Nikiforova, Maria Grigorevna Fury of the Civil War Ataman Marusya Atamansha Marusya Hermaphrodite

In the history of the revolutionary movement in Ukraine, the identity of Maria Nikiforova still causes fierce controversy.

Some historians argue that she was an unbalanced person who became famous for her cruelty. Others tend to believe that the Bolsheviks deliberately sling mud at her in order to distort real history.

Gone are the days when in films, literary works and in the memoirs of contemporaries, Nestor Makhno was portrayed as a hysterical and vengeful man who terrified the neighborhood. Historical research has shown that this is not true.

However, many associates of Nestor Ivanovich still look like highway robbers. For example, in the famous TV movie “His Excellency’s Adjutant,” a certain father Angel, played by Anatoly Papanov, appeared as a semi-literate bandit who was guided by the motto: “Beat the reds until they turn white, beat the whites until they turn red.” With the famous ataman Yevgeny Petrovich Angel, this cinematic image, of course, has nothing in common.

But most of all outright lies and the most disgusting rumors are mixed around Maria Grigoryevna Nikiforova, whose name once thundered throughout Ukraine.

Pupil of Auguste Rodin

She was born in 1885 in the city of Aleksandrovsk (now Zaporozhye) in the family of the hero of the Russian-Turkish war, staff captain Grigory Nikiforov. About her childhood and youth, only the fact that at the age of 18 Maria joined the militant organization of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party and took part in numerous terrorist attacks is reliably known. In 1908 she was arrested and sentenced to twenty years hard labor.

Photo: Bust of Maria Nikiforova by Auguste Rodin

There she came under the influence of anarchists - emigrants from Russia, worked in the editorial offices of the anarchist newspapers "Forward" and "Voice of Labor", published in Russian. Under various pseudonyms, she published articles on the topic of the day and sharp feuilletons, in which her journalistic talent was clearly manifested. Maria also participated in the organization "Union of Russian Workers of the USA and Canada".

Three years later, Maria Nikiforova was tired of this routine. Being an active and resolute nature, she went to Spain, where she led a detachment of Spanish anarchists. During an unsuccessful bank robbery, she was wounded and, using forged documents, was transported to France for treatment. In Paris, Maria Nikiforova, as far as is known, did not expropriate banks for the needs of the revolution. But she took lessons from the great Auguste Rodin, and the elderly sculptor considered her one of his most talented students.

Anarchist Artemy Gladkikh claimed to have seen Maria Nikiforova in Paris dressed in a man's suit. At that time, women who put on trousers without special permission from the police (for the entire 19th century in France, nine such permissions were issued, one of them to the writer George Sand), were threatened with a large fine for violating public morality. Women were allowed to wear a men's suit only in two cases - if they ride a bicycle and go in for horseback riding. Maria Nikiforova had the right to wear breeches, as she studied under a false name at an officer cavalry school. According to some reports, in Paris, she married a professional Czech anarchist revolutionary Witold Brzostek.

At the end of 1916, Maria Nikiforova received an officer's rank and, as a military instructor, was sent to the Balkans, where hostilities were then unfolding. But having learned that a revolution had taken place in Russia, Maria hastened to return to her homeland.

In April 1917, she arrived in Petrograd and, together with her friend Alexandra Kollontai, whom she met in Paris, actively spoke at rallies, denouncing the Provisional Government, which, in her opinion, had usurped power in the country.

In early July, she went to Kronstadt, where she called on the sailors to go under the black banner of anarchy to storm the Winter Palace. However, the attempt of the Bolsheviks and anarcho-communists to carry out a coup ended in failure, Lenin hid in Razliv, Kollontai went to prison, and Maria Nikiforova returned to Aleksandrovsk.

Court of Revolutionary Honor

It took Maria Nikiforova a few months to create combat-ready "black squads" in Aleksandrovsk, Yekaterinoslav (now Dnepropetrovsk), Odessa, Nikolaev, Kherson, Melitopol, Yuzovka (now Donetsk), Nikopol and other cities. In the autumn of 1917, she essentially controlled the entire south of Ukraine, which in fact became independent of Petrograd and Kyiv. Nikiforova herself called it the "second revolution", designed to dismantle the state as an apparatus of violence. She acted not only in word, demonstrating an outstanding oratorical talent, but also in deed.

For example, in order to provide Nestor Makhno's detachment with weapons, she carried out a brilliant operation to disarm an entire battalion of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. Having been trained as a French officer, Maria Nikiforova understood that it was necessary to ensure the uninterrupted supply of the Black Guard units not only with weapons, but also with food and fodder, otherwise they would begin to rob civilians. I had to impose a large contribution on bankers, merchants and landowners. It is known, for example, that she expropriated a million rubles from the Alexander breeder Badovsky.

In response, the affected townsfolk bombarded Petrograd and Kyiv with complaints, in which they depicted the imaginary atrocities of the unbridled anarchist. In September 1917, by order of the Commissar of the Provisional Government in Aleksandrovsk, Maria Nikiforova was arrested and taken into custody. The next day, all enterprises in the city stopped work. The authorities were forced to release Maria, and the workers carried her in their arms from the prison to the building where the city council of workers, peasants and soldiers' deputies was located.

Before our eyes, Maria Nikiforova turned into a folk heroine, into a symbol of the struggle for freedom and independence. Even her enemies admitted that she easily found mutual language not only with the workers and intellectuals, but even with the White Guard officers.

It should be especially noted that, being an ideological anarchist, she avoided violence. Now in some popular publications you can read that during a campaign in the Crimea, a detachment of Maria Nikiforova distinguished themselves by the brutal murders of officers and even plundered the Livadia Palace, but these are just rumors that are not documented. But it is known that as soon as Mary spoke at a rally in Feodosia, she was immediately elected to the executive committee of the county peasant council. In addition, she created a detachment of the "Black Guard" in the city. Maria Nikiforova was equally welcomed in other cities and villages of Crimea, where she promoted anarchist ideas.

In February 1918, Maria Nikiforova left the leadership of the Black Guard units and devoted herself entirely to propaganda work, explaining the principles of anarchism to the population. However, in the second half of February, the troops of Germany and Austria-Hungary moved to Ukraine. Maria was again forced to lead a detachment, which numbered 580 people, had two guns, seven machine guns and an armored car. She and her fighters participated in heavy battles with the Germans, but the forces were unequal.

In April, Maria Nikiforova with her detachment ended up in Rostov, where she was arrested by the Bolsheviks, who accused her of robbing civilians. Nestor Makhno turned to Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko, commander of the Soviet troops in southern Russia, for support, and he sent a telegram: “The detachment of the anarchist Maria Nikiforova, like Comrade Nikiforova herself, is well known to me. Instead of disarming such revolutionary fighting units, I would advise you to take up the creation of them.

The trial, which took place at the end of April, was held with open doors and was called the "court of revolutionary honor." Nestor Makhno recalled: “We must tell the truth: the Bolsheviks are good masters of inventing lies and all sorts of meanness against others. They collected more than necessary data against Maria Nikiforova. However, five judges, among whom there was not a single anarchist, unanimously acquitted the revolutionary, all charges against her were dropped.

"The devil was beautiful!"

Maria again led her detachment, successfully fought against the White Cossacks near Bryansk and Saratov, but she behaved extremely independently and defiantly. The prominent Bolshevik S. Raksha recalled how Maria Nikiforova looked at that time: “She was sitting at the table and crumpling a cigarette in her teeth. The devil was beautiful: about thirty, a gypsy type, black-haired, with a lush chest that lifted her tunic high. Another contemporary described her appearance in Voronezh in his diary: “A carriage is rushing along the street at breakneck speed. A young brunette sits casually in it in a kubanka dressed up on one side.

Maria Nikiforova was critical of the Soviet regime, and did not hide it. Not surprisingly, she soon found herself back in prison. Upon learning of this, a group of former political emigrants turned to the Bolsheviks with a message: “We, former political emigrants who have returned from France, are indignant at the evil, vile rumors spread by the bourgeois press about Comrade Maria Grigorievna Nikiforova. Knowing her from emigration, we are sure of her unconditional political honesty and personal disinterestedness: we consider keeping her in prison at a difficult moment harmful and inhuman.”

The meeting of the Revolutionary Tribunal on the Nikiforova case took place in January 1919. For "disorganizing and discrediting the Soviet government" she was sentenced to deprivation for six months of "the right to hold responsible command posts in the RSFSR."

Soon after the trial, Maria left Moscow. “Now she has surfaced again in Ukraine,” wrote the White Guard journalist Amfiteatrov-Kadashev, “again she is committing inhuman cruelties: near Melitopol, after an attack on a train, she shot 34 officers with her own hand!” It was another lie: in Gulyaipole, Maria Nikiforova was engaged in educational work organized schools, nurseries and hospitals. At the end of April, Antonov-Ovseenko visited Gulyaipole and sent a telegram to Moscow: "Nikiforova is not allowed to military affairs, finding that her place is the work of mercy."

However, the Bolsheviks, knowing the active nature of Nikiforova, expected some next trick from her. Now a version is being put forward that she was involved in the explosion of the building of the Moscow Committee of the RCP, which killed 12 people. But this happened on September 25, and Maria Nikiforova left Gulyaipole at the end of August and went to the Crimea with her husband. The reason for her departure was her disagreement with the actions of Nestor Makhno, who began to flirt with Ukrainian nationalists.

In Crimea, she intended to organize a "third revolution" by creating an outpost of anarchism on the peninsula, but in September 1919, Nikiforova and her husband were arrested. The military field court of the White Army, which took place in Simferopol, accused her of preparing an assassination attempt on General Slashchev and sentenced her to death. Amfiteatrov-Kadashev said: “At the trial, Nikiforova behaved superbly: she accepted the death sentence quite calmly, saying: “What else can you do with me - just hang up!” Saying goodbye to her husband, she really cried.

The death of Maria Nikiforova caused a new wave of a wide variety of rumors and gossip. False Marusyas appeared throughout Ukraine, posing as Nikiforova (Marusya was called by her closest comrades), and the tricks of these Marusyas later began to be attributed to the great anarchist. There were even rumors that she was seen in Paris, where she was engaged in subversive work on the instructions of the OGPU.

And in 1926, a vile libel was published in the journal Hard Labor and Exile, which tells about Nikiforova's stay in Novinsky prison. A certain half-mad convict unexpectedly remembered that Nikiforova was not a woman at all, since she never took off her top shirt in front of other women and did not go to the bathhouse with everyone. This rumor, despite its not obvious absurdity, spread widely and is still in use today.

As you know, Joan of Arc was subjected to a medical examination before her execution, which made it possible to refute similar rumors. Before the execution, the doctor also examined Maria Nikiforova, and if any pathologies were found, this would immediately become known, especially since the authorities feared a riot.

Most likely, the appearance of the libel was dictated by the desire of the Bolsheviks to compromise the anarchist, about whom legends circulated in the south of Ukraine for a long time. All her photographs were even destroyed, with the exception of the prison one. However, the Bolsheviks did not succeed in eradicating the memory of this outstanding woman to the end.

The Black Shadow of the Revolution (M. G. Nikiforova)

B.I. Belyankin

Anarchist stole yesterday
Aunt's coat.
Ah, that's what he taught
Mr Kropotkin!
Sasha Black

What has not been attributed to her and is not attributed to her! The reason for this is she herself - a fair mythomaniac, and contemporaries-shy and eager for horror stories, and ideological opponents - both whites and Bolsheviks, ready to attribute any dirty trick inherent in themselves to a defeated dissident ... As a result, even today it is quite scientific publications, encyclopedias put all sorts of nonsense about it on their pages.

