Fanny Kaplan wanted to kill Lenin because he politically outmaneuvered HER little group of psychos. And if they had come to power, they would have been no better than the Bolshies [note that she was still a member after her FIRST attempted assassination in 1907]. Since murder seemed to be her political choice of first resort, I can't call her a hero. Sadly, her actions became a pretext for "Iron Feliks" and the Cheka to undertake the first "Red Terror", a practice the Bolshies returned to again and again in their 70 odd years in power."
I would agree with you on some points but not all.
Yes, initially Fanya Kaplan was a socialist-revolutionary terrorist. But I think she deserves commendation for trying to destroy the head of the state-sponsoring terror. Also we never really know whether Socialist-Revolutionaries would have been equal to Bolsheviks if they had prevailed in their struggle with Bolsheviks in 1917-1918. At least they tried to work through democratic institutions. I am definitely not trying to whitewash Socialist-Revolutionaries of Russia for their utopian idealism and the slew of terrorist assassinations (incl. Russian Prime Minister and Great Agrarian Reformer Stolypin). Nevertheless, Fanny deserves the respect for trying to end the life of the monster and the mass murderer.
Kaplan was no hero. None of them were. They only advocated slightly different timeline and approaches towards the same end. “The first conspicuous act of government-ordered reprisals on a large scale without regard for individual guilt came after the assassination of Michael Uritzky and the attempt on Lenin’s life on August 30 [by Kaplan]. These events were not in themselves apt to justify measures against the bourgeoisie, for the two assassins, Kenigiesser and Fania Kaplan, were both members of the Social Revolutionary party and therefore not “bourgeois.” [...] Five hundred hostages were shot in reprisal in Petrograd alone by order of Zinoviev, the head of the local soviet. On September 5, the people’s commissars officially legalized the red terror...” (Landauer, European Socialism: A History of Ideas and Movements).