The construction in Moscow of a new transport hub with the Moscow Ring Railway station, which was supposed to be named “Voikovskaya,” caused another heated historical debate in the capital.
A number of human rights activists, members of the public, as well as clergy angrily demanded to change the name of the station, and at the same time also to rename the existing Voikovskaya metro station. Social activists believe that the name of the Soviet statesman Pyotr Voikov, after whom the street and metro station were once named, should be completely erased from the toponymy of Moscow.
Voykovskaya metro station. Photo: RIA Novosti
Angry opponents give Pyotr Voikov an extremely unpleasant description - “terrorist, destroyer of statehood, murderer of the royal family.”
This is where most of the indignant people end up knowing who Pyotr Voikov is and why his name was immortalized during the years of Soviet power.
The political portrait of Pyotr Voikov that is being painted in 2015 is far from the truth. Like all figures of the era of revolution and Civil War, Pyotr Lazarevich Voikov was neither an angel in the flesh nor a demon, as they now want to present him.
Paternal genes
Pyotr Voikov was born on August 13, 1888 in the city of Kerch, Kerch-Yenikalsky city government, Feodosia district, Tauride province, in the family of a metallurgical plant foreman, Lazar Petrovich Voikov. Voikov Sr., who came from a family of freed serfs, studied at the St. Petersburg Mining University, but was expelled from it for participating in student strikes.
USSR stamp, 1988. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
The revolutionary views of Lazar Voikov were passed on to his son. While still in school, he began distributing revolutionary leaflets, for which he was subsequently expelled. In 1905, with the beginning of the first Russian revolution, Pyotr Voikov joined the RSDLP, joining the Mensheviks.
Peter graduated from high school as an external student and successfully entered the same St. Petersburg Mining University as his father. And just like his father, Pyotr Voikov was expelled for revolutionary activities.
The first Russian revolution was in full swing when the young socialist Voikov decided that the time had come for armed struggle. Having joined the combat group of the RSDLP, Voikov took part in the preparation of the assassination attempt on the colonel Ivan Antonovich Dumbadze.
Hunting for the Black Hundreds
Colonel Dumbadze, who received the powers of the commander-in-chief of Yalta during the revolution, according to the memoirs of contemporaries, “acted in Yalta completely independently, quickly and decisively,” not always taking into account existing laws and the opinion of the Senate.”
Dumbadze dealt with revolutionaries and those whom he considered such in the most decisive manner. The legality of the colonel was of little concern to him. He ordered the demolition of houses from which even one shot was fired or a bomb was thrown, regardless of whether the owner of the house was involved. Expulsions, arrests, and closure of objectionable publications led to the fact that the colonel was hated by almost all segments of society, with the exception of the Black Hundreds. Dumbadze, one of the patrons of the Union of Russian People, helped and condoned the anti-Semitic pogromists in every possible way. For this, the comrade of the chairman of the Kyiv provincial department of the “Union of the Russian People” Mishchenko spoke about him this way: “If there were two or three more generals Dumbadze in Rus', then the Jewish-foreign revolution would have been uprooted, and they would have bowed before the sacred banner of the “Union of the Russian people" all the Judaizing Russians."
It was 18-year-old Pyotr Voikov who took part in preparing the assassination attempt against such a person.
The assassination attempt, which took place on February 26, 1907, ended in failure - Dumbadze remained alive. The direct executor committed suicide, and Voikov, whose trail was attacked by the Tsarist secret police, had to go abroad.
From Geneva to Yekaterinburg
In Switzerland, Voikov graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at the University of Geneva. Also in Switzerland, the young revolutionary, while remaining a Menshevik, became close to Lenin and began to support the Bolsheviks on certain issues.
Voikov's emigration lasted for 10 years and ended after the February Revolution. Under the Provisional Government, he served as Commissioner of the Ministry of Labor, responsible for resolving disputes between workers and business owners.
In the summer of 1917, he was sent to Yekaterinburg as a labor safety inspector. Here he finally joined the Bolsheviks and during the October Revolution was a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee of Yekaterinburg.