Let's try to combine in our narrative everything, or almost everything, that was told about her by her contemporaries, by everyone who knew her personally or heard about her. Let's try to bring together the facts of her turbulent biography. Let's try, where possible, to separate (or at least shade) the truth from speculation...

The versions of her biography are very different from each other.

Her name was Maria Grigorievna Nikiforova. This is beyond doubt. And she was born in the Yekaterinoslav province in the city of Aleksandrovsk. This is also undeniable. But then ... She is the daughter of an officer who became famous in the Russian-Turkish war. Either a former dishwasher of a vodka factory, or a graduate of the Smolny Institute, or ... All these "that ..." Vladimir Amfiteatrov-Kadashev noted in his diary during her lifetime: "Maruska Nikiforova. There are whole legends about the latter. They assure: she is a general's daughter, taking revenge on her "circle" for something, or - illegitimate, declaring war on society in general, - "the black shadow of the Revolution". All this is nonsense and nonsense. Maruska's biography is quite remarkable, but on the other hand: as a seventeen-year-old girl, this is promising the creature had already gone to hard labor for a semi-criminal, semi-political "ex", of which there were many at that time (1910). Everything is labeled correctly. The only mistake is in the date: in 1910, Marusya no longer committed any "ex" ...

During the years of the first Russian revolution, Marusya, according to some, sympathized with and joined the Socialist Revolutionaries, according to others, even then she was a convinced anarchist, and she had been a member of the anarchist party since she was 16 years old.

From some sources it follows that for the terrorist acts of 1904-1905 she was sentenced to death, replaced by indefinite hard labor, which she served in Peter and Paul Fortress. According to the most common version, in 1910 she was transported to Siberia, and from there she, like Bakunin once, fled through Japan to America. From other, more reliable sources, it follows that she was tried in 1908 for participating in a terrorist act - the murder of a police officer - sentenced to 20 years in hard labor and served her sentence in the Moscow Provincial Women's Prison.

It is known that in May 1909 Marusya was transferred from Butyrka to the Novinsky prison. In the cell where she ended up, mostly young revolutionaries were kept: most of them belonged to the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, but there were also Social Democrats, anarchists, and non-party women. Together with several criminals, there were about twenty people in the cell. By the time Nikiforova appeared, a group of prisoners were preparing to escape. Among the leaders of this group, the aristocratic beauty Natalia Klimova stood out - in the future a close friend, or rather, the mistress of Boris Savinkov, in the past - the wife of the famous terrorist and bank robber Sokolov-Medved, the Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalist. Being herself a Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalist, she took part in organizing the bloodiest terrorist act in pre-revolutionary Russian history - the explosion of the dacha of Prime Minister P. A. Stolypin on Aptekarsky Island on August 12, 1906 ... Another activist of this group, the same Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalist - Ekaterina Nikitina, left detailed memories of the preparation and implementation of the mass escape from the Novinsky prison. (By the way, in the wild, young Vladimir Mayakovsky also took part in preparing the escape with his family. A significant part of the clothes for the fugitives was sewn by his family.) Below we will give several rather extensive quotations from Nikitina’s memoirs, which, in our opinion, give an idea of ​​​​the appearance of the nineteen-year-old Marousi. Nikitina recalled her arrival in the cell as follows: “We took her appearance as a catastrophe ... A thin and gray face, shifty brown eyes, brown hair cut in a bracket, a short, stocky figure, sweeping convulsive movements, a broken, uneven voice - such a “political “We haven’t seen the type yet! To the usual questions: how? Whom does he know? On what case? - she lied immediately. poking" (we were all on "you"), attempts to hug, etc. - were met more than coldly. I must make a reservation that there were discrepancies: most of them saw only an eccentric, noisy girl who took over from the criminals their pitiful chic, hysterical excitability and Others - and there were a minority of them - obviously felt something ugly, hostile to common sense and unacceptable in the angular figure, and especially in the old-fashioned and at the same time boyish bloodless l ice". Some of the cellmates united in active hatred for Marusa, someone treated her with suspicion, someone with curiosity, someone with pity. Nobody showed any sympathy for her. A request was sent to the will - what kind of Nikiforova is she? Soon, a certificate came from her lawyer at the trial, confirming that Maria Nikiforova was suing in the Starobelsky case, but she was sentenced not to death, as Marusya told her cellmates, but to hard labor, for 20 years, she behaved unevenly at the court - sometimes defiantly, sometimes with tears ... Let us clarify that the so-called Starobilsk case consisted in the murder in 1907 of a local bailiff by a group of revolutionary youth. In ideological terms, the group (and from the point of view of the authorities and the inhabitants - a band of robbers) united sympathizers with both the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the anarchists. In addition to killing the bailiff in Starodub, the group attacked the house of a local priest. Nikiforova was one of the leaders of the "gang", in these and other "enterprises" she acted disguised in a man's dress and under the pseudonym "Volodya". And then she was, as the song says, 17 years old ... and she was attracted, whatever one may say, under the "death" article ...

But let us return to Moscow, to the cell of the Novinsky prison, to ladies remarkable in all respects, to selfless revolutionaries who were preparing a risky venture - an escape to freedom. Nikitina recalls: “Obviously, something was being hidden not only from the court, but in general ... So, there was something to hide ...” Let's interrupt the quote. This Nikitina, of course, is talking in hindsight - about "something was hidden", it was later, when it became clear what was the matter, that I had to look for explanations and reflect on my own blindness and naivety ... But let's continue the quote. So: “She was clearly hiding from us: she undressed under the covers, did not wash, like all of us, in the restroom up to her waist, jumped out into the corridor, making sure that everyone was sitting in the cell ... etc. A vague suspicion of an incredible, impossible situation wandered Then a note came from the Butyrka prison from her co-processor, very carefully he reported that he knew Manya Nikiforova as a good and honest comrade, but there was one circumstance ... "She will tell you herself" ... Another circumstance! ... And I expressed my assumption :

This is not a girl, but a man, most likely a spy."

According to Nikitina, the rest of the inmates were also suspected of a similar Marusya. After conferring, they decided to interrogate. Marusya, apparently possessing extraordinary artistic abilities and not devoid of imagination, for some reason found it beneficial for herself not to disappoint anyone and confirm suspicions about her gender. She interrogated her with three baskets. She, returning to the companions, shared what she had heard. Nikitina describes this sentimental episode as follows:

Indeed, a boy, but the story is very special, and not a provocateur at all, but participated in the murder of the bailiff, then disappeared in a woman's dress, was arrested and convicted like that; he sat in Chernigov, in solitary confinement, then in Butyrki - also, he knows some people, and they know him, in general he is unhappy and asks, for God's sake, to understand and regret, he cries ...

The camera gasped… We cannot say that everyone clearly understood the situation: the majority was carried away by the romanticism of the incident and found our fears exaggerated. However, they began to discuss and decided the following: Manya will remain Manya, that he is a boy or a man - we don't care. We put a side bed for her by the window at the table ... we forbid her to sing, jump, shout, go to the doctor, go to the toilet, when someone is there and, of course, to the bathhouse ... Manka was called, all this was reported to her and demanded an oath promise. She cried, blew her nose, promised... And the next day she sang at the top of her voice in a strong boyish viola: "At Poltavi to the market...".

So, naive women, as we see from Nikitina's memoirs, were ready to believe in many things ... The main thing is that it be romantic and not banal ... Although in Marusya's "stories" something was still true. For example, why did you sit and where did you sit. But the truth did not interest anyone even after many decades. And now, from one biographical note to another, the circumstances of her life, apparently composed later by Marusya herself, roam: both serving time in solitary confinement in the Peter and Paul Fortress (it turns out that she had been sitting there for several years!), And the sentence (three years earlier than her actually tried) to death, and transfer to Siberia, from where she fled to Japan, then to America and Western Europe ... Marusya knew how to embellish! But what really happened, we will learn everything from the same Nikitina:

“The atmosphere in the cell was heating up. In addition, Manya made us very nervous. Of course, I had to let her know about the possibility of escaping, and she completely lost her head: she pestered everyone with questions and suggestions, showed methods of struggle, did not take into account either time or place, not with other people's eyes... And there were eyes, and rumors spread around the prison: some kind of wonderful one is sitting at the political ones: a girl is not a girl, a man is not a man... And they hide her... I personally had little faith, that it was a "man": not a single man could have survived a week without showing himself, locked up among 20 women, who were mostly young, careless and stupidly naive. Or rather, that this freak, hysterical, deceitful and cunning creation, and how do we know if Tarasova (the guard who participated in the preparation of the escape) and our assistants in the wild are already being watched? these doubts, tried not to lose sight of her absurd even and criminal figures."

At this point, Nikitina has a footnote, and we will return to it later. In the meantime, we note that, for all the bias, bias of the memoirist and her undisguised disgust for Nikiforova, the story of the escape, that is, what Nikitina was a direct witness and participant, is set out quite scrupulously and truthfully. As for the escape itself, it went quite well. On the night of July 1, 1909, 13 people escaped from the Novinsky prison. Three women, including, of course, Marusya, dressed up as boys, four as young ladies, one as a lady, one as a girl, two as women from the people. Nikitina herself, since she didn’t have enough clothes prepared in the wild (recall - by the Mayakovsky family; it’s curious who got the clothes sewn by the young man Volodya Mayakovsky - maybe Marusya?), Somehow dressed up in a dress constructed from "improvised" material for a pregnant woman. The climax of the escape is described as follows (we quote this passage in order to convince the reader that this happens not only in "cool" films):

“A lattice door at the end of the longitudinal wall of the room connected it with the office, so that anyone who approached it could see the guard who was sitting at the table in the middle of the office. We knew this and made up Helma as a boss, dressed her in a black coat and a big hat Tarasova, walking ahead according to the charter, unlocked the door for her, and she went straight to the sleepy Veselova. She raised her head to meet - at that moment Helma grabbed her by the throat. Zina, Natasha, Nina rushed to help. A wild muffled scream, then lowing ... A large strong woman, seized with senseless fear, thrashed as if under a knife. A chair flew off, a ball of bodies spun on the floor. They calmed her, asked, threatened - all in vain: she obviously could not stop and fell silent only when her mouth was bandaged.

At this time, I felt that Marusya, whose hand I did not let go, began to tremble, as if in a fever. "Now scream!" - flashed a terrible thought. I turned to her in a rage: - Marusya, I will kill you! Stop shaking! Marusya took a deep breath, twitched, but stopped trembling. Manya, who was eager to fight all the time, finally ran away to the office ... "

Above, we talked about a footnote in Nikitina's text. So, footnote:

“To finish with Maria Nikiforova, I’ll tell her further story: it turned out to be not a boy or a girl, but a full and rare type of hermaphrodite - the more literate of us soon guessed this and called him (!) “It.” He was not a provocateur, but, of course, sexual deformity affected the entire psyche - hysterical, perverted and immoral... Abroad, where he ended up after escaping, he was guided by anarchists, lived strangely now in a man's, then in a woman's dress, had corresponding novels, received some funds. We all completely parted ways with him. In 1917 he returned to Russia ... "

What follows is a completely mythologized version of the subsequent biography of Marusya, which we omit. According to the well-known anarchist writer Andrei Andreev, who knew Nikiforova well, the left SR Betra Babin fully confirms the fact that Marusya was a hermaphrodite. The same is confirmed by the materials of the investigation file brought against Marusya by the Cheka in the summer of 1918. It contains the testimony of the anarchist Artemy Gladkikh, interrogated in the case of the atrocities of the Marusya detachment. He claims that he knew Marusya in Paris when she bore the name Volodya. Andreev also admitted that he had heard from people who knew her closely from Paris that she had undergone one of the world's first transplantation of hormonal glands in those years and she completely turned into a woman (the operation, apparently, was successful, because Marusya subsequently got married)...

