Georgii Sudeikin

Born Apr. 11 (23), 1850; died Dec. 16 (28), 1883. Leading figure in Russian political investigation; gendarme lieutenant colonel from 1882. Organizer of the Degaev affair.

Beginning in the early 1870’s, Sudeikin served in the gendarme administration of Kiev Province, where in 1879 he exposed the Kiev branch of the People’s Will. In early 1881 he became director of secret agents in the St. Petersburg Okhranka (tsarist secret police), and in 1882 he became inspector of the secret police, a post established especially for him.

Sudeikin involved S. P. Degaev in a treasonous plot by having him turn V. N. Figner over to the Okhranka. He collaborated with Degaev in a plan to assassinate the minister of internal affairs D. A. Tolstoi and Grand Duke Vladimir Aleksandrovich; he intended to intimidate the government with the assassinations and thus take over Tolstoi’s post and do away with the remaining fragments of the People’s Will. Degaev subsequently discovered Sudeikin’s plans, confessed to treason, and assisted in the assassination of Sudeikin by members of the People’s Will in St. Petersburg.