Fanny Kaplan (Unsuccessfull Assassin of Lenin, Aug 30, 1918)

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[sergey1973]

Faina Yefimovna Kaplan (1883–September 3, 1918), a.k.a. Fanny Kaplan (born Dora Kaplan), was a political revolutionary and an attempted assassin of Vladimir Lenin.

Kaplan was born into a Jewish peasant family, one of seven children. She became a political revolutionary at an early age and joined a socialist group, the Socialist Revolutionaries. In 1906, Kaplan participated in an attempted assassination of a government official. The plot failed and Kaplan was arrested and sentenced to life of katorga works in Akatui, Siberia. She was released when the February Revolution overthrew the imperial government. As a result of her imprisonment, Kaplan suffered from continuous headaches and periods of blindness.

Kaplan became disillusioned with Lenin as a result of the conflict between the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Bolshevik party. The Bolsheviks had strong support in the soviets, which Lenin had argued in his 1917 tract "The State and Revolution" were the only legitimate avenue of post-revolutionary government; however, in elections to a competing body, the Constituent Assembly, the Bolsheviks failed to win a majority in the November 1917 elections and a Socialist Revolutionary was elected President in January 1918. The Bolsheviks, favoring soviets, ordered the Constituent Assembly to be dissolved. Over the next few months conflicts between the Bolsheviks and their political opponents led to the banning of all parties except the Bolsheviks. Kaplan decided to assassinate Lenin.

[sergey1973]

Also, let's recall the 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler by Claus fon Stauffenberg et al. ? The plotters where Wehrmaht officers who initially were faithful Nazis, but realizing that the war was futile, wanted to finish Hitler off. Whatever their motives where, the end result could have been earlier end of WWII and literally millions of lives saved.

http://www.answers.com/topic/july-20-plot

[PzLdr]

There's one [to me] critical difference. At the time of the 20th July Plot, Hitler was the de jure, as well as de facto, dictator of Germany, Germany was losing the Second World War, big time. And the generals were trying to save their country from the consequences of leaving Hitler in power.

At the time Kaplan shot Lenin, he may have been de facto dictator of the Bolshevik Party, but he was not the de jure, or de facto dictator of Russia (he still had the Politburo, including people who had disagreed with him in the past on it [Trotsky, Bukharin, Kamanev, Zinoviev] to deal with). And again, not to beat a dead horse, Kaplan didn't shoot Lenin to spare Russia from Marxist rule. She shot him because she wanted to see Russia under the Social Revolutionaries' concept of Marxist rule - and Lenin was blocking that happening.

[gate2wire]

"She became a political revolutionary at an early age and joined a socialist group, the Socialist Revolutionaries. In 1906, Kaplan participated in an attempted assassination of a government official."

She was a socialist, criminal, attempted murderess. Despite your opinion of her target(s), she was nothing more than a common criminal. Heroine? Bullshit.

[SunkenCiv]

Well put. My view is, if the enemies wants to fight among themselves, sell them the rope. :')

[Khurkris]

BookMark for Sidney Reilley posts

[Kleio]

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).