It was as one of the leaders of local authorities in Yekaterinburg that Pyotr Voikov in the summer of 1918 decided the fate of the family of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II.
Emperor's Executioner
It just so happened that Colonel Dumbadze, on whom Pyotr Voikov was preparing a failed assassination attempt, was the emperor’s favorite. After the assassination attempt in 1907, Dumbadze was treated kindly by the monarch, elevated to the rank of major general, and brought closer to the royal family. Taking this into account, one can guess that Voikov did not have any warm feelings for Nicholas II.
Therefore, in conditions when the White Guards were approaching Yekaterinburg, Voikov supported the execution of the imperial family.
Civil war has its own laws, and the bitterness of both sides of the conflict reaches its extreme. Under these conditions, the execution of the royal family was no fundamentally different from the executions carried out by the superstar of modern Russian cinema, Admiral Kolchak.
There is no doubt that Pyotr Voikov participated in organizing the execution of the royal family. However, stories that he then mocked the bodies of the murdered, looted, stealing the jewelry of the Empress and her daughters for personal use, come from emigrant circles and do not have objective confirmation.
Diplomat
Since March 1919, Voikov joined the leadership of the Central Union, the head body of the Soviet consumer cooperation system. Then, in the fall of 1920, Voikov was included in the Board of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade. In this capacity, he was involved in the sale abroad of valuables of the imperial family and the Armory Chamber of the Diamond Fund.
Participation in these operations is also blamed on Voikov, however, here too there was no talk of personal enrichment. The country devastated by the Civil War needed funds to restore the destroyed economy, and the sale of royal valuables was one of the sources of income. It should be noted here that there was no trace of a total sale, otherwise today neither the Diamond Fund nor the Armory Chamber would exist in principle.
In the early 1920s, Soviet Russia began the path to international recognition with difficulty and difficulty. After the signing of the Riga Peace Treaty with Poland in 1921, Pyotr Voikov was appointed chairman of the Soviet delegation to the mixed Soviet-Polish re-evacuation commission and showed extraordinary diplomatic abilities.
In 1922, Voikov was appointed diplomatic representative of the RSFSR in Canada, but Great Britain did not approve of his candidacy. British diplomats, who did not want to put up with the final consolidation of the Bolsheviks in power in Russia, provoked new complications. The refusal to Voikov was justified by his involvement in the execution of the royal family. From the lips of representatives of Great Britain, this sounded especially cynical given the fact that official London refused to grant asylum to the family of Nicholas II.
In 1924, Pyotr Voikov was appointed plenipotentiary representative of the USSR in the Polish Republic.
When performing
It was very difficult work. The Polish authorities did not hide their hostile attitude towards the USSR. White emigrant groups were active in the country, preparing terrorist attacks against Soviet citizens in Poland. Anti-Soviet sentiments of the Polish authorities were actively fueled from Great Britain, since official Warsaw was oriented towards London.
Despite all this, Pyotr Voikov worked to smooth out contradictions and improve relations between the two countries.
In May 1927, the British government broke off diplomatic relations with the USSR. In Poland during this period, anti-Soviet hysteria developed, direct threats of reprisals were made against representatives of the USSR, primarily against Plenipotentiary Envoy Voikov.
On June 7, 1927, Pyotr Voikov arrived at the station in Warsaw, where a train with Soviet diplomats working in England who had left London after the severance of diplomatic relations was supposed to arrive. At about 9 am, an unknown person on the platform opened fire on the Soviet plenipotentiary. An hour later, Pyotr Voikov died from his injuries.
The funeral procession carries the coffin with the body of the Soviet ambassador to Poland Pyotr Voikov, who was killed in Warsaw. Photo: RIA Novosti
Hero of the era
The terrorist who shot Voikov turned out to be 20-year-old white emigrant Boris Koverda. The Polish court sentenced him to lifelong hard labor, but granted the President of Poland the right to pardon Koverda. First, the sentence for Voikov’s killer was commuted from life to 15 years, and after 10 years in prison, Koverda was released.
After World War II, Boris Koverda moved to the United States, where he worked in the emigrant newspaper Rossiya, and then in the printing house of the New Russian Word. The killer of Peter Voikov died in February 1987 in Washington at the age of 79.
