ERMOLENKO DMITRY STEPANOVICH (1874-?) A copy of the protocol of interrogation of Ensign D.S. Yermolenko on the financing of the Russian revolution by the Germans. ‘Addition to the protocol compiled on April 28, 1917 and to the questions given to me by the head of the Intelligence department of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Colonel Terekhov’: Handwritten copy of May 17, 1917.
Lot 400
8 00012 000
4p. 18.5 x 28.5 cm.
At the end of the text, a written statement by P.N. Pereverzev on the transfer of the original of this document to G.A. Aleksinsky on July 4, 1917. The statement is dated January 31, 1933, Paris.
The testimony of the interrogation became the main evidence put up against the Bolsheviks by the Provisional Government in July 1917. S.D. Yermolenko, who was taken prisoner, was recruited by German intelligence, according to him, and on April 25th was transferred to the Russian rearward for agitation in favor of peace, after which he immediately surrendered to the counterintelligence. However, these testimonies immediately raised doubts. When P.N. Pereverzev ordered to publish information about the financial relations of the Bolsheviks with the German authorities, most Petrograd newspapers refused to publish these data - the only exception was the ‘Zhivoye Slovo’ newspaper. The publication of materials caused a rapid decline in the popularity of the Bolshevik party.
Provenance : G.A. Aleksinsky archive Aleksinsky Grigory Alekseevich (1879-1967) - public and political activist, publicist. At the beginning of his political activities, he was a Social Democrat later becoming a counter-revolutionary. In 1918, he was arrested, but released on bail. In emigration, he held an unambiguously anti-Bolshevik position. In 1920, he was convicted by the Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal and found guilty of counter- revolutionary conspiracies and denied the right to enter Soviet Russia.
Pereverzev Pavel Nikolaevich (1871-1944) - Russian lawyer, politician. Minister of Justice of the Provisional Government (1917).