Combat commander of the Moscow uprising and founding leader of the Maximalist SRs
His last words on the way to the gallows in Taganka Prison: "Tell mother that I died calmly."
One of the founding leaders of the Union of Socialists-Revolutionaries-Maximalists (SSRM), the radical left faction that split from the PSR in 1906. During the December 1905 Moscow armed uprising he commanded a combat druzhina on the Kazan Railway and fought at Chistye Prudy and Presnya, leading the spectacular expropriation of 875,000 rubles from the Moscow Mutual Credit Society in March 1906. A Moscow University natural-sciences student arrested in 1904, he was freed by the October Manifesto amnesty and immediately returned to armed struggle; rejecting the PSR's two-stage revolution, he demanded immediate full socialization and a 'Toilers' Republic'. Wounded resisting arrest in August 1906, he was tried by field court martial and hanged at Taganka Prison at the age of 24.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1903–1904Entered Moscow University natural sciences faculty; joined the PSR
- 1904Arrested for agitation in Moscow; sentenced to 7 years
- 1905.10Freed under the October Manifesto amnesty
- 1905.12Moscow uprising — commanded Kazan Railway druzhina; fought at Chistye Prudy and Presnya
- 1906.3Led Moscow Mutual Credit Society expropriation (875,000 rubles)
- 1906Co-founded Union of Socialists-Revolutionaries-Maximalists (SSRM)
- 1906.8–9Wounded resisting arrest near Aquarium Garden; court-martialed and hanged at Taganka Prison
Related historical events
The Maximalist combat organization in Moscow, 1906
After the suppression of the December 1905 uprising, Mazurin remained in Moscow and reorganized armed activity. Within the Moscow SR-Maximalist combat organization, an “opposition group of expropriators” had formed outside the control of the central combat organization. A later reconstruction based on police records describes Mazurin as maintaining contact with the party committee and serving on the staffs of several autonomous combat groups; it identifies him as the overall commander of the 7 March 1906 raid on the Moscow Mutual Credit Society on Ilyinka. The raiders subdued the guards and bank staff, cut the telephone line, and took 875,000 rubles in cash. They reportedly left behind securities because they were cumbersome to carry. The group’s recorded distribution included 200,000 rubles for the Moscow opposition and 100,000 for the Maximalists; the whereabouts of the remainder could not be established. These accounts show how fundraising for political purposes was joined to armed operations within the same underground network, but the detailed reconstruction of the raid and the money’s circulation depends on later accounts drawing on police-investigation materials, contemporary newspapers, and memoirs.\n\nThe proceeds supported more than a single raid. A later account reports that the group operated a bakery, shop, and metalworking and carpentry workshops, using these businesses to maintain safe houses, weapons stores, explosives facilities, and shooting grounds. Members trained with a wooden model of an artillery piece in the carpentry shop. In July 1906 police arrested more than eighty people linked to the organization, while Mazurin initially avoided capture because he had separate safe houses. He tried to rebuild the combat organization from its remaining members, and the group continued to target smaller shops and the homes of wealthy Muscovites. On 29 August he was recognized and arrested near Patriarch’s Ponds in Moscow; he was shot in the shoulder while resisting. A field court-martial proceeded under martial law, and he was hanged at Taganka Prison on 1 September.