic, the case of the murder of the royal family. “Under Kolchak,” writes Vadim Kozhinov, “the British General Knox and the French General Janin were constantly with their chief adviser, Captain Zinovy ​​Peshkov (younger brother of Ya. M. Sverdlov). Before us is a truly amazing situation: in red Moscow then an exceptionally important - the second after Lenin - role is played by Yakov Sverdlov, and in white Omsk his own brother Zinovy ​​\u200b\u200bis the most influential adviser!

Zinovy ​​Peshkov-Sverdlov - French general ...

The merits of Peshkov in Siberia were duly appreciated by the French command. General Maurice Janin called his actions very successful. At the insistence of General Peshkov, a high pension of 1,500 francs a month and 5,000 francs at a time was assigned.

Thus, the role of Zinovy ​​Sverdlov in the Civil War in Russia in general and in the Yekaterinburg atrocity in particular requires additional and most thorough study. It is possible that the murder of the royal family was supervised by certain behind-the-scenes forces by their representatives, both in the “red” and in the “white” camps. In both cases, the representatives of these secret forces were the Sverdlovs - Yakov and Zinovy.

As for the second brother, Benjamin (Benyamin, Ben, Beni) Sverdlov, he left for the USA even before the revolution and opened a bank there. Already after the revolution, the political American agents gave the following information about Veniamin Sverdlov: “Office of Special Agents of the New York Branch. Ministry of Foreign Affairs (confidential). Mr. Bannerman is the chief special agent. Washington.

Reilly has a business relationship with Veniamin Mikhailovich Sverdlov. On January 15, 1916, Sverdlov arrived in the United States aboard the steamship Saint Paul. He brought with him a sealed parcel from Colonel Belyaev, a Russian, addressed to General Hermonius, who was associated with some Russian delegations in the United States. Sverdlov was engaged in revolutionary activities in Russia in the past. He lived in England for four years and visited Russia in 1915. He knows Siberia well. While in the US, he worked in the offices of Flint & Co at 120 Broadway, which owned the building. He is the brother of a prominent communist from Soviet Russia - Sverdlov. While in London, in a private conversation, he said that he was going with two people to New York to buy ammunition, but he would sail to America separately from these people. On the road, he received about one thousand dollars. He came to Flint & Co with the recommendations of partner T. Marshall from London, whose interests were financed by money received from the sale of Ural oil. At the beginning of the war, Marshall and Sverdlov often had information about the movement of troops, military operations in England and Russia.

For information, Sidney Reilly, an international adventurer who worked for British, American and German intelligence at the same time, but in fact is on assignment from the American secret society. Benjamin knew and did business with Kuhn, Leib & Co. and its leading force, the banker Jacob Schiff.

Maxim Gorky with the family of Engraver Sverdlov

In 1913, the Security Department in its secret reports reported: “The Police Department received information that Polotsk tradesman Veniamin Mikhailovich (Benyamin Movshev) Sverdlov, currently living abroad, wanted by the Department’s circular dated June 1, 1907, intends to return to the Empire, using for this the foreign passport of his brother Lev Sverdlov.

After October 1917, Yakov summoned his brother to Russia, where he was appointed People's Commissar of Railways, but proved to be unsuccessful in this post. There is evidence that Veniamin Sverdlov was in charge of the scientific and technical department of the Supreme Council of National Economy (a secret division of the OGPU engaged in experiments to obtain telepathic information about the inhabitants of Shambhala and the thoughts of Soviet citizens). In 1937, during the Great Purge, Veniamin Sverdlov was arrested, sentenced to 15 years in the camps, but shot in 1939.

Sverdlov did not like to talk about himself and his family. “Yakov Mikhailovich,” recalled his wife Klavdiya Novgorodtseva, “never liked to talk about himself.” And this is quite understandable: the Sverdlov family hid many secrets. One of them is the fact that, being completely insignificant, neither socially, nor culturally, nor financially, the Sverdlov family was familiar and maintained close relations with so many influential and famous people of their era. First of all, this concerns Maxim Gorky. Gorky knew the Sverdlovs intimately even at a time when Yankel and his brothers were very young. “A frequent guest of the Sverdlovs,” Novgorodtseva wrote, “was Gorky, who lived in Nizhny Novgorod in those years, who knew and appreciated this friendly, interesting family.”

Who, how and under what circumstances brought the famous Russian writer together with an “interesting and friendly family” is unknown, but Gorky from the very beginning showed the liveliest interest in her. When in the spring of 1902 Yankel and Veniamin Sverdlov were once again imprisoned for possession and distribution of banned revolutionary literature, Gorky defended them by writing a pamphlet in which he sneered at the Imperial government: “In Nizhny Novgorod,” he wrote, “terrible things are happening! Terrible things! Disgusting criminals, political agitators, rr-revolutionaries, two in number, the sons of the engraver Sverdlov, were caught and imprisoned - finally! Now order will prevail in Russia!” Thanks to Gorky's intercession, the brothers were soon released from custody.