Pyotr Lazarevich Voikov was buried in the necropolis near the Kremlin wall. He was buried not as a “terrorist and murderer of the royal family,” but as a Soviet diplomat who died in the line of duty. It was in this capacity that he was immortalized in Moscow toponymy.
One can argue about the personality of Pyotr Voikov endlessly, and it is unlikely that this dispute will allow one to come to any common opinion. But we must be aware that the endless rewriting of one’s own history does not lead to the restoration of historical justice, but to the final destruction of respect for history.
Do residents of Kerch often think about those after whom streets, alleys, and factories are named? A village, district, street, factory proudly bears the name of the Soviet party leader Pyotr Lazarevich Voikov. Who was he, how did he deserve recognition, how did he live?
Voikov was born in Kerch in the family of a local metallurgical plant foreman in 1888. There is still no single reliable opinion about the real name of the future revolutionary. According to some sources, Voikov is his real name, according to others, he was listed under the Jewish name Pinhus Weiner. In adulthood, during the period of his stormy revolutionary and diplomatic activities, Voikov received the nicknames “Blonde”, “Intellectual”, “Petrus”.
Pyotr Lazarevich became interested in political struggle since school; in 1903, after the split of the RSDLP, 15-year-old Peter joined the Menshevik Party. He was actively involved in party affairs, he was entrusted with distributing revolutionary leaflets and harboring representatives of the RSDLP. The student’s illegal activities became known and he was expelled from the 6th grade of the Kerch gymnasium.
The father of the family, Lazar, decided to move his family to, where he tried to send his son to the Alexander Gymnasium (now the Magarach Institute of Grapes and Wine), but Peter was soon expelled from this educational institution. By coincidence, Nikolai Kharito and Samuil Marshak studied at the gymnasium during the same period. Voikov took school exams as an external student, while working at the port.
After receiving his matriculation certificate, he moved to St. Petersburg, where he decided to enter the mining institute. But he did not last long there either; his revolutionary activities alarmed the leadership of the institute, and became the reason for his expulsion. A mini hotel in St. Petersburg became Voikov’s shelter for a short time, but he soon returned to Yalta.
In 1906, Pyotr Lazarevich joined the fighting squad and helped transport bombs for the assassination attempt on General I. A. Dumbadze. The general was the mayor of Yalta, he ruled the city in an extreme authoritarian manner, which was not to the liking of revolutionaries and liberals. Pyotr Voikov organized the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Dumbadze in 1907.
The young revolutionary was forced to leave the country; he went to Switzerland, where he entered the University of Geneva. Far from his homeland, Voikov met Lenin, but never became a Leninist and remained in the ranks of the Menshevik-internationalists. After the 1917 revolution in Russia, Pyotr Lazarevich returned to his homeland and received the post of Commissioner of the Ministry of Labor of the Provisional Government.
Later he was sent to Yekaterinburg and joined the military revolutionary committee. Pyotr Voikov was among the developers of provocations against Tsar Nicholas II. He was one of those who took part in the execution of the royal family and, at his request, a large amount of sulfuric acid was released in order to completely get rid of the bodies of the imperial family.
From 1919 to 1921, Voikov’s career developed well, he was appointed head of the Central Union, and was introduced to the Board of the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Trade. By the way, Voikov was among those who sold abroad the treasures of the Russian Empire (Faberge eggs, treasures of the Diamond Fund and the Armory Chamber).
After 1921, Voikov followed the diplomatic path and headed the USSR delegation to Poland. In an effort to create diplomatic relations, Voikov transferred art objects, Russian archives and libraries to the Poles. In 1927, Voikov was shot dead in Warsaw. The organizer and executor of the murder was a Russian emigrant, who was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment, but was amnestied and released in 1937. Pyotr Lazarevich Voikov was buried with full honors at the Kremlin wall in the capital of the USSR, Moscow.
