![Boky](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Boky.jpg)
Gleb Ivanovich Bokii ( ukr, Гліб Іванович Бокій; russian: Глеб Иванович Бокий; 21 June 1879 – 15 November 1937) was a
Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
Communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
political activist, revolutionary, and
paranormal
Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Nota ...
investigator
[Znamenski, Andrei. (2011). ''Red Shambhala: Magic, Prophecy, and Geopolitics in the Heart of Asia''. Quest Books, Wheaton, IL (2011) .] in the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
. Following the
October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
of 1917, Bokii became a leading member of the
Cheka
The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə), abbreviated ...
, the first Soviet
secret police
Secret police (or political police) are intelligence, security or police agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, religious, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic of a ...
, and later of the
OGPU
The Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU; russian: Объединённое государственное политическое управление) was the intelligence and state security service and secret police of the Soviet Union f ...
and
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
.
From 1921 through 1934, Bokii (alternative transliteration, Boky) headed the "special department" of the Soviet secret police apparatus. He remained a top level functionary in the secret police apparatus until his sudden arrest in May 1937 as part of the
Great Terror
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
. Following an extended investigation, Bokii was given a summary trial and executed in November of that same year. In 1956, Bokii was
posthumously rehabilitated by Soviet authorities.
Early years
Gleb Bokii was born July 3, 1879
(June 21 O.S.) into the family of an ethnic Ukrainian teacher in
Tiflis
Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of approximately 1.5 million pe ...
,
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
in 1879. Bokii grew up in
St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
,
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
, where he attended school, graduating from the Petersburg Mining Institute in 1896.
[George Leggett, ''The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police''. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press/Clarendon Press, 1981; pg. 446.]
Revolutionary career
Bokii was a participant in revolutionary student circles from an early age, becoming an adherent of
Marxism
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
and working with
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
's
Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class in 1897.
[N.V. Petrov and K.V. Skorkin, ''Кто руководил НКВД, 1934–1941: Справочник'' (''Who Directed the NKVD, 1934–1941: Guidebook''). Moscow: Zven'ia, 1999; pg. 114.] Bokii joined the
Russian Social Democratic Labor Party
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist pol ...
(RSDLP) in 1900 and worked in that organization as a
professional revolutionary
Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishme ...
as a party organizer and propagandist.
In 1902, he was arrested and sentenced to three years exile in east Siberia.
Bokii was a loyalist to the
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
faction of that organization, headed by
V.I. Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
and was elected a member of the governing Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP from 1904 to 1909.
In these early activist years, Bokii was already to show impressive talent in cryptography, a skill which will go on to be evident and ongoing in his later Soviet career.
In the
Revolution of 1905
The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...
, Bokii participated in street fighting on
Vasilyevsky Island
Vasilyevsky Island (russian: Васи́льевский о́стров, Vasilyevsky Ostrov, V.O.) is an island in St. Petersburg, Russia, bordered by the Bolshaya Neva and Malaya Neva Rivers (in the delta of the Neva River) in the south a ...
, part of St. Petersburg bounded by the
Neva River
The Neva (russian: Нева́, ) is a river in northwestern Russia flowing from Lake Ladoga through the western part of Leningrad Oblast (historical region of Ingria) to the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland. Despite its modest length of , it i ...
.
At the time of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, Bokii served as a member of the Central Bureau of the RSDLP from 1914 to 1915 and a member of the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee of the party from 1916 to 1917.
During the course of his revolutionary activities, Bokii was arrested a dozen times, and suffered two terms of political exile to
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
.
He used the
party names "Kuzma," "Diadia," and "Maksim Ivanovich" during the Bolshevik Party's underground period.
Early in 1917, Bokii was arrested and sentenced to exile in
Yakutsk
Yakutsk (russian: Якутск, p=jɪˈkutsk; sah, Дьокуускай, translit=Djokuuskay, ) is the capital city of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located about south of the Arctic Circle. Fueled by the mining industry, Yakutsk has become one of ...
, but before he was transported, the Tsar Nicholas II was overthrown by the
February Revolution
The February Revolution ( rus, Февра́льская револю́ция, r=Fevral'skaya revolyutsiya, p=fʲɪvˈralʲskəjə rʲɪvɐˈlʲutsɨjə), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and somet ...
, and he was released and resumed his leading role on the Petrograd City Committee,
of which he served as Secretary from April 1917 to March 1918.
