One of the most high-profile assassination attempts in world history took place a hundred years ago. Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin was seriously wounded in Moscow during a meeting with workers. Fanny Kaplan, who was shooting, was immediately captured and shot three days later. But there are too many secrets left to keep the biography of the famous terrorist.
Anarchist "Dora"
Fanny Efimovna Kaplan (Feiga Haimovna Roytblat) was born in Volyn into a Jewish teacher's family. During the events of 1905, a fifteen-year-old girl, educated at home, unexpectedly joined the anarchists, whose ideas were very popular - adventure and risk were always in vogue. Even then, under the name "Dora", she began a revolutionary career and declared her decisive and courageous character.
Hard labor
In 1906, she took part in organizing the assassination attempt on the Kiev governor-general. The bomb prepared for the terrorist attack exploded ahead of time, the girl received an eye injury, which subsequently led to loss of vision. Arrest followed and sentenced to death. Fanny was saved by her young age and an almost pure biography, the execution was replaced by a life-long hard labor. In shackles, the prisoner was transported several times from one prison to another, as her accompanying documents indicated a tendency to escape. Seven years later, the life sentence was reduced to 20 years, and the terrorist was released only by the February Revolution, which pardoned all political prisoners.
Confident Socialist Revolutionary
Acquaintance in hard labor with the revolutionary-minded Maria Spiridonova completely changed Kaplan's political views. Now she shared the ideas of the Social Revolutionaries, and their communication with the revolutionary continued after returning to Moscow. Fanny stayed in the capital with Anna Pigit, in the same famous house on Bolshaya Sadovaya Street, where the "strange company" from the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov lived.
In the summer of 1917, Kaplan went to Yevpatoria - the Kerensky government organized a sanatorium to improve the health of political prisoners. During the treatment, she met Dmitry Ulyanov, who worked here as a doctor. The brother of the future leader helped with a referral for a new acquaintance to the Kharkov Eye Clinic. The operation was successful and her vision began to gradually return, she began to distinguish silhouettes and read with a magnifying glass.
Fatal attempt
The situation in the country was very unstable: the fall of the Provisional Government, the death of the royal family, the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly. The Left SR revolt, brutally suppressed by the Soviets in the summer of 1918, demonstrated one thing - the power belongs to the Bolsheviks. Perhaps it was these events that finally influenced Fanny's decision, she, an ardent Socialist Revolutionary, considered Lenin the main traitor of the revolution. Therefore, after a workers rally at the Michelson plant on August 30, three fatal shots were fired. The leader of the proletariat was seriously wounded, which affected his further health and departure from power. After three days in the Lubyanka, Kaplan was shot and his body burned.
The famous assassination attempt is still fraught with many mysteries. How could a girl, almost blind, decide to kill? However, shooting from a fairly close distance, she could not bring the job started to the end. Was it a firm, independent decision, or was someone guiding her? There is a version that the attack was planned from abroad or even by the leader's associates. The event untied the hands of the Bolsheviks, and the Soviet government openly announced the beginning of a bloody terror with dissidents, which lasted for many years.
