The Bolsheviks' legendary expropriator, the revolutionary who feigned madness and survived four death sentences
Lenin described him as "a person of absolutely exceptional devotion, courage and energy." Maxim Gorky called him "an artist of the revolution."
Born Simon Ter-Petrosyan in Gori, he grew up alongside Stalin, who tutored him in Russian and drew him into Marxism. Kamo masterminded the 1907 Tiflis bank robbery, the largest revolutionary expropriation in Russian history, delivering 341,000 rubles to the Bolshevik faction. Arrested in Berlin, he feigned insanity so meticulously that the leading German psychiatrists declared him psychotic; extradited to Russia, he eventually escaped a Tiflis psychiatric ward and was received by Lenin in Paris. During the Civil War he rebuilt the Bolshevik underground in the Caucasus. Yet the destructive daring that made him a legend was ill-suited to peacetime. In 1922 he was struck by a truck while cycling through Tiflis and died hours later.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1901–03Joined RSDLP; led youth group of Tiflis committee; organized underground printing
- 1903–05First arrest and escape; participated in 1905 Revolution; arms smuggling
- 1907Led the Tiflis bank robbery — seized 341,000 rubles, delivered to Lenin
- 1907–11Arrested in Berlin; feigned insanity for 3 years; escaped Tiflis psychiatric ward
- 1912–17Recaptured after failed expropriation; 4 death sentences commuted to 20 years
- 1918–20Rebuilt Bolshevik underground in Caucasus and southern Russia; prepared Baku uprising
- 1920–22Studied at General Staff Academy; foreign trade and Georgian Finance Commissariat
Related historical events
- 1905–1907The Revolution of 1905Arms smuggler and combat druzhina organizerDuring the 1905 Revolution he organized Bolshevik combat druzhinas across the Caucasus, smuggled weapons, and took part in numerous armed expropriation operations.
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionRebuilder of the Caucasus undergroundFrom 1918 to 1920 he rebuilt the Bolshevik underground in the Caucasus and southern Russia, and took an active part in preparing the April 1920 armed uprising for Soviet power in Baku.
Recapture and Four Death Sentences
Kamo escaped the psychiatric ward of the Tiflis prison in August 1911 by sawing through his window bars and climbing down a homemade rope. He met Lenin in Paris and learned of the rupture between Lenin, Bogdanov and Krasin, then joined Krasin to plan another armed robbery. He was caught before it took place, and from 1912 he was imprisoned again, this time not feigning insanity. The Tiflis court sentenced him to death for his exploits including the 1907 bank robbery, and the sentence was not one death sentence but four. Awaiting execution in 1912, he left a note to a fellow prisoner: "[R]esigned to death, absolutely calm. On my grave there should already be grass growing six feet high. One can't escape death forever. One must die some day. But I will try my luck again. Try any way of escape. Perhaps we shall once more have the laugh over our enemies... I am in irons. Do what you like. I am ready for anything." What awaited him was not the firing squad but the amnesty marking the tricentennial of the Romanov dynasty in 1913: his sentence, along with those of other prisoners, was commuted to a long prison term. He was released by the February Revolution of 1917. The man who had walked out of a psychiatric ward and sat in a condemned cell met the revolution outside prison walls; none of his four death sentences was carried out.