The 1907 Tiflis bank robbery, also known as the Yerevan Square expropriation,[1] was an armed robbery on 26 June 1907[a] in the Georgian city of Tiflis (now Georgia's capital, Tbilisi). A bank cash shipment was stolen by Bolsheviks to fund their revolutionary activities. The robbers attacked a bank stagecoach and surrounding security forces using bombs and guns while the stagecoach was transporting money through Yerevan Square (now 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 341,000 rubles (equivalent to around US $3.4 million in 2008).
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 gang of Georgian revolutionaries led by Stalin's early associate Kamo. Because such activities were explicitly prohibited by the 5th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), 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 bank notes obtained from the robbery because their serial numbers were known to the police. Lenin conceived of a plan to have various individuals cash the large bank notes 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 European social democrats.
Kamo was caught in Germany shortly after the robbery but successfully avoided a criminal trial by feigning insanity for over three years. He managed to escape from his psychiatric ward but was captured two years later while planning another robbery. Kamo was then sentenced to death for his crimes including the 1907 robbery, but this sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. He was released after the 1917 Revolution. None of the other major participants or organizers of the robbery were ever brought to trial. After his death, a grave and monument to Kamo was erected near Yerevan Square in Pushkin Gardens. This monument was later removed, and Kamo's remains moved elsewhere.
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 gang of Georgian revolutionaries led by Stalin's early associate Kamo. Because such activities were explicitly prohibited by the 5th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), 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 bank notes obtained from the robbery because their serial numbers were known to the police. Lenin conceived of a plan to have various individuals cash the large bank notes 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 European social democrats.
Kamo was caught in Germany shortly after the robbery but successfully avoided a criminal trial by feigning insanity for over three years. He managed to escape from his psychiatric ward but was captured two years later while planning another robbery. Kamo was then sentenced to death for his crimes including the 1907 robbery, but this sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. He was released after the 1917 Revolution. None of the other major participants or organizers of the robbery were ever brought to trial. After his death, a grave and monument to Kamo was erected near Yerevan Square in Pushkin Gardens. This monument was later removed, and Kamo's remains moved elsewhere.
