Who Actually Gave The Order ...?


On the morning of July 28, 1904, Russia's notorious interior minister, Count Wjatscheslaw Konstantinowitsch fonPlehwe ...



... in his carriage on the way from the police department on the Fontanka to the Warsaw train station in St. Petersburg on Izmailovsky Prospect in the south of the city.

Suddenly a bomb deposited on the street explodes!



Plehwe and his coachman died instantly - his bodyguard, who had accompanied him on a bicycle, survived seriously injured.

Here is the crime scene - with Plehwes destroyed carriage ...:







Plehwe, born on April 20, 1846 (all dates according to our era!) And Minister of the Interior since 1902, was an absolute reactionary and a proven anti-Semite.

While effectively promoting Jewish pogroms (like the following one at Kischinjow 1903) behind the scenes ...





... and did not, or only very negligently, let them be followed, he denounced his colleague, Finance Minister Count Sergej Juljewitsch Witte in 1903



... as a "participant in a Jewish conspiracy" with Tsar Nicholas II and thus achieved Witte's removal.

On the other hand, he persecuted members of the opposition, or anything that was “opposition” in his eyes, relentlessly.

The socialist underground movement then formally accused him of “crimes against the people and fatherland, against civilization and humanity” - in addition, Plehwe “sent many brave advocates of law and freedom to the scaffold or buried them alive in the tombs of our Bastilles”.

In the subsequent “verdict”, Plehwe was certified to “flood the pavement of our industrial centers with proletarian blood” and to have initiated the Russo-Japanese War in addition to the persecution of minorities (Poles, Armenians, the Kishinev Jewish pogrom).

As for Plehwe's complicity in the Russo-Japanese war:

He was a sponsor and co-partner of the notorious wood syndicate whose attacks in Korea led to the outbreak of war.

But whoever gave the order for the murder of Plehwe - and in whose name this commissioner acted, gets lost in the thicket of secret police and left underground revolutionaries so typical of the Russia of that time.

For sure is:

The bomb that killed Plehwewas laid by the student Jegor Sasonow ...



Sasonov is quickly arrested and - one almost has to say "astonishingly" - not sentenced to death but to life imprisonment!

This may also be an indication of how hated Plehwe was in large parts of the upper middle class and the authorities ...

It is also certain:

The left-wing and very idealistic Sasonov did not act alone, but had a helper during the assassination who had previously also built the "infernal machine" (as they said at the time): It was the Social Revolutionary Ivan Platonowitsch Kaljajew (photo from police file)...



Kaljajew managed to escape, went into hiding and in January 1905 he would carry out another deadly bomb attack on Grand Duke Sergej Aleksandroviwitsch Romanow, an uncle of the tsar ...







Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich Romanov was also known by the nickname "Prince Khodynski", as he was responsible for many thousands of deaths at the feast on the occasion of the coronation celebrations of Tsar Nicholas II on the Khodynka field at Moscow on Mai 30, 1896...:



And finally we know:

The attacks on Interior Minister Plehwe and the Grand Duke were planned and prepared by the underground revolutionary Jewno Fischelewitsch Asew, who was the most influential at the time (French and Russian police photos)...:





Only: on what behalf was Asew acting?

In 1909 (Asev was just in Paris) the revolutionary Wladimir Lwowitsch Burzew...



... after long and careful research, uncovered Asew as a paid agent of the tsarist secret police "Ochrana".

Asev received a princely salary of 1,000 rubles a month from the "Ochrana", for comparison: the average skilled worker wage at the time was 12 rubles ...

The revolutionaries living in Paris acted so honorably that Asev was brought to a "court of honor" - and allowed him to spend the night before the trial at home. Asew used that night to flee to Germany, where, completely impoverished, he died of kidney failure on April 24, 1918 in the Westend hospital at Berlin.

So who was the actual "client" of the attack, the secret police (which would mean the minister was ultimately killed by his own people), or at least the revolutionaries, will probably never be clarified ...

Sergey Witte - wasn't he the Russian representative at the peace talks following the Russo-Japanese war? If so, he did a good job.

Interesting post Martin. Strange, the bombs didn't blow the wheels off either carriage?

Yes he was!

They brought him back in dire need!

When Russia's defeat became apparent in the Russo-Japanese War, Nicholas II remembered Witte's negotiating skills and in June 1905 sent him to America as chief negotiator to negotiate the terms of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty with Japan. Witte (at the center of the table at the back of the photo below) turned out to be a brilliant and tough negotiating partner who, despite Russia's devastating defeat on the battlefield, was able to negotiate relatively mild contractual terms. Russia lost the Liaodong Peninsula, the port of Port Arthur (now part of Dalian) and the concessions for the railways in Manchuria.



After that, the tsar brought him back to the government - and Witte picked up where he left off.

He saw the revolution coming and clearly saw that only profound democratic reforms could save the tsarist regime ("revolution from above", as he called it!).

On October 17, 1905, the Tsar had to issue the so-called "October Manifesto" written by Witte, which introduced civil liberties and converted the Duma (parliament) into a legislative body to prevent an impending revolution. Witte himself had urged this step and warned of the consequences of an unyielding attitude.

The Tsar, who then tried all legal (and illegal) means to turn the wheel of history back, fired Witte again in April 1906.

After that, Witte reported back to politics only once: in 1914 he was the spokesman for those who resolutely warned against Russia entering the First World War. The tsar did not agree to this.

The end is known.

Witte did not live to see the outbreak of the revolution: He died on March 3, 1915 of meningitis at the age of 65 in Petrograd (St. Petersburg).

His grave in the Lazarus Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery is still there today ...:

Professor Martin. You missed your calling, should be teaching history.


Steve

For heaven's sake! When fun and interest have turned into a profession, the first two are usually over!


Cheers