Monk Peter (Nikiforov) (†July 8/21, 1848) In the summer of 1848, cholera raged in the Kaluga province. In the Optina skete she was discovered by the young novice Peter Nikiforov. Means known at that time were used to cure him, but there was no success. Sick

Vasily Nikiforov-Volgin BAPTISM

Vasily Nikiforov-Volgin BAPTISM Today is the great consecration of water. We were going to church. The mother took the vessel with the remains of the holy water from the goddess and poured it into the oven, into the ashes - for it is a sin to pour it on places that are trampled on. My father asked me: “Do you know what it’s called in ancient times?”

On the eve of the 98th anniversary of the Great October Revolution, we are publishing a historical essay by the famous Irkutsk journalist, writer, professor of Irkutsk State University, researcher, photographer, historian, traveler, folklorist, permanent freelance author of many interesting publications on the pages of “Priangara” Vitaly Zorkin. Recently, Vitaly Innokentievich celebrated a double anniversary: ​​50 years in journalism and 40 in the scientific and pedagogical field at Irkutsk University. Over the years, he defended his candidate and doctoral dissertations, became a professor and corresponding member. In 2010 he was elected a full member of the Petrovsky Academy of Sciences and Arts. Honored Worker of Culture of Russia.

... I remember the day when I came to a Moscow apartment on Tchaikovsky Street to meet Pyotr Mikhailovich Nikiforov, a legendary man - a former convict of the famous Alexander Central, and then the Prime Minister of the Far Eastern Republic - a buffer state created on the initiative of V.I. Lenin in 1920.

At that time, I was collecting material about a native of Transbaikalia, a comrade-in-arms of Vasily Blyukher and Pavel Postyshev, one of the participants in the development of the plan for the Volochaev operation, later Consul General of the USSR B.N. Melnikov. Old Bolshevik M.M. Sakhyanova sent me to Nikiforov, saying that he knew Melnikov well from the events in Primorye. Moreover, she reported that Nikiforov was sitting with Melnikov in the Vladivostok prison, where they managed to publish two handwritten magazines called “From Captivity.” I went to Nikiforov in the hope of seeing these magazines.

And then a tall elderly man opens the door and extends both hands to me - M.M. Sakhyanova already called him. Pyotr Mikhailovich was in his ninth decade. I asked permission to photograph him. Then we started talking about Melnikov. I told him that I had written a documentary story about him, that I had found his wife and his military comrades F. Shchapov and L. Klikunov. The old underground worker, a participant in two revolutions, became animated, remembering past years, and began to talk about himself. Here is part of the notes from the notebook: “I was born in the village of Oyoke, where I spent my childhood years. My first memories are associated with the Yakut highway, along which parties of exiles constantly passed. We children, having learned that prisoners were approaching the village, ran out in a flock to meet them, carrying treats in bundles, tueski with milk or kvass...” The family was large. Peter's father soon took him to Irkutsk, and he first became an errand boy, then worked 12 hours a day at a timber mill. One day, tired, I fell asleep at my workplace, and then there was an accident - the bearings burned out. I had to look for a new place...

And soon he measured endless Siberian miles - he participated in an expedition to lay the second telegraph cable from Kirensk to Vitim. He returned from the taiga stronger and physically developed. One day Peter’s comrades invited him to a political circle…

In his book “Ants of the Revolution” P.M. Nikiforov recalls: “It was in 1901. Two weeks later we gathered again. This time the leader of the circle told us about the “Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class”, about its difference from the “Emancipation of Labor” group. Here I first heard about Lenin, Plekhanov, and the Iskra newspaper. In the same 1901, a secret list of persons subject to arrest was sent out to all Russian cities - to governors and police officials - by the police department. In the document, among state criminals number 89, “Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov” was listed. The secret document ordered police officials, in case of finding a person matching the signs, to “search, arrest and telegraph to the police department...” But Vladimir Ilyich at that time was already abroad and was preparing with his like-minded people the Second Congress of the RSDLP.

“I remember,” Pyotr Mikhailovich said in a conversation with me, “at one of the classes we read a letter from the “Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class,” addressed to the Putilov workers. Believe it or not, 70 years have passed since then, but I still remember its contents.”

