Viktor Taratuta

[2] He was educated at a technical school in Odesa, became involved in revolutionary circles as a teenager, and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1898.

[1] In August 1904, he escaped from exile in Siberia to Batumi, in Georgia, where he was recruited by Lev Kamenev to the Bolshevik faction of the RSDLP.

[2] In 1906, a 23-year old named Nikolai Schmidt, a member of the hugely wealthy Morozov family of Moscow-based manufacturers, died in prison, probably by suicide, after being arrested for his role in the Moscow uprising.

Taratuta was assigned by the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin to secure the inheritance, which he did by courting and living with Schmidt's 19-year-old sister, Yekaterina (1887–1937) - though his status as a wanted revolutionary prevented them from marrying.

This accusation was investigated by Vladimir Burtsev, the RSDLP's specialist in exposing police agents, who concluded that he was a scoundrel, but not a spy.

[5]Taratuta emigrated in summer 1908, where Lenin appointed him secretary of the Bolsheviks' Foreign Bureau, and to France in 1909, where he joined the French Socialist Party.