Later, as we know, Gorky took a lively part in the fate of Sverdlov's elder brother Zinovy, adopting him. At the same time, he was also his godfather, which, of course, was sacrilege, since according to Orthodoxy, the father and the godfather cannot be the same person. "Baptism" was carried out in 1902 in Arzamas by the priest Fyodor Vladimirsky, a friend of Gorky and a secret revolutionary. (By the way, the son of this priest, Mikhail Vladimirsky, became People's Commissar of Health in 1931.) Gorky's biographer Pletnev wrote: "Of course, there really was no "sacrament", but all this was only formally arranged by the "seditious" priest Vasiliev." In general, hatred for Christianity was in the blood of both Gorky and his "betrothed son." Mikhail Parkhomovsky gives information about "comic", according to his concepts, scenes that were played out by Gorky, Zinovy ​​Peshkov-Sverdlov and others, and then filmed. “In one picture,” Parkhomovsky writes, “the biblical scene called “Marriage in Canna of Galilee.” In the foreground - Christ - V. A. Desnitsky, a kneeling slave - Zinovy ​​​​and the Virgin Mary - Maria Fedorovna, in the background: the high priest with raised hands - Gorky, the groom - Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky, the bride E. F. Pavlova-Asilvanskaya, servants - Katya Zhelyabuzhskaya and M. S. Botkina, centurion - Amphitheaters. The whole series of these photographs is called "The Sacred History in Faces".

Yakov Sverdlov, chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in the period 1917-1919, with his family - with his wife, Klavdia Novgorodtseva and son Andrei, future colonel of the USSR Ministry of State Security.

It is curious that the roles are distributed with meaning, deliberately pursuing the goal of mocking the Savior and His Most Pure Mother. Let us note that Gorky, a major freemason, is depicted as a Jewish high priest who betrayed the Lord to torment and execution, the blasphemer Peshkov - in the role of a crafty slave, Gorky's mistress Maria Andreeva - in the role of the Most Holy Theotokos.

The purpose of the “baptism”, besides desecration of Orthodoxy, was obvious: to hide behind the name of Peshkov his connection with Yankel Sverdlov, whose name was becoming more and more notorious. The authorities understood this, and in 1903, by imperial decree, the clergy of the Trinity Church of the city of Arzamas were ordered to return Zinovy ​​to his real name: Sverdlov. The fact that both the “baptism” and “adoption” of Zinovy ​​​​Gorky were pure fiction is proved by Gorky himself, who wrote to Lenin in 1921: “The other day I called Zinovy ​​Peshkov here from Paris, my so-called adopted son.”

Gorky's extensive connections were used not only by Zinovy, but also by Yakov Sverdlov. So, in 1903, with the help of Gorky, Yakov received a large financial assistance from Fyodor Chaliapin, who personally transferred the money to buy a printing unit to Yakov, who came to the Nizhny Novgorod Opera House with Gorky.

But Gorky was not the only famous person whose help Yakov used. During the revolutionary turmoil, when the police were looking for Yakov for organizing riots involving murder and robbery, Sverdlov was hiding not just anywhere, but in the apartment of the vowel of the Yekaterinburg City Duma, barrister Sergey Bibikov, who knew all the local city authorities closely. In 1918, during the rampant Bolshevik terror in Yekaterinburg, “for this service, Sverdlov recommended that the Soviet of Deputies treat the Bibikov family prudently.”

After graduating from only four grades of elementary school, having briefly been an assistant to a pharmacist, being 15 years old, Sverdlov went into the revolution. The reasons that led Sverdlov to the revolution are vague. The hackneyed lie about “official Russian anti-Semitism” is refuted by Sverdlov himself, who wrote in one of his letters: “I personally never knew national oppression, I was not persecuted as a Jew.” No, the reason for Sverdlov's revolutionary nature was hatred, and deep and ancient hatred, a feeling that, no doubt, his father cultivated in young Yakov.

What revolutionary organizations did Sverdlov join? This question is very confusing and mysterious, as, indeed, is the whole life of Sverdlov. According to the official Soviet canonical biography of Sverdlov, he acts from the very beginning as a member of the Bolshevik Party. However, there is no evidence that Sverdlov was in the ranks of the RSDLP before 1917. In his leaflets, he signed as "Social Democrat" or "Group of Social Democrats." Most likely, in those years, Sverdlov had nothing to do with the Bolsheviks. He represented the interests of the secret organizations of the West, and specifically - the inhabitants of the skyscraper at 120 Broadway, all the same Schiff, Solomon Leib, Colonel Edward House and so on. It was this force that organized entire armed groups of its militants in Russia.

Jacob Schiff - American banker who invested in the Russian Revolution

There is also more solid evidence of Sverdlov's commitment to Kabbalistic occultism, and, possibly, black magic. Researcher Valery Shambarov writes: “Sverdlov was such a terrific occultist that evidence of his hobbies even leaked onto the pages of Soviet works! I will give two examples from the memoirs of his wife Novgorodtseva.

