{{Short description|Bolshevik revolutionary (1891–1942)}} {{More citations needed|date=August 2020}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2021}} {{Infobox person | name = Georgy Safarov<br />Георгий Сафаров | image = Safarov GI.jpg | image_size = 200 | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = 1891 | birth_place = [[Saint Petersburg]], {{nowrap|[[Russian Empire]]}} | death_date = {{death date and age|1942|07|27|1891|df=y}} | death_place = [[Saratov]], [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian SFSR]], {{nowrap|[[Soviet Union]]}} | death_cause = [[Execution by shooting]] | nationality = | alma_mater = | occupation = | political_party = [[Russian Social Democratic Labor Party|RSDLP]] ([[Bolsheviks]]) {{nowrap|(1908–1918)}} <br />[[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Russian Communist Party]] (1918–1927, 1928–1934) | spouse = | children = | signature = }}
'''Georgy Ivanovich Safarov''' ({{langx|ru|link=no|Георгий Иванович Сафаров}}) (1891 – 27 July 1942) was a [[Bolshevik]] [[revolutionary]] and politician who was a participant in the [[Russian Revolution]], the [[Russian Civil War]], and in the executions of the [[House of Romanov|Romanovs]] in [[Yekaterinburg]] and [[Alapayevsk]].
He was later arrested for his association with the left opposition and served as an [[NKVD]] informant in prison. In spite of giving fabricated evidence against over a hundred of his former comrades, he was executed on 27 July 1942. He is one of only a few victims of [[Joseph Stalin]]'s purges not posthumously rehabilitated or reinstated to the party after his death when the history of the 1930s was re-examined in the 1980s.
== Early life ==
Safarov was born in [[Saint Petersburg]] in 1891. His father, an architect, was [[Armenians|Armenian]] and his mother was [[Polish people|Polish]], but he described himself as Russian.<ref name="Khayazg">{{cite web |title=Сафаров Георгий Иванович |url=http://ru.hayazg.info/%D0%A1%D0%B0%D1%84%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2_%D0%93%D0%B5%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B3%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%98%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87 |website=Энциклопедия фонда "Хаязг" (Armenian Encyclopedia of the Khayazg Foundation) |access-date=18 October 2022}}</ref> He joined the [[Russian Social Democratic Labour Party]] in 1908, and sided with the [[Bolshevik]] faction led by [[Vladimir Lenin]].<ref name="Lazitch">{{cite book |last1=Lazitch |first1=Branko, in colla |title=Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern |date=1973 |publisher=Hoover Institution Press |location=Stanford, Cal |isbn=0-8179-1211-8 |page=354}}</ref> Arrested in 1910, he was exiled to north Russia, emigrated to Switzerland and worked as party secretary in the Zürich Region.<ref name="Khayazg" />
In 1912, he returned to St Petersburg, with [[Inessa Armand]], to revive the Bolshevik organisation in the capital and assist in getting a Bolshevik factory worker, [[Alexei Badayev]] elected to the [[State Duma (Russian Empire)]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Krupskaya |first1=Nadezhda (Lenin's widow) |title=Memories of Lenin |date=1970 |publisher=Panther |location=London |pages=208–09}}</ref> The election campaign was a success, but during the course of it, in September 1912, Safarov and Armand were arrested. After his release, in 1914, he returned to Switzerland. In April 1915, he and Inessa Armand represented the Bolsheviks at the [[International Federation of Socialist Young People's Organizations|International Socialist Youth Conference]] in Berne.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Krupskaya |title=Memories of Lenin |page=261}}</ref> He then moved to France, where he worked in the [[Saint-Nazaire|St Nazaire]] shipyards,<ref name="Lazitch" /> until January 1916, when he was expelled from France for conducting anti-war propaganda.<ref name="Khayazg" /> He returned to Switzerland.