Pulling out a thick notebook from the desk, he held it in his hands, as if weighing it, and suddenly asked: “You probably don’t know what this is? These are my prison universities." On the title page I read: “1912-1917. A notebook for training sessions in philosophy and mathematics at the Aleksandrovsky convict central..." Small, almost beady, but clear handwriting. Notes on political economy, the history of the labor movement, questions about the stratification of the peasantry, the fate of capitalism in Russia...

As if guessing my thoughts, Pyotr Mikhailovich remarked slyly: “I know, you think, why is this wisdom in prison? Why did Kotovsky, sentenced to death, do gymnastics? I learned about this from Mayakovsky after October and was amazed... but I myself was not far from him, after all, I, too, was entitled to the death penalty...”

Known P.M. Nikiforova political exile G.M. Kramarov recalled: “Thanks to the influence of party people, the entire mass came to realize their connection with socialism. Revolutionary consciousness strengthened day after day, year after year..."

But prison did not only teach. During their long stay in prison, political prisoners, cut off from practical work, sought to express their experiences and moods on paper, and many of them took up the pen.

Although the convict prison lived its own difficult and unknown life for the city, sometimes the inhabitants of the central prison had bright days. I wish I could find records about this! Recently it became known that A. Blok sent books to the convicts of the Aleksandrovsky Central. Correspondence with student Z.V. was found. Zverevoy. Judging by her letters, Alexander Blok sent books to Siberia for a number of years - from 1909 to 1913.

In the chapter “First Steps,” Pyotr Mikhailovich talks about his political education, about visiting a Marxist circle, about the first illegal publications that he was given to study, about the first strike that he organized together with the fireman M. Brui at the vodka factory located in Znamensky Suburb , and which ended in victory for the strikers...

But nearby was a large Siberian city, in which public life and struggle did not stop for a minute... On the one hand, if you look at the city through the eyes of an ordinary man in the street, cab drivers lined up on black lacquered carriages on the street corners, lamplighters filled street lamps, During the fire, the alarm sounded. In the evenings, dressed-up citizens went to the theater or to the public meeting hall... But there was another Irkutsk - a city of revolutionary battles, secret meetings and meetings. Yes, Irkutsk was different in those distant years when Pyotr Nikiforov embarked on the path of revolutionary struggle against tsarism! Irkutsk has always occupied a special place in what was then Siberia. From here there was a road to the East. Merchants and gold miners lived here, moving millions on a Siberian scale. In Irkutsk, back in the mid-19th century, a scientific center was opened - the East Siberian Department of the Russian Geographical Society. In a word, by the standards of that time, social life was in full swing. At the end of the 19th century, the first Marxists appeared in Irkutsk, one of them was L.B. Krasin.

... In 1904 P.M. Nikiforov was drafted into the army, served in St. Petersburg on the imperial yacht “Polar Star”, in 1905-1906, during the years of the Stolypin reaction he carried out revolutionary work in the Crimean underground, in Kerch under different pseudonyms and surnames, but in August 1910 he was arrested , imprisoned alone No. 1 of the Irkutsk prison castle. On October 11, 1911, Pyotr Nikiforov received an indictment, which indicated that he was being brought before a military court under Article 279, which entails the death penalty. He spent many painful and anxious minutes and hours until he learned that the death penalty had been replaced by a long term of hard labor. How did the young revolutionary Pyotr Nikiforov behave? Here he learns about the verdict: “The guards have left. There was silence. Well, it’s over - I said out loud,” Nikiforov writes, “there was a state of either confusion or some kind of emptiness, but there was no fear...” Here it is, the position of a fighter.

“I probably would have gone to my death without fear,” Pyotr Mikhailovich told me when we met. – I wanted to be like some literary hero – it seems like the Gadfly. But many years later, in 1930, I read “The Last Day of the Death Man” by Victor Hugo. I read it carefully. That's when the hair on my head started to move. Nikiforov smiled, narrowed his eyes and said: I’ll read the passage to you now as a souvenir, and you honestly tell me – will it give you goosebumps? “I am sentenced to death. For five weeks now I have been living with this thought: forever alone with her, and she chills me with her presence, crushes me with her oppression! In the old days - it seems to me that whole years have passed since then, not weeks - and so, in the old days I was the same person as everyone else. Every day, every hour, every minute had meaning for me. My mind, still young and richly gifted, indulged in various fantasies... I could think whatever I wanted...

