Fanny Kaplan (1890–1918) was a Socialist Revolutionary who shot and seriously wounded Vladimir Lenin on August 30, 1918, as he was leaving a workers’ rally at the Mikhelson (Hammer and Sickle) factory in Moscow — an event that helped trigger the Bolshevik «Red Terror.» Kaplan was executed within days, without a public trial. Zhorik’s joke about «running late like Fanny Kaplan for the works» only lands once you remember that Kaplan, notoriously, was not late at all — she was waiting for Lenin right on schedule, gun in hand — which is exactly what makes the line absurd rather than merely historical.
Fanny Kaplan