In 1911, when his wife was about to give birth, Yakov Mikhailovich cheers her up and writes from prison: “I would like to pour all my “spirit alive” in the hope of strengthening yours.” As you can see, the phrase "the spirit is alive" is used in the sense of a certain vital energy. And this combination is typical for Sverdlov, in his conversations and letters it sounds more than once. And it is in this form: not a “living spirit”, not a “living spirit”, but a “living spirit”. That is, it is a term. In Turukhansk exile, where many revolutionaries took to drink, even committed suicide, Yakov Mikhailovich convinces that the main thing is not to lose "the spirit is alive", to keep the "spirit alive." It is indeed a Kabbalistic term meaning "energy". More precisely, according to occult ideas, one of several "energies" inherent in man.

Second example. In the Turukhansk region, back in Kureika, Sverdlov acquired a dog, which he named Pes. And I really liked this animal. The dog was endlessly attached to his master and never parted with him. Wherever Sverdlov went, the dog followed him on his heels. At the end of 1916, the Dog died. Yakov Mikhailovich grieved terribly. But what does the grieving owner do? He asked a local hunter to dress the dog's skin. And then he took it everywhere with him. In the Kremlin, this skin was always lying by the bed of Yakov Mikhailovich.

Those who have pets and are really attached to them will probably shudder from such a manifestation of “love”. But the fact is that a well-known magical ritual is described here. And not just magic, but black magic. Preserving part of the corpse, necromancers by certain rites try to "pull" the spirit of the deceased creature to the earth, to the material plane. Do not let him go to another world. And use it for your own purposes.

Shambarov also cites the facts of Sverdlov's depiction of occult drawings, his knowledge of magical rituals.

Another mystery is the reason for Sverdlov's departure to the Urals, where he had neither relatives nor acquaintances. There, in the Urals, on the eve of the 1905 revolution, Sverdlov created an organization called the Combat Detachment of People's Arms (BONV), which became one of the most criminal and bloody organizations of the revolution of 1905-1907. This organization was formally subordinate to the combat center, which included Moses Lurie, Erasmus Kadomtsev, Minei Gubelman (Yaroslavsky). But in fact, Sverdlov, who acted under the nicknames "Comrade Andrei" and "Mikhailovich", was the absolute master in it. In the BONV, “as in the classical mafia or in the Masonic orders, several levels of initiation into the secret of the organization were created. Only the one at the top of the pyramid had complete information, he coordinated his actions with the combat center. One of the active BONV militants, Konstantin Myachin (aka Vasily Yakovlev), defined the rules that reigned in it as follows: "The rule: one knows - no one knows, two - worse, three know - everyone knows."

Behind the external intelligence was a cruel militant and a tough organizer ...

Sverdlov was the leader of all anti-government actions in the Urals. The head of the Perm security department wrote to his superiors that “Comrade Andrey”, or “Mikhailovich”, “after the announcement of the Most Merciful Manifesto on October 17, 1905, led all the riots that took place in Yekaterinburg and constantly presided over and orated at all meetings of a revolutionary nature that took place there ... ". In the leadership of the militants, Sverdlov relied on monstrous cruelty. When one of the members of the organization, Ivan Bushenov, expressed disapproval of Sverdlov's methods, he said in an ominously calm voice: “What are you, Vanyusha, do you want to make a revolution in white gloves? No blood, no shots, no defeats?

The end follows...

Petr MULTATULI, Yekaterinburg Initiative

Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov(May 22 (June 3), 1885 or May 23 (June 4), 1885, Nizhny Novgorod - March 16, 1919, Moscow) - Russian politician and statesman, revolutionary, Bolshevik. Member of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b), RCP (b). Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (the formal head of the RSFSR) in November 1917 - March 1919. Party pseudonyms: Comrade Andrey, Max, Mikhail Permyakov, Smirnov and others. As chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, he was one of the organizers of the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, decossackization.

Many modern historians recognize as an established fact the sanctioning of the execution of Nicholas II by the Bolshevik leadership in the person of Lenin and Sverdlov (not all modern historians - experts on this topic agree with this opinion), while the issue of Moscow's sanctions on the murder of Nicholas II's relatives remains controversial in modern historiography. : some historians recognize the existence of sanctions of the central government also on their execution, some do not recognize.

Born into a Jewish family. According to the historian I.F. Plotnikov, “according to some sources, Sverdlov was called Yeshua-Solomon Movshevich from birth, and according to others, Yankel Miraimovich.” Father - Mikhail Izrailevich Sverdlov (died in 1921) - was an engraver; mother - Elizaveta Solomonovna (died in 1900) - a housewife. Six children grew up in the family: two daughters (Sophia and Sarah) and four sons (Zinovy, Yakov, Benjamin and Leo). After the death of his wife (1900), Mikhail Izrailevich Sverdlov converted to Orthodoxy and married a second marriage to Maria Alexandrovna Kormiltseva; In this marriage, two more sons were born - Herman and Alexander.

