Alexei Kardakov was a Russian musician Trotskyist activist who led the "Red Fortress" revolutionary cell in 1920s Berlin.
Biography[]
Alexei Kardakov was born in the Russian Empire, and he fled to Germany due to the persecution of revolutionaries by the Czarist authorities. After World War I, he founded the "Red Fortress" cell in Berlin, gathering 15 Bolshevik sympathizers at a basement print room on the Wormstrasse in Koepenick and producing communist propaganda. Kardakov also became a renowned musician, performing with singer Svetlana Sorokina and bandmaster Ilya Trechkov. He became a leading Trotskyist after Joseph Stalin's seizure of power in the Soviet Union, causing the Cheka to recruit Sorokina to seduce Kardakov and infiltrate his cell. In April 1929, Kardakov oversaw the hijacking of a Berlin-bound Soviet train and the attachment of a caboose laden with Sorokina's hoard of gold to its rear, hoping to smuggle the gold to Leon Trotsky in Istanbul via Germany. He brought Sorokina with him to his hideout to announce the success of the plan, and Sorokina shared the location of the Red Fortress with the Berlin Cheka chief Denis Trokhin, who sent two assassins to wipe out the cell. Kardakov survived by hiding in a latrine, and he went into hiding. He later confronted Sorokina at her apartment and intended to kill her for her betrayal, but she convinced him that she could never have betrayed him, once again seducing him. However, she called the Cheka to her place, and she shot Kardakov as he attempted to flee. Kardakov fell into a canal, surviving his wounds and informing Berlin Mafia boss Edgar Kasabian of the cargo of gold in a bid to prevent it from being embezzled by Sorokina. However, the mislabeling of one of the cars of the train led to Kasabian's henchmen inadvertently releasing toxic pesticides into the air and causing an explosion. Kardakov was healed by Dr. Anno Schmidt, and he later tracked Sorokina down to a nightclub in Paris, where he confronted her in her dressing room and may have killed her.