Fanya
Kaplan was born into a poor peasant
family and her four brothers and two sisters were all educated at
home. Her parents both emigrated to the United States.
Kaplan
became involved in radical politics and joined the Socialist
Revolutionary Party.
In 1906 she took part in a plot to kill a Tsarist official in Kiev.
Kaplan was caught and sentenced to a life of hard labour in Siberia.
After
eleven years in Siberia she was released after the February
Revolution. Like many Mensheviks
and Socialist
Revolutionaries,
Kaplan was furious when the Bolsheviks
closed down the Constituent
Assembly.
On
30th August, 1918, Vladimir Lenin spoke
at a meeting in Moscow. As he left the building Kaplan tried to ask
Lenin some questions about the way he was running the country. Just
before he got into his car Lenin turned to answer the woman. At that
moment Kaplan fired three shots at him. Two bullets entered his body
and it was considered too dangerous to remove them.
Kaplan
was soon captured and in a statement she made to Cheka
that night, she explained that she had attempted to kill him because
he had closed down the Constituent Assembly
and was a "traitor to the revolution."
Fanya
Kaplan
was shot by Pavel Malkov, a Baltic Fleet sailor, on 3rd September,
1918. Yakov Sverdlov, who organized
the execution, gave instructions that she was not to be buried. He
told Malkov: "her remains are to be destroyed so that not a trace
remains."
The
attempt on Lenin's life and the assassination of Moisei
Uritsky, chief of the Petrograd Secret Police, marked the beginning
of the Red Terror.
It is estimated that in the next few months 800 socialists were arrested
and shot without trial. In the first year the official figure, almost
certainly an underestimate, suggested 6,300 people were executed without
trial.
P. P. Baloyusov, painted a picture of Fanya Kaplan's attempt to
kill Lenin.
(1)
Victor Serge, Year One of the Revolution
(1930)
Lenin arrived alone; no one escorted him and no
one formed a reception party. When he came out, workers surrounded
him for a moment a few paces from his car. It was at this moment
Kaplan fired at him, three times, wounding him seriously in the
neck and shoulder. Lenin was driven back to the Kremlin by his chauffeur,
and just had the strength to walk upstairs in silence to the second
floor: then he fell in pain. There was great anxiety for him: the
wound in the neck could have proved extremely serious; for a while
it was thought that he was dying. The wounded man's own strength
carried him through. Lenin was back on his feet in around ten days.
(2)
Fanya Kaplan, statement made to Cheka
before being executed (30th August, 1918)
My name
is Fanya Kaplan. Today I shot at Lenin. I did it on my own. I will
not say whom I obtained my revolver. I will give no details. I had
resolved to kill Lenin long ago. I consider him a traitor to the
Revolution. I was exiled to Akatoi for participating in an assassination
attempt against a Tsarist official in Kiev. I spent eleven years
at hard labour. After the Revolution I was freed. I favoured the
Constituent Assembly and am still for it.
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