Now I am a prisoner. My body is in shackles, in prison, my mind is in the shackles of the same thought, a terrible, bloody, merciless thought. I think the only thing I am sure and convinced of is that I am a suicide bomber. No matter what I do, this hellish thought is always here with me, crushing me like a leaden oppression, envious, driving away all entertainment from me, looking me, the unfortunate one, right in the face, shaking me with its icy hands when I want to turn my head away from it. or close your eyes." Pyotr Mikhailovich stopped in the middle of the sentence and said with a smile: “Well, when we were sitting in Kolchak’s dungeon with Boris Melnikov, there was no fear at all. There was only anger. Melnikov published two issues of the magazine, and I wrote a brochure called “The Communist State” - it was published in Blagoveshchensk in 1920... The work, of course, was weak, but it distracted me from heavy thoughts...”

The book “Ants of the Revolution” ends with the release of P.M. Nikiforova from the Alexander Central. What was his future fate? Here are laconic lines from the historical encyclopedia: “After the February Revolution, P. Nikiforov was deputy chairman of the Vladivostok Council, member of the Far Eastern Regional Bureau of the RSDLP(b). In 1918-20 - in White Guard prisons. In 1920-22 - Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Far Eastern Republic. In 1925-27 - Plenipotentiary Representative of the USSR in Mongolia, then - in responsible work at the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. During the war years - at party work. Awarded the Order of Lenin, the October Revolution, the Badge of Honor and medals. Author of the books: “Ants of the Revolution”, Moscow, 1958; “During the years of the Bolshevik underground”, Moscow, 1952; “Notes of the Prime Minister of the Far Eastern Republic,” Moscow, 1963 and 1974; “October in Primorye, Vladivostok, 1968.

***
“We should, like a man, take upon ourselves the burden that Today puts on us, and patiently endure its whims and cruelties, but mentally we must be turned to the spaces where Tomorrow awaits us. One should expect everything from him, one must pin hopes on him and firmly believe that it will be better...” Pyotr Mikhailovich did not try to explain to himself why this particular phrase, read God knows where and when, suddenly came to mind on this memorable day of March 3, 1917 of the year. Maybe because today he was still in prison, and tomorrow freedom awaited him. Yes, he expected everything from tomorrow... And now it has come, this is tomorrow: “I was rushing on a train east along the shore of Lake Baikal. I looked out the window at its steep waves and thought: look, old man, where am I rushing so madly: far away, old man, far away, to the struggle for the power of the Soviets!” This is how the book “Ants of the Revolution” ended, and this is how a new page in the biography of Pyotr Mikhailovich began, which we want to talk a little about. But first, a few words about the situation in the Far East. “I arrived from Irkutsk in late April and found comrades Neibut, Raev, Kovalchuk and Kushnarev returning from emigration in Vladivostok. All of them are participants in the struggle for Soviet power in the Far East. These Bolsheviks were already involved in party work and played a leading role. A. Neibut offered me organizational work in the committee, but I wanted to work in production. I joined temporary workshops as an electrician and at the same time served as one of the editors of the Krasnoe Znamya newspaper. Thus, it fell to my lot to edit the first Bolshevik newspaper in the Far East.

On May 1, 1917, the first issue was published... - this is how Pyotr Nikiforov recalled the beginning of work in Vladivostok years later in the essay “Bolsheviks of Primorye in 1917.”

... More than 40 thousand people took part in the May Day demonstration in Vladivostok, together with P. Nikiforov, A. Neibut, K. Sukhanov. This was the first legal demonstration in the life of Pyotr Nikiforov. It was a sunny, clear day. The people rejoiced. The demonstrators sang revolutionary songs, a brass band played, red banners and banners with proletarian slogans waved. By this time, the party organization had received Lenin’s “Letters from Afar” and the April Theses.

