August 1] 1888 – June 7, 1927) was a Ukrainian Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet diplomat known as one of the participants in the decision to murder the former Russian Emperor Nicholas II and his family members.
[5] His mother Alexandra Filippovna (née Ivanova, 1869–1953) received a good education, graduating from the Kerch Institute for Noble Maidens.
He studied at the same Gymnasium from which Andrei Zhelyabov, one of the chief organizers of the assassination of Alexander II of Russia, graduated with a silver medal.
Thanks to the efforts of his mother, Pyotr was accepted into the eighth grade of the Yalta Alexandrovskaya Men's Gymnasium, but he was soon expelled from there too.
[15] According to the official Soviet biography of Voykov, the initial purpose of the operation was not a terrorist act, but the transportation of bombs, prepared for self-defense, from a cache to a place outside the city, where they were planned to be discharged.
But they prepared bombs for an armed uprising and the central leadership could not fully control the proliferation of weapons and the behavior of radical young people.
[19] Even after the terrorist shot himself, Dumbadze ordered his troops to burn down the dacha, and the soldiers additionally looted the adjacent house.
[20] Voykov (the militia fighter of the RSDLP) had no relation to the action on February 26, 1907, because it was organized by one of the "flying combat units" of the Socialist Revolutionary Party.
[23] On returning to Russia, Voykov became a Commissar of the Ministry of Labor of the Provisional Government; he was responsible for resolving conflicts between workers and employers.
After the July Days, when the Menshevik faction supported the repression against the rioters and Bolsheviks, Voykov left St. Petersburg for the Urals.
In this post, he directed transportation of precious metals from Yekaterinburg, successfully sought the supply of foodstuffs from the state reserves to the Urals and personally provided for its delivery.
[25] The Great War, two revolutions and the policy of nationalization of industrial plants led to the disintegration of normal economic ties.
Soviet biographers also note that he managed to organize the exchange of Urals iron for Siberian grain and he dealt with the construction of a railroad between Yekaterinburg and Krasnoufimsk.
It seems to have been on the basis of information supplied by Voykov that Ipatiev was summoned to the office of the Soviet at the end of April 1918 and ordered to vacate what was soon to be called 'The House of Special Purpose'.
These fabricated letters, along with the Romanov responses to them, written either on blank spaces or on the envelope, were ultimately used by the Ural Soviet, and likely the Central Executive Committee in Moscow, to justify murdering the imperial family.
Later in memoirs and interviews in the 1960s, two Chekists claimed that Voykov, who for a long time lived abroad and graduated from Geneva University, translated these letters into French.
The researchers note, that the letters contained obvious oddities, including an incorrect address to the monarch using vous ("you") instead of Votre Majesté ("Your Majesty").
Yakov Yurovsky, the commandant of the Ipatiev House from 4 July and later chief executioner, was allegedly going to use sulfuric acid for the destruction of bodies.
[35] On July 16, Voykov attended a special session of the Ural Soviet at the Amerikanskaya Hotel, where it was decided the executions would have to be carried out that night.
[29] According to the memoirs of Grigory Besedovsky, a Soviet Diplomat who defected to France, Voykov and his accomplices used bayonets and pierced the breasts of the still living daughters of Nicholas II, as bullets ricocheted off from their corsets.
The official investigation, conducted in Russia after the discovery of the remains of the imperial family, showed that the picture painted by Besedovsky was not reliable.
Later, Besedovsky became known for his wild fantasy and for the publication of forged documents (for example, "Notebooks" of Stalin's non-existent nephew), as even his friends recognized.
[36][37] The role of Voykov in the regicide was fully investigated by the commission set up after Admiral Kolchak's White Army captured Yekaterinburg from the Bolsheviks.
[45][46] Voykov, having received emergency first aid at the station, was rushed to the nearby Hospital of the Child Jesus, where he died at 10:40 A.M. the same day.
[48] Despite the official remorse, almost all the newspapers expressed the sympathy of Polish society that Boris Kowerda evoked with his youth and patriotism, and he was even forgiven for the political difficulties caused by his actions.
After the canonization of the imperial family, the Russian Orthodox Church urged the authorities to remove the name of Voykov from national toponymy, but that has not materialized as of 2023.