Fanny Kaplan

Fanny Efimovna Kaplan (Russian: Фанни Ефимовна Каплан; real name Feiga Haimovna Roytblat, Фейга Хаимовна Ройтблат; 10 February 1890 – 3 September 1918) was a Russian Socialist-Revolutionary who attempted to assassinate Vladimir Lenin. She was arrested and executed by the Cheka in 1918. Born into a Jewish family, Kaplan served a sentence of hard labor during the tsarist years for her revolutionary activities. As a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, Kaplan viewed Lenin as a "traitor to the revolution" when the Bolsheviks enacted one-party rule and banned her party. On 30 August 1918, she approached Lenin, who was leaving a Moscow factory, and fired three shots. Lenin was badly injured by two of the shots she fired. Interrogated by the Cheka, she refused to name any accomplices before being executed. The Kaplan attempt and the Moisei Uritsky assassination were used by the government of Soviet Russia for the reinstatement of capital punishment, which had been abolished by the Russian Provisional Government in March 1917.