Today, few people are ready to give their lives for their ideals. And at the beginning of the last century, when the socialist revolution took place in Russia, there were many such people. They went to the barricades, they were sent to hard labor and shot. One of these "ideological" - Maria Spiridonova, who was one of the leaders of the Party of Left Social Revolutionaries.
She gave her life for the beliefs to which she was unfailingly devoted. Maria lived only fifty-six years, and she spent more than thirty years in prisons.
Biography
Maria Alexandrovna Spiridonova was born in Tambov in 1884. Her parents were quite wealthy people, and gave their daughter a good education. She graduated from a girls' gymnasium in her hometown - it was there that her leadership qualities were manifested.
She defended the rights of the students, went against the decisions of the gymnasium leadership, for which she was almost expelled. However, Maria still managed to get an education, and after grammar school got a job in the Provincial Noble Assembly.
She had a well-delivered speech, a talent for persuasion, and at one of the meetings of young people she was noticed by local Social Revolutionaries. She accepted their ideas with all her heart and became one of the activists of the movement.
Revolutionary activity
Companions held numerous meetings, protest demonstrations, because of which Maria and several comrades were arrested in March 1905. They were quickly released, but the Social Revolutionaries concluded that demonstrations would not help the cause, and decided to kill.
The brave Spiridonova volunteered to do this. The party members decided to "eliminate" Gabriel Luzhenovsky, one of the advisers of the Tambov provincial government, who brutally suppressed peasant unrest.
Mary was against all violence, but for this man she saw no other revenge.
Before the murder, Spiridonova tracked Luzhenovsky for several days, and at a convenient moment fired five bullets at him from a pistol.
After her arrest, she was severely beaten, and in March 1906 she was sentenced to death. She waited a long time for this event to happen, but she was pardoned and sentenced to indefinite hard labor. It was another shock, and it is not known how it affected the psyche of the former "suicide bomber".
At that time, Maria was in Butyrka, where there were also revolutionaries Alexandra Izmailovich, Anastasia Bitsenko and others. All of them were found guilty of activities against the state.
In the summer of 1906, all the women were transported to the Akatui prison, where they led a fairly free lifestyle: they walked in their own clothes, walked, used the library and talked to each other. However, at the beginning of 1907, they were sent to another prison, where the rules were much stricter, and where they were among the criminals.
Maria Alexandrovna stayed there until February 1917, after which, on the personal order of Kerensky, she was released. Soon the activist was already in Moscow.
Ten years of hard labor did not break the strong woman, and she actively joined the work of the party. She became a member of the Orgburo, where she was responsible for "processing" the soldiers. She knew how to convince anyone that the war should be stopped and order in the country should be restored so that there was social justice.
At the same time she wrote articles for the newspaper "Land and Freedom", led a page in the newspaper "Znamya Truda". She chaired peasant and party congresses - she was in the thick of things. And soon she became the editor of the magazine "Our Way".
Maria Alexandrova had such a large-scale thinking that her article "On the Tasks of the Revolution" was considered a guide for the Left SRs. In the article, she rejected the possibility of a return to the bourgeois system and called for the unification of the people, criticized the actions of the Provisional Government.
Break with the Bolsheviks
Spiridonova made only one mistake in understanding the revolutionary processes: she believed that the people temporarily followed the Bolsheviks, and soon everyone would turn away from them. Because the Bolsheviks rejected the monarchy and were not financially secured.
Maria Alexandrovna was sure that there would be a second stage of the revolution, which would awaken the working people of the whole world. She was a tireless agitator: she talked with peasants, workers, bourgeois. They believed her, because the power of her conviction was enormous, and the convict past gave the aura of a great martyr.
However, this did not help - the Bolshevik movement grew, the Bolsheviks occupied key positions in the state. The Left SRs did not agree with their policy, and Spiridonova spoke loudest of all. In July 1918, she was arrested and sent to prison for a year. She wrote angry letters, calling the Bolsheviks "gendarmes from the Communist Party" and said that they had betrayed the ideals of the revolution.
After her release, Maria did not abandon her convictions and continued her propaganda of the brotherhood of all peasants and workers around the world. But even the closest associates did not fully accept her ideas, although she made a great contribution to the common cause.
Meanwhile, the Bolsheviks grew stronger, and old friends who disagreed with their policies began to interfere with them. The "inconvenient" Spiridonova was arrested again in January 1919, accused of libel, and sent to the Kremlin hospital, from where she fled.
A year later, they found her and again hid her behind bars. Then Maria was released on the condition that she cease all political activities. Agreeing, she settled in the suburbs. And in 1923 she attempted to escape abroad. For this she was sentenced to three years in exile.
In 1930, she was released, and a year later everything happened again: again arrest and again three years of exile.
Personal life
Maria got married during her last exile, when she lived in Ufa. Her husband, Ilya Andreevich Mayorov, was also a Left Socialist-Revolutionary and was a member of the party's leadership.
After returning from exile, Maria Alexandrovna honestly complied with the agreement and did not engage in politics, but in 1937 she and her husband were arrested on charges of terrorist activities and sentenced to 25 years in prison. They were transferred from prison to prison until they were taken to Orel. They stayed there until 1941.
And in September she, Mayorova and Aleksandra Izmaylovich were shot together with other political prisoners.
In 1992, Maria Spiridonova was completely rehabilitated.
