Fanya Kaplan

Kaplan was born into a peasant family, one of seven children. She became a political revolutionary at an early age and joined a socialist group, the Right Socialist Revolutionaries. In 1906, Kaplan participated in an attempted assassination of a government official. The plot failed and Kaplan was arrested and sentenced to life in Siberia. She was released when the February Revolution overthrew the imperial government. As a result of her imprisonment, Kaplan suffered from continuous headaches and periods of blindness.

On August 30, 1918, Lenin was speaking at a Moscow factory. As Lenin left the building and before he entered his car, Kaplan called out to him. When Lenin turned towards her, she fired three shots. One passed through Lenin's coat, the other two hit him in the left shoulder and left lung.

Lenin was taken back to his living quarters at the Kremlin.  He feared there might be other plotters planning to kill him and refused to leave the security of the Kremlin to seek medical attention. Doctors were brought in to treat him but were unable to remove the bullets outside of a hospital. Lenin survived. However, Lenin's health never fully recovered from the attack and it is believed the shooting contributed to the strokes that incapacitated and later killed him.

Kaplan was taken into custody and interrogated by the Cheka. She made the following statement: "My name is Fanya Kaplan. Today I shot at Lenin. I did it on my own. I will not say whom I obtained my revolver. I will give no details. I had resolved to kill Lenin long ago. I consider him a traitor to the Revolution. I was exiled to Akatui for participating in an assassination attempt against a Tsarist official in Kiev. I spent eleven years at hard labour. After the Revolution I was freed. I favoured the Constituent Assembly and am still for it."

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