Kamo (Bolshevik)

Kamo
Սիմոն "Կամո" Արշակի Տեր-Պետրոսյան
Simon "Kamo" Ter-Petrosian in 1922
Born	Simon Arshaki Ter-Petrosian (1882-05-27)27 May 1882 Gori, Georgia Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	14 July 1922(1922-07-14) (aged 40) Tiflis, Georgian SSR
Cause of death	Car accident
Nationality	Russian Empire, then USSR
Other names	Kamo
Known for	1907 Tiflis bank robbery
Awards	Order Of The Red Banner (Georgian SSR)

Simon Arshaki Ter-Petrosian (Russian: Симон Аршакович Тер-Петросян, romanized: Simon Arshakovich Ter-Petrosyan; Armenian: Սիմոն «Կամօ» Տէր Պետրոսեան; 27 May 1882 – 14 July 1922), better known by his nom de guerre of Kamo (Russian: Камо), was an Old Bolshevik revolutionary and an early companion to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.

From 1903 to 1912, Kamo, a master of disguise, carried out a number of militant operations on behalf of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, mostly in Georgia, then part of the Russian Empire. He is best known for his central role in the 1907 Tiflis bank robbery, organised by Bolshevik leaders to raise funds for their party activities. For his militant activities he was arrested in Berlin in 1907 but feigned insanity both in German and later Russian prisons, eventually escaping from prison and fleeing the country. He was recaptured in 1912 after another attempted armed robbery and sentenced to death. The death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment as part of the celebrations of the Romanov Tercentenary.

Kamo was released after the February 1917 Russian Revolution. He died in 1922 after being hit by a truck while riding a bicycle in Tiflis.^[1] Kamo was buried and had a monument erected in his honor in Pushkin Gardens, near Yerevan Square, buy, following the rise to power of Zviad Gamsakhurdia in Georgia in 1991, a threat arose to the safety of the burial of the famous Bolshevik, and relatives transferred Kamo's ashes to the Vakiskoe cemetery, to the grave of his sister Javair. ^[2]

The name "Kamo" originated from Ter-Petrosian's lack of fluency in the Russian language. One of Stalin's acolytes, Vardoyan, was teaching Kamo Russian grammar, Kamo kept saying kamo instead of komu (кому, "to whom"). Stalin lost his temper, but then laughed: "komu not kamo! Try to remember it bicho [boy]".^[3]