The life of this man began in Kerch on August 1, 1888. And it ended in Warsaw on June 7, 1927. The cause of death was a gunshot wound. The shooter, a 19-year-old boy, when asked why he did it, calmly replied: “I took revenge for Russia, for millions of people.” The avenger's name was Boris Koverda, his victim's name was Pyotr Voikov.Boris Koverda during interrogation at the police railway station after the assassination attempt on Voikov on June 7, 1927.
Pyotr Lazarevich Voikov was born into the family of a Kerch teacher. His parents were pious people, his father was a staunch monarchist. The son took a different path: while still in high school, he joined the RSDLP and acquired a set of party nicknames: Intellectual, Petrus, Blond. 15-year-old Petrus distributed revolutionary leaflets and helped shelter fellow party members who came to the city. For which he was expelled from the Kerch men's gymnasium. Hiding from shame, the parents of the young revolutionary moved with him to Yalta. With difficulty, they got the unlucky son into the Alexander Men's Gymnasium, but he was soon kicked out from there too.
In the summer of 1906, Voikov joined the fighting squad of the RSDLP, in other words, he became a terrorist and moved from distributing illegal literature to transporting bombs. In February 1907, a bomb was thrown from the balcony of one of the Yalta dachas at the carriage of the Yalta mayor, General Dumbadze, who was passing by. Dumbadze was thrown out of the crew by the blast wave. They didn’t have time to catch the terrorist - he shot himself. Dumbadze himself, according to some sources, escaped with scratches; according to others, he received a severe concussion that caused heart disease, from which he died in 1916. 18-year-old Pyotr Voikov actively and actively participated in organizing the assassination attempt on the Yalta mayor.
Hiding from arrest, Voikov went to Switzerland, married a girl from a wealthy family and lived abroad for almost 10 years. In Geneva he met Lenin, returned to Russia in 1917 and after the revolution became a member of the Ural Regional Council and the Military Revolutionary Committee. In this rank, Voikov took direct part in the murder of the Romanov family. In his autobiographical book “On the Road to Thermidor,” Soviet diplomat Grigory Besedovsky, who worked with Voikov in 1924, writes that once, while drunk, Voikov told him how the royal family was killed and what part he took in it . If you believe this story, then Voikov supported the idea of murder and proposed “to take the royal family to the nearest deep river and, having shot them, drown them in the river, tying weights to their bodies.” However, the regional committee, where the debate on this issue took place, adopted a resolution to execute the royal family in Ipatiev’s house. The implementation of the resolution was entrusted to Yurovsky, while Voikov was supposed to be present as a delegate of the regional party committee. He, as a person knowledgeable in the natural sciences (he studied chemistry at the Universities of Geneva and Paris), was entrusted with developing a plan for the complete destruction of corpses. However, the matter did not stop there. Voikov told Besedovsky that he took part in the execution itself and finished off the wounded with a bayonet. And then, in accordance with the planned plan, he began to supervise the destruction of corpses; he provided his accomplices with butcher axes, sulfuric acid, gasoline and matches...
At the end of 1918, Voikov was transferred to Moscow and appointed a member of the board of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade, from which he was soon fired with a loud scandal: it turned out that Voikov was stealing valuable furs and giving them away to his friends. However, using connections at the top of the party, Pyotr Lazarevich managed not only to avoid punishment, but also to get diplomatic work - in 1924 he became the USSR ambassador to Poland. In those days, Warsaw was considered a kind of Slavic Paris. And the newly appointed ambassador lived here with French chic: Voikov had his own motor boat, he organized luxurious river picnics on the Vistula. Caviar, balyki, and vodka were ordered from Moscow in huge quantities—the ambassador was partial to alcohol, as well as women and drugs. However, soon all these “simple human joys” came to an end.
On the morning of June 7, 1927, Voikov arrived at the main train station in Warsaw, he was supposed to meet the Soviet ambassador Arkady Rosengoltz returning from London. I met him and drank coffee with him at the railway cafeteria, after which my colleagues went out onto the platform again. And then a shot rang out - an unknown young man shot at Voikov from a revolver. He rushed to run and began to shoot back, but the stranger was more accurate - Voikov received two gunshot wounds and died an hour later in the hospital. The Soviet government, in response to the murder of Voikov, executed 20 representatives of the grand ducal families still remaining in the USSR on the night of June 9-10.
