The 1907 Tiflis bank robbery, also known as the Erivansky Square expropriation, was an armed robbery on 26 June 1907[a] in the city of Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia) in the Tiflis Governorate in the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire. A Bolshevik group stole a bank cash shipment to fund their revolutionary activities. The robbers attacked a bank stagecoach, and the surrounding police and soldiers, using bombs and guns while the stagecoach was transporting money through Erivansky Square (present-day Freedom Square) between the post office and the Tiflis branch of the State Bank of the Russian Empire. The attack killed forty people and injured fifty others, according to official archive documents. The robbers escaped with 241,000 rubles.
The robbery was organized by a number of top-level Bolsheviks, including Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Maxim Litvinov, Leonid Krasin, and Alexander Bogdanov; and committed by a party of revolutionaries led by Stalin's early associate Simon Ter-Petrosian, also known as "Kamo" and "The Caucasian Robin-Hood". Because such activities had been explicitly prohibited by the 5th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) only weeks previously, the robbery and the killings caused outrage within the party against the Bolsheviks (a faction within the RSDLP). As a result, Lenin and Stalin tried to distance themselves from the robbery.
The events surrounding the incident and similar robberies split the Bolshevik leadership, with Lenin against Bogdanov and Krasin. Despite the success of the robbery and the large sum involved, the Bolsheviks could not use most of the large banknotes obtained from the robbery because the police had records of the serial numbers. Lenin conceived a plan to have various individuals cash the large-value banknotes at once at various locations throughout Europe in January 1908, but this strategy failed, resulting in a number of arrests, worldwide publicity, and negative reaction from social democrats elsewhere in Europe.
Kamo was caught in Germany shortly after the robbery, but successfully avoided a criminal trial by feigning insanity for more than three years. He managed to escape from his psychiatric ward, but was recaptured two years later while planning another robbery. Kamo was then sentenced to death for his crimes including the 1907 robbery, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. He was eventually released after the 1917 Russian Revolution. None of the other major participants or organizers of the robbery were ever brought to trial. After Kamo's death in 1922, a monument to him was erected near Erivansky Square in Pushkin Gardens, and Kamo was buried beneath it. The monument was later removed and Kamo's remains were moved elsewhere.
Background
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), the predecessor of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was formed in 1898. The goal of the RSDLP was to carry out a proletarian revolution against the Russian Empire. As part of their revolutionary activity, the RSDLP and other revolutionary groups (such as anarchists and Socialist Revolutionaries) practised a range of militant operations, including "expropriations", a euphemism for armed robberies of government or private funds to support revolutionary activities.
From 1903 onwards, the RSDLP were divided between two major groups: the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. After the suppression of the 1905 Revolution, the RSDLP held its 5th Congress in May–June 1907 in London with the hopes of resolving differences between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. One issue that still separated the two groups was the divergence of their views on militant activities, and in particular, "expropriations". The most militant Bolsheviks, led at the 5th Congress by Vladimir Lenin, supported continuation of the use of robberies, while Mensheviks advocated a more peaceful and gradual approach to revolution, and opposed militant operations. At the 5th Congress, a resolution was passed condemning participation in or assistance to all militant activity, including "expropriations" as "disorganizing and demoralizing", and called for all party militias to be disbanded. This resolution passed with 65 per cent supporting and 6 per cent opposing (others abstained or did not vote) with all Mensheviks and some Bolsheviks supporting the resolution.
Despite the unified party's prohibition on separate committees, during the 5th Congress the Bolsheviks elected their own governing body, called the Bolshevik Centre, and kept it secret from the rest of the RSDLP. The Bolshevik Centre was headed by a "Finance Group" consisting of Lenin, Leonid Krasin and Alexander Bogdanov. Among other party activities, the Bolshevik leadership had already planned a number of robberies in different parts of Russia by the time of the 5th Congress, including the one in Tiflis.
Preparation
By 1906, Georgia had already experienced major expropriations conducted by local political forces not affiliated with the Bolsheviks. In 1906, the Georgian Socialist-Federalist Revolutionary Party, under the leadership of Leo Kereselidze and several of his associates, succeeded in robbing the state treasury in Dusheti, just outside of Tbilisi. They took 315,000 rubles, which was then distributed between the party's militant and moderate wings to finance their activities.