• The elder brother is Peshkov, Zinovy ​​\u200b\u200bAlekseevich (1884-1966), before baptism - Yeshua-Solomon (Zolomon) Sverdlov. Godson of M. Gorky, who actually adopted him. Emigrated to France, served in the Foreign Legion. Upon his retirement, he received the rank of Corps General. Knight of the Order of the Legion of Honor. He was on friendly terms with Charles de Gaulle.
• Brother - Sverdlov, Veniamin Mikhailovich (1887-1938). In 1938 he was shot by the verdict of the VKVS as a "Trotskyite".
• Brother - Sverdlov, Lev Mikhailovich (1893-1914).
• Sisters - Sophia (1882-1951) and Sarah (1890-1964).
• Brothers from his father's second marriage - Herman and Alexander.
• First wife - E. F. Schmidt; daughter from this marriage - E. Ya. Sverdlova (born 1905).
• The second wife is Sverdlova (nee Novgorodtseva) Claudia Timofeevna (1876-1960). Nickname - Olga Novgorodtseva. The keeper of the “Politburo Diamond Fund” (it was hidden in her apartment. “His appointment was such that, in the event of a loss of power, to provide the members of the Politburo with the means to live and continue their revolutionary activities”). Author of a book of memoirs about Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov.

Andrei Yakovlevich Sverdlov (1911-1969) - the son of the Sverdlovs, Yakov Mikhailovich and Claudia Timofeevna. Twice - in 1935 and 1937 - he was arrested by the NKVD for "anti-Soviet" statements among young people, which did not prevent him from serving in the central apparatus of the NKGB and the Ministry of State Security of the USSR. In October 1951, Colonel A. Ya. Sverdlov was arrested for the third time, but was not brought to trial because of Stalin's death.

The daughter of the Sverdlovs, Yakov Mikhailovich and Claudia Timofeevna, is Vera (born 1913).

Ida Averbakh is the niece of Yakov Sverdlov. She was married to G. Yagoda.

Leopold Averbakh is the nephew of Y. Sverdlov.

A frequent guest of the Sverdlov family was Maxim Gorky, who lived in Nizhny Novgorod in those years. One of Jacob's childhood friends is Volodya Lubotsky (V. M. Zagorsky).

Youth

He graduated from the four classes of the gymnasium, then studied pharmacy. Already in his youth he was a well-known underground worker in Nizhny Novgorod.

1901-1917

Since 1901, in the ranks of the RSDLP, after a split at the II Congress of the RSDLP in 1903, he became a Bolshevik and a professional revolutionary, campaigned in Kostroma, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, and became a leader of the Yekaterinburg and Ural committees of the RSDLP.

In September 1905 he was sent to the Urals as a representative agent of the Central Committee.

Organized an asset of experienced underground workers. Among them were N. N. Baturin (teacher of the workers' university), N. E. Vilonov (Mikhail Zavodskoy), S. A. Cherepanov, Maria Aveide, Kamagantsev (Kuzma), F. F. Syromolotov (head of the fighting squad), A E. Minkin (Mark) and a number of others.

In 1905, he organized revolutionary actions of the masses in Yekaterinburg and learned the practice of military affairs from the combatants of E. S. Kadomtsev, who organized the combat squads of the Bolsheviks in the Urals, brought Kadomtsev’s combat squads to revolutionary Petersburg, where they organized the fighting squads of workers, which served to expand Sverdlov’s fame as a practical mass leader.

In October 1905, he created and headed the Yekaterinburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies.
Since 1906, Sverdlov in Perm, where the largest in the Urals Motovilikha cannon factory was located.

Repeatedly arrested and sentenced to imprisonment and exile, he was engaged in self-education in prisons.

From June 10, 1906 to September 1909, Sverdlov was in the prisons of the Urals - in the Perm correctional detainee department and in the Nizhneturinsky Nikolaev correctional detainee department. His associates and wife were also arrested. On December 19, 1909, Sverdlov was again arrested in Moscow. On March 31, 1910, he was exiled to the Narym Territory for 3 years, from where he fled without even spending four months.

From the beginning of 1912, on his initiative, a deeply secret organization was created in the Narym exile, which was specially engaged in arranging the escape of the exiled Bolsheviks. Boris Kraevsky was appointed chairman of the Bureau of Escapes.