As for the life of our heroine abroad, or rather, in Paris, there are few reliable facts (and not rumors). Some sources indicate that after her escape, she lived in France, where she studied sculpture and drawing with Rodin and at the same time continued to work in anarchist organizations. Western Europe. Others - that she lived in France, England, Germany, Switzerland, was fluent in many European languages, was an active participant in socialist congresses. There is also quite reliable information that in Paris Marusya finally joined the organization of anarchist-communists created by Apollon Karelin ... Some characterize her as an obstinate, rebellious nature, by conviction - an anarcho-terrorist, as a good speaker and organizer of expropriation and terror .. Someone claims that in France "she was brought under a political prison, and here she already ended up in French penal servitude for good deeds: armed robbery again (this was told to Amfiteatrov-Kadashev in Rome by a certain Giacintova, who allegedly was in a hard labor prison in Marseilles together with "Maruska", with the only difference being that Giatsintova was the victim of a miscarriage of justice, and "Maruska sat rightly served" - B.B.), and in 1917 Maruska's penal servitude ended, and she rushed off to Russia ... "Someone writes that during the First World War, Nikiforova, under the name Volodya, enrolled in the Foreign Legion (in 1914), graduated from an officer school in Paris and received the rank of officer.

Most likely, Marusya actually acquired some drawing skills abroad, for it is known that at the end of 1918 she labored in Moscow in Proletkult. But more about that later ... More importantly, in exile, she, apparently, met V.A. Antonov-Ovseenko. This acquaintance turned out to be very useful and had important consequences for Marusya.

After February Revolution Marusya returned to Russia, where she immediately plunged headlong into the maelstrom of revolutionary events. No one doubted the ardor of her anarchism. By the way, Marusya is a participant in the first congresses of Soviets ...

First of all, she allegedly went to Ukraine, to the Pologi station in the Aleksandrovsky district, where her mother lived, and on the ruins of an anarchist group created a strong terrorist organization in southern Russia. In May 1917, she expropriated a million rubles from the Alexander breeder Badovsky (it is possible that this episode does not refer to May, but to July or September 1917). During the July events of 1917 in Petrograd, Nikiforova led the capital's delegation of anarchists to Kronstadt, where she tried to persuade the sailors to revolt in order to support the armed uprising of the local proletariat that allegedly began in Petrograd. Her performances were a notable success and found sympathy and response in the sailor audience. Some believe that it was her agitation that contributed to the participation of a significant number of sailors and soldiers of the Kronstadt garrison in the July events in Petrograd.

In August 1917, Nikiforova again leaves for Ukraine. In Gulyaipole, where she often visited, she met the local anarchist Nestor Makhno. From the memoirs of Makhno it is known that "on August 29, an anarchist from Aleksandrovsk, M. Nikiforova, held a peasant rally" (under his, Makhno, leadership). During the rally, Marusya tried to arrest the former police officer of Gulyai-Polye, but Makhno allegedly suppressed this initiative.

At the beginning of September, Makhno was still hesitating, pondering how it would be more convenient to carry out an agrarian revolution, but Marusya, who had appeared in Gulyaipole the day before, demanded immediate action. Nikiforova, who later for a long time was on the sidelines under Makhno, at that time enjoyed much louder fame than Makhno himself ... She rained down on him a hail of reproaches for gradualness, conciliation and departure from the rebellious just cause.

The following story of a participant in the described events also belongs to the same period:

“Once in a club we were arguing whether or not Makhno should be at the head of the Gulyai-Polye organizations. Suddenly Marusya Nikiforova came to us with some three anarchists. She spoke out against the group and Makhno, accusing us of trying to lead the village, preaching little the ideas of anarchism and weakly oppressed the landlords and the merchant bourgeoisie.

It is necessary to destroy the foundations of the bourgeois revolution by direct violence against the bourgeoisie and fight against Ukrainian chauvinism,” she said. - It is necessary to raise funds for literature, it is necessary to seize weapons.

But where to get weapons? we asked. Marusya offered to disarm a part of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, which was stationed not far from Gulyaipole. We agreed.

On September 10, 1917, we, 200 people, left by train for Orekhovo. We had no weapons, with the exception of ten rifles and the same number of revolvers, which we had taken from the police. At the Orekhovo station, we cordoned off the regiment's warehouses (supply) and found rifles in the arsenal. Then they surrounded the headquarters in the town. The commander managed to escape, and Marusya shot the lower officers with her own hands. The soldiers surrendered without a fight and willingly laid down their rifles, and then went home.

Marusya left for Aleksandrovsk, and we returned to Gulyaipole with weapons. Now it was not scary.

Unexpectedly, a comrade arrives from Aleksandrovsk, I don’t remember his last name, and says that the other day Marusya Nikiforova was arrested by the county commissar Mikhno. Without hesitation, we called him on the phone and asked if this was true. He replied that he arrested her because she imposed an indemnity on the breeder Badovsky and promised that if we did not obey him, they would arrest us too.

It was clear that Mikhno Nikiforova was not going to be released. It was necessary to force him by force, therefore, to go to him.

Mikhno, having learned that we were moving towards Aleksandrovsk, released Nikiforova, about which he informed us by telegraph (...).

Part of our "Black Guard", having elected Savva Makhno as their commander, under the general command of Nestor, on the 4th of January, went to the aid of the Alexandrov workers and the anarchist detachment of Marusya Nikiforova. Marusya then worked with the Bolsheviks in the revolutionary headquarters, which consisted of left-wing socialist revolutionaries and Bolsheviks, where N. Makhno was also invited, having elected him chairman of the military revolutionary commission of inquiry.

Already in the fall, she is the organizer and commander of the "Black Guard". Marusya is the ideologist of the "unmotivated" destruction of state institutions, not excluding (after the October Revolution) Soviet ones. Even before 1918, she was known in Ukraine for her atrocities... Whether this is so or not, but until the end of 1917 Marusya, who, let us note once again, was at that time much more famous than Makhno, was, apparently, predominantly in the territory of eastern and southern Ukraine, where she carried out active anarchist work. (According to other sources, at the end of the year she worked as a nurse. Which is doubtful.) Marusya's combat activity most likely began with the formation of a battery at the end of December 1917 in Elizavetgrad (now Kirovograd). This battery grew into the "1st free-combat detachment for the fight against counter-revolution" headed by it.

The first major deed of the detachment was the capture in January 1918 of Aleksandrovsk (now Zaporozhye). Then Elizavetgrad and Znamenka were captured. The "1st free-combat detachment for the fight against counter-revolution" was part of the units of the newly created Red Army under the command of Antonov-Ovseenko. Some later interpreters like to point out that the Marusin detachment did not obey the orders of the latter. But that was not the problem at all. In the same way, many sources only say that the capture of a particular city by the Marusya detachment was necessarily accompanied by robberies, terror, all sorts of atrocities ... Less often there are sources pointing to the high fighting qualities of her detachment, to the iron discipline in it ...

Marusya's activities as the commander of the "1st free-combat detachment" began to quickly acquire rumors and legends: either she robs confectioneries, cafes and gorges herself with cakes, or she expropriates lingerie stores ... Vladimir Amfiteatrov-Kadashev heard this about her: "I barely reigned Sovdep, as in the Kherson province (Maruska's homeland; by the way, she is not the general's daughter at all, of course, but simply a girl from a petty-bourgeois family), a "free Cossack detachment of anarchists" arose, led by Maruska. a suit, in a short skirt, in high boots, with a revolver behind her belt, rode horses, arousing delight in the various rogues who made up her gang. Initially, she settled in Elizavetgrad with the firm intention of thoroughly rob this rich city. Fortunately, the workers of a huge factory " Elvort" did not allow this; in the war that arose between them and Maruska, the workers turned out to be the winners, so she should have la hurriedly retired to the east, robbing Alexandrovsk on the way, where she became famous for requisitioning all the silk stockings in the city in her favor.

In the spring of 18, Nikiforova's detachment operated in various cities of Ukraine and Russia - from Odessa to Rostov-on-Don. “Thus, in Elizavetgrad, during the period of the establishment of Soviet power, the presence of a well-armed detachment of Nikiforova helped the Red Guards take power almost bloodlessly,” after stating this fact, the authors of ideologized and mythologized notes about Marus (there are no others!) Move on to stating the following with the help of an opposing union “however ": "However, soon the" Free Fighting Squad "(" 1st free-fighting detachment to combat counter-revolution. - B.B.) began to smash stores and distribute goods to the population. Only strong opposition from local authorities and the population cities stopped looting"... If Marusya is the ideologist of "motiveless destruction...", if she is an ideological anarchist, then "however" is inappropriate here. And as for "resolute opposition ... to the population of cities" - everything is also not so simple. We will provide better word Antonov-Ovseenko - although his attitude towards Nikiforova is contradictory, he sets out the factual side of the matter more correctly than others.

"The growing disintegration of the Muravyov rear (M.A. Muravyov - at that time Commander-in-Chief of the Southern Front. - B.B.) was greatly facilitated by the actual atrocities committed by some of the partisan detachments. These detachments, called for the most part anarchist, made up of various adventurers and dark elements of the cities and towns of the Right Bank, were engaged in unrestrained requisitions, raped and simply robbed. One of these detachments of 40 people, who behaved outrageously at Dolinskaya station, caused a special expedition to be sent against him from Yekaterinoslav. ) in Elizavetgrad were one of the reasons for the success of the uprising organized in the city by the White Guards and Petliura agents ... The counter-revolution was helped, to the extent of their licentiousness, by some anarchist elements.

It seems that the picture is drawn unambiguously. But then Antonov-Ovseenko cites the following data: “It turned out that Muravyov himself sent an echelon of anarchists under the command of Marusya Nikiforova, who terrorized the population from Elizavetgrad to Yekaterinoslav, to help Belenkovich (commander of the Soviet forces in the Elizavetgrad region. - B.B.). "Everywhere there was talk of robberies and executions. Belenkovich was also accused of aiding the anarchists. The Black Hundreds revolted and drove Belenkovich out of the city ... When Belenkovich retreated, the bourgeoisie completely saddled the workers and peasants and put forward the slogan "Down with anarchy." From all the villages were convened soldiers who were told that they were going to fight against Marusya, and enthusiasm became noticeable in the ranks ... At the Khirovka station, the attack of the Gaidamaks was repulsed, the detachment of Marusya Nikiforova especially distinguished itself. There were many casualties on both sides, half the city was destroyed. "

"Both those and other reports about Marusa Nikiforova," summarizes Antonov-Ovseenko, "were true: she had brave guys, only completely dissolute." Further, according to the facts cited by Antonov-Ovseenko, the events developed as follows. On March 11, "the people of Elizavetgrad scattered appeals from airplanes, which said that the power in the city belongs to the workers and that they should not succumb to provocations and go against the robberies of Nikiforova ... By March 13, Elizavetgrad was again occupied by us ..."

