Pyotr Lazarevich Voykov
Пётр Лазаревич Войков
Bolshevik diplomat who took part in the decision to execute Nicholas II: gunned down in Warsaw
7 June 1927, Warsaw Central Station. Voykov was meeting Arkady Rosengolts when White émigré youth Boris Kowerda rushed forward and fired his pistol. Upon arrest, Kowerda declared: "I avenged Russia, for millions of people."
Voykov, born into a Ukrainian peasant family, was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet diplomat who joined the RSDLP as a teenager. As Commissar of Supply for the Ural Soviet in 1918, he took part in the special session that decided the execution of Nicholas II and his family, and signed orders for sulfuric acid used to destroy the bodies. From 1924 he served as Soviet Polpred to Poland, conducting diplomatic work in Warsaw until June 1927, when he was shot and killed by Boris Kowerda, a young White émigré. His assassination became a flashpoint in Soviet-Polish relations; in retaliation, the Soviet government extrajudicially executed twenty former imperial aristocrats in Moscow.
Career timeline
- 1903Joins RSDLP, aligns with Mensheviks
- 1906Failed bombing attempt on Yalta police chief; flees
- 1907–1917Exile in Geneva; studies mathematics and chemistry at University of Geneva; active as Menshevik-Internationalist
- 1917.08Joins Bolsheviks; member of Yekaterinburg Soviet and Military Revolutionary Committee
- 1918.01–12Commissar of Supply, Ural Region Soviet
- 1918.07Participates in Ural Soviet decision to execute Nicholas II; signs orders for sulfuric acid
- 1919–1920Works in distribution at People's Commissariat of Food Supplies; deputy chair of Tsentrosoyuz
- 1920–1921Board member, People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade; serves on Export Commission
- 1924–1927Polpred (Minister Plenipotentiary) of the USSR to Poland
- 1927.06.07Assassinated by White émigré Boris Kowerda at Warsaw Central Station