The Russian emigrant Boris Koverda, who shot Voikov, soon appeared before a Polish court. After the indictment was announced, the chairman of the court asked Coverda whether he would plead guilty. He replied that he admits the murder of Voikov, but does not consider himself guilty, since he killed him for everything that the Bolsheviks did in Russia. Koverda was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor, and in 1937 he was released under an amnesty. Koverda's shot made him a hero of the white emigration, and in modern publications he also often appears as a purely positive character. However, in fact, Boris Sofronovich was a controversial personality: during the war he collaborated with the Nazi
regime and, according to some sources, was a member of the leadership of the Sonderstab R, a secret organization engaged in human intelligence and fighting partisan detachments in the territory of the USSR occupied by the Nazis.
Almost every city in Crimea has a Voikov street or lane. Two Crimean villages bear his name, one Voikovo (formerly Katerlez) is located in the Leninsky district, the other Voikovo (formerly Aibary) is in Pervomaisky. A monument to Voikov was erected in Kerch (pictured).
On this issue, representatives of the Church once again revived their interest in the personality of Peter Voikov himself. What did this man become famous for, if today it is he who causes particular rejection among part of Russian society?
Voikov became a terrorist at the age of 15
Voikov’s father, Lazar Petrovich, was at one time expelled from the institute for participating in student unrest, but even for his family, Voikov Jr. had overly radical views, which over time led him to a break with his loved ones. According to his father’s recollections, Pyotr Voikov, even in the gymnasium, thought about an attempt on the life of the emperor. Already at the age of fifteen he joined the RSDLP, becoming one of the party’s militants.
Peter also infected his brother Pavel with his revolutionary views, whose fate was tragic. On March 1, 1906, Pavel Voikov entered the building of the Yalta Alexander Gymnasium, where he cut a portrait of Tsar Nicholas II, after which he went to the seashore and shot himself.
A series of terrorist attacks in Crimea are connected with Voikov
True, their result cannot be called successful. Thus, an attempt on the life of the city police chief Gvozdevich led to the death of random people, while Gvozdevich himself survived. A year later, Voikov was no longer an ordinary fighter, but the organizer of the assassination attempt on the Yalta mayor Dumbadze. The assassination attempt failed; its direct executor, an unknown Social Revolutionary, was forced to shoot himself. Voikov disappeared into exile for ten years.
Voikov is involved in the repression of peasants
After the revolution of 1917, Pyotr Voikov left his wife in exile and hurried to return to Russia. However, according to a number of sources, Lenin Voikov was not in the famous “sealed carriage”; he was traveling on another transport together with Martov and Lunacharsky.
After the Bolsheviks came to power, Voikov supervised food requisitions in the Urals. Noted by repressions against the Ural industrialists and peasantry.
Voikov personally killed members of the royal family
Actually, it is for this crime that they propose to erase his name from the capital’s maps. And it’s not even about the august status of those killed, but about the cruelty of what they did. According to people who personally knew Voikov, during the murder of the royal family, he shot a maid and one of the daughters of the last emperor.
Voikov’s colleague in the diplomatic service, Grigory Besedovsky, recalled from his words: “When everything was quiet, Yurovsky, Voikov and two Latvians examined the executed, firing several more bullets at some of them or piercing them with bayonets... Voikov told me that it was a terrible picture. The corpses lay on the floor in nightmarish poses, with faces disfigured from horror and blood. The floor became completely slippery, like in a slaughterhouse..."
There is a version that initially Voikov was not supposed to participate in the execution, but he insisted on his presence, hoping in this way to go down in history. He even memorized the text of the verdict, which was supposed to be solemnly announced to the royal family, but this did not happen: the leader of the execution, Yakov Yurovsky, himself said a couple of phrases and opened fire, without waiting for the official part.
Later, it was Voikov, as a chemist by training, who was responsible for hiding the traces of the execution and destroying the bodies.
Voikov is involved in the sale of national treasures
After the events in the Urals, Voikov was transferred to Moscow, where he dealt with economic issues. In particular, he held the position of deputy head of foreign trade.
