Boris Viktorovich Savinkov (1879-1925), a famous writer and terrorist, one of the leaders of the Fighting Organisation of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, was responsible for the most spectacular assassinations of imperial officials in 1904 and 1905. He was arrested in 1906, but escaped from prison in Odessa. He returned to Russia in April 1917 and became Assistant War Minister under A.F. Kerensky, but he was soon expelled from the government and Socialist-Revolutionary Party because of his role in the uprising of General Lavr Kornilov (September of 1917). He was a counter-revolutionary in Russia during the period after the October revolution.

He was an acquaintance of Sidney Riley, the legendary renegade British agent, and was involved in a number of "counter-revolutionary" plots against the Bolsheviks, sometimes collaborating with the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). These efforts were effectively undermined by Trust Operation implemented by OGPU. Savinkov was lured into the USSR to meet with false conspirators and consequently arrested. He committed suicide (official version) in the Lubyanka prison, in Moscow. He is believed to have been a heroin addict.