In November 1937, the Special NKVD Troika issued a decision on the basis of which one of the Cheka’s founders, veteran of the revolutionary movement in Russia Gleb Ivanovich Bokiy, was sentenced to be shot. In addition to the usual set of crimes for those years - espionage, anti-Soviet activities, etc. - he was charged with creating a spiritualistic circle, communicating with spirits and predicting the future. What gave rise to orthodox communists to resort to attributes of the Middle Ages?
The young socialist is a descendant of an aristocratic family
The future chairman of the St. Petersburg Cheka, Gleb Bokiy, was born on June 21, 1879 in Tiflis, in the family of the chemistry teacher of the local gymnasium, Ivan Bokiy, a descendant of an ancient aristocratic family, mentioned in documents from the time of Ivan the Terrible. Despite the nobility of origin, his father did not have a fortune inherited from his ancestors, and only thanks to tireless work he managed to rise to the rank of a real state adviser and move his family to St. Petersburg.
After graduating from a real school in 1896, Gleb enters the St. Petersburg Mountain Cadet Corps - one of the largest universities in the country, the graduate of which a year earlier was his older brother Boris. Natural giftedness and class privileges made it possible to hope for a brilliant career in the future, but fate was prepared for him in a completely different way - a seventeen-year-old youth was carried away by the ideas of social reconstruction of the world fashionable among students and left for the revolutionary movement.
The beginning of the revolutionary path
The very next year, this hobby leads him into the ranks of the underground organization The Union for the Emancipation of the Working Class. In addition, he takes an active part in the work of many student political circles. In the death of his father, which was caused by his despair from the collapse of hopes for a worthy future for his son, Gleb, without hesitation, blamed the existing regime and thereby established itself in the decision to fight him.
Having joined the ranks of the RSDLP in 1900 and undergoing practical training at one of the mines of the Kryvyi Rih society, Gleb Bokiy was imprisoned for the first time, attracted for participating in the work of the illegal group Worker Banner. From this time begins an endless series of his stays in various places of detention.
In the leadership of the St. Petersburg Cheka
Being an active participant in the revolutionary events of 1905, Gleb Bokiy, whose biography was inextricably merged with the history of the Bolshevik movement, fully knew the flip side of revolutionary romance. He was arrested twelve times, spent a year and a half in solitary confinement, and two went to Siberian exile. Not all of his comrade-in-arms could boast of such a track record. In 1917, Gleb was elected secretary of the Petrograd Committee of the RSDLP (b) and took an active part in it during the October Revolution.
Even before the creation of the Cheka, as a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee, Gleb Bokiy oversaw the fight against counterrevolution and sabotage, so his appointment as deputy Moses Uritsky, who headed the newly created punitive structure, which left an indelible and gloomy memory, turned out to be quite logical. When he was killed in August 1918, Bokii held his post for some time.
In the rear and at the front
The assassination of the head of the Cheka was the occasion for mass punitive operations, initiated by the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies, G. E. Zinoviev, and Gleb Bokiy, the direct executor. On his orders in those days, five hundred and twelve hostages were shot, all of whose fault lay only in their social origin. The heady taste of blood, combined with a sense of impunity for the crimes committed, turned the former student into a monster generated by a system that he would later be a victim of.
Since the Civil War was still ongoing, and the all-seeing eye of the emergency commission was also needed at the front, Bokiy was first sent to Belarus, and after her liberation from German intervention, she was sent to the Eastern Front, where she headed the Special Department. In 1921, he came to Moscow, where he began to work in the organs of the Cheka, and in the period 1925-1926 he was the deputy chairman of the OGPU. During the years of perestroika, many documents were published that demonstrated the scale of the political repressions that took place at that time, and it is clear that Gleb Bokiy, whose photo is given in the article, is one of the culprits of those lawlessnesses.
Creation of the scientific and technical department of the Cheka
However, his activity was not limited only to the implementation of punitive operations. Since 1921, he headed the Special Division of the Cheka. Gleb Bokiy is the creator of the cryptographic department, which laid the foundation for a number of scientific and technical services that provided the work of this department. In addition to monitoring secrecy in all areas related to state secrets, the department also intercepted and decrypted messages sent by transmitting devices of foreign embassies.
Under the direction of Bokiya, technologies were developed that became for many years the basis of ciphers used by the special services of the Soviet Union. In 1936, he founded another secret laboratory, which was engaged in the creation of poisons for special operations to eliminate people who are objectionable to the regime and to obtain psychotropic drugs that can affect the consciousness of those under investigation.