He was also a member of the Petrograd
Military Revolutionary Committee
The Military Revolutionary Committee (russian: Военно-революционный комитет, ) was the name for military organs created by the Bolsheviks under the soviets in preparation for the October Revolution (October 1917 – Marc ...
during October and November 1917 — the institution which planned and carried out the Bolshevik uprising on November 7.
Bokii was recognized as a supporter of the "Left Communists" headed by
Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Буха́рин) ( – 15 March 1938) was a Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, Marxist philosopher and economist and prolific author on revolutionary theory. ...
who sought to fight a revolutionary war against German invaders rather than signing a separate peace in the period immediately after the Bolshevik uprising.
Together with
Stanislav Kosior Stanislav and variants may refer to:
People
*Stanislav (given name), a Slavic given name with many spelling variations (Stanislaus, Stanislas, Stanisław, etc.)
Places
* Stanislav, a coastal village in Kherson, Ukraine
* Stanislaus County, Cali ...
, Bokii was one of five signatories of a declaration of the Executive Commission of the Petersburg Committee directed at the governing Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party, which warned:
"The political line now being pursued by the Central Committee ... is directed toward conclusion of a so-called 'obscene' peace hich
Ij ( fa, ايج, also Romanized as Īj; also known as Hich and Īch) is a village in Golabar Rural District, in the Central District of Ijrud County, Zanjan Province, Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also ...
would result in the abdication of our principles ... and the certain death of our party as a revolutionary vanguard. ...
We have ample grounds for asserting that signing an 'obscene' peace would run counter to the opinion of the majority in our party. ... If our present peace policy continues ... a split threatens our party."[Executive Commission of the Petersburg Committee to the Central Committee of the RSDLP, January 15, 1918, quoted in Alexander Rabinowitch, ''The Bolsheviks in Power: The First Year of Soviet Rule in Petrograd''. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007; pg. 148–149.]
A special party conference to decide the peace question was called for by Bokii and his comrades of the Peterburg Committee.
German forces continued their advance on Petrograd in the interim and February and March 1918 saw Bokii take on an additional role organizing the city's defenses as member of the Committee for the Revolutionary Defense of Petrograd.
Ultimately, the German offensive was halted when Lenin and the party Central Committee won the day by signing the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (also known as the Treaty of Brest in Russia) was a separate peace, separate peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Russian SFSR, Russia and the Central Powers (German Empire, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Kingdom of ...
with the government of
Imperial Germany
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
on March 3, 1918. Territory including a quarter of Russia's population and a quarter of its industry were ceded to the Germans under the onerous terms of the peace.
Secret police activities
On March 13, 1918, Bokii went to work as deputy head of the
Extraordinary Commission (Cheka) of the Northern oblast and Petrograd.
He remained in this position until the end of August 1918, at which time he was briefly made the head of that same organization following the assassination of his chief,
Moisei Uritsky
Moisei Solomonovich Uritsky ( ua, Мойсей Соломонович Урицький; russian: Моисей Соломонович Урицкий; – 30 August 1918) was a Bolshevik revolutionary leader in Russia. After the October Revol ...
.
Bokii was a participant in the
Red Terror
The Red Terror (russian: Красный террор, krasnyj terror) in Soviet Russia was a campaign of political repression and executions carried out by the Bolsheviks, chiefly through the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police. It started in lat ...
which was part and parcel of the
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
which began in the summer of 1918, for example signing a list of 122 prominent hostages published in the Petrograd official newspaper on September 6, threatening their execution if even one more Soviet official was killed by terrorists.
Despite this complicity, historian
Alexander Rabinowitch
Alexander Rabinowitch (born 30 August 1934) is an American historian. He is Professor Emeritus of History at the Indiana University, Bloomington, where he taught from 1968 until 1999, and Affiliated Research Scholar at the St. Petersburg Institute ...
indicates that Bokii was among the more moderate Bolshevik voices on the question of the use of terror in the summer of 1918, siding with
Elena Stasova
Elena Dmitriyevna Stasova ( rus, Елена Дмитриевна Стасова; 15 October Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S._3_October.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>O.S._3_October">Old_Style_and_New_Sty ...
in opposing
Grigory Zinoviev
Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev, . Transliterated ''Grigorii Evseevich Zinov'ev'' according to the Library of Congress system. (born Hirsch Apfelbaum, – 25 August 1936), known also under the name Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky (russian: Ов ...
