Part I
“The Turkul is glorious will jump forward,
Behind him is Conradi and the convoy.
We will hear again we cry our brave,
Our cry of Drozdovsky combat “
(from the song of the Drozdovsky regiment)
On May 10, 1923, in Lausanne, the Russian officer Maurice Konradi shot the Soviet plenipotentiary Vaclav Vorovsky. Konradi was born in St. Petersburg in 1896. He came from a family of Swiss entrepreneurs – his father and uncle owned several confectionery factories in St. Petersburg and Moscow. During the First World War, Konradi served on the Romanian front, and in 1918 he joined the detachment of Mikhail Drozdovsky in the campaign of Yassy-Don. With the “Drozdovites” Konradi went through the entire civil war, and after the defeat of the anti -Bolshevik forces, he returned to the historical homeland, to Switzerland. Some of his relatives who remained in Petrograd became victims of red terror.
On May 12, 1923, the Berlin newspaper Rules said:
“Tonight, thieves with two other Soviet delegates, the head of the Penus of Arena and the secretary of Arena Dubilkovsky, dinner at the Cecil Hotel. There was another visitor in the same hall. After 9 o’clock, this visitor got up and made seven shots on Vorovsky and his companions. Vorovsky was killed by a shot in the head. Dubilkovsky is seriously wounded in the stomach. Arenas was wounded relatively easily. According to doctors, his life is out of danger. The shooter said immediately after the assassination “I am here, you can arrest me.”
The following details are reported about the arrest of Conradi:
By his detention, Konradi told the hotel director: call the police to arrest me. Konradi, who escaped to the shots of the inhabitants, said: I took revenge on my uncle and father. Now the two hundredth of the death of the Seven (national hero of Canton Vaat) is being honored. I also rendered a service to the world, I freed from these villains. The police appeared only after some time. Konradi began to show signs of impatience and, by the way, asked, “Where is this damned police?” ”
The Soviet press reacted violently to the murder of thieves:
“The killer was found. The police found him, and the bourgeoisie found him an excuse. The killer, Konradi, his own speaking, did not kill Comrade. Vorovsky, but only took revenge on the Bolsheviks who killed him during the revolution, Konradi, either his father, or his uncle. Everything is safe. So thinks the bourgeoisie. But we think wrong. Murder Comrade Vorovsky – crime unheard of in its cold calculation and gangster cynicism. It is compared only with the murders of the Middle Ages ”(Pravda, May 13, 1923)
In the same issue, Pyotr Oreshin’s poem “Comrade Comrade Murdizers was published. Vorovsky “:
“… for the Soviet power, for the red hero.
Killed by a banker hand, –
Answer before the power of the world,
Your stupid, criminal head! “
But this story is also notable for the fact that the Swiss court acquitted Konradi.
The ending follows
“ВЧК ОГПУ”