Pyotr Voykov

Who was Pyotr Voykov?

Pyotr Lazarevich Voykov was a Russian revolutionary and Soviet diplomat.

The son of a mining engineer, Voikov became involved in revolutionary activity on the side of the Mensheviks at the age of 15. Following a botched attempt on the life of the mayor of Yalta, he was expelled both from grammar school and later from the St. Petersburg Mining Institute. He went into exile in Switzerland, where he graduated from the University of Geneva.

On returning to Russia in August 1917, he joined the Bolsheviks and was appointed People's Commissar for Government Supply for the Ural region in 1918, where he was known by his party code name of "The Intellectual". He subsequently became an important member of the Ural Soviet and was put in charge of prodrazvyorstkas. He knew N. N. Ipatiev, and had visited the Ipatiev House before it was selected as the final residence of Nicholas II of Russia and his family.

It seems to have been on the basis of information supplied by Voikov 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.' Clearly party to the decision to execute the royal family, Voikov was given the specific task of arranging for the disposal of their remains, obtaining 150 gallons of gasoline and 400 pounds of sulphuric acid, the latter from the Yekaterinburg pharmacy. After the killings, he was to declare that "The world will never know what we did with them." His role in the regicide was fully investigated by the commission set up after Admiral Kolchak's White Army captured Yekaterinburg from the Bolsheviks.