Pyotr Lazarevich Voykov (Russian: Пётр Лазаревич Войков; Ukrainian: Петро Лазарович Войков, romanized: Petro Lazarovych Voikov; party aliases: Пётрусь and Интеллигент, or Piotrus and Intelligent) (August 13 [O.S. August 1] 1888 – June 7, 1927) was a Ukrainian Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet diplomat known as one of the participants in the decision to murder the former Russian Emperor Nicholas II and his family members. Minister Plenipotentiary of the Soviet Union to the Polish Republic (1924–1927), he was assassinated in Warsaw by an anti-Bolshevik White émigré. The continued use of Voykov's name in modern Russia's toponymy has been a cause of controversy.
Early life He was born August 13 [O.S. August 1] 1888 into a Ukrainian family of peasant origin in the city of Kerch, Taurida Governorate. His father, Lazar Petrovich Voykov, was expelled from St. Petersburg Mining Institute, then graduated from teacher's seminary in Tiflis and worked as a mathematics teacher. Later he was forced to leave this post; he worked as a shop foreman at the metallurgical plant and worked as an engineer at various enterprises. His mother Alexandra Filippovna (née Ivanova, 1869–1953) received a good education, graduating from the Kerch Institute for Noble Maidens. The couple had three other children, son Pavel and daughters Valentina and Militsa. Militsa Lazarevna Voykova (1896–1966) later became an actress of the Central Children's Theater. Controversy exists as to whether Voykov's family had Jewish origins, particularly among the far right. The vast majority of historians, however, refute these claims.
Beginning of his revolutionary activity Voykov became involved in revolutionary activity at a young age. He studied at the same Gymnasium from which Andrei Zhelyabov, one of the chief organizers of the assassination of Alexander II of Russia, graduated with a silver medal. Already in the gymnasium, Voykov thought about killing the Tsar. He was expelled from the sixth grade of the Kerch Gymnasium, but he managed to pass examinations for grade seven. His parents had to change their place of residence and work as a result of his underground activities. The family moved to Keukeneiz, where his father took on the position as a road master in the estate of the landowner Alchevsky. Thanks to the efforts of his mother, Pyotr was accepted into the eighth grade of the Yalta Alexandrovskaya Men's Gymnasium, but he was soon expelled from there too. The exact date of Voykov's accession to the RSDLP is not known, but a period between 1903 and 1905 is assumed. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia points out that he was a "Menshevik " since 1903. In 1905 Voykov was already a member of the Kerch Committee of the RSDLP and fought in the ranks of the self-defense squad. Voykov also was a member of the fighting squad of local social-democrats after moving to Yalta.
The explosion in 1906 Voykov was one of the five organizers and participants in the terrorist attack on July 20, 1906, against the local police chief, M. M. Gvozdevich. According to the official Soviet biography of Voykov, the initial purpose of the operation was not a terrorist act, but the transportation of bombs, prepared for self-defense, from a cache to a place outside the city, where they were planned to be discharged. According to this version, the decision to attack the police chief was taken impulsively by the two other participants in the operation. The terrorist act was a complete failure, the two persons most responsible for it were heavily wounded and soon died, and M. M. Gvozdevich was not injured. It is known that Mensheviks were the least extremist of any of the groups within the RSDLP and rejected terrorism as a method of a political struggle. But they prepared bombs for an armed uprising and the central leadership could not fully control the proliferation of weapons and the behavior of radical young people. Voykov fled first to Kekeneiz, to his father, and then to Sevastopol and St. Petersburg. Two other participants in the terrorist act, Dmitry Nashaburgsky and Pyotr Koren, did not mention Voykov's name. Voykov's participation was only established as fact in 1907.
Assassination attempt on Dumbadze in 1907 From the autumn of 1906, the duties of the mayor in Yalta were performed by General Dumbadze. On February 26, 1907, a bomb was thrown from the balcony of Novikov's dacha at Dumbadze, who was passing by in a carriage. Dumbadze was bruised and scratched, while the driver and adjutant were injured. Even after the terrorist shot himself, Dumbadze ordered his troops to burn down the dacha, and the soldiers additionally looted the adjacent house. Voykov (the militia fighter of the RSDLP) had no relation to the action on February 26, 1907, because it was organized by one of the "flying combat units" of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. In addition, he left Yalta shortly after the unsuccessful explosion on July 20, 1906, and from the autumn of 1906 studied in St. Petersburg University. However, an assassination attempt on Dumbadze revived the investigation into the case on July 20. As a result, Voykov was forced to leave Petersburg; in summer 1907 he was hiding in Kharkiv for several months, and then emigrated.
Emigration In 1907 Voykov left Russia on the passport of his classmate. In March 1908 he arrived in Geneva, Switzerland. In September 1909 he entered the Physics and Mathematics Department of the University of Geneva. In Geneva he met Vladimir Lenin and, although he was not yet a Bolshevik, he remained a Menshevik-Internationalist during the First World War, actively spoke out against the "defencists", and was an active participant in the "1st Geneva Group of Assistance". In the spring of 1914 he married Adelaide Abramovna Belenkina, who studied medicine in Geneva. On April 24, 1915, their son Pavel was born. Following the February Revolution of 1917, he returned to Russia with his wife and son, though not in the same sealed carriage with Lenin, as it was often claimed, but together with Martov and Lunacharsky in the next group, which arrived in Russia on May 9, 1917.
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