The troika which supervised these preparations planned to stage the uprising on either the second or the third day of the Fifth Congress of Soviets, scheduled for the evening of July 4. Spiridonova was to introduce a motion calling for the abrogation of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and a declaration of war on Germany. Since the Mandate Committee, which determined the representation at the congress, had generously allotted them 40 percent of the seats, and it was known that many Bolsheviks opposed Brest, the Left SR leaders thought they stood a good chance of winning a majority. If, however, they failed, they would raise the banner of rebellion with a terrorist act against the German Ambassador. July 6 was a favorable day for action because it happened to fall on St. John’s Day (Ivanov den’), a Latvian national holiday which the Latvian Rifles were to celebrate with an outing at Khodynka Field on the outskirts of Moscow, leaving behind only a skeleton staff to protect the Kremlin.*
As subsequent events were to show, the situation in Moscow was so tenuous that had the Left SRs wanted to seize power they could have done so with even greater ease than the Bolsheviks in October. But they emphatically did not want the responsibility of governing. Their rebellion was not so much a coup d’état as a coup de théâtre, a grand political demonstration intended to galvanize the “masses” and revive their flagging revolutionary spirit. They committed the very error that Lenin was forever warning his followers against, that of “playing” at revolution.
When the Congress of Soviets opened at the Bolshoi Theater, the Left SRs and Bolsheviks at once flew at each other’s throats. Left SR speakers accused the Bolsheviks of betraying the Revolution and instigating a war between city and village, while the Bolsheviks charged the Left SRs with trying to provoke a war between Russia and Germany. The Left SRs introduced a motion calling for an expression of no confidence in the Bolshevik Government, the abrogation of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, and a declaration of war on Germany. The Bolshevik majority defeated the motion, whereupon the Left SRs walked out.103
According to Bliumkin, in the evening of July 4 Spiridonova requested him to come see her.104 She said that the party wanted him to assassinate Mirbach. Bliumkin asked for twenty-four hours to make the necessary preparations. These included procuring for himself and Andreev a document bearing a forged signature of Dzerzhinskii requesting for the two men an audience with the German Ambassador, two revolvers, two bombs, and a car belonging to the Cheka chauifeured by Popov.
Around 2:15–2:30 p.m. on July 6 two representatives of the Cheka presented themselves at the German Embassy on Denezhnyi Pereulok. One identified himself as Iakov Bliumkin, an official of the Cheka counterintelligence service, the other as Nicholas Andreev, a representative of the Revolutionary Tribunal. They showed credentials signed by Dzerzhinskii and a secretary of the Cheka authorizing them to discuss “a matter of direct concern to the ambassador.”105 This turned out to be the case of a Lieutenant Robert Mirbach, believed to be a relative of the ambassador, whom the Cheka had detained on suspicion of espionage. The visitors were received by Riezler and an interpreter, Lieutenant L. G. Miller. Riezler told them that he had the authority to speak on Count Mirbach’s behalf, but the Russians refused to deal with him, insisting that Dzerzhinskii had instructed them to speak personally with the ambassador.
The German Embassy had for some time been receiving warnings of possible violence. There were anonymous letters and suspicious incidents, such as visits by electricians to inspect lighting fixtures that were in perfect working order and strangers taking photographs of the embassy building. Mirbach was reluctant to meet with the visitors, but since they produced credentials from the head of the Cheka he came down to see them. The Russians said he might be interested in the case of Lieutenant Mirbach. The ambassador replied that he would prefer that the information be provided in writing. At this point, Bliumkin and Andreev reached into their briefcases and pulled out revolvers, which they fired at Mirbach and Riezler. All their shots missed. Riezler and Miller dropped to the floor. Mirbach rose and tried to escape through the main living room to the upstairs quarters. Andreev ran after him and fired at the back of the head. Bliumkin threw a bomb into the middle of the room. The two assassins jumped out of the open windows. Bliumkin injured himself, but he managed to follow Andreev and climb a two-and-a-half-meter-high iron fence surrounding the embassy building to reach the automobile which waited outside with its engine running. Mirbach, who never regained consciousness, died at 3:15 p.m.106
The embassy staff feared that the assault on its ambassador signaled a general attack. The military personnel assumed responsibility for security. Attempts to communicate with the Soviet authorities proved of no avail because the telephone lines had been cut. Bothmer, the military attaché, rushed to the Metropole Hotel, the seat of the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. There he told Karakhan, Chicherin’s deputy, what had happened. Karakhan contacted the Kremlin. Lenin received the news around 3:30 p.m. and immediately notified Dzerzhinskii and Sverdlov.107
Later that afternoon, a procession of Bolshevik notables visited the German Embassy. The first to arrive was Radek, with a sidearm which Bothmer describes as the size of a small siege gun. He was followed by Chicherin, Karakhan, and Dzerzhinskii. A squad of Latvian Rifles accompanied the Bolshevik notables. Lenin remained in the Kremlin, but Riezler, who assumed charge of the embassy, insisted that he appear in person with an explanation and apology. It was a most unusual demand for a foreign diplomat to make of a head of state, but such was the influence of the Germans at the time that Lenin had to obey. He came to the embassy, accompanied by Sverdlov, around 5 p.m. According to German witnesses, he displayed a purely technical interest in the tragedy, asking to be shown the place where the murder had been committed, the exact arrangement of the furniture, and the damage caused by the bomb. He declined to view the body of the deceased. He offered an apology which, in the words of one German, was as “cold as a dog’s snout” and promised that the guilty would be punished.108 Bothmer thought that the Russians looked very frightened.
When they fled, the assassins left their papers behind, including the document which had gained them admission to the embassy. From this material and information supplied by Riezler, Dzerzhinskii learned that the gunmen had presented themselves as representatives of the Cheka. Thoroughly alarmed, he set off for the Pokrovskii Barracks, which housed the Cheka Combat Detachment on Bol’shoi Trekhsviatitel’skii Pereulok 1. The barracks were under Popov’s control. Dzerzhinskii demanded that Bliumkin and Andreev be turned over to him, under the threat of having the entire Central Committee of the Left SR Party shot. Instead of complying, Popov’s sailors arrested Dzerzhinskii. He was to serve as a hostage to guarantee the safety of Spiridonova, who had gone to the Congress of Soviets to announce that Russia had been “liberated from Mirbach.”109
These events took place in a torrential rain, accompanied by thunder, which soon enveloped Moscow in a thick fog.
On his return to the Kremlin, Lenin was horrified to learn that Dzerzhinskii was a prisoner of the Cheka: according to Bonch-Bruevich, when he heard this news “Lenin did not turn pale—he turned white.”110 Suspecting that the Cheka had betrayed him, Lenin, through Trotsky, ordered it dissolved. M. Ia. Latsis was to organize a fresh security police.111 Latsis raced to the Cheka headquarters at Bolshaia Lubianka to find that this building, too, was under Popov’s control. The Left SR sailors who escorted him to Popov’s headquarters wanted to shoot Latsis on the spot: he was saved by the intercession of the Left SR Aleksandrovich.112 It was a comradely gesture that Latsis would not reciprocate a few days later when the roles were reversed and Aleksandrovich fell into the hands of the Cheka.