Red Terror & War Communism: Soviet Era (1917-1927)

Red Terror (1917-1927)

• The Red Terror and White Terror were challenges that faced the new regime
• Political, social, cultural, and economic conditions influenced leaders to compromise revolutionary ideals
• This involved the role of the Cheka (the Soviet secret police) and War Communism
• Felix Dzerzhinsky, a significant individual, influenced and changed society

Class War: Terror and War Communism (March 1918-1921)

• The Civil War was a formative experience for the Communists
• Revolutionary zeal and emergency measures altered Soviet institutions, making the Communist Party militarized and centralized
• War Communism was a range of economic policies responding to Communist ideology and wartime emergencies
• The Soviet regime harnessed "everything for the front" to feed the Red Army and achieve a socialist economy
• The Civil War was a class war; the Cheka grew exponentially due to internal pressures, ideological beliefs, and external threats and they instituted the Red Terror
• White armies unleashed their own brutal actions as well
• Living was difficult during the Civil War, depending on work status
• Cities in the Russian states were starving
• The Communists believed grain shortages were due to rich peasants (kulaks) hoarding harvests
• The government forced peasants to hand over 'hoarded' grain, resulting in famine, disease, and societal breakdown

The Role of Terror

• Felix Dzerzhinsky states organized terror should be frankly stated was required
• The Bolsheviks provoked resistance, which the Cheka crushed to discourage opposition
• Historian Richard Pipes says the Cheka was created to repress opponents and nip resistance to the dictatorship
• It debated to what extent terror was driven by circumstances, counter-revolutionary threats, and ideological considerations, and it was complex
• The violence of the Civil War was a complex phenomenon, and applies to both the Red and White sides

Cheka Expansion

• By March 1918, the Cheka moved to its Lubyanka headquarters in Moscow
• Under Dzerzhinsky, it grew over 1000 staff and had a military Combat Detachment
• Local Cheka and Soviet authorities had autonomy in early Bolshevik rule
• Historian Orlando Figes said that the Red Terror developed from popular pressure
• Russia's privileged classes were the target of hatred and violence during the Civil War
• Ordinary members denounced others to the Cheka because “class war was an intrinsic ideal of the revolution"
• Martyn Latsis instructed officials to determine a prisoner's fate by their class, social origin, education, and profession
• Another Chekist expressed a simpler method, where looking at a persons soup pot was enough to determine their class

Intensification of the Red Terror

• The Red Terror took on organized and fearsome characteristics after mid-1918 in Russia
• Dzerzhinsky said the Cheka defended the revolution and conquered the enemy, even if the sword fell on the innocent
• Lenin was shot on 30 August 1918 by Fanny Kaplan making it clear that Bolsheviks were under internal and external attack
• Moisei Uritsky, head of the Petrograd Cheka, was assassinated by a young officer on the same day
• The SRs Commissar of the Press Moisei Volodarsky on 20 June
• Deaths and the attempt on Lenin's life caused outrage from the Bolsheviks, justifying escalating the Red Terror
• Krasnaya Gazeta proclaimed to kill enemies without mercy, and drown them in their own blood leading to mass genocide

War on Terror

• The Bolsheviks launched a war on terror that was to be won by using even greater terror
• On 5 September, Sverdlov and Dzerzhinsky directed Sovnarkom to decree 'On Red Terror', and authorize imprisoning 'class enemies' and execute 'anyone involved in White Guard organizations, conspiracies and rebellions'.
• Dzerzhinsky's deputy, Yakov Peters, declared The bullet was directed not only against Comrade Lenin but also that working-class as a whole
• Thousands of suspected 'counter-revolutionaries' upper class were arrested and put into concentration camps and Cheka jails, and Zinoviev ordered the immediate execution of 500 'bourgeois' hostages;
• Latsis explained they were exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class

Brutal Methods of Terror

• Tortures inflicted by Chekists existed, which raise doubts about their sanity
• One Cheka executed a single person bit by bit, from the waist up, with the use of cocaine
• Torture methods from the Kharkov Cheka was the 'glove trick' where the hand of a prisoner was held in boiling water until the skin came off leaving victims with raw and bleeding hands
• Torture methods from Voronezh were prisoners rolled about in spiked barrels
• Torture methods from Tsaritsyn and Kamyshin were Chekists used blunt saws to sever the bones of prisoners
• Torture methods from Kiev were pipes filled with rats and sealed at one end were placed against a victim's stomach and heated up; White officers had epaulets nailed into their shoulders or were 'roasted' against ships
• Torture methods from Kiev Checkists were prisoners put into coffins with rotting corpses, were buried them alive
• Sometimes a empty pistol was fired at their head, causing mental instability and terror. They were then returned to their cell and left to wonder when their real execution would occur
• A common execution method was a pistol shot to the back of the head
• Tortures and executions brutalized and damaged the Chekists; quite a few went insane. Cocaine and alcohol abuse was high among members, and a liquor delivery meant executions.
• Executions occurred in the privacy of Cheka jails
• Lists of those killed were regularly published in newspapers, Nikolai Krylenko argued to “execute not only the guilty. Execution of the innocent will impress the masses”

Motives Behind the Terror

• Dzerzhinsky claimed that getting rid of the bourgeoisie would achieve socialism
• Chekists implied simply an end justified mass terror a numbers got pleasure from torture and killing
• Latsis and Dzerzhinsky were fanatics and idealists, believing their entrusted task of were of importance
• Dzerzhinsky portrayed membership as a calling, where "To be a Chekist a man must have a clear mind, a heart, and clean hands", and they were the guardians of the revolution.