At the Golden Horn Theater, M.M. gave a report on the tasks of the revolution to the audience. Volodarsky. He had an exceptional gift of speech. Volodarsky popularized the theses of V.I. Lenin about the tasks of the Russian revolution, warned the workers not to trust the Provisional Government. The report ended with a storm of applause in honor of V.I. Lenin.

On August 29, 1917, a meeting of the executive committee of the city council was held in Vladivostok, which decided to assume full power. Instead of the Socialist Revolutionary Mikhailov, the Bolshevik A.P. was elected chairman of the executive committee. Alyutin, and his comrades – K.A. Sukhanov and P.M. Nikiforov. On the same day, the executive committee published order No. 1 “To all citizens, government institutions”, which prescribed unconditional obedience to its orders. At the request of the Bolsheviks, the Council organized the protection of the city, military cargo, and sent its commissars to the banks. In addition, P.M. Nikiforov headed the regional Council of Workers' Control, and his yesterday's cellmate in cell No. 14 L.I. Prominsky was appointed chairman of the commission to combat banditry. Under his leadership, the Red Guards seized banks and adjusted their activities as their interests required. True, the day after the operation, foreign consuls lodged a protest with the Council of Workers' Control. But the Council gave a compelling explanation: “The matter of introducing workers’ control in all Russian commercial and industrial enterprises is the matter of the 180 million Russian people. This is his will,” Nikiforov wrote in the book “Notes of the Prime Minister of the Far Eastern Republic.”

1918 was a difficult year for the young Soviet republic. German troops advanced deeper into the country. Foreign consuls interfered in the internal affairs of the Soviet Far East. Therefore, the Vladivostok executive committee took measures to preserve revolutionary order in the city and its environs. On April 26, 1918, a revolutionary headquarters was established consisting of P. Nikiforov, K. Sukhanov, E. Khodanovich... The headquarters headed the leadership of the military units of the garrison, the Siberian Flotilla and the Red Guard. The headquarters did a lot in organizing the detachments of the Red Guard, and later the Red Army and the Red Navy.” It is no coincidence that historian A.D. Samoilov considers Pyotr Mikhailovich “a prominent organizer of the Red Guard and the Red Army in the Far East.”

During that period, domestic and foreign counter-revolution tried to starve out Soviet power in Primorye. Foreign ships stopped calling at the Vladivostok port. Food products began to be exported from Manchuria through Dairen and Port Arthur. Only Japanese ships came to our ports for Ussuri aspen wood for the match industry. This blockade caused downtime and unemployment for almost six thousand port handlers.

On March 16, 1918, a meeting was held in Beijing, in which Guchkov, Putilov, Kolchak, Japanese and Chinese generals took part. It adopted a plan for the occupation of the Far East and Siberia. According to this plan, the Ussuri railway should be captured by the United States, the Amur and Transbaikal railway to Irkutsk by Japan. IN AND. Lenin seemed to have foreseen the course of events; he understood that not only the Far East, but also Siberia was a tasty morsel for interventionists. In April 1918, he sent a directive to the Vladivostok Council: “It is necessary to telegraph to Irkutsk (for Vladivostok) by direct wire: We consider the situation to be very serious and warn our comrades in the most categorical way. Make no illusions: the Japanese will advance. It's unavoidable. All allies without exception will help them. Therefore, we must begin to prepare with all our might. More attention must be paid to the correct withdrawal, retreat, and removal of supplies and railway materials. Prepare to blow up rails, remove wagons and locomotives, prepare minefields near Irkutsk and Transbaikalia...”

In such a situation, on February 18, 1920, the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and the Soviet government decided to temporarily refrain from Sovietization of the Far East and form a buffer Far Eastern Republic (FER) in the territory from Lake Baikal to the Pacific Ocean. At the same time, instructions were given to stop the advance of the Red Army beyond Lake Baikal.

Speaking at the RCP(b) faction of the VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets in December 1920, V.I. Lenin explained the reasons for the creation of the Far Eastern Republic: “... Circumstances forced the creation of a buffer state - in the form of the Far Eastern Republic... We cannot wage a war with Japan and must do everything to try not only to postpone the war with Japan, but, if possible, “We can do without it, because, under understandable conditions, it is now beyond our means.”