's call for a full scale Red Terror at a critical meeting held in the wake of Uritsky's killing.
Whatever his personal views, Bokii as head of the Petrograd Cheka in the days after Uritsky's death was the ultimate authority behind the Red Terror in Petrograd and it was to him that the German government directed its complaints.
[Rabinowitch, ''The Bolsheviks in Power'', pg. 340.] The German consul in Petrograd was bombarded with letters demanding the release of individuals from countries under German protection who were swept up in the dragnet — over 1000 in all.
On September 10, 1918 Bokii responded by forwarding to the Consul the text of a message he had sent to district soviets ordering the release of all citizens of nations under German protection against whom no specific evidence supporting charges of speculation or counterrevolutionary activity could be mustered.
Bokii's explicit directive was largely ignored, however, and by the end of the month only about 200 out of the 1000 names provided by the Germans had been freed.
Bokii's moderation with respect to the use of terror brought him into conflict with Zinoviev, who in mid-September 1918 was advancing the idea of distributing arms to the Petrograd workers and allowing them to administer mob justice against their perceived class enemies as they saw fit.
[Rabinowitch, ''The Bolsheviks in Power'', pg. 342.] Stasova seems to have felt that her ally Bokii was in physical danger if he remained in Petrograd without protection and she appealed to
Yakov Sverdlov
Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov (russian: Яков Михайлович Свердлов; 3 June Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O._S._22_May.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O. S ...
for his transfer to Moscow, outside of Zinoviev's fief.
According to a biography of Bokii published in the last years of the Soviet Union, Bokii was successfully removed as head of the Petrograd Cheka by Zinoviev by the end of that month.
Other sources indicate that Bokii remained as the head of the Petrograd secret police until November 1918, at which time he was made a member of the collegium of the
People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs
People's, branded as ''People's Viennaline'' until May 2018, and legally ''Altenrhein Luftfahrt GmbH'', is an Austrian airline headquartered in Vienna. It operates scheduled and charter passenger flights mainly from its base at St. Gallen-Altenr ...
(NKVD) of Soviet Russia.
Bokii continued in that capacity until the middle of September 1919, when he was dispatched to the Eastern Front to head the special detachment of the Cheka there.
In October 1919, Bokii was sent by Cheka head
Felix Dzerzhinsky
Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky ( pl, Feliks Dzierżyński ; russian: Фе́ликс Эдму́ндович Дзержи́нский; – 20 July 1926), nicknamed "Iron Felix", was a Bolshevik revolutionary and official, born into Poland, Polish n ...
to
Tashkent
Tashkent (, uz, Toshkent, Тошкент/, ) (from russian: Ташкент), or Toshkent (; ), also historically known as Chach is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of ...
to head the operations of the Cheka the
Turkestan Front The Turkestan Front () was a front of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War, which was formed on the territory of Turkestan Military District by Order of the Republic of Turkestan on February 23, 1919. It was formed a second time by the directiv ...
. He remained there in that capacity until the effective end of the
Russian Civil War
, date = October Revolution, 7 November 1917 – Yakut revolt, 16 June 1923{{Efn, The main phase ended on 25 October 1922. Revolt against the Bolsheviks continued Basmachi movement, in Central Asia and Tungus Republic, the Far East th ...
in August 1920.
During this interval he was also a member of the Turkestan Commission of the
All-Russian Central Executive Committee
The All-Russian Central Executive Committee ( rus, Всероссийский Центральный Исполнительный Комитет, Vserossiysky Centralny Ispolnitelny Komitet, VTsIK) was the highest legislative, administrative and r ...
and the
Council of People's Commissars
The Councils of People's Commissars (SNK; russian: Совет народных комиссаров (СНК), ''Sovet narodnykh kommissarov''), commonly known as the ''Sovnarkom'' (Совнарком), were the highest executive authorities of ...
(Sovnarkom).
[K.A. Zalesskii, ''Империя Сталина: Биографический энциклопедический словарь'' (''Stalin's Emipire: Biographical Encyclopedic Dictionary''). Moscow: Veche, 2000; pp. 65–66.]
Bokii was shaken by the terror he played significant roles in. Regarding Kronstadt, Bokii later stated, "The Kronstadt events produced an indelible impression on me. I could not reconcile myself to the idea that the very sailors who took part in the October Revolution revolted against our party and our power." His further ideological disillusionment or frustration lead to his delving into esoteric mysticism in the 1920s.