Before the 5th Congress met, high-ranking Bolsheviks held a meeting in Berlin in April 1907 to discuss staging a robbery to obtain funds to purchase arms. Attendees included Lenin, Stalin, Krasin, Bogdanov and Litvinov. The group decided that Stalin, then known by his earlier nom de guerre Koba,[b] and the Armenian Ter-Petrosian, known as Kamo, should organize a bank robbery in the city of Tiflis.
The 29-year-old Stalin was living in Tiflis with his wife Ekaterina and newborn son Yakov. Stalin was experienced at organizing robberies and kidnappings, and these exploits had helped him gain a reputation as the centre's principal financier. Kamo, four years younger than Stalin, had a reputation for ruthlessness; later in his life he cut a man's heart from his chest. At the time of the conspiracy, Kamo ran a criminal organization called "the Outfit". Stalin said that Kamo was "a master of disguise", and Lenin called Kamo his "Caucasian bandit". Stalin and Kamo had grown up together, and Stalin had converted Kamo to Marxism.
After the April meeting, Stalin and Litvinov travelled to Tiflis to inform Kamo of the plans and to organize the raid. According to Roman Brackman's The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life, while Stalin was working with the Bolsheviks to organize criminal activities, he was also acting as an informant for the Okhrana, the Russian secret police. Brackman alleges that once the group returned to Tiflis, Stalin informed his Okhrana contact, Officer Mukhtarov, about the bank robbery plans and promised to provide the Okhrana with more information at a later time (but did not keep that promise and probably never intended to). However, Geoffrey Roberts has termed Brackman's allegation as a "conspiracy theory" and has further opined that all the evidence that Brackman adduces in support of this hypothesis is circumstantial and speculative.
In Tiflis, Stalin began planning for the robbery. He established contact with two individuals with inside information about the State Bank's operations: a bank clerk named Gigo Kasradze and an old school friend of Stalin's named Voznesensky who worked at the Tiflis banking mail office. Voznesensky later stated that he had helped out in the theft out of admiration for Stalin's romantic poetry. Voznesensky worked in the Tiflis banking mail office, giving him access to a secret schedule that showed the times that cash would be transferred by stagecoach to the Tiflis branch of the State Bank. Voznesensky notified Stalin that the bank would be receiving a large shipment of money by horse-drawn carriage on 26 June 1907.
Krasin helped manufacture bombs to use in the attack on the stagecoach. Kamo's gang smuggled bombs into Tiflis by hiding them inside a sofa. Only weeks before the robbery, Kamo accidentally detonated one of Krasin's bombs while trying to set the fuse. The blast severely injured him in the eye, leaving a permanent scar. Kamo was confined to his bed for a month owing to intense pain, and had not fully recovered by the time of the robbery.
Day of the robbery
On the day of the robbery, 26 June 1907, the 20 organizers, including Stalin, met near Erivansky Square (just 2 minutes from the seminary, bank and viceroy's palace) to finalize their plans, and after the meeting, they went to their designated places in preparation for the attack. The Russian authorities had become aware that some large action was being planned by revolutionaries in Tiflis, and had increased the security presence in the main square; just prior to the robbery, they had been tipped off and were guarding every street corner in Erivansky Square. To deal with the increased security, gang members spotted patrolling gendarmes and police prior to the robbery and lookouts were posted looking down on the square from above.
The gang members mostly dressed themselves as peasants and waited on street corners with revolvers and grenades. In contrast to the others, Kamo was disguised as a cavalry captain and came to the square in a horse-drawn phaeton, a type of open carriage.
The conspirators took over the Tilipuchuri tavern facing the square in preparation for the robbery. A witness, David Sagirashvili, later stated that he had been walking in Erivansky Square when a friend named Bachua Kupriashvili, who later turned out to be one of the robbers, invited him into a tavern and asked him to stay. Once inside the tavern, Sagirashvili realized that armed men were stopping people from leaving. When they received a signal that the bank stagecoach was nearing the square, the armed men quickly left the building with pistols drawn.
