Fanya Baron (Фаня Барон ) was a Russian anarchist revolutionary who is rumoured to have assassinated the head of the Okhrana (tsarist secret police). She lived in America from 1915 [1] to 1917 [2], when she returned to her homeland to build a post-revolutionary society.
Fanya was shot by the Cheka on 29 September 1921, her death becoming symbolic of the barbarity of bolshevik governance. Her brother, Aaron Baron, was spared execution [3] until 1940, after spending 18 years in Taganka concentration camp [4].
Emma Goldman wrote about Fanya Baron in My Further Dissilussionment in Russia:
- Fanya Baron was of the type of Russian woman completely consecrated to the cause of humanity. While in America she gave all her spare time and a goodly part of her meagre earnings in a factory to further Anarchist propaganda. Years afterward, when I met her in Kharkov, her zeal and devotion had become intensified by the persecution she and her comrades had endured since their return to Russia. She possessed unbounded courage and a generous spirit. She could perform the most difficult task and deprive herself of the last piece of bread with grace and utter selflessness. Under harrowing conditions of travel, Fanya went up and down the Ukraina to spread the Nabat, organize the workers and peasants, or bring help and succour to her imprisoned comrades. She was one of the victims of the Butyrki raid, when she had been dragged by her hair and badly beaten. After her escape from the Ryazan prison she tramped on foot to Moscow, where she arrived in tatters and penniless. It was her desperate condition which drove her to seek shelter with her husband's brother, at whose house she was discovered by the Tcheka. This big-hearted woman, who had served the Social Revolution all her life, was done to death by the people who pretended to be the advance guard of revolution. Not content with the crime of killing Fanya Baron, the Soviet Government put the stigma of banditism on the memory of their dead victim.
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