In modern studies, the events of the March days of 1918 in Elizavetgrad are described as follows. A commission was formed in the city to regulate relations with the anarchist detachment, which suggested that the "1st Free Combat Detachment" leave the city. Nikiforova was forced to comply with this demand, since the Military Revolutionary Committee, which was in the city, by that time already had significant armed forces at its disposal. After the start of the German offensive in connection with the evacuation of Soviet institutions and troops from Elizavetgrad, the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks from the local Soviet managed to combine their forces and create a Provisional Committee of the Revolution. The troops of this committee under the slogan: "All power to the Constituent Assembly!" defeated the Red Guards, and then, when Nikiforova’s detachment (250 people, 1 gun, armored car) appeared in Elizavetgrad, even more fierce battles began in the city. The Provisional Committee of the Revolution attracted a significant part of the population to its side, "frightening" them with robberies and pogroms perpetrated before by Marusya. Marusya attracted a sailor armored train to her side. The result was 86 killed and 140 wounded. In addition, Marusya herself was wounded. (In the same days, Marusya’s detachment arrested a teenager-school student, the future poet Arseniy Tarkovsky. The interrogation carried out by Nikiforova ended successfully for the future poet: they treated him to sweets and released him ...)

Let us supplement the picture of the events in Elizavetgrad with Belenkovich’s story, as narrated by Antonov-Ovseenko: “Marusya and her detachment were engaged in rallies and unauthorized requisitions in Elizavetgrad. Belenkovich, on the instructions of Muravyov, suggested that she go to the front. She complied with the order ... and the mood in the city improved (thus no less because of the flight of the Revolutionary Committee, which was trying to take the treasury money out of the city, power passed into the hands of "democratic self-government", based on the "Union of Front-line Soldiers" and "self-protection" - B.B.) ... Unexpectedly - at the semaphore Marusya Nikiforova; turned to Znamenka, "to purchase the necessary supplies". The car with her was fired upon in the city, Marusya was wounded. Her "brothers" began shelling the city (from two armored cars, fire was opened, including on the building of the Elizavetgrad Council - the first execution in history " House of the Soviets, "produced moreover with the use of heavy armored vehicles! ... - B.B.). Belenkovich managed to stop this shooting. In negotiations with By means of native self-government, he secured a promise to maintain neutrality and to facilitate the surrender of weapons by irregular units, provided that our detachments were sent to the front. Our troops have been sent. In response, the city self-government organized a secret military headquarters, which moved white detachments to the station to capture the station and Belenkovich ... Hearing the shooting, she turned towards Elizavetgrad and Marusya ... Up to 400 people fought from our side. (...) Up to 6,000 whites advanced, led by former officers. Ours were crushed. Nikiforova's detachment is half exterminated..."

Most interpreters agree that Nikiforova, while fighting on the side of the Soviets at that time, eventually turned the majority of the population against Soviet power by her actions, and that this happened not only in Yelizavetgrad, but also in other cities of Ukraine, where Marusya's detachment visited.

This is how the anarchist Chudnov remembered her: “She was a woman of about thirty-two or thirty-five, of medium height, with a tired, prematurely aged face, in which there was something of an eunuch or a hermaphrodite, her hair was cut in a circle. A Cossack beshmet sat deftly on her with gazyryami. A white hat is put on sideways. "

During the retreat, she became close to the Left SRs, as she retreated to Taganrog along with a detachment of the Left SR Ivan Rodionov. About the German offensive in Ukraine, another Left Socialist-Revolutionary wrote colorfully in his memoirs, People's Commissar Justice Steinberg: "Along the lines railways Separate trains with omnipotent passengers, armed to the teeth, rushed about, stations, post offices, telegraphs, direct wires were seized on any whim. Legends were created around these flying Dutchmen, who sometimes seemed to be resurrected groups of landsknechts. One Marusya Nikiforova, a brave and cruel commander, like a meteor, flying from point to point, devastating the shops of women's and other outfits for her needs, acting under the protection of machine guns and armored cars, humiliating the Soviets, will make us stop with pain and bitterness in the future on this passage of Russian revolution"...

After a series of battles with the Germans and Gaidamaks, in which Marusya participated together with the Soviet detachments (at the end of March, the "1st Free Combat Detachment" took part, in particular, in the operation to seize the Apostolovo railway station and in the attack on Dolgintsevo), her the detachment arrived in Taganrog in early April (according to other sources - in the second half of April) 1918. It should be noted that the rapid spring offensive of the German army on the territory of the Left-Bank Ukraine did not allow the Nikiforov detachment to take anything serious. Even an attempt, together with Makhno, who was not yet very well known at that time, and, conversely, with the then famous commander Petrenko, to save Gulyaipole from the capture did not lead to anything.

Here is how N. I. Makhno describes this episode in his "Memoirs":

“A detachment of Maria Nikiforova approached the Tsarevokonstantinovka station. I informed her about what had happened in Gulyaipole (the arrest of comrades and members of the Revolutionary Committee (...)). She immediately called the commander of the Red Guard detachment, a certain sailor Polupanov (...). Nikiforov invited him to return to Tsarekonstantinovka in order to jointly lead an offensive on Gulyaipole (...) Nikiforova and Petrenko (commander of the Siberian detachment) decided to return to Pologi and take Gulyaipole by force in order to free all the arrested anarchists and non-party revolutionaries in it, and also to withdraw the deceived armed forces of the peasants, if they wish, or to take away the weapons so that the Germans do not get them (...).

I expressed the opinion that it was already too late to attack Gulyai-Pole. The Germans apparently already occupied it. And it is impossible to knock them out of Gulyai-Pole with our detachments (...). Comrades Nikiforova and Petrenko, although they laughed at me, calling me not understanding anything about their strategy and not knowing the combat capability of their detachments, however, they were forced at the same moment and in a hurry to transfer the locomotives of their echelons from the Pologovsky direction in the direction of the Volnovakha station, and they even stopped talking to me about Pologi and Gulyai-Pole.

To my question: "What kind of fever do you have? That you probably received any disturbing information about this area?" - Nikiforova announced to me that the Germans occupied the stations of Pologi and Upper Tokmak and cut off the anarchist detachment of Comrade Mokrousov along the Upper Tokmak - Berdyansk line.

“If you want,” Nikiforova added to me, “then get into my car. I am now ordering the echelon to move further in the direction of Volnovakha - Yuzovka.” We are late, all the approaches to it are already occupied by German troops.

Meanwhile, having learned about the unauthorized pogroms and executions carried out by Marusya in Elizavetgrad and Aleksandrovsk, the Ukrainian Bolshevik government, which was at that time in Taganrog, ordered Nikiforova to be arrested and her detachment disarmed.

"I got in touch with some members of the Federation of Taganrog Anarchists, as well as with other friends, and took up the sensational case of the commander of one of the anarchist detachments, Maria Nikiforova, which was sensational in Taganrog in those days ...

Lenin and Trotsky completely unbridled, crushed the anarchist organizations in Moscow, announced a campaign against the anarchists (...). The Ukrainian Bolshevik-Left SR authorities hastened to act against the detachment of the anarchist Nikiforova, who found herself together with their Red Guard detachments in Taganrog.

The Ukrainian government ordered a detachment under the command of the Bolshevik Kaskin (actually the Left Social Revolutionary A. Kaska. - B.B.) to arrest the anarchist Maria Nikiforova, and disarm her detachment. Kaskin's soldiers arrested Maria Nikiforova in front of my eyes in the building of the UTSIK of the Soviets. When she was taken out of this building in the presence of the notorious Bolshevik Zatonsky, Marusya Nikiforova turned to him for an explanation: why was she being arrested? Zatonsky hypocritically denied: "I don't know why." Nikiforova called him a vile hypocrite."

An investigative commission was created, which included two representatives of the Taganrog organization of the Bolsheviks, two representatives of the Taganrog Anarchist Federation and one representative of the Central Executive Committee of Ukraine. Let us note the validity of Makhno's remark that the arrest of Nikiforova coincided in time with the defeat of the anarchist organizations in Moscow and other cities by the Bolsheviks.

Because of the attempt of the Bolsheviks to disarm the detachment of Marusya Nikiforova, who, by the way, like many other formations of different party "affiliation", came to Taganrog to rest in the midst of the fighting, the first conflict with the authorities occurred at Nestor Makhno. He also described in detail everything that happened after the arrest of Marusya:

“The detachment of Nikiforova did not disperse and did not go to serve in the detachment of the Bolshevik Kaskin. He persistently demanded an answer from those in power, where they hid Maria Nikiforova and for which he was disarmed.

This demand was joined by all those retreating from the Ukraine to Taganrog and the Taganrog anarchists. The Taganrog Committee of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party will support the anarchists and fighters of the Nikiforova detachment ... At the same time, many telegrams protesting against the act of the authorities or simply sympathizing with Nikiforova and her detachment arrived in Taganrog from the front from the Bolshevik, Left SR and anarchist squadrons and their commanders.

The Yekaterinoslav (Bryansk) anarchist armored train under the command of the anarchist Garin arrived in Taganrog to express their revolutionary protest to the authorities who had gone too far behind the back of the revolutionary front ...

This state of affairs prompted the central authorities to collect false data against Maria Nikiforova and her detachment, data that accused her of allegedly sacking Yelizavetgrad when she occupied it in March 1918, driving Ukrainian chauvinists out of it. Thus, she created a criminal case.

In the twentieth of April, a revolutionary trial of Maria Nikiforova took place. The trial took place with open doors and had the character of a court of revolutionary honor.

The central government recruited from the fugitives a lot of witnesses against Nikiforova, trying by hook or by crook to pin a criminal offense on her and execute her. But the court was truly revolutionary, impartial and, most importantly, politically and legally, for the most part, completely independent of the provocation of government hired agents ...

As a result of the proceedings, the court ruled that there were no grounds to judge Nikiforov for the robbery of Elizavetgrad. The court decided to immediately release her from custody and, returning to her and her detachment the weapons and equipment selected by Kaskin’s detachment, to give her the opportunity to make up a train for herself and go to the front, especially since she and her detachment are striving for this.

Makhno also notes in his memoirs that he wrote a leaflet on this occasion, "which denounced the Central Ukrainian Soviet government and commander Kaskin of falsifying the case against Nikiforova and hypocritically vile attitude towards the Revolution itself."

So, the commission of inquiry justified the actions of Nikiforova, decided to release her and cancel all measures taken against the "1st free-combat detachment." This decision was also influenced by the fact that Antonov-Ovseenko positively characterized the actions of the anarchists against the Austro-German troops. Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Red Front Antonov-Ovseenko wrote in a telegram sent to Taganrog:

"The detachment of the anarchist Maria Nikiforova, as well as Comrade Nikiforova, are well known to me. Instead of disarming such revolutionary combat units, I would advise you to start creating them." (Later, however, Antonov-Ovseenko, not without irony, dubbed Marusya Nikiforova an "energetic and stupid" warrior ...)

Despite the commission's positive decision for Marusya, it provoked protests among soldiers and workers. The general meeting of the soldiers of the First Revolutionary Battalion of the Ukrainian Soviet troops decided: "Consider the decision of the commission of inquiry in the case of Maria Nikiforova hasty and the investigation incomplete ... Demand the immediate appointment of a new commission of inquiry."

Only the approach of German troops prevented Nikiforova from completing the case. As a result, the decision of the Presidium of the Executive Committee on disarmament proved to be unfulfilled, also because the anarchist detachments of the "Black Guard" represented an impressive force. In addition, dozens of other squads and detachments of the "Black Guard", retreating from Ukraine, arrived to help local anarchist detachments.

In the meantime, the "1st Free Combat Detachment for Combating Counter-Revolution" headed for Rostov-on-Don. Anarchists literally terrorized the local population of the city, and on the eve of the surrender of Rostov-on-Don to the Germans, they began to destroy "capital": stocks, bonds and various securities taken from banks were piled on the square and burned. Here and in Novocherkassk, according to the interpreters of those events, anarchist detachments were engaged in robberies, searches and arrests of innocent people.