Following the [[February Revolution]], Georgy Safarov was one of the 31 individuals who accompanied Lenin in a [[sealed train]] under [[German Empire|German]] supervision to [[Petrograd]], along with other notable communist figures including [[Grigory Zinoviev]], [[Karl Radek]], Inessa Armand, and Lenin's wife, [[Nadezhda Krupskaya]]. He was a member of the [[Military Revolutionary Committee]], which also included members such as [[Joseph Stalin]], [[Andrei Bubnov]], [[Moisei Uritsky]], [[Felix Dzerzhinsky]], and [[Yakov Sverdlov]], and took part in the [[October Revolution]].
Following the Bolshevik seizure of power and the outbreak of the [[Russian Civil War]], Safarov backed the Left Communists who opposed the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]], wanting to conduct a 'revolutionary war'; against Germany,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Schapiro |first1=Leonard |title=The Origin of the Communist Autocracy – Political Opposition in the Soviet State: First Phase, 1917–1922 |date=1965 |publisher=Frederick A. Praeger |location=New York |page=366}}</ref> and backed the Military Opposition, who opposed the recruitment to the Red Army of former officers of the Imperial Army.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Medvedev |first1=Roy |title=Let History Judge, The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism |date=1976 |publisher=Spokesman |location=Nottingham |page=14}}</ref> He was appointed a member of the Presidium of the Ural Regional Committee of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik)]], also popularly referred to as the Ural Soviet, and worked as editor-in-chief of the party's regional newspaper, the ''Ural Worker'', and served on the editorial board of ''[[Pravda]]'', the party's [[Printed media in the Soviet Union|official state newspaper]].
== The Killing of the Romanovs == On 29 June 1918, Safarov, as a member of the Presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet under [[Alexander Beloborodov]], was a party to the unanimous decision to [[Execution of the Romanov family|execute the Romanovs]] imprisoned in [[Yekaterinburg]], who included the deposed Emperor [[Nicholas II]], his wife Empress [[Alexandra Feodorovna (Alix of Hesse)|Alexandra]], and their five children [[Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia|Olga]], [[Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia|Tatiana]], [[Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia (1899–1918)|Maria]], [[Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia|Anastasia]], and [[Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia|Alexei]]. Safarov was a signatory to the resolution on the shooting, and sent a final telegram to Yakov Sverdlov in Moscow along with [[Filipp Goloshchekin]] seeking final approval. [[Yakov Yurovsky]], the chief executioner, later recorded that a signed response from Sverdlov had been passed to him by Goloshchekin around 7:00 pm on 16 July. He later assisted in the procurement of materials for the disposal of the remains, and the confiscation of the Romanov's property by the state.
On 18 July, a day after the killings of the Romanovs in Yekaterinburg, Safarov traveled to nearby [[Alapayevsk]] as a representative of the Ural Soviet to direct the killings of a number of Romanov extended relations and their companions, including Alexandra's sister [[Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine (1864–1918)|Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine]], [[Prince Ioann Konstantinovich of Russia|Prince Ioann Konstantinovich]], [[Prince Igor Konstantinovich of Russia|Prince Igor Konstantinovich]], [[Prince Konstantine Konstantinovich of Russia|Prince Konstantine Konstantinovich]], [[Grand Duke Sergey Mikhaylovich of Russia|Grand Duke Sergey Mikhaylovich]], and [[Vladimir Pavlovich Paley|Prince Vladimir Pavlovich Paley]], as well as Elisabeth's trusted friend and companion [[Varvara Yakovleva|Sister Varvara Yakovleva]], and Fyodor Remez, Grand Duke Sergey's personal secretary. He was safely evacuated from the Ural Region along with most of the other members of the Ural Soviet prior to the arrival of the [[White Army]], who captured Yekaterinburg on 25 July.
