Yakov Blumkin
| Yakov Blumkin | |
|---|---|
Yakov Blumkin
|
|
| Born |
Yakov Grigoryevich Blumkin 1898 Odessa, Russian Empire |
| Died | 3 November 1929 (aged 30–31) Russia |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Occupation | Left Socialist-Revolutionary |
Yakov Grigoryevich Blumkin (Russian: Яков Григорьевич Блюмкин; 1898 – 3 November 1929) was a Left Socialist-Revolutionary, bolshevik and an agent of Cheka and State Political Directorate (GPU).
Blumkin was born into a Jewish family, was orphaned early in his life, and was raised in Odessa. In 1914 he joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party.
After the October Revolution, in 1917 he became head of the Cheka's counter-espionage department working for Felix Dzerzhinsky. The following story is recounted about the poet Osip Mandelstam by his biographer Clarence Brown:
One evening early in the Revolution he was sitting in a cafe and there was the notorious Socialist Revolutionary terrorist Blumkin… at that time an official of the Cheka… drunkenly copying the names of men and women to be executed on to blank forms already signed by the head of the secret police. Mandelstam suddenly threw himself at him, seized the lists, tore them to pieces before the stupefied onlookers, then ran out and disappeared. On this occasion he was saved by Trotsky's sister.
Like many Cheka employees at the time, Blumkin was, politically, a Left Socialist-Revolutionary rather than a Bolshevik. Since this party was opposed to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Blumkin was ordered by its executive committee to assassinate Wilhelm Mirbach, the German ambassador to Russia; they hoped by this action to incite a war with Germany. This event was timed to occur at the opening of the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. On the afternoon of 6 July 1918, Blumkin – along with an aide, Nikolai Andreyev – went to the residence of the German Ambassador on Denezhny Lane. Blumkin gained entrance to the embassy by presenting forged documents. When Mirbach entered the drawing room, Blumkin pulled a gun from his case and shot the ambassador at point blank range, killing him. At the same time, the Left SRs launched a coup attempt in Moscow, which was quickly quelled. The members of the Left SR party at the Bolshoi Theater were arrested and the party was forcibly suppressed. Blumkin, however, escaped and went into hiding.
...
Wikipedia