On May 6 or 7, V. Trifonov was on the same train with Marusya, coming from Rostov. His son, famous writer Yuri Trifonov writes about it this way:

“The “famous” Marusya Nikiforova, the head of the anarchist detachment, a young drunkard (?!) and a psychopath, turned out to be on the same locomotive. shaggy hat. Her detachment was disheveled to the Germans, only a few soldiers rode with her ... "

Approximately at this time impostors began to appear on the territory of Central and Southern Russia, posing as the legendary Marusya. Detachments of such "Marus" acted in accordance with the legends attributed to the real Marus. From Voronezh to Rostov-on-Don "Marusya" with their gangs robbed and killed with impunity. Allegedly, after Rostov-on-Don, traces of Nikiforova are found in Voronezh. The following portrait of an anarchist chieftain dates back to this period: “A carriage is rushing along the street at breakneck speed. Casually lounging in it, a young brunette in a kubanka dressed to the side, hanging on the footrest, a broad-shouldered guy in red hussar breeches. The brunette and her bodyguard are hung with weapons. What is not here! Sabers, a Mauser in a wooden holster, hand grenades ... ".

It is known, however, that after Rostov-on-Don, the detachment of Marusya moved towards Tsaritsyn. The detachment of Petrenko, friendly to her, also moved there. By that time, a conflict was growing between Petrenko and the Bolshevik authorities, including in the person of Sergo Ordzhonikidze, over the values ​​​​expropriated by Petrenko's detachment (the gold reserves of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic - several echelons of gold). Two echelons, loaded to the top with gold and soldiers, drove up to Tsaritsyn, where Petrenko raised an uprising ... Marusya, naturally, sided with her comrade-in-arms. “A week later, having reached Tsaritsyn,” as the same Yu. Trifonov notes, “Marusya took part in a frenzied anarchist riot that Petrenko raised ...” (in another place with Trifonov: “... on the same night, Tsaritsyn became to besiege and bomb the famous Marusya Nikiforova").

And here is how Sergo's wife, Zinaida Ordzhonikidze, described the Tsaritsyn episode:

"Early in the morning, our armored train arrived in Tsaritsyn. Dawn broke a little. Suddenly, a cannonade began nearby. It was Petrenko's bandits who had arrived on the first two echelons, which we were unable to catch up on the way.

Sergo got into the car and drove to the collision site. The brutal bandits categorically refused to lay down their arms and declared war on Soviet power. They teamed up with anarchists from the Marusya gang, which I had seen earlier in Rostov: she, accompanied by drunken robbers, rode around the city on horseback in a white Circassian coat and a white shaggy hat.

The Red Army detachments took up positions in the cemetery. A real battle began, in which Sergo took the most active part ... "

Only untrained detachments of Red Guard workers remained loyal to the Soviets, while Petrenko and Marusya commanded one of the most combat-ready formations of the UkrFront... were all the institutions of the Soviet government. But in the end, Petrenko was surrounded, he surrendered, and he was shot. Ordinary Petrenkovites and Marusya were not touched. According to the newspaper Izvestia Sovetov of the Moscow Region, the detachment of the "famous anarchist Marusya" was disarmed in Tsaritsyn at the end of May 1918. The newspaper wrote the following about the Marusya fighters: “Appearing in any city, they freely indulged in robbery, drunkenness, unauthorized searches and requisitions. The entire city in which they managed to settle was in the most terrible situation. They disrupted normal life, often attacked "Something nightmarish happened in the cities during the stay of "Maruska" there. The drunken bacchanalia, terror, debauchery spread by Ms. Nikiforova defy description." And V. Amfiteatrov-Kadashev, who fed mainly on rumors, wrote about her in his diary: “Then she hung out under the Bolsheviks in the Don and Kuban, after the capture of Tuapse she fled to the mountains - and her trace disappeared” ...

In fact, in June 1918, Marusya was arrested in Saratov, by decision of the Saratov Soviet, brought to Moscow and imprisoned for several months in the Butyrka prison (in one version of her brief biography, the following information is given: "in the summer-autumn of 1918, Nikiforova commanded her" Druzhina" on the Voronezh - Bryansk - Saratov fronts. In September 1918, she was arrested by the decision of the Council of Saratov "for illegal actions", taken to Moscow .."). Nikiforova was released from custody in September on bail by Apollon Karelin, a member of the Central Executive Committee, one of the leaders of the Russian anarchists, and Antonov-Ovseenko, commander of the Soviet troops in Ukraine. A group of political emigrants who returned from France interceded for her, among whom was Witold Brzostek, an anarcho-communist, an employee of the Commissariat of Trade and Industry (formerly a well-known Polish anarchist - "anarcho-terrorist"). Shortly after her release, Marusya marries Brzostek. According to the memoirs of Andrei Andreev: "Bzhostek, loving tenderly, sometimes carried this woman (Marusya) around the room in his arms" ...

In anticipation of the trial and sentence, she began to work, as we have already said, in Proletkult, more precisely, she entered there to study painting. The first wife of Maximilian Voloshin, Margarita Sabashnikova, recalled with horror how "commissioner Bzhostek" showed up in Proletkult. According to her, art should be grateful to Marusya because she eventually decided to leave her career as an artist... At the same time in Moscow, Marusya participated in the Anarchist Congress and was elected to the secretariat (Secretary of the All-Russian Federation of Anarchists).

The trial of Nikiforova took place in January 1919. The Moscow Revolutionary Tribunal in the indictment (the notorious Katanyan acted as the prosecutor at the trial) indicated that "M. Nikiforova, without the knowledge of the local Soviets, carried out requisitions of the products of the commissariat, private shops and societies in many cities, imposed indemnities on the landowners on large sums, took the weapons and implements left by the Haidamaks. When the Soviets protested, she threatened them, surrounded the building of the Soviets with machine guns, and arrested members of the executive committees. Her detachment shot the military commander, for non-execution of orders, she sentenced the chairman of the Elizavetgrad Council to death, etc."

Pyatakov, a member of the Central Committee of Ukraine, who, on behalf of the Ukrainian government, formed a commission to investigate the case of Nikiforova, testified that the latter "very often disrupted the defense against the Germans and the White Guards, that by her actions she forced many communists to fight against her, engaged in robberies and was simply a bandit who acted under the flag of Soviet power.

To some extent, the anarchists also agreed with the conclusions of the court. One of them wrote about Marusya in the Anarchy newspaper: “The fame of her detachment thundered all over the front and the glory was bad ... Without a doubt, Marusya sometimes did something non-anarchist, but this was partly due to the fact that to find a line where discipline is not would have been to the detriment of freedom, it would have been very difficult and, I would say, even impossible."

The military tribunal found Maria Nikiforova guilty "of discrediting the Soviet government with her actions and the actions of her detachment in some cases: in disobedience to some Soviets on the ground in the field of military operations." The tribunal ruled that the accusation of robbery and illegal requisitions was illegal, since it was based on rumors that were not confirmed ("hysterics appeared, who, being called by her name, committed crimes"). Considering M. Nikiforova guilty on two counts, the tribunal found her deserving of leniency (the silver things found in her staff car could belong to one of the fighters of her detachment) and sentenced "to deprivation of the right to hold responsible positions within six months from the date of the verdict ".

The tribunal handed down such a mild sentence, taking into account the merits of Nikiforova in the struggle for Soviet power and against the Germans. In addition, the court did not have hard evidence on the facts of robberies. Yes, and the requisitions of goods were not something out of the ordinary at that moment, detachments formed by the Bolsheviks, and the Left Social Revolutionaries, and anarchists obtained provisions using such methods.

Karelin, who took Nikiforova on bail, described her at the trial as "an idealist in the best sense of the word" (by the way, Marusya received money for living during her stay in Moscow from the same Karelin). He called her “disinterested” and claimed that she would not take a penny for herself: “She gave everything that she had, she gave all of herself even to unfamiliar comrades. She gave the last ... I rather admit that the Communist Party will accept the program "Union of the Russian people", than I will believe that Comrade Nikiforov will take for himself at least a penny of the stolen money. Karelin claimed that she was an enemy of all expropriations, that she was an absolute teetotaler, that her phrase: "We must disperse the Soviets, because only Jews are sitting in them" - the height of absurdity ...

Soon after the trial, Marusya left the capital. “Now she has surfaced again in Ukraine,” Amfiteatrov-Kadashev fixes the rumors, “again commits inhuman cruelties: near Melitopol, after attacking a train, she shot 34 officers with her own hand! Next to her is Makhno, also a convict, a former public teacher.” In reality, everything was somewhat different.

In the rebel army of Old Man Makhno, who fought against the troops of Denikin on the side of the Soviets, Marusya worked in the Makhnovist "capital" - Gulyaipole - schools, hospitals, kindergartens. She was not allowed to participate in the leadership of combat detachments, since Makhno decided not to allow her to do military work. This was probably influenced by the decision of the military tribunal in Moscow.

If Marusya Makhno was removed from military affairs, then only the intervention of brute force could excommunicate her from the tribune. She continued to use the platform under any conditions. The Makhnovist Chubenko subsequently claimed that the anarchist Maria Nikiforova, who arrived in the region, made an unfavorable impression on the rebels, trying to impress them with a report on the repressions of the Bolsheviks, expressed in condemning her to six months of probation. “When Makhno,” recalls Chubenko, “arrived in Gulyaipole, the first thing he demanded was that the 2nd district congress be convened. The well-known anarchist Marusya Nikiforova arrived at the congress, that she arrived from Moscow (...), was under arrest and that she was sentenced to 6 months probation.Of course, this was not clear to the peasants and Red Army soldiers, and many of them protested, saying that they were waiting for something sensible, but she tells us a fairy tale about a white bull. In such cases, Makhno liked to support the peasants, and therefore told the congress that if Nikiforova was tried by the communists, then she deserved it: "But our business (...) is to fight and beat the whites, and not to dismantle who is right and who is wrong."

In the 20th of April 1919, the commander of the Ukrainian Front, Antonov-Ovseenko, visited Gulyaipole for inspection purposes. Makhno introduced the distinguished guest to the members of the Gulyai-Polye executive committee and its headquarters. “Immediately,” recalled the commander, the political commissar of the brigade, and an old acquaintance, Marusya Nikiforova. The inspection of the Makhno brigade was superficial - Antonov-Ovseenko did not have time to see much, to feel, as in the division of Grigoriev, who also fought on the side of the Soviets at that time. But the commander knew Makhno longer, Makhno was more understandable. Walking around the formation of the regiment that was being formed in Gulyaipole, Antonov-Ovseenko noted to himself: dressed somehow, but he looked cheerful ... one professional, experienced doctor. Schools and kindergartens (“…however funny,” writes one of the researchers) were in charge of Gulyaipole by Marusya Nikiforova, “the prima anarchist of 1918, whom Makhno removed from military operations.”

“In the evening,” continues his reminiscences of the front, “there was another huge rally. Speeches by the front, Makhno and Marusya Nikiforova. All speeches were under the slogan: “By all means against the common enemy - the bourgeois generals.” In a statement to the chairman of the Ukrainian government, Kh. Rakovsky, Antonov - Ovseenko specifically notes in relation to Makhno: "Marusya Nikiforova is not allowed to join military affairs, finding that her place is the work of" mercy ".

Ten days after Antonov-Ovseenko's visit, L. B. Kamenev arrived in Makhno's army, sent at Lenin's suggestion to Ukraine to solve the problem of the accelerated advance of food supplies to Moscow. Nikiforova begged Kamenev to send a telegram to Moscow with a request to cut the sentence by half.

