Maurice Alexander Conradi (Russian: Морис Морисович Конради, ''Moris Morisovich Konradi''; 16 June 1896 − 7 February 1947) was a White Army emigre participant of the First World War and the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

and the assassin of the Soviet diplomat

Vatslav Vorovsky Vatslav Vatslavovich Vorovsky (; 27 October ld Style and New Style dates, O.S. 15 October1871 – 10 May 1923) was a Russian Bolsheviks, Bolshevik revolutionary, literary critic, journalist, and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Soviet dipl ...

Early life

Conradi was born in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

to a Swiss family from

Andeer Andeer () is a municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the Viamala Region in the Cantons of Switzerland, Swiss canton of Graubünden. In 2009, Clugin and Pignia merged into Andeer. Upon the outbreak of World War I he joined the Russian Imperial Army. During the

Bolshevik Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. It was led by Vladimir L ...

most of his family was killed and their assets seized: his father, Maurice, was executed in

on 26 November 1919, his brother, Victor-Edward, taken hostage and executed in 1918, and two further siblings disappeared during the

Red Terror The Red Terror () was a campaign of political repression and Mass killing, executions in Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Russia which was carried out by the Bolsheviks, chiefly through the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police ...

. During the civil war, he met his wife-to-be, Vladislava Lvovna Svartsevich (Владислава Львовна Сварцевич). After the defeat of the Wrangel Army, Conradi fled to

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, and among other Russian expats there was radicalized further against the Bolsheviks.

Murder of Vorovsky

In April 1923 Conradi attempted an assassination of Soviet People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs

Georgy Chicherin Georgy Vasilyevich Chicherin (or Tchitcherin; ; 24 November 1872 – 7 July 1936) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and a Soviet politician who served as the first People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs in the Soviet government from March 1918 ...

while he visited Germany, but unable to find him he returned to Geneva. Finding out about the upcoming conference, he planned another assassination.

, and Maxim Divilkovsky were envoys of the

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

government to the Conference of Lausanne. They were accepted as observers to the conference but not as participants, and they received no diplomatic protection in the country. On 10 May 1923 Conradi and his companion (Аркадий Павлович Полунин) (Polonnine in French and court transcriptions) entered the restaurant of the Hotel Cécil, shooting the Bolshevik delegation. Vorovsky was killed at the scene, and Ariens and Divilkovsky were wounded but survived. Maurice Conradi arrest sketch printed 1923-11-17

Maurice Conradi arrest sketch printed 1923-11-17

Conradi did not resist arrest or conceal his actions or motivations. In his statement to police he said, "Among those who played their part in the ruin of Russia, and indirectly of all mankind, there are no innocents." The

Swiss Federal Council The Federal Council is the federal cabinet of the Swiss Confederation. Its seven members also serve as the collective head of state and government of Switzerland. Since World War II, the Federal Council is by convention a permanent grand co ...

was "outrage by the assassination, but decided to treat it as a local crime rather than an international incident. Swiss-Soviet relations had been tense for years; Soviet foreign secretary

told the Federal Council that in denying Vorovsky official recognition and protection, they had "heavy and absolutely obvious responsibility" for the murder. The Council responded by demanding reparation for crimes against Swiss citizens living in Russia during the revolution. The "Conradi Affair" was an international sensation. Soviet and left-wing literature presented the murder as a conspiracy of "fascist White radicals", while Conradi was supported by many

White émigré White Russian émigrés were Russians who emigrated from the territory of the former Russian Empire in the wake of the Russian Revolution (1917) and Russian Civil War (1917–1923), and who were in opposition to the revolutionary Bolshevik com ...

s and Russian activists in exile, including

Ivan Bunin Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin ( or ; rus, Ива́н Алексе́евич Бу́нин, p=ɪˈvan ɐlʲɪkˈsʲejɪvʲɪdʑ ˈbunʲɪn, a=Ivan Alyeksyeyevich Bunin.ru.vorb.oga; – 8 November 1953)Ivan Shmelyov Ivan Sergeyevich Shmelyov (, also spelled ''Shmelev'' and ''Chmelov''; – 24 June 1950) was a Russian writer best known for his idyllic recreations of a pre-Russian Revolution, Revolutionary past spent in the merchant district of Moscow. ...

and Dmitry Merezhkovsky. The trial of Conradi and Polunin began on 5 November 1923 in the . Defended by

Théodore Aubert Théodore Aubert (8 September 1878, Geneva – 19 January 1963) was a Swiss lawyer and writer. Biography As a lawyer, he defended the White émigré Maurice Conradi who assassinated the Soviet envoy to Switzerland Vatslav Vorovsky in 1923. ...

, Conradi and Polunin plead not guilty, and with the defendants agreeing to most key facts except conspiracy, the argument became a moral one. Soon the local criminal trial became a trial of the Russian Revolution and the Bolshevik regime. Defense witnesses described the atrocities of the revolution and

, against Conradi's family and Swiss expats in particular; defense counsel arguments included that Bolsheviks had performed many assassinations and that Conradi was a "liberator of the world's conscience." The prosecution responded to this with witnesses including an Italian communist and a Bolshevik military official testifying about how happy life in Soviet Russia became after the Revolution. The jury agreed to all questions of fact but voted 5-to-4 against conviction. The court ordered Conradi to pay the legal fees of the trial at the request of the prosecutor. The verdict was controversial internationally, and Russia in response cut relations and boycotted all Swiss goods. The USSR would soon make repeated attempts to restore relations, although Vorovsky remained a contentious issue. A provisional solution was reached in 1927, but Swiss-Soviet relations were not restored until 1946.

Further life

Following the trial, Conradi remained in Lausanne with his wife until May 1925, when they moved to Paris. The couple divorced on 24 September 1929. Conradi served in the

French Foreign Legion The French Foreign Legion (, also known simply as , "the Legion") is a corps of the French Army created to allow List of militaries that recruit foreigners, foreign nationals into French service. The Legion was founded in 1831 and today consis ...

and information about his death circulated in newspapers in 1931. However, he returned to his family's home canton of Graubünden, got remarried in 1942 to Regula Wickerlin, and died on 7 February 1947 in Chur. He never had children. Polunin went to Paris after the trial and died under mysterious circumstances in

Dreux Dreux () is a Communes of France, commune in the Eure-et-Loir Departments of France, department in northern France. Geography Dreux lies on the small river Blaise (river), Blaise, a tributary of the Eure (river), Eure, about 35 km north of Cha ...

on 23 February 1933. Ariens and Divilkovsky, the survivors of the assassination plot, returned to the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

and held various positions in the administration. Ariens's final post was as Consul General of the USSR, and he was executed on 11 January 1938 during

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

. Divilkovsky studied physics under L. I. Mandelstam and became secretary of the physics group at the Academy of Sciences. He volunteered for service in

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

and was killed in 1942.

References

Sources

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Conradi, M. 1896 births 1947 deaths Military personnel from Saint Petersburg Russian military personnel of World War I Russian nationalist assassins Swiss assassins Swiss anti-communists People from Chur People acquitted of murder White Russian emigrants to Switzerland