In February 1913, together with Stalin, he was extradited by the Okhrana agent Malinovsky and exiled to Turukhansk. For some time they served a link in the north of the Yenisei province (p. Kureika) in the same house. Later, Sverdlov wrote: “... we know each other too well. What is saddest of all, in conditions of exile, prison, a person is naked in front of you, manifests itself in all his little things ... Now we are in different apartments with a friend, and we rarely see each other. The misunderstanding between the two future leaders of the revolution was based, apparently, not on political grounds. Here is how Stalin describes (as presented by N. S. Khrushchev) some details of their life together with Sverdlov in Turukhansk exile:

“We cooked our own dinner. Actually, there was nothing to do there, because we did not work, but lived on the funds that the treasury gave us: three rubles a month. Another party helped us. Mainly we hunted by catching nelma. It didn't take much specialization. They also went hunting. I had a dog, I named her "Yashka". Of course, this was unpleasant for Sverdlov: he is Yashka and the dog Yashka. So, Sverdlov used to wash spoons and plates after dinner, but I never did that. We sing, I put the plates on the floor, the dog licks everything, and everything is clean. And he was clean."

On October 1, 1913, at a meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, the issue of organizing an escape from exile for Sverdlov and Stalin was discussed, but it was not carried out.

Under the Provisional Government

After returning from exile in March 1917, after the February Revolution, Sverdlov was sent by the Central Committee to Yekaterinburg to organize the work of the Ural Regional Party Conference, prepared a proletarian uprising in the Urals - in case it did not work out in Petrograd.

At the 7th (April) Conference of the RSDLP (April 24, 1917), Sverdlov first personally met with Lenin, and began to carry out various current affairs and assignments for him. Under the influence of Lenin, Sverdlov was elected a member of the Central Committee and headed the then organized Secretariat of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (the main executive body of the Central Committee that implements the decisions of party leaders).

Having become the main organizer of work on the promotion and placement of personnel in key positions, Sverdlov established links between them and organized interaction between party structures. Many workers nominated by him to prominent posts, whom he personally knew, later became party leaders. Sverdlov personally oversaw the affairs of the factory and factory committees, sending them experienced leaders and instructors, the same was done for the committees of the regional level. During the mass demonstrations on July 3-4, organized by the Bolsheviks Bleikhman, Roshal and Raskolnikov (despite Lenin's warnings not to succumb to provocations), Sverdlov was the main speaker from the Bolshevik Central Committee and received from political opponents the nickname "the black devil of the Bolsheviks" (after the color of his leather jacket , with which he did not part, then it became the Bolshevik fashion). When the Bolsheviks were declared counter-revolutionaries and German spies, Sverdlov personally came to Lenin and organized his transition to an underground position, hiding him near the Razliv station near Sestroretsk, while he himself remained in Petrograd to organize the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks. In the future, he maintained contact between the Central Committee and Lenin, in every possible way prevented his rash attempts to return to legal activity and supplied him with general information about the progress of affairs in Petrograd. Later, Sverdlov organized the movement of Lenin even further - to Finland, from where he wrote to the Foreign Bureau of the Central Committee: “I am writing this letter personally on my own behalf, because I don’t have the opportunity to ask the Central Committee or even communicate with him ...”

While Lenin was writing his fundamental work “The State and Revolution”, which determined the principles of the structure of the proletarian state, in a hut under Razliv, Sverdlov developed a vigorous activity to implement his ideas. Having prepared and held the 6th Congress of the RSDLP, he strengthened his positions as a member of the Central Committee of the RSDLP and head of the Secretariat (Orgburo) of the Central Committee of the RSDLP. Being in the center of events, he concentrated the information of the army of agitators sent to the places, introduced organization and purposefulness into the movement of the masses.

At the historic meeting of the Central Committee on October 10, 1917, which decided on an armed seizure of power, Sverdlov was the chairman and was appointed a member of the Military Revolutionary Center, created to lead the uprising. In this capacity, he took up the selection of members of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, the former members of which were mainly sent to lead the uprising in the provinces. To strengthen the Military Revolutionary Committee, I. Flerovsky, F. Goloshchekin, P. Bykov, V. Galkin and other Bolsheviks known to him were sent to him, in addition, he picked up and sent 51 Commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee to the Petrograd garrison.

Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee

On November 8, at the suggestion of Lenin, Sverdlov, as the chief personnel officer, was appointed chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. Acting in this capacity, Sverdlov carried out the main work on the creation of Soviet authorities "in the center and in the field."

Sometimes it seemed that just as V. I. Lenin came to Russia after the victory of the February Revolution with ready-made political blueprints for the entire revolution, so Ya. industries of work.

Grigory Zinoviev

Leon Trotsky, in his book Portraits of Revolutionaries, argued that "Sverdlov tried to give the Presidium (CEC) political significance, and on this basis he even had friction with the Council of People's Commissars, and partly with the Politburo."

On behalf of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, he opened the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly on January 5, 1918, announcing the "Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People", according to which Russia was declared a republic of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies. On January 13, Sverdlov achieved the unification of the Soviets of Peasants' Deputies with the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, becoming chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSKD. In February and March 1918 he was a member of the Bureau of the Petrograd Revolutionary Defense Committee.