And the Dalburo, led by P.M. Nikiforov, showing incredible flexibility, sometimes making compromises, managed to defend Lenin’s point of view. And soon Nikiforov met in Moscow with Vladimir Ilyich. This is how he recalls this in an excerpt from the unfinished story “One of Twelve Meetings with Lenin.”

“... At the end of 1920, our train left the platform of the Vladivostok station. Behind the customs warehouse there was a view of the Golden Horn Bay. The warships of Japan and the United States stood in the bay as if sealed in heavy winter water. There’s not a soul on the embankments: it’s windy, chilly, and there’s no time for walks these days. I was going to Moscow. For a report to Lenin. Fifteen years ago, we, six disguised sailors from the Polar Star, quietly guarded Lenin during his speech at the St. Petersburg Council of Workers' Deputies. And soon I will be next to him again. Now in a new role. The report was in my briefcase. It seemed that I had not missed a single important detail. Naturally, the report will be updated. I have to travel thousands of miles along the Great Siberian Railway...”

On January 4, 1921, Nikiforov met with V.I. Lenin. At the plenum of the Central Committee the question of the Far Eastern Republic was raised. By this time, Nikiforov became chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Far Eastern Republic. He was one of those who was responsible for all the policies that they pursued in recent years in the Far East.

... Nikiforov entered the meeting room and saw a lot of people at a long table, and at the head of the table was Lenin. Nikiforov sat down right there, right at the entrance, but Lenin called him closer.

“I was going to make a big report,” Nikiforov recalled. “I wanted to tell Ilyich about everything.” And prepared the abstract of the report. Judging by them, I needed at least half an hour. But Lenin only gave me ten minutes. I was even a little confused. I think, what can I say in ten minutes? I gathered my thoughts and said why in the current situation it is imperative to save a “buffer”. This is in the interests of Soviet Russia. After that, Lenin began asking me questions and with these questions he elicited all the most important things from me.

At the plenum, the opposite point of view of supporters of the abolition of the “buffer” was also heard. One of them, as a representative of the Dalburo of the Central Committee, was present at the meeting.

What is your opinion on this matter? – asked Vladimir Ilyich.

“I am for Soviet power,” Velezhev said.

Well, we are all for Soviet power, only Nikiforov is against it,” Lenin threw at him and suggested to the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs G.V. Chicherin, member of the Central Committee E.A. Preobrazhensky to outline a program for the economic and foreign policy of the Far Eastern Republic. A commission was created to prepare a Central Committee directive for the Far East, which included Nikiforov. The directive was developed and then approved by the Central Committee of the RCP(b).

Before leaving for the Far East, Nikiforov met with Lenin.

Well,” said Vladimir Ilyich, “everything has already been done, go back to the Far East, prove that the Bolsheviks can organize and lead a bourgeois-democratic republic.” The main task is to prevent war with Japan. Keep in mind: we cannot give you soldiers, there is no money for you either, there is no bread, so you make do with your own resources. You will have to act not so much with your weapon as with your head. Organize a republic, and we will not interfere with you and will not allow anyone to interfere with you...

***
Nikiforov served as chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Far Eastern Republic for two years. After the annexation of the Far East to the RSFSR, he was recalled to Moscow. The Central Committee of the RCP(b) assigned him to manage the repository of state valuables. Then he was the plenipotentiary representative of the USSR in Mongolia, worked in trade bodies, and was deputy people's commissar of supplies of the RSFSR. During World War II he worked in intelligence agencies.

About the revolutionary activities of P.M. Nikiforov is told by the exhibitions of museums in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kronstadt, Sevastopol, Vladivostok. For many years in the village of Khomutovo there was a school local history museum, which was headed by a wonderful teacher, local historian and enthusiast Semyon Nefediev. The exhibition of the Khomutov Museum collected more than 300 exhibits telling about the interesting and colorful life of our famous fellow countryman.

auto brochure "The social significance of the upcoming Kazan scientific and industrial exhibition of 1889
auto vaudeville "Russian Workshop"
poet (St. Petersburg,
co-workers "Northern Bee", author. Art. "On the issue of sobriety"

View value Nikiforov, P. in other dictionaries

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Historical Dictionary

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Historical Dictionary

Nikiforov Petr Mikhailovich

Participant of the revolutionary movement in Russia, Soviet statesman.

