Stepan Valerianovich Balmashov

Степан Валерианович Балмашёв

Student of the SR Combat Organization who shot Interior Minister Sipyagin in 1902

Born in Arkhangelsk to an exiled Narodnik, he entered Kiev University in 1900 and threw himself into the student movement; arrested in 1901 as a leader of the student strike, he spent three months in prison and was placed under military supervision. Released, he led workers' circles of both Social Democrats and Socialist Revolutionaries in Kharkiv. He blamed Interior Minister Dmitry Sipyagin for the mass exile of students, and when Gershuni's SR Combat Organization chose Sipyagin as its first target he volunteered. On 15 April 1902 he entered the Mariinsky Palace in disguise and shot Sipyagin dead. A military court sentenced him to hang; refusing to petition for a pardon, he was executed at Shlisselburg fortress on 16 May.

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