From historical literature it is known that the priest who organized the procession of 1905, which ended with bloody Sunday, was a provocateur in the service of the security department. We checked whether this is so.

The events of January 9 (22), 1905 in St. Petersburg, which went down in history as a bloody Sunday, became one of the links in the chain of events that shocked Russia at the beginning of the 20th century and affected the subsequent fate of the country until today. The cruel dispersion of a peaceful procession, the purpose of which was to present the royal to the king workers, ultimately led to what was called the first Russian revolution.

The causes of excessive cruelty of the troops (up to 200 demonstrators died) are still in dispute. The personality of the chief ideologist of the injured party is also caused by no less polemic. The procession was organized and led by George Apollonovich Gapon, a priest and an active public figure. Being lightly wounded, he escaped abroad, where he continued revolutionary propaganda, and soon after returning, in March 1906, he was killed. Big Soviet Encyclopedia assertedthat it was a "court of a group of workers", while, for example, in the complete works of Lenin It was saidthat Gapon "was killed by the Socialist -Revolutionaries." The reason was usually called the betrayal of the ideals of the revolution and provocative work in the royal guard. This is how Gapon's activity Described In the “Brief course of the history of the CPSU (b)”, published in 1938, edited by I.V. Stalin:

“Back in 1904, before Putilovskaya Stayka, the police created with the help of the provocateur of the Gapon Paulus among the workers-“ A collection of Russian factory workers. ” This organization had its own branches in all areas of St. Petersburg. When the strike began, Pop Gapon at the meetings of his society proposed a provocateur plan: let all the workers gather on January 9 and in a peaceful procession with banners and royal portraits will go to the Winter Palace and give the king a petition (request) about their needs. The king, they say, will go out to the people, listen and satisfy his requirements. Gapon undertook to help the tsarist guard: to call the execution of the workers and sink the labor movement in the blood. ”

The “brief course” and Soviet school textbooks were echoed. The phrase “Pop Gapon” became the synonym for the word “provocateur”. And, judging by the frequency UseI am in modern media, the phrase fulfills the same role today. One of the reasons for this is the articles and books in which George Gapon with enviable constancy continues to be declared a provocateur. With the only difference being that now he has become the target of the monarchists who accuse him of bloody provocation in order to reimburse the revolution. Agent Gapon is named in article From the newspaper "Versia" posted on the website of the FSB of the Russian Federation.

First, it is necessary to give the correct definition of the concept of “provocateur”. And here we are faced with three options at once.

No. 1. Nowadays, the main meaning of the word “provocateur” is a person who arranges provocations. That is, a provocateur in the household understanding George Gapon would be if he for the sake of the effect led the people to a predictable massacre.

No. 2. A completely different matter is a historical, narrower concept of “provocateur”. So It was accepted Call the secret agents of the police or political investigation, who came into contact with potential violators of the criminal law in order to first encourage them to certain illegal actions, and then “expose” and arrest. That is, in this meaning, Gapon requires not just the organization of provocation, but coordinating all this by the state security organs.

No. 3. There is a third option that was widespread at the beginning of the 20th century, in the era of revolutionary circles. About him Specked Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin at a meeting of the State Duma on February 11, 1909: “According to revolutionary terminology, there is a provocateur person who delivers information to the government; In a revolutionary environment, such a person will not be called a traitor or traitor, it will be declared a provocateur. ” That is, in the third sense, Gapon had to be just an agent, “a sewn -in Cossack” in order to be called a provocateur. And it is not necessary that this be accompanied by some illegal actions.

Georgy Gapon entered the socio-political arena of the Russian Empire, when in 1904 he organized and headed the legal (importantly) public organization “Assembly of Russian Factory Workers of St. Petersburg”. It was not a revolutionary circle, but a typical trade union based on the basis of another organization-the St. Petersburg Society of mutual removal of workers in mechanical production. The “Assembly” did not just enjoy the location of the authorities - its activity at first proceeded under the auspices of the police department. How Writes The famous historian Alexander Bokhanov, “the authorities sought to take on the role of an impartial arbitrator in disputes and conflicts between workers and entrepreneurs, give workers to the worker hope and support against the“ sharks of capitalism ”and“ profit predators ”.” The system of organization of such trade unions was called “Zubatovschina”-in honor of Sergei Zubatov, the ex-head of the Moscow security department and the special department of the police department. It is Zubatov who is rightfully called the creator of the political investigation system in Russia. And it was Zubatov who was the founder and first head of the prototype of the Gapon organization-the St. Petersburg Society of mutual remembering of workers in mechanical production.

So we approached the chief argument of supporters of the theory of agent-provocator Gapon, namely, contacts with the police. Yes, of course, after the departure of Zubatov from the trade union and reorganization undertaken by Gapon, the relations of the “Assembly” with the police department did not end finally. However, their character has changed. How He wrote Gapon Zubatova, “we do not hide the idea that the idea of a kind of labor movement is your idea, but we emphasize that now the connection with the police is torn (it really is) that our business is right, open, that the police can only control us, but not keep on the leash.” In other words, it was a kind of gapon ""We will go the other way". By testimony The future head of the St. Petersburg security department, Alexander Gerasimov, “put by the head of the political police to such a responsible place, Gapon was left to himself almost from the very beginning, without an experienced leader and controller ... There was no question of police control for a long time. It was an ordinary society with real workers at the head. In their midst, Gapon completely forgot about the thoughts that was guided at the beginning. ”

At the same time, Personally, George Gapon continued to cooperate with the police department and even received considerable funds from him. But this can not be called intelligence. As Gerasimov and Major General of a separate gendarmes corps wrote SpiridovichGapon was invited to cooperation with the police department not as an agent, but as an organizer and agitator. The mission of Gapon was to fight the influence of revolutionary propagandists and convince workers of the advantages of peaceful methods of struggle for their interests. The police department, considering this activity useful for the state, supported Gapon and from time to time supplied him with money. Gapon himself, as the head of the “Assembly”, met with officials from the police department and reported on the state of the working issue in St. Petersburg. Gapon did not hide his relationship with the police department and receiving money from his workers. During his short stay abroad after a bloody Sunday, Gapon wrote AutobiographyIn which he confirmed the fact of receiving money from the police.