In the early 1920s, he was one of the leaders of the operation to sell abroad treasures of the imperial family, the Armory Chamber and the Diamond Fund. This work was carried out with the knowledge of the Soviet government, which was in dire need of money and was ready to sell treasures at reduced prices.
The Bolsheviks suspected Voikov of theft.
A number of researchers argue that Voikov’s departure from the Soviet trade system is associated with suspicions against him. It is known that he was very greedy for women, and, as some of his colleagues believed, it was precisely for the purpose of giving gifts to numerous ladies that he appropriated valuable furs intended for sale. There was no criminal prosecution against Voikov. However, he was dismissed from his position in the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade with a severe reprimand.
As a diplomat, Voikov planned terrorist attacks abroad.
In 1922, Voikov was transferred to diplomatic work. Canada refused to accept him as a representative of Soviet Russia due to his involvement in the murder of the royal family. Poland also at first resisted diplomatic accreditation of the former revolutionary, but then finally agreed.
It is known that Voikov combined his ambassadorial work with revolutionary work, planning the assassination of the leader of Poland, Marshal Pilsudski. There is information that for this purpose, parts for making bombs were sent to him from Moscow.
Voikov's career ended with his murder
According to the testimony of his contemporaries, Pyotr Voikov was unable to prove himself properly in the diplomatic service. The British envoy in Warsaw wrote about Voikov in 1925: “He naturally has no imagination either about diplomatic or social etiquette and feels very oppressed.” Voikov became addicted to drugs, and large quantities of caviar, balyki and vodka were ordered from Moscow for him.
On June 7, 1927, at the Warsaw train station, Voikov was mortally wounded by Boris Koverda, a leader of the white emigration. During the investigation, Koverda explained his actions with one phrase: “I took revenge for Russia, for millions of people.”
Metropolitan Sergius was forced to condemn the murder of Voikov
In 1927, the Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Sergius (Stargorodsky) was forced to sign the famous Declaration of Recognition of Soviet Power. The murder of diplomat Voikov was then regarded as an unfriendly act against the entire Soviet Union, and therefore his condemnation was included in the Declaration as a separate line. It said: “Every blow directed at the Union, be it a war, a boycott, some kind of social disaster, or simply a murder from around the corner, like the one in Warsaw, is recognized by us as a blow aimed at us.”
The signing of the Declaration by Metropolitan Sergius was not accepted by some of the believers in the USSR and in exile, which for many gave rise to division within the Russian Orthodox Church.
Petr Lazarevich Voikov (1888 - 1927) was born into the family of a teacher at a theological seminary (according to other sources, the director of a gymnasium). Since 1903, member of the RSDLP, Menshevik. In the summer of 1906, he joined the fighting squad of the RSDLP, participated in the transportation of bombs and the assassination attempt on the Yalta mayor. Hiding from arrest for terrorist activities, he went to Switzerland in 1907. He studied at the Universities of Geneva and Paris.
In April 1917, Voikov returned to Russia in a “sealed carriage” through German territory. He worked as a secretary to the comrade (deputy) Minister of Labor in the Provisional Government, and contributed to the unauthorized seizure of factories. And in August he joined the Bolshevik Party.
From January to December 1918, Voikov was commissar of supplies for the Ural region, supervised the forced requisition of food from peasants. His activities led to a commodity shortage and a significant decrease in the standard of living of the population of the Urals. Involved in repressions against entrepreneurs in the Urals.
P.L. Voikov, being a member of the Ural Regional Council, participated in the decision to execute Nicholas II, his wife, son, daughters and their companions. Participant in the execution of the royal family, Ekaterinburg security officer M.A. Medvedev (Kudrin) indicates Voikov among those who made the decision to destroy the family of Nicholas II. His detailed memoirs about the execution and burial of the royal family were addressed to N.S. Khrushchev (RGASPI. F. 588. Op. 3. D. 12. L. 43-58).
