Moisei Solomonovich Uritsky (; ; – 30 August 1918), also known by his pen-name Boretsky (), was a Bolshevik leader in Russia. After the October Revolution, he was the head of the Petrograd Cheka from January 1918 until his death on 30 August 1918. Uritsky was assassinated by Leonid Kannegisser, a military cadet, who was executed shortly afterwards.
Family
Uritsky was born in the city of
Cherkasy, then part of the
Kiev Governorate, to a
Lithuanian Jews family. His father, a merchant, died when Moisei was little and his mother raised her son by herself. He attended the
Bila Tserkva Gymnasium, supporting himself through teaching and became an active
social democrat.
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Early political career
Moisei Uritsky studied law at the St. Vladimir Imperial University of Kiev. During his studies he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and organized an underground network for importing and distributing political literature. In 1897, he was arrested and exiled for running an illegal
mimeograph press. Becoming involved in the revolutionary movement, he participated in the revolutionary Jewish Bund. In 1903, he became a
Mensheviks. His activities in St Petersburg during the 1905 Revolution earned him a second term of exile. Along with
Alexander Parvus, he was active in dispatching revolutionary agents to infiltrate the
Russian Empire security apparatus.
Russian Revolution
In 1914, he emigrated to France and contributed to the Party newspaper
Our Word edited by
Leon Trotsky. Back in Russia after the February Revolution of 1917, Uritsky became a member of the
Mezhraiontsy group. A few months before the October Revolution, he joined the
Bolsheviks and was elected to their Central Committee in July 1917. Uritsky played a leading role in the Bolsheviks' armed take-over in October as a member of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, and was later made head of the
Petrograd Cheka secret police in January 1918. In this position, Uritsky coordinated the pursuit and prosecution of members of the nobility, military officers, rival socialists, ranking Russian Orthodox Church clerics, and anyone who opposed the Bolsheviks.
Because Uritsky was against Lenin's Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, he resigned his post in 1918, like Nikolai Bukharin, Andrei Bubnov, Georgy Pyatakov, Dzerzhinsky and Smirnov. On March 4, 1918, the Petrograd committee published the first number of the journal Kommunist, the public organ of the "left communist" opposition, as directed by Karl Radek and Uritsky. The Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), which was held between March 6 and 8, 1918, rejected the Theses on the Present Situation that was submitted as a resolution by the "Left Communists". The "Left Communists" Lomov and Uritsky, who were elected to the Central Committee, stated at the Congress that they would not work in the Central Committee, and did not begin work there for several months in spite of insistent demands from the Central Committee.
On May 25, 1918, with the Revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion, the Russian Civil War began and Uritsky resumed his position on the Central Committee. An opponent of the death penalty, he nevertheless signed execution warrants approved by his Committee.
Assassination
Leonid Kannegisser, a young
military cadet of the Imperial Russian Army, assassinated Uritsky on , outside the Petrograd Cheka headquarters in retaliation for the execution of his friend and other officers.
[ Melgunov, S.P. Red Terror in Russia ] Following this event, along with the assassination attempt on
Vladimir Lenin by Socialist Revolutionary
Fanny Kaplan on August 30, the Bolsheviks began a wave of persecution known as the
Red Terror.
Palace Square in Petrograd was known as Uritsky Square from 1918 to 1944. There are still many streets named after him in Russia.
Uritsky was buried with honours on the Field of Mars in
Petrograd on 2 September 1918.
External links
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Moisei Uritsky. Handbook on history of the Communist Party and the Soviet Union 1898–1991.
