Thus perished a young woman.

[**The following takes place shortly before the Russian Civil War. It details the execution of Fannie Kaplan, a woman who had shot Vladimir Lenin in a failed assassination.**] >On September 3, the commandant of the Kremlin, an ex-sailor named P. Malkov, was called to the Cheka and told it had condemned [Fannie Kaplan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/FannyKaplan.jpg) to death. He was to carry out the sentence at once. As Malkov describes it, he recoiled: “Shooting a person, especially a woman, is no easy task.” He asked about the disposal of the body. He was told to consult Sverdlov. Sverdlov said that Kaplan was not to be interred: “Her remains are to be destroyed without trace.” As the place of execution Malkov chose a narrow courtyard adjoining the Kremlin’s Large Palace and used as a parking lot for military vehicles. >>I ordered the commander of the Automobile Combat Detachment to move some trucks from the enclosures and to start the engines. I also gave orders to send a passenger car to the blind alley, turning it to face the gate. Having posted at the gate two Latvians with orders to allow no one in, I went to fetch Kaplan. A few minutes later I was leading her to the courtyard… “Into the car!” I snapped a sharp command. I pointed to the automobile that stood at the end of the cul-de-sac. Convulsively twisting her shoulders, Fannie Kaplan took one step, then another… I raised the pistol… * >Thus perished a young women ridiculed as the Russian [Charlotte Corday](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Charlotte_Corday.PNG): without the semblance of a trial, shot in the back while the truck engines roared to drown out her screams, her corpse disposed of like so much garbage. ___________________________________ **Author’s Note:** >* In the second edition, published in 1961, this passage is omitted. Here, Malkov is merely made to say: “We ordered Kaplan to go into the car, which had been previously prepared” (p. 162). A brief announcement of her execution appeared in *Izvestiia* on September 4 (No. 190/454, I). ___________________________________ **Source:** Pipes, Richard. "The Red Terror." *The Russian Revolution*. New York: Knopf, 1990. 809. Print. **Original Source Listed:** P. Malkov, *Zapiski komendanta Moskovskoga Kremlia* (Moscow, 1959), 159-61. ___________________________________ **Further Reading:** [Фейга Хаимовна Ройтблат (Feiga Haimovna Roytblat) / Фа́нни Ефи́мовна Капла́н (Fanya Yefimovna Kaplan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Kaplan) [Marie-Anne Charlotte de Corday d'Armont / Charlotte Corday](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Corday)