Roman Malinovsky




 

 

 

 

 


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Roman Malinovsky, the son of Roman Catholic peasants, was born in Russia on 18th March, 1876. He was orphaned at an early age and was in trouble with the local police for getting involved in criminal activities.

In 1902 Malinovsky joined the Izmailovsky Guards Regiment. After four years service he left the army and found employment as a lathe operator in a factory in St. Petersburg. He became involved in trade union activities and eventually became the full-time secretary of the Metalworkers Union.

Malinovsky joined the Bolsheviks and took a prominent role in organizing workers during the 1905 Revolution. However, he was now well-known to the police and in November, 1909, he was arrested and expelled from St. Petersburg.

Malinovsky went to Moscow with his wife and two children but in May, 1910, he was arrested once again. It was while he was in prison he agreed to become an undercover agent for the Okhrana. For 100 rubles a month Malinovsky supplied reports on Bolshevik members, locations of party meetings and storage places for illegal literature.

In 1912 Vladimir Lenin suggested that Malinovsky should join the Bolshevik Central Committee. Lenin also advocated that Malinovsky should be a Bolshevik candidate for the Duma. After being elected in October, 1912, Malinovsky became the leader of the group of six Bolshevik deputies.

In 1914 rumours began to circulate that Malinovsky was a spy working for Okhrana. The Bolsheviks carried out an investigation into Malinovsky and concluded that his "political honesty" was not in doubt.

On the outbreak of the First World War Malinovsky resigned from the Duma and joined the Russian Army. He was wounded and captured by the German Army in 1915 and spent the rest of the conflict in a prisoner of war camp.

After the October Revolution the Bolsheviks were able to read the Okhrana files. They discovered that Malinovsky was a spy and on his return to Russia in 1918 he was arrested. At his trial Malinovsky admitted he had been a spy and commented: "I am not asking for mercy! I know what is in store for me. I deserve it." After a brief trial was found guilty and executed.





(1) David Shub was a member of the Social Democratic Labour Party who suspected that Roman Malinovsky was a spy.

There was a wave of arrests among the Bolsheviks in Moscow. Among those rounded up was Nikolai Bukharin. Bukharin, then a member of the Moscow Committee of the Bolshevik Party, had distrusted Malinovsky from the start, despite the latter's assiduous attempts to win his confidence. For Bukharin had noticed several times that when he arranged a secret rendezvous with a party comrade, Okhrana agents would be waiting to pounce on him. In each case Malinovsky had known of the appointments and the men whom Bukharin was to meet had been arrested.

 

(2) When Vladimir Lenin saw the evidence he admitted that Roman Malinovsky had been a spy.

Malinovsky could and did destroy a number of individuals. But as for the growth of the Party in the sense of increasing its importance and influence on the people by the tens and hundreds of thousands, that growth could not be stopped, controlled, or directed by Malinovsky.



(3) A Badayev was a Bolshevik deputy in the Duma. He wrote about the Roman Malinovsky case in his book, Bolsheviks in the Duma (1929)

Malinovsky's life was a series of crimes, his talents, his mind, and his will being used for one purpose: to sell himself at the highest possible price where he could do the most possible harm to the liberation of the working class. He will go down in history as one of its greatest traitors.

 

(4) During his trial Roman Malinovsky attempted to explain why he spied on the Bolsheviks.

Judge: Why did you accept the 6,000 rubles compensation? You were evidently more interested in the money than in your so-called tragedy.

Malinovsky: If I refused to accept the money the Okhrana would have suspected me of playing a double game. I had to show that I was faithful.

Judge: But you had already proved that by delivering our best comrades to the police.



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