Kamenev's secretary described his patron's stay in the "threatened area" as follows:

“The expedition train, well armed with machine guns and fighters, arrived in Gulyaipole early in the morning on May 7. The train was met by Marusya Nikiforov, adjutant Makhno Pavlenko, Verebelnikov (Veretelnikov Boris) and another Makhnovist staff officer. The conversation began with loyal outpourings of Marusya Nikiforova, and soon switched to the topic of the Cheka and requisitions.

Kamenev. Your rebels are heroes, they helped drive the Germans away, they drove the landowner Skoropadsky away, they fight with Shkuro and helped take Mariupol.

Pavlenko. And they took Mariupol.

Kamenev. So you are revolutionaries.

Marusya Nikiforova. Even insulting, well, right.

Kamenev. However, the fact is that often your units requisition bread intended for starving workers. (…)

Voroshilov with a grin asks Marusya Nikiforova for whom in broad daylight she requisitioned entire lingerie shops in Kharkov. The Makhnovists are smiling. Marusya waves her hand away and blushes. “They find fault with any nonsense,” she says, “they don’t delve into the essence of things.”

“I was the first,” says Marusya, “I introduced detachments to Yekaterinoslav, I disarmed 48 people. You can tell legends about the Makhnovists, I will tell you to the end ...” It is difficult to force Marusya to stop the list of his exploits ...

Before leaving, Kamenev sent the following telegram to Moscow:

"All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Serebryakov. I propose to reduce by half the sentence of Marusya Nikiforova, who was sentenced to six months of deprivation of the right to hold responsible positions, for military merit. Telegraph the decision to Gulyaipole, Nikiforova and me."

(Marusya Nikiforova hinted at this herself. Makhno's associates whispered to Kamenev that Marusya was not allowed into Makhno's headquarters).

Meanwhile, relations between the leaders of the Makhnovist movement and the newly arrived anarchists were becoming increasingly tense. The culmination was a conflict at a rally on May 1, where Makhno attacked them and even dragged Nikiforova from the podium, accusing the Bolsheviks of betraying the revolution. The uncompromising nature of many urban anarchists contradicted the realistic views of the leaders of the movement, who preferred compromise in relations with the communists ...

Then Nestor Makhno spoke out against the Soviet government, and a number of anarchists, including Nikiforova, who allegedly did not agree with this decision of the father, left the Makhnovists. However, the real motives behind Marusya's departure from Gulyai-Polye are not entirely clear. It is known that Marusya, removed from real command, put together something like an "anti-Bolshevik lobby" in the Makhnovist headquarters, which included the chief of staff, a right-wing maximalist, a former Cossack officer, Yakov Ozerov, and the head of the operational department of the headquarters, her old acquaintance, the Left SR Ivan Rodionov ... Memoirists and historians interpret the separation of Makhno and Marusya in different ways, while some details do not fit together.

Shortly after Kamenev's departure, there was a strong breakthrough of the Shkrovites, - recalls Chubenko, - and we had to surrender position after position, and, having no connection with the left flank, where the headquarters of the 14th Army was, we had to surrender Gulyaipole. And so, when Gulyaipole was surrendered, Makhno and all his associates were outlawed (...). Makhno seconded me to Bolshoi Tokmak so that I could report to the newly arrived supply chief (...). When sending me, Makhno gave me an order that if only the accounts were not submitted correctly, he would shoot me. This was said so that the Soviet government would not say that we took the money and did not account for it (...).

When I submitted my reports, Makhno was at the front, and at that time the anarchist Marusya Nikiforova arrived and began to ask me how much money I had. I answered her that I had 3 million money, which Makhno had not ordered me to give to anyone. She answered me that she should receive this money and send it to Moscow for an underground organization of anarchists (...), that she had 30 anarchist terrorists here at the Bolshoi Tokmak station, and she would not reckon with me, and if I If I don't give it, she will make an expropriation. With these words, she left the car, where there was a cash register with money. I immediately approached the station duty officer and ordered that in 15 minutes he should send my car with one steam locomotive to the Fedorovka station, which is located 50 versts southwest of Bolshoy Tokmak. That is how it was done.

On the second day Makhno arrived from the front (...). When I arrived in Bolshoy Tokmak, Makhno began to scold me why I left (...). I began to tell him (...) that Marusya Nikiforova wanted to expropriate me. That's why I left Bolshoi Tokmak, because there are 30 terrorists with her, and I'm alone. They can come and take money at any time. Makhno listened to me and said: "Nikiforov should be shot for such a thing, because this money is needed in order to raise an uprising in the rear of the whites, because the communists will not be able to."

At that moment, Marusya Nikiforova entered and began to tell Makhno that he should give her this money, as she needed it for underground work in Moscow. Makhno, without saying a word, began to scold her with swear words and, drawing a revolver, wanted to shoot her. But she obviously had a presentiment, because she was ready with a revolver in her hand. They quarreled for a long time, and then she began to ask that Makhno give at least the way to these people who were with her. At first, Makhno did not want to give, and then he took a pack of 1000 sheets of Nikolaev currency 5 rubles of denomination (...), threw it out the window to the people standing near the window and said: “Here you this money, and so I don’t see you here. Where if you want, go there (...). We know what kind of terrorists you are. You can eat ready-made bread and that's all." And he kicked Marusya Nikiforova completely out of the car and did not give her a penny.

Other sources tell the same story differently. Some say that Makhno went to Bolshoy Tokmak, on the way there he held a meeting, calling on the rebels and the population to support him by speaking out against the Bolsheviks. But they did not listen to him well, and he and his detachment entered the Big Tokmak, where he had some success, both among the population and among the red battalion. Here he met with Marusya Nikiforova, who by that time had organized a group of 60 anarchist terrorists who were in the Makhnovist counterintelligence, Cherednyak and Shuba detachments. She urged to give money for the work of the underground, but Makhno refused her, they almost shot, and in the end Makhno gave the group 250 thousand rubles in their hands.

From other sources it follows that when a group of militants from Chernyak's counterintelligence broke away from Makhno's army, who intended, having divided into three groups, to commit a series of terrorist acts - to blow up the Kharkov check, to kill Kolchak and Denikin - they demanded 700 thousand rubles. And Makhno gave the amount they demanded.

It is known that in fact, the group was divided into three detachments and departed from Fedorovka station in three directions. One - 20 people led by Nikiforova - went to the Crimea, from where he was supposed to move to Rostov and blow up Denikin's headquarters; another - 25 people led by Kovalevich, Sobolev and Glagzon - went to Kharkov to release the arrested Makhnovists, and in case of failure - to blow up the Extraordinary Tribunal, and the third - led by Chernyak and Gromov - went to Siberia to blow up Kolchak's headquarters.

Part of the Kharkov group later surfaced in Moscow among the "anarchists of the underground." This happened after the detachment of Kovalevich from Kharkov decided to go to Moscow, in which he saw all the "evil". In a short time, he organized his own printing house and distributed pogrom appeals signed "All-Russian Organization of Underground Anarchists." These militants were preparing to blow up the Kremlin and expropriate banks in Moscow, Tula, St. Petersburg, Bryansk, Ivanovo-Voznesensk and other cities.

The role of Nikiforova in the activities of the so-called underground anarchists, who on September 25, 1919 committed an explosion in the building of the MK RCP (b) in Leontievsky Lane, remains not entirely clear. As a result of this terrorist act, the purpose of which was to eliminate V. I. Lenin, 12 people were killed, including the secretary of the MK RCP (b) V. M. Zagorsky, and 55 communists were wounded, including such prominent Bolshevik leaders as A. F. Myasnikov, M. S. Olminsky, M. N. Pokrovsky, Yu. M. Steklov, E. M. Yaroslavsky, and others. As a result of the investigation into the circumstances of the case, it turned out that the "underground anarchists" headed by D. A. Cherepanov used Nikiforova's Moscow apartment. However, whether this was an accident or whether Marusya knew about the impending terrorist act remains a mystery (among the leaders of the anarchist underground, whom the Chekists did not manage to arrest, there was a certain "senior anarchist Volodya" ...).

The Siberian detachment either got lost somewhere, or traveled beyond the Urals and took part in the insurrectionary movement in the rear of Kolchak.

Nikiforova ended up in the Crimea in the summer of 1919, perhaps to prepare terrorist attacks against the white command on the spot, or maybe she was going from there, together with her husband V. Bzhostek, to make their way to Poland. According to some reports, she turned to the Crimean anarchists for financial assistance. Soon she was captured by white counterintelligence in the Crimea and hanged in Sevastopol (August - September 1919). According to other sources, at the end of July, together with her husband, she was identified and hanged in Sevastopol by General Slashchev, and her detachment from the Crimea allegedly moved to the Caucasus and took part in the Green movement.

The version recorded in V. Amfiteatrov-Kadashev’s diary sounds quite convincing: “Maruska Nikiforova was hanged in Sevastopol. According to her, she no longer interfered in any politics. Once, two boys who had previously participated in her gangs, and now soldiers of the Dobrarmia, recognized her on the street. The desire to curry favor, as well as anger at Maruska because she once ordered them to be flogged, forced the guys to track her down and report to the authorities. At the trial, Marusya behaved superbly: she accepted the death sentence quite calmly, saying: “Yes, what else can you do with me - just hang up!” She met the execution just as calmly. Saying goodbye to her husband (he was sentenced to eternal hard labor), she, however, began to cry, but then restrained herself, cheerfully stood on the bench, she put a noose around her neck ... Andrey Andreev also recalls that Marusya Nikiforova is very worthy she held her own in court and earned the respect of the whites with her heroism. Before the execution, her courage did not leave her, and she exclaimed: "Long live anarchy!"

After the liberation of Crimea, the remains of the "heroic underground fighter Marusya", as reported in the press, were solemnly reburied by the Soviet government...

From other, already completely dubious sources, it follows that she was arrested, dressed in officer's clothes, in Kyiv back in June 1919, and only then in Sevastopol was sentenced to death by hanging by a court-martial in Sevastopol.

Later, rumors began to appear that Maria Nikiforova was neither shot nor hanged by the whites, but returned to Moscow and there, having been recruited by the Cheka, was allegedly sent to France with the corresponding tasks ...

The image of the daring anarchist ataman Marusya was so imprinted in the people's memory that rumors of pogroms and robberies perpetrated by her appeared in 1920-1921 during the peasant uprising led by the Socialist-Revolutionary A. S. Antonov in the Tambov province. However, upon verification, it turned out that a certain Maria Kosova was hiding under the name of Marusya, who led one of the Antonov battle groups, which was distinguished by approximately the same actions as the "1st free-combat detachment" ... In the last three months of the Makhnovshchina (summer 1921 ) in the area of ​​operations of Makhno's detachments, a certain Marusya allegedly also operated, who then connected with him, and after Makhno left for Romania, she disappeared somewhere, as if she had sunk into the water ...

Concluding our story, we note that if she had not been hanged by the Whites, she would have been put to waste by the Reds, albeit a little later - the deep idealism that pushed Marusya to adventures would never come to court in the state of victorious Bolshevism. On the other hand, the "unmotivated terror" of which she was a practitioner - interpreted in her own way - became an integral part of the regime. But already without Marusya.

Part 3:

Victor Belash in the late 20s.