P.M. Nikiforov did not live in Tokmak for long, however, there is every reason to consider him a Tokmak resident. He talks about the Tokmak period of his life in the book:

Born (September 30) 10/12/1882 in the village of Oyok, now Irkutsk district of the Irkutsk region. Father is a gold miner, mother is a peasant. At the age of 12 he was given to a wealthy merchant. In 1900, after several years of hard menial work for different employers, he received a permanent position as a worker at a telephone exchange in Yakutsk.

In 1901 he became a member of the Social Democratic circle. In 1904 he was called up for military service - in the Baltic Fleet. He worked in the St. Petersburg military organization of the RSDLP. Participant in the uprising of sailors and soldiers in Kronstadt in 1905.

From 1906 he went underground and participated in the work of the Social Democratic movement in Crimea, Baku, and Siberia.

In 1908, he spent several months in the town of Bolshoi Tokmak, worked as a cameraman and was engaged in party work at the Fuchs factory. When there was a threat of arrest, he moved to Odessa.

In the same 1908 he came to Irkutsk, where he became one of the leaders of the military organization of the RSDLP. In 1910, he was arrested for robbing a post office and spent several months in the Irkutsk Alexander Central Prison, being sentenced to death, which was commuted to 20 years of hard labor.

In 1917, after the February Revolution, he was sent to the Far East. P.M. Nikiforov, member of the Irkutsk Council, deputy chairman of the Vladivostok Council, member of the Far Eastern Regional Bureau of the RSDLP (b). A year later he was arrested by White Guard troops, 1918-20. spent in White Guard prisons.

In 1920-22, Chairman of the Far Eastern Regional Committee and Chairman of the Dalburo of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks).

After his release in 1920, he held the post of Prime Minister of the Far Eastern Republic (FER) - the so-called “bourgeois republic”. In this position, he managed not only to improve the economy of the region, but also introduced a full-fledged gold ruble into circulation.

Not without the influence of Nikiforov V.I. Lenin decided to introduce the “New Economic Policy” (NEP).

A man of the people, Pyotr Nikiforov was convinced that it was possible to rebuild people’s lives on a new basis “without shedding blood.” Bolsheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, People's Socialists and Cadets, major Russian industrialists and bankers, even members of the former Siberian Directory worked fruitfully in his government. He left a memoir, “Notes of the Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam,” published in 1963.

In 1925-27 P.M. Nikiforov, USSR plenipotentiary representative in Mongolia, then at a responsible position in the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, Deputy People's Commissariat of Supply of the RSFSR. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45 at party work.

Author of memoirs about revolutionary activities “Ants of the Revolution: Notes of an Old Bolshevik”, which in 1931-1958. published under several titles 8 times in full text and with abbreviations. The memoirs cover events from birth to 1917. P.M. Nikiforov describes his childhood in the village of Oyok, the beginning of anti-government activities, conscription into the Baltic Fleet in 1904, connections with the St. Petersburg military organization of the RSDLP, the organization of circles among sailors on the imperial yacht "Polar Star", the uprising of sailors and soldiers in Kronstadt, the uprising on yacht "Polar Star", escape from military service, transition to an illegal position. Then he writes about work in Kerch, Kostroma, Odessa, Tokmak, Semirechensk region, Baku, Rostov, about activities in the military organization of the RSDLP in Irkutsk, about arrests, imprisonment in the Alexander Central, its regime, the composition of prisoners, living conditions of hard labor and about his release.

In 1968, the book “October in Primorye” was published in Vladivostok.

Awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Badge of Honor and medals.

Subsequently, they tried to hush up the activities of the people's prime minister in every possible way, and he himself, having resigned, was engaged in ordinary work - he was a mechanic, a carpenter, and worked on a summer cottage. Only in 1972 (in connection with his 90th birthday) Pyotr Mikhailovich was awarded the Order of the October Revolution.