Sverdlov paid great attention to the formation of proletarian cadres of the country's administration, organizing for them a school of instructors and agitators at the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (in 1919 it was transformed into the Y. M. Sverdlov Communist University, which in 1939 was transformed into the Higher Party School under the Central Committee).

Sverdlov was the chairman of the commission for the development of the Constitution of the RSFSR. The Constitution prepared by him declared the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia with the aim of establishing socialism in the state in the form of the Republic of Soviets on the basis of a free union of free nations as a federation of Soviet national republics (that is, the power of the Soviets on the principles of national autonomy), in which

The soviets of regions that are distinguished by their special way of life and national composition can unite into autonomous regional unions, at the head of which, as well as at the head of any regional associations that can be formed in general, are regional congresses of Soviets and their executive bodies ...

Moreover, this Constitution specifically emphasized that

The Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic grants the right of asylum to all foreigners who are persecuted for political and religious crimes.

At a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on May 20, 1918, Sverdlov for the first time proclaimed a policy of splitting the village into two warring camps of the poor and the kulaks. Sverdlov is credited with the authorship of the directive of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) dated January 24, 1919, which prescribed the implementation of harsh punitive measures in the suppression of Cossack uprisings against Soviet power on the Don. During the revolt of the Left SRs in the summer of 1918, the arrest of Sverdlov was one of the main goals of the rebels, in response to which Sverdlov and Lenin ordered the arrest of the leadership of the Left SRs, who were in the Bolshoi Theater at a meeting of the Fifth Congress of Soviets.

After the assassination attempt on Lenin on August 30, 1918, Sverdlov signed the appeal of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on September 2 "on the transformation of the Soviet Republic into a single military camp", supplemented on September 5 by the "Resolution on Red Terror" issued by the Council of People's Commissars, which declared massive red terror against all enemies of the Revolution.

While Lenin was being treated, Sverdlov categorically refused to elect an interim chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and personally performed his functions, working in Lenin's office and signing documents for him, and held meetings of the Council of People's Commissars.

In addition, Sverdlov did a lot of international work: he prepared the 1st Congress of the Communist International, participated in organizing congresses of the Communist Parties of Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine.

Death

According to the official version, he fell ill with Spanish flu while returning to Moscow from Kharkov (he left Kharkov on March 6, 1919). Returned to Moscow on March 8. The fact that he was "gravely ill" was reported on 9 March. He died on March 16, 1919. On March 18, 1919, he was buried at the Kremlin wall.

Doctor of Law Arkady Vaksberg, referring to a source in RGASPI, wrote: “The exact cause of his death is unknown. At the same time, a rumor, apparently not without foundation, spread that in the city of Orel he was mortally beaten by workers because of his Jewish origin, but this fact was supposedly hidden so as not to “disgrace the revolution” and not incite even more anti-Semitic passions. The historian Yu. G. Felshtinsky also mentioned similar rumors, while even putting forward the hypothesis that Sverdlov could have been poisoned at the direction of Lenin.

Participation in the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly

Main article: All-Russian Constituent Assembly

The peaceful demonstration in Petrograd on January 5, 1918 in support of the Constituent Assembly was shot by the Red Guard. The execution took place at the corner of Nevsky and Liteiny prospects and in the area of ​​Kirochnaya street. The main column of up to 60 thousand people was dispersed, however, other columns of demonstrators reached the Tauride Palace and were dispersed only after the arrival of additional troops. The dispersal of the demonstration was led by a special headquarters headed by V. I. Lenin, Ya. M. Sverdlov, N. I. Podvoisky, M. S. Uritsky, V. D. Bonch-Bruevich. According to various estimates, the death toll ranged from 7 to 100 people. The demonstrators mainly consisted of representatives of the intelligentsia, employees and university students. At the same time, a significant number of workers took part in the demonstration. The demonstration was accompanied by Socialist-Revolutionary combatants, who did not put up serious resistance to the Red Guards. According to former Social Revolutionary V. K. Dzerul, “all the demonstrators, including the PC, went unarmed, and the PC even issued an order to the districts that no one should take weapons with them.”

Participation in the organization of the execution of the royal family

Main article: The execution of the royal family

In 1917, after the February Revolution, abdication and house arrest, the former Russian Emperor Nicholas II and his family were exiled to Tobolsk by the decision of the Provisional Government, and subsequently transferred by the Bolsheviks to Yekaterinburg.

In early July 1918, the Ural military commissar Filipp Goloshchekin went to Moscow to resolve the issue of the future fate of the royal family. The execution of the entire family was not authorized by the Council of People's Commissars, since according to one version, Moscow was informed of this later. In accordance with this decision, the Ural Council of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies, at its meeting on July 12, adopted a resolution on the execution. On July 16-17, 1918, the royal family was shot. Sverdlov was at that time in Moscow. However, L. D. Trotsky in his memoirs directly points to the participation of Ya. M. Sverdlov in the execution of the royal family. However, the reliability of the statements of L. D. Trotsky is disputed by a number of researchers.