Viktor Belash, Aazov Cossack, a native of the village of Novo-Spasovka, was Makhno's chief of staff. In the film, this character appears under the name Chernysh. I don't know why. Belash was born in 1893, at the time of his appearance at Makhno's he was 25 years old. In the film, as has become customary, Belash-Chernysh is twice as old. The real Belash is one of the brightest figures in Makhno's entourage. A locomotive driver by profession, an anarchist with pre-revolutionary experience, still a very young man, Belash, before appearing at Makhno, managed to command a regiment with the Reds, and going to the father, he first headed the operational department, and then became chief of staff, showing out of nowhere the enormous talent of a military tactician. Most of Makhno's military operations were designed by him. Belash was the main supporter of the unification of the Makhnovists with the Bolsheviks on any terms and opponent of any terror. During another break, in June 1919, at a meeting of commanders, Belash even insisted on the removal of Makhno (who was not going to put up with the Bolsheviks) from command and was supported by some of the commanders. After the Makhnovists switched to a guerrilla war against the Soviet regime in 1921, Belash, with a group of his supporters, separated from Makhno and tried to break through the Caucasus to Turkey to help Ataturk. Belash's detachment was defeated by the Reds, he himself was seriously wounded and taken prisoner. In 1923 he was released under the guarantee of Russian and foreign anarchists (then this was still possible). After his release, he plunged headlong into underground work, led anarchist agitation, managed to organize several workers' strikes. Lived in Kharkov and Krasnodar. He was arrested more than once. In 1937, he was beaten to death during interrogation by the NKVD. Belash, during his imprisonment, wrote a voluminous study on the history of the Makhnovist movement (subsequently edited and supplemented by his son) - one of the most interesting and reliable on this topic.

Anarchist Marusya Nikiforova.

In general, during the Civil War there were so many Marus-atamans, and Marus-anarchists, that there is a fair amount of confusion in personalities. However, Maria Grigoryevna Nikiforova is an absolutely real and historical character. In the series, she appears under the following circumstances - Yekaterinoslav is occupied by the Makhnovists. Makhno is walking along one of the streets and sees how some bandits are robbing a lingerie store. Going inside, he sees the notorious Marusya Nikiforova there, who, among other things, tells Makhno how she worked as a dishwasher and was subjected to daily sexual violence, and that she didn’t wear underwear until she was 25 and didn’t know what it was, so “Give me something to take want".

All these data, the filmmakers themselves did not invent, they are often found in the literature about Nikiforova, but the degree of their reliability is questionable. Most likely, these are the fantasies of Nikiforova herself. Rumor writes her down as a general's daughter and a graduate of the Smolny Institute. She was definitely not a worker-peasant, but hardly a general, and in Smolny she simply had no time to study. At the age of 16, Maria becomes an active anarchist, and at 17 she receives 20 years of hard labor for the murder of a policeman. The most interesting thing is that Marusya was detained by the police as an "anarchist Volodya", and a medical examination showed that Nikiforova is a rare type of hermaphrodite. Cellmates recall that Nikiforova never undressed and did not wash in public, she was distinguished by her criminal habits, psychopathy and lesbian inclinations. Apparently, the peculiarities of the sexual device left a heavy imprint on the psyche of Marusya. She escapes from hard labor, crosses the border, where she lives until the February Revolution (I suspect that Nikiforova had no problems with linen there). There is evidence that during the emigration Nikiforova met with Lenin and made friends with Kollontai, but it is not clear how true this is. But it is known for certain that Nikiforova was friendly with Antonov-Ovseenko, and this subsequently saved her from execution. In France, Nikiforova, again under the name of Volodya, studied for some time at an officer's school. People who knew her in exile remember her as an educated person with a penchant for drawing and knowledge of several languages. At the beginning of 1917, she appeared in her native Aleksandrovsk and became a frequent visitor to Gulyaipole, where she met Makhno. Their first joint operation is the disarmament of one of the battalions of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. Despite the fact that the weapons were given to the anarchists without resistance, Nikiforova could not deny herself the pleasure and personally shot all the officers of the battalion.

Further more. Nikiforova creates a "Free Combat Detachment to Combat Counter-Revolution". This detachment is rushing about in the south of Russia and Ukraine, from Odessa to Taganrog, everywhere being marked by incredible robberies and equally incredible atrocities. Rumor ascribes to her a triple of what really happened, and the frightened Bolsheviks put Nikiforova in a Taganrog prison and arrange a trial for her. However, the intercession of many anarchists, as well as her old friend Antonov-Ovseenko, saves Marusya from execution. She is released, she again gathers her detachment, and finally feeling in Rostov and the surrounding area (they mention that Nikiforova’s detachment stormed the Rostov bank and set up a huge fire of banknotes, banknotes and bills on the adjacent square) runs along with the Reds from Rostov to Tsaritsyn , fleeing from the advancing German units.

Here is how Yuri Trifonov describes it in his documentary story "Glare of the Fire":

“On the same locomotive was the “famous” Marusya Nikiforova, the head of the anarchist detachment, a young drunkard and a psychopath. Until recently, a pupil of the Smolny Institute, and now a renowned ataman, she loved to travel around Rostov in a white Circassian coat with gazyrs and a white shaggy hat - she rode quiet, sober, in a soldier's overcoat. Her detachment was disheveled by the Germans, only a few soldiers were traveling with her.

And here is how the well-known writer E. Radzinsky describes her arrival in Tsaritsyn (immediately, by the way, you can see where the legs grow from):

“But on the same night, the remnants of the bandits, led by Petrenko and the famous ataman Marusya, broke into the city. Marusya (Maria Nikiforova) was a pupil of the Smolny Institute. Now, instead of languid friends, this cocaine addict in a white Circassian coat and shaggy hat, insane in lust and cruelty, was surrounded drunken bum. But this time the bandits also failed. Atamansha Marusya was shot right on the street ... "

Nikiforova, in fact, together with another anarchist Petrenko, raised a rebellion in Tsaritsyn, but they did not have time to shoot her - she disappeared. She was detained in Saratov, tried in Moscow, and again the intercession of Antonov-Ovseenko allowed Marusa to avoid being shot. Sentenced to a suspended sentence, Marusya flees to Ukraine to Makhno. Makhno ordered her to attend kindergartens and schools, not even letting her close to the conduct of hostilities. Marusya began to weave a conspiracy against Makhno. Supporters of Nikiforova urged the Makhnovists to turn their weapons against the communists. Nestor respected Nikiforova as an anarchist, but this was already beyond his patience. At one of the rallies, Makhno pulled Nikiforova from the podium by the scruff of the neck. Having given Marusa some amount of money to organize an assassination attempt on Denikin, Makhno expels Nikiforova and her cronies from his army. Marusya, however, uses only part of the funds to prepare the assassination attempt on Denikin. The other part, apparently, goes to prepare an assassination attempt on Lenin. A group of Marusin supporters is sent to Moscow. Both attempts end in failure. Marusya herself is arrested by the Whites in Crimea and hanged in public after the trial (Marusya herself puts a noose around her neck, shouts "Long live anarchy" and knocks the bench out from under her feet), and an explosion in Leontievsky Lane in Moscow takes the lives of a dozen communists, but Lenin and Dzerzhinsky does not appear at the scene of the assassination and remain alive. Marusya's involvement in the explosion in Leontievsky Lane has never been proven, although a certain "senior anarchist Volodya" is listed among the main organizers. After the Reds occupied the Crimea, the ashes of Marusya were solemnly reburied as the remains of a "fighter for the revolution."

Well, perhaps that's all. I do not want to say at all that the topic has been exhausted, but, rather, fed up.

Maria Grigorievna Nikiforova was born in 1885 in the city of Aleksandrovsk (present-day Zaporozhye) in the family of a staff captain, a hero of the Russian-Turkish war and a holder of many military awards. Marusya told Nestor that she had been raped.

By official version, Maria Grigorievna Nikiforova was born in 1885 in the city of Aleksandrovsk (present-day Zaporozhye) in the family of a staff captain, a hero of the Russian-Turkish war and a holder of many military awards. However, later Marusya told (in particular to Nestor Makhno) that she had to work as a laundress in her early youth, and that at that time she was raped. Why the daughter of a retired staff captain had to work as a laundress, a nanny, a dishwasher at a vodka factory is not known. Although, according to some historians, Marusya ran away from home at the age of 16 and earned her own living - but this version is not supported by any documentary evidence. At the age of 18, Maria joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party and became fascinated with the theory of individual terror. It was the era of the great terrorists - Gershuni, Azef, Savinkov, Kalyaev. But in 1904, Marusya got acquainted with the ideas of anarchism - and they seemed to her closer and dearer. A society based on private property must be destroyed. The state as an instrument of violence has no right to exist. Marusya interpreted these truths in her own way. She joined the most radical wing of the anarchists - the so-called "non-motivators". The "non-motivators" threw bombs and shot not only at high-ranking officials and politicians - they were simply prosperous people, the bourgeoisie, representatives of the middle strata of the population, the intelligentsia and even workers - as the main force helping the capitalists to earn money. The most famous terrorist attacks involving Marusya were the explosion of the Libman cafe and a haberdashery store in Odessa, as well as the explosion of a first-class carriage on a train near Nikopol. A little later, the administrator of one plant was killed by a bomb thrown by Marusya, and the plant itself was stopped for two weeks. In 1907, in Kherson, the police attacked her trail. Marusya tried to commit suicide by detonating a bomb, but the explosion failed. Marusya appeared before the court. She was accused of a number of expropriation acts and four murders. On these charges, she received a term - 20 years of hard labor with a preliminary serving of a sentence in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Here we are faced with the first mystery of Marusya Nikiforova. Ekaterina Nikitina, her cellmate in Novinsky Prison, recalled: “A very young, angular woman, short, stocky, brace-haired with shifty brown eyes. A drunken boyish face, in which, despite her youth, there was something senile. Such political type we haven't taken it out yet. She told her cellmates that she had been sentenced for the murder of a bailiff to death, which she was replaced by 20 years of hard labor when she was young. She acted strangely. She alternately called herself either an anarchist or a socialist-revolutionary, but she herself did not understand even the basics of revolutionary theories. I haven't read the books." Soon the prisoners began to prepare an escape. They did not particularly trust Marusa, therefore, in order to find out about her, they sent a note to freedom, and also asked her “comrades” in the Butyrki process. The answer came: they confirmed from the outside that they know Marusya as an honest and decent comrade, although she lied about the death penalty. Opinions of political convicts about Marusya were divided. Some wanted to demand that the administration transfer her to another cell. Others - older and more compassionate - offered to take her with them to escape. But then “special circumstances” began to appear in the behavior of Marusya, which were hinted at by her accomplices. In the cell, they began to suspect that she was a man, there were several reasons for this: firstly, she never took off her top shirt in front of other women, and secondly, she never went to the bathhouse with everyone. In the same cell sat Natasha Klimova, an aristocratic beauty, civil wife the famous dashing terrorist and bank robber Sokolov-Medved, the Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalist, who later became the mistress of Boris Savinkov. And now Maruska began to stick to this luxurious woman with her love, cry, suffer, roll scenes of jealousy. A prominent terrorist, Fanya Itkind, who was in the same cell, said that if the information that Marusya is a man is confirmed, then she herself will “bang” her personally.

Historians are still arguing about who the woman named Marusya Nikiforova was. And was she really a woman? And what was her fate? Very short life. Lots of mysteries...

The cellmates eventually decided that the most prominent and elderly convict should have called Marusya to a frank conversation and find out what gender she was. Such a conversation took place, and the elder of the cell, Anna Pavlovna, spreading her arms, said: “Indeed, a man, or rather, a boy. My name is Volodya. But the story is very special: he participated in the murder of the bailiff, then he hid in a woman's dress and was convicted in a woman's dress. I sat in solitary confinement in Chernihiv. Then he went by stage to Moscow and everywhere he was mistaken for a woman. In general, the infrequent asks him to understand and for God's sake to regret. Crying."