![19290000 boky gorky pogrebinskii-vessel gleb boki](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/19290000_boky_gorky_pogrebinskii-vessel_gleb_boki.jpg)
Bokii became head of the "special department" of the All-Union Extraordinary Commission in the last days of January 1921.
Bokii has been said to have been "one of the most active creators of the
Gulag
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
system"
and labelled by another historian as "the OGPU boss in charge of concentration camps" in the early 1920s. Such claims may tend to hyperbole, however, as he figures in the account of
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repress ...
only as the head of the Moscow
troika
Troika or troyka (from Russian тройка, meaning 'a set of three') may refer to:
Cultural tradition
* Troika (driving), a traditional Russian harness driving combination, a cultural icon of Russia
* Troika (dance), a Russian folk dance
Polit ...
rather than as architect or chief of the camp system itself.
Bokii remained as head of the "special department" of the secret police apparatus through its various incarnations as the BChK, the GPU, and the OGPU until July 10, 1934.
He was also a member of the collegium of the OGPU through this same date.
In April 1923, Bokii was awarded the
Order of the Red Banner
The Order of the Red Banner (russian: Орден Красного Знамени, Orden Krasnogo Znameni) was the first Soviet military decoration. The Order was established on 16 September 1918, during the Russian Civil War by decree of th ...
in recognition of his work on behalf of the USSR.
Bokii later moved to the
Supreme Court of the USSR
The Supreme Court of the Soviet Union (russian: Верховный Суд СССР) was the highest court of the Soviet Union during its existence. The Supreme Court of the USSR included a Military Collegium and other elements which were not typic ...
, of which he was a member until May 16, 1937.
He was also head of the Chief Department of State Security of the NKVD until that same date.
Arrest and execution
On May 16, 1937, Bokii was suddenly arrested by the secret police and charged with conspiratorial activity.
Following a lengthy investigation, Bokii was brought before the
Military Collegium of the Supreme Soviet on November 15, 1937, and sentenced to death.
He was shot that same day.
Tantric studies
Inspired by
Theosophical
Theosophy is a religion established in the United States during the late 19th century. It was founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and draws its teachings predominantly from Blavatsky's writings. Categorized by scholars of religion a ...
lore and several visiting Mongol lamas, Bokii along with his writer friend Alexander Barchenko, embarked on a quest for
Shambhala
In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Shambhala ( sa, शम्भल ',''Śambhala'', also ''Sambhala'', is the name of a town between the Rathaprā and Ganges rivers, identified by some with Sambhal in Uttar Pradesh. In the Puranas, it is named as t ...
, in an attempt to merge Kalachakra-tantra and ideas of Communism in the 1920s. Among other things, in a secret laboratory affiliated with the secret police, Bokii and Barchenko experimented with Buddhist spiritual techniques to try to find a key for engineering perfect communist human beings.
[Znamenski, Andrei. (2011). ''Red Shambhala: Magic, Prophecy, and Geopolitics in the Heart of Asia''. Quest Books, Wheaton, IL (2011) .] They contemplated a special expedition to Inner Asia to retrieve the wisdom of Shambhala – the project fell through as a result of intrigues within the Soviet intelligence service, as well as rival efforts of the Soviet Foreign Commissariat that sent its own expedition to Tibet in 1924.
Bokii featured also group sex orgies in his datcha under the pretext of tantric studies.
[ Christopher Andrew: The Mitrokhin archive. 1999. p. 78.]
Posthumous rehabilitation and legacy
Bokii's fellow bureaucratic NKVD foes had conjured up fictions of his being as a sort of Dracula-like human blood drinker.
On June 27, 1956, as part of the
Thaw sponsored by new Soviet leader
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
, Gleb Bokii's case was reviewed by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Soviet and he was
posthumously rehabilitated,
enabling his family members to receive social benefits which had been previously denied to them by the state.
Footnotes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bokii, Gleb
1879 births
1937 deaths
Cheka officers
Politicians from Tbilisi
Old Bolsheviks
Soviet politicians
Commissars 3rd Class of State Security
Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner
Great Purge victims from Ukraine
Ukrainian people executed by the Soviet Union
Members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union executed by the Soviet Union
Soviet rehabilitations
Executed Ukrainian people