page_title: Vladimir Purishkevich
section_title: Revolutionary Russia
hierarchical_section_title: Vladimir Purishkevich / Revolutionary Russia
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Санкт-Петербург. Белые ночи. Набережная Мойки (д.62). English: Saint Petersburg. White nights. Moika Embankment.
context_page_description: Vladimir Mitrofanovich Purishkevich was a right-wing politician in Imperial Russia, noted for his monarchist, ultra-nationalist, antisemitic and anticommunist views. Because of his restless behaviour, he was regarded as a loose cannon. At the end of 1916, he participated in the killing of Grigori Rasputin.
context_section_description: During the February Revolution in 1917, many right-wingers were arrested but Purishkevich was tolerated by the government and so was "virtually the only former national Black Hundred leader to maintain an active political life in Russia after the Tsar's downfall". However, the revolution meant that Purishkevich initially had to moderate his politics. He called for the abolition of the Soviets, who were, in turn, calling for the abolition of the Duma.
  In August 1917, he wanted a military dictatorship; he was arrested over the Kornilov Affair but was released. Following the failure of the putsch, he collaborated with Fyodor Viktorovich Vinberg in forming an underground monarchist organisation. During the October Revolution, he organized the "Committee for the Motherland's Salvation". He was joined by a number of officers, military cadets, and others.
  At the time, Purishkevich lived in hotel "Russia" on Moika 60, and he had a false passport under the surname "Yevreinov". On 18 November 1917, Purishkevich was arrested by the Red Guards for his participation in a counterrevolutionary conspiracy after the discovery of a letter sent by him to General Aleksei Maksimovich Kaledin in which he urged the Cossack leader to come and restore order in Petrograd. He became the first person to be tried in the Smolny Institute by the first Revolutionary Tribunal. He was condemned to eleven months of 'public work' and four years of imprisonment with obligatory community service, and won the admiration of his fellow prisoners in the Fortress of St Peter and St Paul by his courageous bearing. He was given an amnesty on May 1 after the mediation of Felix Dzerzhinsky and Nikolay Krestinsky, as he refrained from any political activity. In jail, he had written a poem describing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk as 'The Trotsky Peace'.
caption: Moika Embankment with the former hotel "Russia"
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