At the very beginning of 1921, an unprecedented food crisis erupted in the Soviet state, caused primarily by the flawed practice of prodrazverstka — the forced seizure of “surpluses” of agricultural products from everyone, even starving peasant families. By that time, armed peasant uprisings were raging across the country. At the end of February, nationwide unrest spread to Kronstadt.

Military sailors, soldiers, and workers of the main naval base of the Baltic Fleet, at a mass rally on March 1, adopted a resolution demanding new elections of the Soviets by secret ballot, the restoration of freedom of speech, press, and assembly, and the release of all political prisoners. The Bolsheviks regarded the Kronstadt events as an anti-Soviet rebellion organized by the Socialist Revolutionaries, anarchists, and Mensheviks with the support of foreign interventionists and White Guards. The regular army was deployed to suppress this “rebellion.” The Kronstadt rebels were defeated; about eight thousand managed to flee to Finland, while the rest faced immediate mass terror.

That same scorching summer of 1921, a monstrous widespread famine broke out, and the Cheka officers initiated the case of the “Petrograd Combat Organization,” better known as the case of the anti-Soviet conspiracy.

Among the 833 residents of the former capital charged with criminal responsibility for involvement in the “Petrograd Combat Organization” was the poet Gumilev. He was arrested on the night of August 4, 1921, and three weeks later, at dawn on August 25, was executed as part of a group of 60 other “conspirators.” The burial site in the northern outskirts of Petrograd was later approximately identified. On October 3, another 37 people were executed in the same case.

The Gumilev case was classified until October 1989. After academician Likhachev appealed to the Chairman of the USSR KGB Kryuchkov, a lawyer named Luknitsky was allowed for the first time to review the “secret pages” of the case. He was permitted to copy and prepare the documents for publication. The edition was published in 1997 under the title: “The ‘Case’ of Gumilev (The State Monopoly on Information About the Time of Lawlessness. An Experience of Political Polemics).”

The Gumilev Case

Order for the arrest and search of Gumilev, August 3, 1921

Petrograd Extraordinary Commission, Secret-Operational Department

Issued to officer Montville for the search and arrest of Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev at the address Preobrazhenskaya Street, house 5/7, apartment 2.

Note: All officials and citizens are required to provide full assistance to the mentioned officer.

Chairman of the Commission B. SEMENOV

Head of the Secret-Operational Department P. SEROV

Gumilev was arrested no earlier than 2 a.m. on August 4 at the “House of Arts,” which was located in the building at the corner of Nevsky Prospect 15 and the Moika River Embankment 59.

After his detention, Gumilev was taken to the investigative prison (Preliminary Detention House) on Shpalernaya Street. There he met Punin, an art historian and future husband of Anna Akhmatova, who had been arrested on August 3 in connection with the “Petrograd Combat Organization” case. From the “Shpalernaya,” Punin informed his father-in-law on August 7: “Meeting here with Nikolai Stepanovich, we stood facing each other like madmen; in his hands was the ‘Iliad,’ which was immediately taken away from the poor fellow.” After the verdict, Gumilev was transferred to the building of the Petrograd Cheka on Gorokhovaya Street. Punin was released on September 6, possibly due to Lunacharsky’s intercession.

Protocol of testimony of citizen Tagantsev:

The poet Gumilev, after the story of German (a colonel who, on the night of May 31, 1921, resisted arrest at the Soviet-Finnish border and was killed), approached him at the end of November 1920. Gumilev claimed that he was connected with a group of intellectuals whom he could command and who, in case of an uprising, were willing to take to the streets. But he wished to have some free cash for technical needs. We did not have such funds at that time. We decided to preliminarily verify Gumilev’s reliability by sending Shvedov to him to establish connections.

However, this was not done for three months. Only during the Kronstadt uprising did Shvedov fulfill the assignment and found the poet Gumilev on Preobrazhenskaya; I learned his address from “World Literature,” where Gumilev worked. Shvedov offered to help us if there was a need to compose proclamations. Gumilev agreed, saying he reserved the right to refuse topics that did not correspond to his far-from-right views. Gumilev was close to a Soviet orientation. Shvedov could reassure him that we were not monarchists but supported Soviet power. I do not know how much Gumilev believed this statement. Gumilev was given 200,000 Soviet rubles and a typewriter ribbon for expenses. Regarding his group, Gumilev gave an evasive answer, saying he needed time to organize it. A few days later, Kronstadt fell. I heard on the side that Gumilev was moving far away from counter-revolutionary views. I no longer contacted him, nor did Shvedov or German, and we did not have to expect poetic proclamations from him.