Justice requires to note that, unlike many representatives of the highest nomenclature, Gleb Bokiy was not a careerist and opportunist. Those who had a chance to communicate with him repeatedly emphasized that he was one of the few who, in the interests of the cause, dared to contradict Lenin, and subsequently Stalin, whom he openly despised. Since the late twenties, Bokii even defiantly ignored participation in party meetings, seeing them as a waste of time.
Influenced by the Occult Heresy
In solving a wide range of scientific and technical problems, the Special Department often used the services of research organizations that were not officially associated with the OGPU. One of them was the neuroenergy laboratory at the Moscow Institute of Experimental Medicine. Bokiya’s personal acquaintance with its leader, Professor A. V. Barchenko, laid the foundation for what he would call the investigation in the future testimony "a deviation from Marxist-Leninist positions under the influence of mystical teachings." The professor, who played a fatal role in the life of a high-ranking functionary, was the secret leader of the Masonic Lodge "Ancient Science."
Barchenko developed before his new acquaintance diverse occult theories with which Boky was carried away in the same way as in his student years, the teachings of Marx. The professor was able to attract like-minded people and some other leaders of the OGPU into his circle. Everyone was bribed by the declared possibility of using mysticism and “secret knowledge” in order to build a communist society.
Departed from previous ideals
Despite the fact that the decision of the Fourth Congress of the Comintern, held in 1922, the Communists were categorically forbidden membership in the Masonic lodges, several officials led by Bokiy fell into this heresy and even organized the secret society "United Labor Brotherhood". His goal was to build a classless society on the principles of hierarchy and respect for religion. With the exception of the last paragraph, this generally corresponded to the ideals of communism.
It is difficult to say what prompted Gleb Ivanovich and his comrades, representatives of the highest echelon of power of the Soviet country, to do so. Obviously, having gone through the nightmare of revolution, Civil war and Red terror, they rethought the old ideals, and in their minds a doubt arose about the inviolability of the proclaimed truths. The arrogance of their former counterparts in the struggle, who took higher places on the party ladder, also played a role.
Natural Finale
But it was not for nothing that Stalin's special services were compared with the ancient Greek god Kron, who was devouring his own children. During the Great Terror period, many of the OGPU employees shared the fate of their innocent victims. The turn came to Gleb Bokia. He was arrested on June 7, 1937. On that day, the Chekist, who had fallen into mysticism, was called by the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Yezhov. After some time, the hero of our story was taken out of the office of the head of the OGPU already in handcuffs.
During interrogations, Bokii tried to explain that, without setting himself political goals, he only wanted to know the absolute truth. How much mystical teachings captured his consciousness, investigators were able to verify the course of the search carried out in the house of the arrested. There, along with the literature typical of Masonic philosophy, a whole collection of dried phalluses was discovered. They were introduced to the case, but how the new mystic hoped to change the world with their help remained unknown.
Sentence without trial
However, philosophy and dried phalluses were not enough to convict. However, the technology for obtaining a confession was long worked out in the cellars of this institution by many investigators, including the current prisoner himself. As follows from the documents, it was proved not only his participation in anti-Soviet occult circles, but also espionage in favor of one of the foreign powers.
The further fate of the person under investigation was decided with the same ease with which he himself had disposed of human lives in previous years. They did not consider it necessary to even arrange a hearing. A special trio of the NKVD (how often he himself was part of such triples) sentenced Gleb Ivanovich to execution. The execution of the sentence ensued on the same day. Like many of his own victims, Boky was rehabilitated after Stalin's death.
The family and descendants of the executed Chekist
The story will be incomplete if not to mention the family of Gleb Ivanovich. It is known that he was married twice. With his first wife, Sophia Alexandrovna Doller, who came from a family of revolutionary populists, Bokiy lived from 1905 to 1919. They had two daughters - Elena and Oksana, who later became the wife of the historian and publicist Leo Razgon.
From the second marriage with Elena Alexandrovna Dobryakova, the daughter Alla was born, whom, according to the memoirs of contemporaries, Gleb Bokiy was very fond of. The grandson, born from her in 1960 and named in honor of grandfather Gleb, was a major Russian businessman who was killed in the "dashing nineties."
The image of Bokia in contemporary art
In contemporary art, among other figures of past years, Gleb Bokiy was also widely reflected. A book about his life was written immediately after rehabilitation. This was the first such work. Its author was Margarita Vladimirovna Yamshchikova (literary pseudonym - Alexander Altayev). “The Story of Gleb Bokiya” - this is how she entitled the memories of a man whom she once knew well. Subsequently, a whole series of publications devoted to him appeared, and he also became the hero of several feature films. The grandson of Gleb Bokii, whose murder was covered in the media in 1999, was not ignored by the press.