== Later career == In November 1919, Safarov was sent to Turkestan to take part in the suppression of the White Movement and the [[Basmachi]] there and the establishment of Soviet power in the region, and was a member of the Turkburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) from 1920 until 1922. He sponsored the creation of committees of poor peasants, and the redistribution of land to Moslem farmers, and for that reason, he opposed the introduction of the [[New Economic Policy]] in Turkestan, claiming that it would advantage the comparatively wealthy Russian farmers. This brought him into a conflict with the new head of the Turkestan bureau, [[Mikhail Tomsky]], which became so serious that the [[Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Poltiburo]] sent two senior Bolsheviks [[Adolph Joffe|Adolf Ioffe]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenin |first1=V.I. |title=Letter to A.A.Ioffe, 13 September 1921, Collected Works, Vol 45 |publisher=Progress Publishers |location=Moscow |page=297 |url=http://www.marx2mao.com/PDFs/Lenin%20CW-Vol.%2045.pdf |access-date=18 October 2022}}</ref> and [[Grigory Sokolnikov]] to investigate. When Safarov threatened to resign, in December 1921, Lenin – who was generally on Safarov's side, suspecting that Tomsky was guilty of Russian chauvinism, wrote to him saying "you are not a 14-year-old girl."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenin |title=Collected Works Vol 45 |page=418}}</ref>
In July 1920, Safarov was also appointed a member of the Far Eastern Bureau of [[Comintern]], in Tashkent. In March 1921, he was elected a candidate member of the [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Committee]]. In 1922, he was withdrawn from Turkestan appointed a member of the Executive Committee of Comintern, and head of its Middle East and Far East sections.
== In opposition == Safarov was a political ally of [[Grigory Zinoviev]], who was Chairman of Comintern and head of the communist party in Petrograd (St Petersburg). In 1924, Zinoviev appointed him editor of Petrogrdskay''a Pravda'', which soon afterwards was renamed ''Leningradskaya Pravda'', when St Petersburg became 'Leningrad'. In November, he wrote a tirade against Zinoviev's rival, [[Leon Trotsky]], entitled ''Trotskyism or Leninism?'', which ran across seven issues of ''Leningradskaya Pravda''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Carr |first1=E.H. |title=Socialism in One Country, 1924–1926, Volume 2 |date=1970 |publisher=Penguin |location=Harmondsworth, Middlesex |page=28}}</ref> But when a rift opened up between Zinoviev and [[Joseph Stalin]], Safarov backed Zinoviev's faction, and angered Moscow communists by boastfully declaring that Leningrad workers were "the salt of the proletarian earth, who have carried on their shoulders the burden of three great revolutions."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Carr |title=Socialism in One Country, Volume 2 |page=134}}</ref> In December 1925, he lost his position on the Central Committee. In 1926, he joined the short-lived [[United Opposition (Soviet Union)|United Opposition]] an alliance that joined the Zinoviev faction to Trotsky and the Left Opposition.
In the 1920s, it was a common practice to dispatch members of opposition groups – such as [[Alexandra Kollontai]] and [[Christian Rakovsky]] – away on diplomatic missions. In May 1926, Safarov was appointed First Secretary of the Plenipotentiary Office in the [[Republic of China (1912–1949)|Republic of China]] and in 1927, was appointed to the Trade Mission of the Soviet Union in [[Turkey]].<ref name="Khayazg" /> On 18 December 1927, he was expelled from the CPSU, and then arrested and sentenced to 4 years of exile in [[Achinsk]].