Interrogation protocol of Gumilev

August 9, 1921

Interrogation protocol conducted at the Petrograd Provincial Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Sabotage, and Speculation

Testimony on the substance of the case

About three months ago, a tall, clean-shaven young man came to me in the morning, saying he brought me greetings from Moscow. I invited him in, and we talked for about twenty minutes on city topics. At the end of the conversation, he promised to show me Russian foreign editions at his disposal. A few days later, he indeed brought me several issues of some newspapers and left them with me, despite my statement that I did not need them. Having read these issues and found nothing interesting for me, I burned them. About a week later, he came again and began asking if I knew anyone willing to work for counter-revolution. I explained that I did not know anyone. Then he pointed out the insignificance of the work — gathering various information and moods, distributing leaflets — and said this work could be paid. I then refused to continue the conversation on this topic, and he left. He gave me his surname when introducing himself, but I forgot it; it was neither German nor Shvedov.

Signature: Gumilev

The proposal to familiarize oneself with texts published abroad was in 1921 the most ordinary provocation. This method was used both by the Chekists and party officials. Gumilev undoubtedly understood that keeping foreign newspapers could bring him serious trouble in case of a search, from which no one in the Soviet state was insured; therefore, he burned the printed materials delivered to him, having read them beforehand.

Interrogation protocol of N.S. Gumilev

August 18, 1921

Testimony on the substance of the case

Interrogated by investigator Jakobson, I state the following:

Last summer, I was acquainted with the poet Boris Verin and talked with him on political topics, bitterly lamenting the suppression of private initiative in Soviet Russia. In the fall, he left for Finland, and a month later, in my absence, I received a note from him saying he arrived safely and settled well. Then, in winter before Christmas, a middle-aged lady came to me and handed me an unsigned note containing a series of questions apparently related to foreign espionage (for example, information about a planned campaign to India). I told her I did not want to provide such information, and she left. Then, at the beginning of the Kronstadt uprising, Vyacheslavsky came to me with a proposal to provide information for him and to participate in the uprising if it spread to Petrograd. I refused to provide information but agreed to participate, indicating that I would probably be able at the moment of the uprising to gather and lead a small group of passersby, using the general oppositional mood. I also agreed to try writing counter-revolutionary poems. About five days later, he came to me again, repeated the same talks, and offered hectograph ribbon and money for expenses related to the uprising. I took neither, saying I did not know if I could use the ribbon. A few days later, he came again, and I clearly said I would not take the ribbon, being unable to use it, but took the money (two hundred thousand) just in case and kept it in my desk, waiting either for events (i.e., the uprising in the city) or for Vyacheslavsky’s return to give it back, because after the fall of Kronstadt, I sharply changed my attitude toward Soviet power. Since then, neither Vyacheslavsky nor anyone else with similar talks has come to me, and I have forgotten the whole matter.

In addition, I report that I indeed told Vyacheslavsky that I could gather an active group of my comrades — former officers, which was a frivolous statement on my part, because I met them only occasionally and fulfilling my promise would have been extremely difficult. Moreover, when we discussed the amount of expenses, we also talked about a million rubles.

Excerpt from the protocol

of the meeting of the Presidium of the Petrograd Cheka

August 24, 1921

Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev, 35 years old, former nobleman, philologist, member of the Collegium of the World Literature Publishing House, married, non-party, former officer.

Participant in the Petrograd combat counter-revolutionary organization, actively assisted in drafting counter-revolutionary proclamations, promised to connect with the organization at the moment of the uprising a group of intellectuals and career officers who would actively participate in the uprising, received money from the organization for officers who would actively participate in the uprising, received money from the organization for technical needs.

Decision

“Sentenced to the highest measure of punishment — execution by shooting.”

As can be seen from the case materials, until August 1921, Gumilev did not attract any interest from the Petrograd Chekists. To find out where he lived, they had to apply to the city address bureau no later than July 31, and then spend about two more days to locate the poet in the “House of Arts” and take him into custody on the night of August 4 (see doc. No. 2 and No. 4). The order for the search and arrest of Gumilev (see doc. No. 3) was signed by the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka and his deputy, but neither of them had the slightest idea whom they were condemning to death. They simply sanctioned the detention of a person who, according to the address bureau, had higher education and therefore belonged to a socially alien category of compatriots — the intelligentsia. When a delegation of writers petitioning for the poet managed to get a meeting with the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, he “not only could not answer why Gumilev was taken, but even turned out not to know who he was”; then, after a little thought, he declared that the poet was imprisoned “for an official crime.”

Sources

Luknitsky S.P. “The ‘Case’ of Gumilev…”

Punin N.N. The World Was Bright with Love. Diaries. Letters.