On July 15, 1904, an explosion occurred on Izmailovsky Avenue of St. Petersburg. That day, Interior Minister Vyacheslav Konstantinovich von Pleve was killed by a terrorist bomb thrown into a carriage heading towards Tsarskoye Selo. This murder became another link in a long chain of crimes committed by Russian terrorist organizations , who saw in the shedding of blood the only way to build a new life.
Youth and years of study
The future head of the most important of the state ministries, Pleve Vyacheslav Konstantinovich was born in 1846 into a poor noble family living in the Kaluga province. As a child, he ended up with his whole family in Warsaw, where he entered the gymnasium, but the uprising that broke out in 1863 forced them to return to their homeland.
In his native Kaluga, he graduated from high school, having received a gold medal upon graduation. Vyacheslav Konstantinovich received further education already in Moscow, having entered the law faculty of the university. Natural abilities, as well as perseverance and accuracy, inherited from his father (a German nobleman), helped him to brilliantly complete the course in 1867 and, having a degree of candidate rights and the rank of college secretary, get a position in the Moscow District Court.
The beginning of public service
For the next fourteen years, Pleve Vyacheslav Konstantinovich held various positions in the Ministry of Justice. Over the years, he had, receiving regular appointments, to move from city to city several times, until, finally, fate brought the young lawyer to the capital of the empire - St. Petersburg. Here, in 1879, while holding the position of prosecutor of the Trial Chamber, the 33-year-old lawyer was spotted by Emperor Alexander II and noted by him as a possible candidate for future vacancies.
However, Pleve Vyacheslav Konstantinovich managed to realize himself fully after already in 1881 the emperor so favorable to him was killed by the hands of terrorists. On accession to the throne, Alexander III instructs Pleva to head the Department of State Police. At a time when the country was literally choking in the blood shed by the militants of various terrorist organizations, this position could rightly be called a key one.
Head of Major Department
The sovereign was not mistaken in his choice. The newly appointed head of the most important of the departments used his strength to combat lawlessness in all its manifestations. His main success of that period was the defeat of the Narodnaya Volya, representatives of the most active and ruthless anti-government group in Russia.
To control the activities of such structures, Pleve managed to create a network of secret agents unprecedented at that time in the country, being introduced into the ranks of military organizations. This provided the police with the opportunity to “play the lead” and rid the country of many of the bloodshed planned by the militants. In the same period, Vyacheslav Konstantinovich took part in the creation of a legislative framework that allowed more effective counteraction to terror.
Next appointment
His work was duly appreciated, and soon Pleve took the post of deputy head of the Ministry of the Interior, and a year later he was a real privy councilor. Due to the extraordinary circumstances prevailing in the Grand Duchy of Finland, Vyacheslav Konstantinovich is sent there as a state secretary. Here his activities covered all aspects of life. They put a lot of effort on streamlining the work of the Finnish Senate, on drawing up the Charter of military service and on the unification of the Grand Duchy with the Russian Empire.
Again in Petersburg
In 1902, after another high-profile crime committed by revolutionary terrorists and costing the life of the Minister of Internal Affairs D. S. Sipyagin, Vyacheslav Konstantinovich was appointed in his place and returned to Petersburg. Here, he is subordinate to the corps of gendarmes, with the help of which he unleashes a comprehensive struggle with the opposition and revolutionary movements. Pleve’s policy of that period is tough and uncompromising.
Thanks to his active measures, it was possible to localize peasant uprisings in several southern provinces, preventing them from developing into large-scale popular unrest. When the need arose to amend the legal sphere of activity of the Zemstvo administrations, Pleve successfully completed this task. Vyacheslav Konstantinovich, in spite of his busy schedule, combined official activities with public work, becoming a member of the first Russian monarchist organization, the Russian Assembly.
Under the gun of terrorists
Despite the fact that, occupying high government posts, Pleve, to the best of his ability, counteracted the extreme manifestations of anti-Semitism, it was his revolutionary organizations in Russia that were accused of a series of Jewish pogroms in Chisinau in 1903. This was the reason for choosing him as another victim of the assassination attempt.
The killings of the Pleuvers were undertaken by the Socialist Revolutionary Unit, which saw terror as the only effective means of solving social problems. The famous provocateur E. Azef led this action. According to his plan, the militants established a route along which the Privy Councilor regularly traveled to Tsarskoye Selo for a report to the sovereign. On one of the sections of the road, armed members of the organization were to wait for him. The day of the murder was appointed.
The tragedy on Izmailovsky Avenue
After a number of delays caused by organizational reasons, the plan was implemented. Yegor Sozonov, a Socialist-Revolutionary and undereducated student, dropped a bomb into the minister’s carriage. His photo completes the article. It happened on July 15, 1904 in St. Petersburg, near the Warsaw Station. Already in prison and barely recovering from the wounds received during the explosion, he wrote in his diary that he prayed to God only about one thing: that his enemy would not survive.
After the tragic death of Vyacheslav Konstantinovich, his widow Zinaida Nikolaevna, who died in 1921, and two children remained - son Nikolai, who became a lawyer following the example of his father, and daughter Elizaveta, who married Senator N.I. Vuich and ended her days in exile.