Organization of the fight against the Cossacks

Main article: Decossackization

On January 24, 1919, the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), after discussing the 6th item on the agenda - “Circular letter of the Central Committee on the attitude towards the Cossacks”, adopts a secret directive “To all responsible comrades working in the Cossack regions” with a resolution: “Adopt the text of the circular letter. To propose to the Commissariat of Agriculture to develop practical measures for the resettlement of the poor on a large scale to the Cossack lands ". This directive, signed on January 29 by the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Ya. Sverdlov, marked the beginning of decossackization. According to the studies of historians, the ideologist and compiler of this directive is I.V. Stalin (historian G. Magner), Ya.M. Sverdlov (opinion of the historian R.A. Medvedev), or S.I. of historical sciences L. I. Futoryansky, who studies the problems of the Cossacks). According to other sources, this directive was also adopted at the insistence of L. D. Trotsky. In March 1919, the Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) revised the provisions of the directive, demanding a differentiated approach to the various strata of the Cossacks.

Addresses in Petrograd

Lenin about Sverdlov

• “Comrades, the first word at our congress,” Lenin said, opening the Eighth Party Congress, “should be dedicated to Comrade. To Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov ... if for the whole party as a whole and for the entire Soviet Republic Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov was the main organizer ... then for the party congress he was much more valuable and closer ... Here his absence will affect the entire course of our work, and the congress will feel his absence especially sharp."

• Speech dedicated to the memory of Sverdlov: “In this era, at the very beginning of the 20th century, we had Comrade. Sverdlov, as the most chiselled type of professional revolutionary ... ".

• “We lowered into the grave,” Vladimir Ilyich said mournfully at the Kremlin wall on March 18, “the proletarian leader who did the most to organize the working class, to win it.”

• “Memory of Comrade. Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov ... - said Lenin, - will serve not only as an eternal symbol of the revolutionary's devotion to his cause, will serve not only as an example of a combination of practical sobriety and practical skill, complete connection with the masses, with the ability to direct them, - but will also serve as a guarantee of that more and more masses of the proletarians, guided by these examples, will go forward and forward towards the complete victory of the world communist revolution.

Articles by Sverdlov

In Turukhansk (1913-1917), Sverdlov wrote works on the situation of the exiles: "The Tsar's exile for ten years (1906-1916)" and "The Turukhansk rebellion." Wrote many essays, letters, in which his thoughts on philosophical and social problems, on issues of literature, culture, art. He did not have time to develop these thoughts into finished works. On the basis of a series of his lectures on the history of the International and the tasks of the future International III, he prepared for publication Essays on the History of the International Labor Movement. The work on the book was interrupted by the February Revolution, and it was not possible to continue it.

He also wrote articles: “Essays on the Turukhansk Territory” (1915), “Mass Exile (1906-1916)”, “Split in German Social Democracy”, “The Collapse of Capitalism”, “Essays on the History of the International Labor Movement”, options articles “War and Siberia” (1916), “Events of July 3-6 in Petrograd”, “Letter to comrades about the raid on the editorial office of Pravda” (1917), “Soviet power in the countryside” (b / d), proclamation from named after the St. Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP (b) on the July events of 1917, appeal "To all workers and peasants, all working people, all councils, everyone, everyone, everyone!" (on the convening of the 5th Congress of Soviets) (1918).

Yakov Sverdlov about Stalin (March 12, 1914, from a letter to Paris by an unknown person. State Archive of the Krasnoyarsk Territory):

... My friend [Stalin] and I differ in many ways.
He is a very lively person and retained, despite his forty years, the ability to react vividly to a variety of phenomena. In many cases, he has new questions where there are none for me. In that sense, he is fresher than me. Don't think that I put him above me. No, I'm bigger, he himself is aware of this.
Theoretical questions cause little controversy. Yes, and there is no particular interest in arguing with him, because I have a significant advantage ... We argued, played a game of chess, I gave him checkmate, then parted after a late hour. And in the morning we will meet again, and so every day: there are only two of us on Kureika ...

The image of Sverdlov

Leon Trotsky wrote in his article "In Memory of Sverdlov":

Sverdlov was not tall, very thin, lean, dark-haired, with sharp features of a thin face. His strong, perhaps even mighty voice might seem out of proportion to the physical warehouse. To an even greater extent, however, this could be said about his character. But such could be the impression only at first. And then the physical appearance merged with the spiritual, and this short, thin figure, with a calm, unyielding will and a strong, but not flexible voice, appeared as a complete image.

Nothing, - Vladimir Ilyich sometimes said in some difficult case, - Sverdlov will tell them this in a Sverdlovsk bass, and the matter will be settled ...

There was a love irony in these words.

