Evno Azef,
the son of poor Jewish
parents,
was born in Lyskovo, in 1869. In an attempt to improve their fortunes,
the family moved to Rostov-on-Don in 1874.
Educated
at the local school, Azef worked as a journalist before becoming a
travelling salesman. He became a revolutionary and in 1892, facing
arrest for his political activities, he stole 800 rubles and escaped
to Karlsruhe, Germany. He moved to Datmstadt where he successfully
studied for a diploma in electrical engineering.
While in
Germany he joined a group of exiled members of the Social
Democratic Party. Unknown to his fellow comrades, he also became
a paid police informer. In order to obtain the information that the
Okhrana required, Azef toured Europe
where he met all the leading Russian revolutionaries living in exile.
Azef was
paid 100 rubles a month and in 1899 it was suggested by Okhrana
that he would be more effective working in Russia. On his return he
joined the Socialist
Revolutionary Party
where he advocated of armed terrorism. He was appointed a member of
the party's Central Committee and in 1903 replaced Gregory
Gershuni, as head of the SR
Combat Organization.
Azef organized
the assassination of Vyacheslav
Plehve in 1904 and Father
Gregory Gapon in 1906. At the same time
he was receiving 1,000 rubles a month from the Okhrana.
Several members of the police leaked information to the leadership
of the Socialist
Revolutionary Party
about the undercover activities of Azef. However, they refused to
believe the stories and assumed the secret service was trying to undermine
the success of the terrorist unit.
Eventually
a police defector managed to persuade V. L. Burtsev that Azef was
a police spy. He investigated the case and found confirmation in the
accusation when he interviewed a former director of the Police Department
in 1912.
When Azef
heard the news he escaped to Germany. During the First
World War Azef was arrested by the German authorities but was
released in December, 1917. Evno Azef died in Berlin in 1918.
(1)
Victor
Serge, Year One of the Revolution (1930)
The SR Battle Organization was founded by Gregory
Gershuni in 1902; its first act, in the same year, was the execution
of the Minister of Education Sipyagin by the student Balmashev (who
was later hanged). On the day after the murder, the SR party published
under a similar verdict. The arrest of Gershuni, who was delivered
to the police by Azef, caused the latter's promotion to the top leadership
of the terrorist detachment. A man named Boris Savinkov, for whom
terrorism was a vocation and whose courage was indomitable, now found
himself under the orders of the agent-provacateur. In 1904 the Prime
Minister, Plehve, fell mutilated by Yegor Sazonov's bomb. Sazonov
had organized the assassination on instructions from Azef.
(2)
Edward Judge, Plehve: Repression
and Reform in Imperial Russia (1983)
Azef sat
in a very dangerous position, especially after Gershuni's arrest,
and he had to think first of his own safety. A continual series of
arrests, and a long train of assassination attempts gone awry, could
only help convince his SR colleagues that they had a traitor in their
midst. If he were found out, his game would be over, and so, most
probably, would be his life. On the other hand, if he could successfully
plan and accomplish the murder of Plehve, his position among the SRs
would be secured. Azef had little love for Plehve: as a Jew, he could
not help but resent the Kishinev pogrom and the minister's reputed
role.
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