The Tiflis branch of the State Bank of the Russian Empire had arranged to transport funds between the post office and the State Bank by horse-drawn stagecoach. Inside the stagecoach was the money, two guards with rifles, a bank cashier, and a bank accountant. A phaeton filled with armed soldiers rode behind the stagecoach, and mounted cossacks rode in front, next to, and behind the carriages.
Attack
The stagecoach made its way through the crowded square at about 10:30 am. Kupriashvili gave the signal, and the robbers hit the carriage with grenades, killing many of the horses and guards, and began shooting security men guarding the stagecoach and the square. Bombs were thrown from all directions. The Georgian newspaper Isari reported: "No one could tell if the terrible shooting was the boom of cannons or explosion of bombs ... The sound caused panic everywhere ... almost across the whole city, people started running. Carriages and carts were galloping away". The blasts were so strong that they knocked over nearby chimneys and broke every pane of glass for a mile around. Ekaterina Svanidze, Stalin's wife, was standing on a balcony at their home near the square with her family and young child. When they heard the explosions, they rushed back into the house terrified.
One of the injured horses harnessed to the bank stagecoach bolted, pulling the stagecoach with it, chased by Kupriashvili, Kamo, and another robber, Datiko Chibriashvili. Kupriashvili threw a grenade that blew off the horse's legs, but he himself was caught in the explosion, landing stunned on the ground. Kupriashvili regained consciousness and sneaked out of the square before police and military reinforcements arrived. Chibriashvili snatched the sacks of money from the stagecoach while Kamo rode up firing his pistol, and they and another robber threw the money into Kamo's phaeton. Pressed for time, they inadvertently left twenty thousand rubles behind, some of which was pocketed by one of the stagecoach drivers who was later arrested for the theft.
Escape and aftermath
After securing the money, Kamo quickly rode out of the square; encountering a police carriage, he pretended to be a captain of the cavalry, shouting, "The money's safe. Run to the square." The deputy in the carriage obeyed, realizing only later that he had been fooled by an escaping robber. Kamo then rode to the gang's headquarters where he changed out of his uniform. All of the robbers quickly scattered, and none were caught.
One of the robbers, Eliso Lominadze, stole a teacher's uniform to disguise himself and came back to the square, gazing at the carnage. Fifty casualties lay wounded in the square along with the dead people and horses. The authorities stated that only three people had died, but documents in the Okhrana archives reveal that the true number was around forty.
The State Bank was not sure how much it actually lost from the robbery, but the best estimates were around 341,000 rubles, worth around 3.4 million US dollars as of 2008. About 91,000 rubles were in small untraceable bills, with the rest in large 500-ruble notes that were difficult to exchange because their serial numbers were known to the police.
Stalin's role
Stalin's exact actions on the day of the robbery are unknown and disputed. One source, P. A. Pavlenko, claimed that Stalin attacked the carriage itself and had been wounded by a bomb fragment. Kamo later stated that Stalin took no active part in the robbery and had watched it from a distance. Another source stated in a police report that Stalin "observed the ruthless bloodshed, smoking a cigarette, from the courtyard of a mansion." Another source claims that Stalin was actually at the railway station during the robbery and not at the square. Stalin's sister-in-law stated that Stalin came home the night of the robbery and told his family about its success.
Stalin's role was later questioned by fellow revolutionaries Boris Nicolaevsky and Leon Trotsky. The latter, Stalin's rival, was later assassinated on orders from Stalin. In his book Stalin: An Appraisal of the Man and His Influence, Trotsky analyzed many publications describing the Tiflis robbery and other Bolshevik militant activities of that time, and concluded, "Others did the fighting; Stalin supervised them from afar". In general, according to Nicolaevsky, "The role played by Stalin in the activities of the Kamo group was subsequently exaggerated". Kun later discovered official archive documents however clearly showing that "from late 1904 or early 1905 Stalin took part in drawing up plans for expropriations", adding, "It is now certain that [Stalin] controlled from the wings the initial plans of the group" that carried out the Tiflis robbery.