In the first to October period, the enemies called the Communists, as you know, "leather" - according to their clothes. I think that the example of Sverdlov played a big role in the introduction of the leather “uniform”. In any case, he himself walked in leather from head to toe, that is. from boots to a leather cap. From him, as from the central organizational figure, these clothes, which somehow corresponded to the character of that time, spread widely. Comrades who knew Sverdlov from the underground remember him differently. But in my memory, the figure of Sverdlov remained dressed in black leather armor - under the blows of the first years of the civil war.

It was a born organizer and combinator. Each political question presented itself to him primarily in its organizational concreteness, as a question of the relationship between individuals and groups within the party organization and the relationship between the organization as a whole and the masses. In algebraic formulas, he immediately and almost automatically substituted numerical values. In this way, he gave the most important test of political formulas, since it was a matter of revolutionary action.

Trotsky L. Around October (04/06/1924)

Memory of Sverdlov

In Soviet times, the name of Sverdlov was immortalized in the names of geographical objects and enterprises. In almost every city in the country there were streets named after him, some of which have now been renamed.

Ekaterinburg

From November 14, 1924 to September 6, 1991, the Ural regional center, the city of Yekaterinburg, was called Sverdlovsk. In 1991, the historical name of Yekaterinburg was returned to the city, but the Sverdlovsk region retained its name. The central railway station of Yekaterinburg was called Sverdlovsk-Passenger until March 30, 2010, when it was renamed Yekaterinburg-Passenger. The monument to Y. Sverdlov appeared in the city in 1927, it is installed in the city center, on Lenin Avenue between the buildings of the Ural State University and the Opera and Ballet Theatre. In addition, the city has Sverdlov Street. The State Memorial Museum of Ya. M. Sverdlov was opened in the city.

Leningrad region

In the Vsevolozhsk district there is a village named after Sverdlov.

Novosibirsk

One of the central squares of Novosibirsk is named after Sverdlov.

Kharkiv

From March 1919 to 1996 in Kharkov, one of the main streets, Yekaterinoslavskaya, was named after Sverdlov. In 1996, by decision of the Kharkiv City Council, Sverdlov Street was renamed Poltava Shlyakh Street. The Kharkiv metro station on this street was also called Sverdlov street, after renaming the street became known as cold mountain.

Sverdlovsk (Ukraine)

• Sverdlovsk was named a city formed in 1938 in the Voroshilovgrad region of Ukraine.

Moscow

• In memory of Sverdlov, the square near the Bolshoi Theater was named in the capital of the Soviet Union. A monument to Ya. M. Sverdlov was also erected here. In 1990, the square and the metro station that appeared on it in 1938 were renamed Teatralnaya. In 1991, after the demolition of the monument to Dzerzhinsky, the monument to Sverdlov was also removed, moved to the Crimean embankment, as well as the bust of Sverdlov in the underground passage of the metro.

Moscow region

• In the Shchelkovsky district of the Moscow Region there is a village of Sverdlovsky

Nizhny Novgorod

• The main street of the city Bolshaya Pokrovskaya - on which Yakov Mikhailovich was born in house number 6 - until the early 1990s was named after Sverdlov.
• In the square at the corner of Sverdlov (now again Bolshaya Pokrovskaya) and Oktyabrskaya streets, near the Sverdlov Palace of Culture (the former building of the Nobility Assembly), on November 5, 1957, a monument to Ya. M. Sverdlov was opened.
• Garden named after Sverdlov (former Bishop's Garden) on Piskunov Street (former Malaya Pecherskaya).

Irkutsk

• Sverdlovsk District of Irkutsk
• Street in Irkutsk.

Oryol Region

• Sverdlovsky district (Oryol region)

Minsk

• Street in Minsk.

Ulan-Ude

• Street in Ulan-Ude.

Petrozavodsk

• Street in Petrozavodsk.

Interesting Facts

• In 1994, a letter from Genrikh Yagoda to Stalin dated July 27, 1935 was discovered in the former archive of the Politburo, in which Yagoda reported that Sverdlov's personal safe had been found in the warehouse of the Kremlin commandant, which had not been opened all 16 years since his death. There were gold coins of royal minting for an astronomical sum (108,525 rubles), over seven hundred gold items with precious stones, a lot of blank passports and completed passports in the name of Sverdlov himself and unknown persons, bonds of tsarist times, etc.

Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov - quotes

It is possible to a certain extent to cultivate sensitivity in a person, to awaken his energy. But only under the condition of long-term exposure, education. Moreover, only personal influence can be of great importance. The most important thing is to learn to love life as it is, with all the good and bad that lurks in it.

One person never satisfies and cannot satisfy completely, completely, all without exception, the needs of another.

People are related not only by pleasures, but also by difficult experiences. Often the latter are even greater than the former. The desire for the strength of personal relationships I think is normal. I admit physical intimacy only as the completion of a different kind of closeness, not necessarily ideological, but, of course, “spiritual,” if I may say so.

Youth gives birth to many beautiful images, gives rise to strong impulses, etc. But youth is measured by far more than just years. A person at fifty can be young and thirty old.