Almost immediately after the expulsions in December 1927, Zinoviev recanted, submitted to Stalin's leadership and wrote to his supporters to do the same. Safarov was one of the few to refuse at first, but recanted after a year and after filing an application for his withdrawal from the opposition on 9 November 1928, he was restored to the CPSU. In 1929–34, he worked for the Eastern Department of Comintern.<ref name="Lazitch" />
On an unknown date, he joined a secret opposition group with a Bolshevik named Tarkhanov, which not much is known about. A letter of [[Lev Sedov]] written by the end of 1932 said this group would be one of those willing to join a [[Bloc of Soviet Oppositions|clandestine political bloc]] with followers of [[Leon Trotsky]]: "''The Safar–Tarkhan Group have not yet formally entered they have too extreme a position; they will enter very soon."'' Trotsky's letters defined the bloc as a force to fight Stalinist repression''.'' Trotskyist historian [[Pierre Broué]] said the bloc dissolved in early 1933, because some of its members were arrested.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Pierre Broué: The "Bloc" of the Oppositions against Stalin (January 1980)|url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html|access-date=7 August 2020|website=www.marxists.org}}</ref>
== Arrest and execution == On 25 December 1934, after the assassination of [[Sergey Kirov]], he was again arrested as part of a series of mass arrests which came to be described as the "Kirov stream".{{Citation needed|date=December 2023}} On 16 January 1935, he was again sentenced to 2 years of exile in the so-called "Case of the Leningrad Counter-Revolutionary Zinoviev group of Safarov, [[Pyotr Zalutsky|Zalutsky]], and others" and again deported to Achinsk. During the first of the [[Moscow Trials|Moscow Show Trials]], in August 1936, in which Zinoviev and other defendants 'confessed' to terrorism and other imaginary crimes, Safarov was named as a fellow conspirator, but not brought to trial. On 16 December 1936, he was arrested in Achinsk and sentenced to 5 years in prison on charges of "Counter-Revolutionary Trotskyist activities", and was sent to [[Vorkutlag|Vorkuta]] on 15 January 1937.{{Citation needed|date=December 2023}}
Almost every other former member of the Zinoviev opposition group was executed during the Great Purge, but Safarov survived by co-operating with the NKVD and denouncing others, but was sentenced to death by a decree of a Special Collegium of the NKVD on 16 July 1942 following the [[Operation Barbarossa|German Invasion of the Soviet Union]], ironically on the same day Safarov had signed the death warrant for the Romanovs 24 years prior. He was executed on 27 July 1942 in [[Saratov]] and was consigned to an unmarked grave.{{Citation needed|date=December 2023}}
Safarov was the only individual convicted in the case of the Leningrad Counter-Revolutionary Zinoviev Group who was not [[Rehabilitation (Soviet)|posthumously rehabilitated]] by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR in the years following Stalin's death, as the court concluded that "Safarov G.I., given his provocative activities after his arrest, is not advisable to rehabilitate".{{Citation needed|date=December 2023}} The certificate of the case prepared on 16 October 1961 by the responsible controller of the CPC at the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Military Prosecutor of the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office noted:
"It is especially necessary to dwell on the testimony of Safarov. At repeated interrogations during the preliminary investigation in the present case, Safarov named 111 people, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and many other former opposition participants, as well as persons whom Safarov independently attributed participation in the opposition. Without citing specific facts that could be used as a basis for accusing the persons named in anti-Soviet activities, Safarov attributed to them the holding of such and each of them a negative political characteristic. Subsequently, in 1938–1940, during his time in prison, Safarov was used as a witness and a provocateur on the instructions of state security personnel, and also, on his own initiative, gave testimony to numerous individuals.{{Citation needed|date=December 2023}} Safarov reported in a statement dated 10 September 1941 to [[Vsevolod Merkulov]], that for more than two years he has been "rigorously fulfilling the tasks of the investigative unit for combating enemies of the people".{{Citation needed|date=December 2023}} In another statement addressed to [[Lavrentiy Beria]] he insisted that he could still be "something of great use to the NKVD" and requested that Beria resume issuing him additional funds and supplies.{{Citation needed|date=December 2023}}
Safarov was formally rehabilitated in 1991.{{Citation needed|date=December 2023}}
==References== {{Reflist}} {{Murder of the Romanovs}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Safarov, Georgy}} [[Category:1891 births]] [[Category:1942 deaths]] [[Category:Candidates of the Central Committee of the 13th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)]] [[Category:Expelled members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] [[Category:Members of the Left Opposition]] [[Category:Members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union executed by the Soviet Union]] [[Category:Old Bolsheviks]] [[Category:People from Sankt-Peterburgsky Uyezd]] [[Category:People of the Russian Civil War]] [[Category:People of the Russian Revolution]] [[Category:Politicians from Saint Petersburg]] [[Category:Pravda people]] [[Category:Residents of the Benois House]] [[Category:Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members]] [[Category:Great Purge victims from Russia]] [[Category:Executed regicides of Nicholas II]] [[Category:Military Opposition]]