Voikov actively participated in the preparation and concealment of traces of this crime. In the documents of the judicial investigation conducted by the investigator for especially important cases at the Omsk District Court N.A. Sokolov, contains two written demands from Voikov to issue 11 pounds of sulfuric acid, which was purchased at the Yekaterinburg pharmacy store “Russian Society” and used to disfigure and destroy corpses (see: N.A. Sokolov. Murder of the Royal Family. M., 1991; N. A. Sokolov. Preliminary investigation 1919-1922. Collection of materials. Death of the Royal Family. Materials of the investigation into the murder of the Royal Family (August 1918 - February 1920). .
The memories of former diplomat G.Z. Besedovsky, who worked with Voikov at the Warsaw permanent mission. They contain a story P.L. himself Voikov about his participation in the regicide. Thus, Voikov reports:“the question of executing the Romanovs was raised at the insistent request of the Ural Regional Council, in which I worked as a regional food commissioner... The central Moscow authorities did not want to shoot the tsar first, meaning to use him and his family for bargaining with Germany... But the Ural Regional Council and the regional committee of the Communist Party continued to resolutely demand execution... I was one of the most ardent supporters of this measure. The revolution must be cruel to the overthrown monarchs... The Ural Regional Committee of the Communist Party brought up the issue of execution for discussion and finally decided it in a positive spirit since [the beginning of] July 1918. At the same time, not a single member of the regional party committee voted against...
The implementation of the resolution was entrusted to Yurovsky, as the commandant of the Ipatiev House. During the execution, Voikov had to be present as a delegate of the regional party committee. He, as a natural scientist and chemist, was entrusted with developing a plan for the complete destruction of corpses. Voikov was also instructed to read the execution decree to the royal family, with a motivation consisting of several lines, and he actually learned this decree by heart in order to read it as solemnly as possible, believing that by doing so he would go down in history as one of the main characters of this tragedy. Yurovsky, however, who also wanted to “go down in history,” got ahead of Voikov and, having said a few words, began to shoot... When everything was quiet, Yurovsky, Voikov and two Latvians examined the executed, firing several more bullets at some of them or piercing them with bayonets... Voikov said I thought it was a terrible picture. The corpses lay on the floor in nightmarish poses, with faces disfigured from horror and blood. The floor became completely slippery, like in a slaughterhouse...
The destruction of the corpses began the very next day and was carried out by Yurovsky under the leadership of Voikov and the supervision of Goloshchekin and Beloborodov... Voikov recalled this picture with an involuntary shudder. He said that when this work was completed, near the mine lay a huge bloody mass of human stumps, arms, legs, torsos and heads. This bloody mass was doused with gasoline and sulfuric acid and immediately burned for two days in a row... It was a terrible picture,” Voikov concluded. “All of us, participants in the burning of corpses, were downright depressed by this nightmare. Even Yurovsky couldn’t bear it in the end and said that a few more days like this and he would have gone crazy...” (Besedovsky G.Z. On the path to Thermidor. M., 1997. P.111-116).
The quoted statement of what happened is consistent with other known documents and memoirs of participants in the murder of the royal family (see: Repentance. Materials of the Government Commission for the study of issues related to the research and reburial of the remains of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family. M., 1998. P. 183 -223). At the same time, it should be said that they pierced with bayonets living (bullets ricocheted off corsets) and innocent young girls, daughters of Nicholas II.
P.L. Since 1920, Voikov was a member of the board of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade. He is one of the leaders of the operation to sell to the West at extremely low prices unique treasures of the imperial family, the Armory Chamber and the Diamond Fund, including the famous Easter eggs made by Faberge.
In 1921, Voikov headed the Soviet delegation, which coordinated with Poland issues on the implementation of the Riga Peace Treaty. At the same time, he transferred Russian archives and libraries, art objects and material assets to the Poles.
Since 1924, Voikov became the Soviet plenipotentiary representative in Poland. In 1927, he was killed by the Russian emigrant B. Koverda, who stated that this was an act of revenge against Voikov for complicity in the murder of the royal family.
Senior ResearcherCandidate of Historical Sciences I.A. Courland
ResearcherInstitute of Russian History RAS,Candidate of Historical Sciences V.V. Lobanov