In other words, in the memoirs of both of the aforementioned leaders of a political investigation, Gerasimova And Spiridovich, which described in sufficient detail their relationship with Gapon, there is no hint that Gapon was used by Zubatov or his successors as a secret employee. From the memoirs of Gerasimov, we can conclude that the only attempt to attract Gapon to intelligence activity took place in 1906, after his return, and ended with the murder of the priest. Moreover, the person who organized the murder of Gapon was, as it is believed, Euno Azef, a completely real agent provocateur in the service of the police. Being the head of the terrorist wing of the Socialist -Revolutionaries, he easily convinced his comrades that Gapon had betrayed the case of the revolution, sold to the police, and insisted on his murder. So Gapon was, on the contrary, a victim of a provocation. At the same time, from the end of 1904, until the bloody Sunday, his relationship with the police stopped, and the day before the tragedy he was generally declared on the wanted list. Thus, if the actions of Gapon on January 9 were a kind of provocation, then his personal, with the police or the guard in no way agreed.

Another important argument against the version of the agent-provocate is not associated with memories, but with official documents. Firstly, until 1905, Gapon could not legally be an agent of the security department, since the law forbade the recruitment of representatives of the spiritual estate to agents. Secondly, Gapon did not engage in intelligence as such. There is no information about the arrest or punishment of at least one person issued on his tip. Not a single denunciation written by Gapon has been revealed. According to the historian I.N. Ksenofontov, all attempts by Soviet ideologists to portray Gapon by the police agent were based on the fraud of facts. The fact is that the concept of a secret police agent in the Russian Empire meant a very specific legal status. The police could not base their activities on unverified sources, and a certain documentation was started for each person who delivered intelligence information. All these data were stored in the special secret archive of the police department in St. Petersburg. After the February Revolution, the archive was opened, and several special commissions were engaged in the study of its content. According to a large -scale research Z. I. Peregudova, in total, in the file cabinet of the police department, there were about 10,000 agents of all stripes working for the police from 1870 to 1917. According to experts, neither in the card index of the police department, nor in other card files and archives of information about the agent named George Gapon are not contained. At the same time, more than 100 years have passed since the death of Gapon, and at least something during this time was supposed to come to the surface.

As for the label of the provocateur, hung on Gapon by the Soviet authorities, there were reasons - ideological. The first reaction of the Bolsheviks (and other revolutionaries) to the procession of January 9, 1905 was quite unambiguous - it almost excluded in their eyes the agent role of Gapon. This is what V.I. Lenin wrote in his article "Revolutionary days"A few days after the massacre:" Gapon’s letters, written by him after the massacre on January 9 that "we have no king", call him to the struggle for freedom, etc., all these are facts that speak in favor of his honesty and sincerity, because such a powerful agitation for the continuation of the uprising could no longer enter into the tasks of the provocateur. " When Gapon abroad took up the preparation of an armed uprising, the revolutionaries openly recognized him for their associate. However, rivalry for influence on working masses led to the fact that the old enmity broke out with renewed vigor. An additional argument against Gapon during the years of Soviet power acted his religiosity - it was quite fit into the system of evils of the previous regime, described by the ideologists of socialism.

Thus, Gapon, George Apollonovich, was not a provocateur either in meaning No. 2 or in value No. 3. At least there is no convincing evidence of this. As for the first, modern meaning, it is not related to the issue we set - work at the guard. That's what He wrote Gapon himself about the events of the bloody Sunday: “I really went to the king for the truth with a naive faith, and the phrase“ at the cost of our own life guarantee the inviolability of the sovereign’s personality ”... was not an empty phrase. But if for me and for my faithful comrades the sovereign’s person was and is sacred, then the good of the Russian people is most expensive for us. That is why, already knowing on the eve of the 9th that they would shoot, I went in the front rows, at the head, under the bullets and bayonets of soldiers, in order to attribute the truth with my blood-it is the urgency of the renewal of Russia on the basis of truth. ” From this we can conclude that Gapon knew that the procession he organized could turn into a bloody massacre. But whether to call it a provocation is a matter of evaluation.

Did the political opponents of Gapon have other, documented evidence of his betrayal in favor of the guard? Perhaps, but they did not reach us. The Kapon Socialist -Revolutionary Socialist Revolutionaries was enough for the information about his contacts with the power structures. How He wrote Another leader of the Socialist -Revolutionary terrorist wing Boris Savinkov, “we ... were convinced that the evidence of the betrayal of Gapon will sooner or later find themselves and that therefore we should not reckon with the fact that we cannot imagine them at this moment.” And this underplaceability accompanies the figure of one of the most prominent public figures in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century to this day. Unless in school textbooks Georgy Gapon is almost not called a provocateur.