Убийство В.В. Воровского и процесс Конради–Полунина 1923 года в восприятии российской социалистической эмиграции

Abstract

The article dwells on the assassination of V.V. Vorovsky, head of the Soviet delegation at the international conference in Lausanne, on May 10, 1923 and on the trial of M. Conradi and A.P. Polunin as viewed by Russian socialist émigrés, i.e. members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and social democrats (Mensheviks). This paper aimed to study the attitude of the socialist community of Russian émigrés towards individual political terror during the 1920s. The methodology is based on the principles of intellectual history, which allow us to shed some light on the perception of the 1923 Lausanne trial by analysing the confrontation and ideological struggle of certain political figures and civic groups for attention. The paper provides a brief description of the main works of Russian and foreign historians who studied the assassination of Vorovsky and the trial of his murderers. The context of the trial, the reaction of different émigré camps and the organization of Conradi and Polunin’s defence are analysed. The official response of the Foreign Delegation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, reflected in the Revolutionary Russia journal, is noted. Particular attention is given to the unpublished article “Both Are Worse” (1923) by leader of the Russian Socialist-Revolutionary Party V.M. Chernov on the results of the trial in Lausanne. Chernov’s argumentation and his views on the fundamental differences between the pre-revolutionary Socialist Revolutionary terror and the assassination of Vorovsky are analysed. Chernov points out that Socialist Revolutionary and Narodnaya Volya’s terror stayed within a strict moral and ethical framework that forbade political assassinations on the territory of free democratic countries. Socialist Revolutionary terrorists had never followed the path of least resistance, proclaiming the idea of selfsacrifice. Chernov emphasizes that only those not involved in the White Terror can hold others accountable for the Red Terror. The paper considers the response of Russian social democrats abroad, in particular, leader of the émigré Mensheviks F.I. Dan’s article dedicated to the Lausanne trial. His thesis about the exclusive right of socialist parties to fight the Bolshevik dictatorship, without involving the White movement, is emphasized. A conclusion is drawn that Russian socialists abroad held a fundamentally unified position on resisting political terror.