Peter Ermakov was a Russian revolutionary, Red Army commander, and law-enforcement official associated with the Bolshevik movement. He was a leading participant in the July 1918 execution and burial of Nicholas II and the imperial family at Yekaterinburg, later serving in Soviet military, militia, and prison administration before retiring in 1934.
Background
Peter Ermakov was born on December 13, 1884, in the settlement of Verkh-Isetsky Zavod near Yekaterinburg, then part of the Russian Empire's Perm Governorate. He came from a working-class family connected with the local metallurgical plant, an industrial center whose labor force formed part of the expanding urban society of the Urals.
He attended a local parish school and entered industrial employment as a young man. His early life combined factory work with exposure to the underground political circles that developed among workers during the revolutionary unrest of the early twentieth century. By the period of the First World War, he had returned to Yekaterinburg and was active in the armed revolutionary movement around the Verkh-Isetsky plant.
Education
Ermakov completed local parish-school education in Verkh-Isetsky Zavod. Parish schools were the basic elementary institutions of the late imperial Russian educational system, providing instruction in literacy, religion, and practical subjects to children of workers and townspeople. No university education is documented.
Career
Ermakov began working around 1900 at the Verkh-Isetsky metallurgical plant, first as a clerk and apprentice and later as a metalworker and machine-repair fitter. The plant was one of the major industrial establishments in the Yekaterinburg area, and its workforce became an important social base for revolutionary organization in the Urals.
During the revolutionary period he joined the underground political movement and commanded an armed workers' group connected with the Verkh-Isetsky plant. After police pressure, he left Yekaterinburg for Kungur, where he worked in photography and later as a fitter and machinist at a private steam mill. He also worked in private workshops in Sylva before returning to Yekaterinburg in 1917.
After the February and October revolutions, Ermakov helped form Red Guard units in Yekaterinburg's fourth district and became their commander. In May 1918 he was appointed military commissar of the fourth district reserve of the Red Army. He directed a detachment involved in suppressing uprisings in the Verkh-Isetsky area and at Nevyansk while the Russian Civil War brought armed conflict to the Urals.
On July 16, 1918, the Presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet selected him as a participant responsible for the removal and concealment of the remains of the imperial family because of his military position and knowledge of the Yekaterinburg area. He was directly involved in the execution of Nicholas II, Alexandra Feodorovna, their children, and their attendants at the Ipatiev House on July 17, 1918, and in the subsequent effort to conceal and bury the bodies. Accounts differ over his precise actions during the killings, but historical sources consistently identify him as one of the principal participants.
Ermakov continued in the Red Army during the Civil War and served in political and commissarial posts, including work with the 16th Army and the organization of cavalry courses in the Urals. He was demobilized because of illness in 1923. He then entered Soviet law enforcement, serving in Omsk, Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Zlatoust, and Usollie in administrative and militia positions. His work included the suppression of criminal bandit groups and the administration of regional militia structures.
From 1927 he worked in Sverdlovsk under the NKVD as an inspector of places of detention and deputy head of correctional-labor institutions in the Urals region. He retired in December 1934. In 1935 he spoke with the American travel writer Richard Halliburton about the execution and disposal of the imperial remains; Halliburton later published the account in Seven League Boots, although Ermakov's recollections have been treated cautiously because of contradictions and later Soviet efforts to control public discussion of the event.
During the Second World War, Ermakov chaired the military section of the Sverdlovsk district organization of OSOAVIAKhIM and commanded the people's militia of the Verkh-Isetsky plant. OSOAVIAKhIM was a Soviet organization devoted to military, aviation, and chemical-defense training among civilians. He also participated in organizing the Yakov Sverdlov Museum and served on its academic council. Ermakov died of cancer in Sverdlovsk on May 25, 1952, and was buried at Ivanovskoye Cemetery.
Achievements
Ermakov was one of the principal Bolshevik participants in the July 17, 1918 execution of Nicholas II, Alexandra Feodorovna, their children, and their attendants at the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg.
He participated in the removal, concealment, and burial of the imperial family's remains after the execution, an operation intended to prevent the bodies from being recovered by advancing anti-Bolshevik forces.
During the Russian Civil War, he commanded Red Guard and Red Army units and took part in Bolshevik military operations in the Urals and along the eastern front.
As a Soviet militia official, he led efforts against criminal bandit groups in Omsk and held senior administrative posts in several Ural and Siberian militia organizations.
He helped organize cavalry training courses in the Urals and later contributed to wartime military-training and civil-defense work through OSOAVIAKhIM and the people's militia.
Politics
Ermakov became associated with the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in the revolutionary movement of the early twentieth century. Bolshevik politics sought the overthrow of the imperial order, the transfer of political authority to workers' and soldiers' councils, and the establishment of a centralized socialist state.
His political activity unfolded through underground organization, armed revolutionary groups, the Red Guard, and later Soviet military and administrative institutions. He supported the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917 and served the new Soviet authorities during the Russian Civil War and the consolidation of state security and law-enforcement structures in the 1920s.
Views
Ermakov's documented political outlook was shaped by revolutionary Marxism and Bolshevik opposition to the imperial political order. His public career reflected commitment to the revolutionary state, armed struggle during the Civil War, and the extension of Soviet administrative authority over the military, militia, and penal institutions.
Personality
Contemporary and later accounts commonly described Ermakov as a forceful, militant, and controversial figure. Historical narratives also portray him as an unreliable self-chronicler whose later accounts of the 1918 killings sometimes exaggerated his personal role.
Quotes from others about the person
Richard Halliburton described Ermakov's account of the execution and burial of the imperial family in Seven League Boots. Later historical assessments have emphasized that Ermakov's recollections contained inconsistencies and should be compared with other participant testimonies and investigative records.
Interests
Photography; military training and civil defense organization; preservation of revolutionary history.
Connections
Ermakov was married to Maria Efimovna Ermakova, born in 1888. They had a son, Vyacheslav, born in 1910. His documented personal connections also included other Bolshevik and Soviet officials involved in the revolutionary and Civil War institutions of the Urals.
Wife:
Maria Efimovna Ermakova
Born in 1888.
Son:
Vyacheslav Ermakov
Born in 1910.
References
Seven League Boots
Richard Halliburton's travel book includes an account of his 1935 conversation with Ermakov about the execution and disposal of the remains of the Russian imperial family. The account is an important contemporary published source but reflects Ermakov's disputed and sometimes inconsistent recollections.
1935
Цареубийца. Маузер Ермакова: между словом и забвением
Yuri Zhuk's historical study examines Ermakov's revolutionary career, his role in the 1918 execution and burial operation, his later Soviet service, and the documentary controversies surrounding his recollections.
