On August 30, 1918, Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924) was the victim of an attempted assassination. Shortly before 10pm he finished giving a speech and walked to his car past a crowd. From the crowd, three shots were fired from a handgun from about ten feet (3 m). One shot struck Lenin’s left shoulder, one shot struck the left side of his neck, and a third shot hit a bystander. Shortly thereafter, Fania (Fanny) Kaplan (1890-1918) was arrested and interrogated by the Cheka (secret police) in the notorious Lubyanka prison. Kaplan confessed and was promptly executed for the crime. Notably, Kaplan was said to be visually impaired.

Some modern historians have documented many inconsistencies and contradictions within the eyewitness testimonies and have expressed doubts that Kaplan was the shooter. Nevertheless, an ophthalmologist might ask two questions. What was the cause of her visual impairment? And how much visual function is necessary to shoot an adult-sized target with a handgun from ten feet? (1)

Kaplan was a pseudonym used by Feyga Chaimovna Roitblat, born in Volhynia, now in Ukraine. She became a revolutionary against the government of Czar Nicholas II (1868-1917). In 1906, she and an accomplice handled at least one bomb in a hotel room in Kiev (now Kyiv) but there was a premature explosion. Kaplan was injured; some sources report that she suffered damage to her head which affected her vision and/or hearing. She was sentenced to death, which was commuted to life imprisonment in a Siberian katorga, a forced labor camp and a forerunner to the gulag.

While in the katorga, she was reported to suffer visual impairment. The Russian revolutionary Vera Figner (1852-1942) wrote that “her medical report stated that she had gone blind due to hysterical illness”, but her fellow inmates "thought that the head wound had caused her blindness" (2). Kaplan received medical treatment in various prison hospitals with some reported recovery. Following the February Revolution of 1917, she was released and underwent additional treatment, including possible eye surgery, in Kharkov (now Kharkiv). She moved to Moscow in March 1918 and was arrested about five months later.

Kaplan’s ophthalmologic diagnosis has never been clarified. A famous photograph from 1918 (Figure 1) shows normal eyes and no major facial scars. If the bomb blast was responsible, then bilateral closed-globe blast related injuries would seem most likely. It is unknown what treatment she received in Kharkov in 1917, but the Department of Ophthalmology of what is now called Kharkiv National Medical University was founded in 1870 by ophthalmologist Leonard Girshman (1839-1921). It seems unlikely that she underwent cataract surgery, because this would have been in the era before intraocular lenses, and she was not known to be a high myope before surgery or to wear eyeglasses after surgery. One possibility would be optical iridectomy, either to break posterior synechiae or to enlarge the pupil to compensate for cornea or lens opacities.

Regardless of her diagnosis and treatment, what is the minimum level of visual function necessary for her to successfully shoot Lenin? There is more information available about rifle shooting than about handgun shooting. In a prospective trial, competitive rifle shooters were fitted with Cambridge simulation glasses to simulate visual impairment and asked to shoot a standardized target at 10 m (about 33 feet). The investigators concluded that a combined visual acuity of 0.53 logMAR (Snellen equivalent 20/68 or 6/20) and contrast sensitivity of 0.83 logCS (testing range, 0-2.25 logCS) would be the level at which visually impaired shooters no longer could compete with normally sighted shooters (3). There is no similar peer-reviewed study of handgun shooters, but an estimate of the visual acuity required to hit an adult-sized target in dim illumination from 3 m is 1.2 logMAR (Snellen equivalent 20/320 or 6/96). Possible mitigating factors would include the use of hearing (if Lenin were talking) for localization. Possible exacerbating factors would include limited contrast between Lenin and the people he was walking past, as well as relatively dim illumination (although perhaps with some artificial lighting).

There is no available evidence regarding Kaplan’s shooting skills, or hand grip strength, or previous training. If she was the shooter then she hit Lenin with two of three shots, a “hit rate” of 67%. In contrast, modern US police officers have reported “hit rates” between 18%-54% (4). This analysis demonstrates two apparently contradictory ideas. On one hand, a motivated, legally blind individual could probably successfully commit a handgun shooting. On the other hand, Kaplan’s apparent visual impairment probably contributed to Lenin’s survival, with potentially profound world historical consequences.