1907 Tiflis bank robbery

1907 Tiflis bank robbery

Erivansky Square, scene of the robbery, taken in the 1870s
Date	26 June 1907 (1907-06-26)
Time	10:30 a.m. estimated
Location	Erivansky Square, Tiflis, Tiflis Governorate, Caucasus Viceroyalty, Russian Empire
Coordinates	41°41′36″N 44°48′05″E / 41.6934°N 44.8015°E / 41.6934; 44.8015
Also known as	Erivansky Square expropriation
Organised by	Vladimir Lenin Maxim Litvinov Leonid Krasin Alexander Bogdanov Joseph Stalin
Participants	Kamo Bachua Kupriashvili Datiko Chibriashvili Other gang members of "the Outfit" Possibly Joseph Stalin
Outcome	241,000 rubles (equivalent to US$341,050 in 2023) stolen
Deaths	40
Non-fatal injuries	50
Convictions	Conviction against Kamo in two separate trials

The 1907 Tiflis bank robbery, also known as the Erivansky Square expropriation,^[1] was an armed robbery on 26 June 1907^[a] in the city of Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia) in the Tiflis Governorate in the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire. A Bolshevik group "expropriated" a bank cash shipment to fund their revolutionary activities. The robbers attacked a bank stagecoach, and the surrounding police and soldiers, using bombs and guns while the stagecoach was transporting money through Erivansky Square (present-day Freedom Square) between the post office and the Tiflis branch of the State Bank of the Russian Empire. The attack killed forty people and injured fifty others, according to official archive documents. The robbers escaped with 241,000 rubles.^[2]

The robbery was organized by a number of top-level Bolsheviks, including Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Maxim Litvinov, Leonid Krasin, and Alexander Bogdanov; and executed by a party of revolutionaries led by Stalin's early associate Simon Ter-Petrosian, also known as "Kamo" and "The Caucasian Robin-Hood". Because such activities had been explicitly prohibited by the 5th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) only weeks previously, the robbery and the killings caused outrage within the party against the Bolsheviks (a faction within the RSDLP). As a result, Lenin and Stalin tried to distance themselves from the robbery.

The events surrounding the incident and similar robberies split the Bolshevik leadership, with Lenin against Bogdanov and Krasin. Despite the success of the robbery and the large sum involved, the Bolsheviks could not use most of the large banknotes obtained from the robbery, because the police had records of the serial numbers. Lenin conceived a plan to have various individuals cash the large-value banknotes at once at various locations throughout Europe in January 1908, but this strategy failed, resulting in a number of arrests, worldwide publicity, and negative reaction from social democrats elsewhere in Europe.

Kamo was caught in Germany shortly after the robbery, but successfully avoided a criminal trial by feigning insanity for more than three years. He managed to escape from his psychiatric ward, but was recaptured two years later while planning another robbery. Kamo was then sentenced to death for his crimes including the 1907 robbery, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment; he was released after the 1917 Russian Revolution. None of the other major participants or organizers of the robbery were ever brought to trial. After Kamo's death in 1922, a monument to him was erected near Erivansky Square in Pushkin Gardens, and Kamo was buried beneath it. The monument was later removed and Kamo's remains were moved elsewhere.