Boris Savinkov
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Boris Viktorovich Savinkov (1879-1925), a famous writer and terrorist, one of the leaders of the Fighting Organisation of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, was responsible for the most spectacular assassinations of imperial officials in 1904 and 1905.
Biography
For his assassination of Russian Minister of Interior Vyacheslav von Plehve and Grand Prince Sergei Romanov he was arrested in 1906, and sentenced to death penalty. However, he managed to escape from his prison cell in Odessa and found refuge in exile. He returned to Russia after the February Revolution in April of 1917 and became Assistant War Minister under A.F. Kerensky, but he was soon expelled from the government and Socialist-Revolutionary Party because of his role in the uprising of General Lavr Kornilov (September of 1917). He was a counter-revolutionary in Russia during the period after the October revolution.
As a leader of the Society for Defence of Motherland and Freedom, Savinkov inspired several armed uprisings against the Bolsheviks, most notably in Yaroslav, Rybinsk and Murmansk. After these were crushed by the Red Army, Savinkov returned to France. There, he held various posts in the Russian emigration societies and was the main diplomatic representative of admiral Kolchak in Paris. During the Polish-Bolshevik War of 1919-1920 he moved to Poland, where he formed a Russian political organisation responsible for formation of several infantry and cavalry units out of former Bolshevik POWs.
He was an acquaintance of Sidney Riley, the legendary renegade British agent, and was involved in a number of "counter-revolutionary" plots against the Bolsheviks, sometimes collaborating with the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). These efforts were effectively undermined by Trust Operation implemented by OGPU. Savinkov was lured into the USSR to meet with false conspirators and consequently arrested. He committed suicide (official version) in the Lubyanka prison, in Moscow. He is believed to have been a heroin addict.
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