The camera gasped! It is clear, although he lies a lot, but this is obviously boyish ... You can’t send him off to criminals - they will immediately inform you, leave him in a cell - he will fail them and himself, because he behaves more stupidly than a stupid one. In the end, they decided that Manya would remain Manya, they didn’t care whether she was a boy or a man. They will put a side bed for her by the window, forbid her to sing, jump, go to the doctor and go to the bathroom when someone is there, and she will have to leave the cell only accompanied by authoritative political convicts. Manka, when she was informed of the decision, burst into tears, blew her nose, and after a while she sang at the top of her voice in a strong boyish viola "At Poltavi on the market."

This testimony is very valuable. There is other evidence that Marusya Nikiforova was in fact either a transvestite or a hermaphrodite.

The escape from the Novinsky prison, in the preparation of which the young Vladimir Mayakovsky participated, was successful. However, Marusya was arrested again, sent by stage to Siberia. There she organized a secondary escape, got to Vladivostok, from there, using forged documents, to Japan, and then to the USA, where for some time she worked in the editorial offices of anarchist newspapers. Here her journalistic gift was opened - she wrote articles on the topic of the day and sharp feuilletons.

In 1913, Marusya moved to Europe, lived in Spain and France. In Paris, she took sculpture and painting lessons from Auguste Rodin. Old Rodin considered her one of his most talented students. Anarchist Artemy Gladkikh claimed in 1918 that he saw Marusya in Paris, and sometimes she went to men's suit posing as Vladimir Nikiforov. He also claimed that in Paris Marusya performed a sex change operation and a transplant of female hormonal glands. Although for the beginning of the twentieth century, this information was something from the realm of fantasy.

At least in 1914, Marusya, as a woman (and the only woman at that), joined the French Foreign Legion and studied at an officer's school. In 1916, she was sent to Greece, to the area of ​​the city of Thessaloniki, to fight the Turks. But with the beginning of the revolution in Russia, Marusya deserted and, having made her way through several front lines, appeared in Petrograd in April 1917.

Here she was greeted as a heroine - the revolution granted amnesty to all political prisoners. She spoke at rallies, urging the people not to stop at the revolutionary successes achieved and to complete the holy cause of the anarchist revolution. In July - after the Provisional Government cracked down on a demonstration of leftist forces - Marusa had to flee Petrograd. Her closest friend Alexandra Kollontai ended up in jail. Marusya herself returned to her homeland, to Aleksandrovsk, which is under the jurisdiction of the Central Rada.

Marusya was perceived as the recognized leader of the anarchist movement in southern Ukraine. She created working Black squads in Aleksandrovsk, Yekaterinoslav, Odessa, Nikolaev, Kherson, Kamensk, Melitopol, Yuzovka, Nikopol, Gorlovka. As historian Viktor Savchenko writes, “these detachments began to disorganize and terrorize state structures of the Provisional Government of Republican Russia, and since November 1917, the young power structures of the Ukrainian people's republic. To arm and support the Black Guard Free Fighting Brigade, Marusya expropriated one million rubles from the Alexander breeder Badovsky. Marusya gave part of the money to the Alexander Council as a gift. A lot of money was requisitioned by her detachment from the landlords of the Yekaterinoslav province.

In September 1917, Marusya was arrested by order of the Commissar of the Provisional Government in the city of Aleksandrovsk. The next day, all the enterprises of Aleksandrovsk stopped work. The authorities were forced to make concessions. Marusya was simply carried out of prison in her arms. She turned into a folk heroine!

At the same time, she met Nestor Makhno, the new leader of the anarchists. If Marusya was a product of the urban anarchist element, then Makhno was a peasant anarchist. And very soon, Makhno's organizational talents began to dominate Marusya's authority. Although the anarchist leaders did not have serious contradictions. Moreover, some biographers of Makhno claim (without reference to sources) about the alleged affair between Marusya and Nestor.

Again, as Viktor Savchenko writes, “with her “Black Guard” detachment, Marusya participates in the establishment of Soviet power in the Crimea, in battles with detachments of the Crimean Tatars. The Black Sea sailors passed a resolution on the wholesale extermination of the bourgeoisie and moved from words to deeds. More than 500 people were brutally killed in Sevastopol and Feodosiya alone. Together with the anarchist detachment of Japaridze, the detachment of Nikiforova broke into Yalta. The Livadia Palace was plundered and several dozen officers were shot. Further, Marusya's path lay in Sevastopol, where, according to her, eight anarchists languished in a local prison, who were arrested for throwing bombs into the crowd from a hotel balcony. The Sevastopol Bolsheviks, fearing a clash with Marusya's detachment, released the arrested without waiting for the ataman's arrival. It is interesting that Marusya, who appeared for several days in Feodosia, was immediately elected to the Executive Committee of the county peasant council and managed to organize a local anarchist detachment of the Black Guard. And already on January 28, 1918, the Nikiforova detachment arrived in Elisavetgrad (Kirovograd) to establish the power of the Soviets. At that time, the Ukrainian reserve regiment and the cavalry hundred of the Free Cossacks of Ukraine (900 fighters in total) were in the city. Anarchists, together with a detachment of Bolsheviks, dispersed the local garrison of the Central Rada, arrested representatives of the Ukrainian authorities. Marusya herself shot the local military commander, Colonel Vladimirov, for refusing to give the anarchists the keys to the military depots. Residents of the county Elisavetgrad for a long time remembered Marusya's "combatants", who terrorized the city for several days, robbing and killing the "bourgeois".

In Elisavetgrad, Marusya came into conflict with the local council and, with the support of her friend, the Bolshevik sailor Polupanov, ordered that the council be shot with cannons. This was the first dispersal of Parliament in this manner. Later, such a method of combating parliamentarianism will become a reliable and tested tool.

In Yekaterinoslav (Dnepropetrovsk), which Marusya raided, shops and shops were destroyed. She herself robbed mainly confectionery and lingerie stores. How is Vysotsky? “A woman is like a woman - and why please her?”

In April 1918, under the blows of the German and Austrian troops, Nikiforova with her Black squad had to retreat outside Ukraine. In Taganrog, she was arrested by the Bolsheviks. Marusya was accused of looting, cruelty and robbery. The accuser demanded that Nikiforova be shot. Vladimir Zatonsky headed the court. After the anarchists present threatened to revolt, the court acquitted Marusa.

And she began to act again - now on the territory of Russia. Voronezh, Bryansk, Saratov, Rostov ... Here and there the cheerful Marusya appeared. R. Roshal wrote: “A carriage is rushing along the street at breakneck speed. Casually lounging in it, a young brunette sits in it, wearing a kubanka daringly put on to one side, next to him, hanging on the footrest, a broad-shouldered guy in red hussar breeches. The brunette and her bodyguard are hung with weapons.”

At the end of 1918, the Bolsheviks again arrested Marusya. She spent some time in Butyrka, and later appeared before the court, which banned her from holding command positions for a period of six months. Despite this, she secretly organized - with the support of the Ukrainian Bolsheviks, primarily Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko - a partisan cavalry detachment. But at the very beginning of 1919, this detachment, having carried out several operations against the supporters of Simon Petliura, joined the army of Nestor Makhno in full force.

In early June 1919, relations between Makhno and the Bolsheviks broke down. The anarchists were outlawed, some of the representatives of the Makhnovist headquarters, headed by Ozerov, were shot. At the same time, Marusya breaks off relations with Nestor Ivanovich. She demanded radical action against the Bolsheviks, Makhno considered this madness and took a wait-and-see attitude. As a result, Makhno threw Marusya out of his armored train and threw a pack of 100 (or even 500) thousand rubles at her.

Marusya immediately proceeded to the formation of groups that were supposed to organize revolutionary terror. The first group, led by Marusya herself and her husband, the Polish anarchist Witold Brzostek, were to go to Moscow to liquidate Lenin and Trotsky. The second group - led by Max Chernyak - went to Siberia to organize the assassination of Admiral Kolchak.

In Moscow, Marusya created the All-Russian Insurgent Committee of Revolutionary Partisans, which included more than 40 people - mostly anarchists. She began to carry out expropriation actions, thus collecting more than 4 million rubles (“For the world revolution,” she explained). The plans included the destruction of the entire top of the Bolshevik Party, as well as the explosion of the Kremlin.

September 25, 1919 in the building of the Moscow Committee of the RCP (b) in Liteiny Lane (this building now houses the Embassy of Ukraine in Russian Federation), a plenum of the MK RCP (b) was to be held. Lenin and Trotsky were to speak at the plenum. After the beginning of the work of the plenum, a deafening explosion thundered. 12 people were killed - including the leader of the Moscow Bolsheviks, Zagorsky. Nikolai Bukharin and Yemelyan Yaroslavsky were wounded. Lenin and Trotsky were simply late for the opening of the plenum and remained unharmed.

During the attempted bombing of the Kremlin, virtually the entire anarchist organization was uncovered. Many members of the underground group are arrested. Marusya and her husband managed to escape from Moscow to the Crimea.

Here Nikiforova undertook to plan an assassination attempt on General Denikin. She wanted to blow up the commander of the White troops along with his headquarters, and then go to Poland to organize an anarchist revolution. But - according to the official version - some White Guard identified her, and Marusya was arrested. In September 1919, she and her husband, Witold Brzostek, were hanged in the courtyard of the Sevastopol prison - and the husband was executed for not informing the authorities about his wife. However, not a single document testifying to the execution of Marusya remained.

There is another version: that Marusya secretly went to work in the Cheka and was sent first to Poland, and then to France. In 1919-1920, to create reliable legends of this kind, fake obituaries in the press were provided to agents. Perhaps the obituaries for Marusa Nikiforova in the anarchist press are also a cover? At the very least, there is unconfirmed evidence that it was Marusya Nikiforova who prepared Schwartzbard for the murder of Simon Petliura. This version was quite common between the First and Second World Wars.

Nikiforova Maria Grigorievna (? - 08 or 09.1919). Anarchist. A native of the city of Aleksandrovsk. Dishwasher of a vodka factory. For anarchist terrorist acts in 1904-1905. sentenced to death, commuted to indefinite hard labor. She served in the Peter and Paul Fortress. In 1910 she was transferred to Siberia, from where she fled to Japan. She moved from Japan to America, lived in France, England, Germany, Switzerland. She was fluent in many European languages. An active participant in socialist congresses, an obstinate, rebellious nature. By conviction - an anarcho-terrorist. Good speaker and organizer of expropriation and terror. In 1917 returned to st. Canopies of the Aleksandrovsky district, where her mother lived. On the ruins of an anarchist group, she created a strong terrorist organization in southern Russia. In May 1917, she expropriated a million rubles from the Alexander breeder Badovsky. Organizer and commander of the Black Guard. The ideologist of the "unmotivated" destruction of state institutions, not excluding the Soviet ones. In Ukraine, it was known until 1918 for its atrocities. The wife of the famous Polish anarcho-terrorist Brzostek. Participant of the first congresses of the Soviets and the Makhnovist movement. Hanged in Simferopol (August - September 1919) by a white general. According to other information: in August or September 1919, she was identified on the street in Simferopol and arrested by white counterintelligence. In September or October 1919, she was sentenced to death by the Sevastopol military court. Hanged.

The materials of the site http://www.makhno.ru/ were used

Read further:

Makhno Nestor Ivanovich(1888-1934), anarchist practitioner.

Makhno and the Makhnovists(biographical index).