Leader Frugality

• Dzerzhinsky was dedicated, working 18 hours a day in the Lubyanka
• During Civil War shortages, be reprimanded colleagues who brought him bacon and potatoes rather than horsemeat, living off bread and mint tea
• Historian Chamberlin described Dzerzhinsky as and old revolutionary
• Historian Neil Harding notes there was no hint of abuse of powers
• Corruption was commonplace in the Cheka, so Iron Felix executed Chekists who took bribes or were unfaithful.

Execution of the Tsar and his family

• On 17 July 1918, Tsar Nicholas and his family were killed by Cheka authorities in Yekaterinburg
• Sverdlov Lenin telegraphed the Chekists to go ahead with the executions
• Yekaterinburg Cheka official in frequent contact with Sverdlov
• Sverdlov confirmed that the White Armies should not be able to use the family banner for their own means
• Trotsky recognized execution of the Romanovs meant to make the whites hopeless in a means to pursue victory at all costs
• In 2000, Tsar Nicholas and his family were made saints of The Russian Orthodox Church

Examples of White Terror Methods

• White Terror was often overlooked and brutal
• Suspected Communists were nailed to trees using railway spikes
• Socialist workers or trade unionists were also buried up to their necks and ridden over by cavalry
• Captured Red soldiers stars carved into their backs, their limbs hacked off, or were buried head-down with half of them exposed
• Ataman Grigory Semyonov boasted that he had personally tortured 6500 people
• White commanders executes anyone with calloused hands on hand
• General Kornilov instructed his men, 'Take no prisoners!

Pogroms Against Jewish People by Whites & Cheka’s Versatile Talents

• General Kornilov instructs his men to take no prisoners while carrying out terror to claim victories
• The pogroms (massacares) directed at Jewish communities was further expression of White Terror, where White army generals would grant soldiers leave to loot Jewish homes and businesses at will to "let off steam"
• It resulted in Ukraine resulted to 50,000 to 200,000 Jews murdered, and thousands more were beaten and raped.
• Bolsheviks of Jewish background captured by the Whites were boiled alive and eaten as 'communist soup'
• The Whites targeted Jews for the perceived wrongs related to the revolutionary regime
• Duma deputy and White army supporter Shulgin stated,""Death to the Burzhooi" and we replied, “Death to the Yids!"'
• Dzerzhinsky was in demand as an administrator and he restored Russia's railroad system
• Lenin gave Dzerzhinsky’s all support in his plans to limit the Cheka
• Historian Volkogonov argues Lenin was the saint of the Cheka

Cheka

• The Cheka was a tool of the Soviet state and was used for border control, overseeing labor conscription as well as corruption and famine relief
• Ironically, in a mismatch of interests, 'Iron Felix' Dzerzhinsky created Soviet Russia's largest child welfare agency funded bu Chekists
• Dzerzhinsky states our "Concerns for welfare is one of the best ways to wipe out counter-revolution"

Relationship Between the Red and Whites

• Arno J. Mayer emphasizes interrelationship between terror and military defeat, and the Civil War influenced the used of revolutionary violence
• Mayer states the "Furies of revolution are fuelled above all by the resistance of the forces and ideas opposed to it.
• The worst of the Soviet terror was closely correlated with the fighting between the Reds and Whites more than political battles
• The Communists terror stemmed from a variety of factors including internal conflicts within the Bolsheviks
• Peter Holquist calls to see Bolsheviks are products of the historical time, claiming it was a "epoch of violence". The extreme method of wartime to obtain revolutionary goals was considered appropriate

Cheka Sadism & Violence

• The Okhrana are tsarist jails the Bolsheviks have been in for years learning the system from inside
• The Bolsheviks tortured out of hatred and human suffering
• The torture methods included 'love tricks', crushing skulls as well as psychological torture
• Vera Grebennikova and Rebecca Platinina ended with a number of Chekists ending becoming insane
• Many chekists hardened the killings due to heavy drinking and drug abuse
• Killed were referred to as the “natsokal”
• Executions were carried for people who were thought as traders
• Lenin said he always placed a cross by anything he read to state they were all his responsibility

War Communism

• In name of bread, for children and old people, for the workers and the Red Army, in the name of direct and merciless struggle with counter-revolution'
• Key Policies during War Communism was Nationalization of industry and Militarising the economy
• Soviet authorities wanted money to be abolished
• Shortages and pressures for grain stocks

Lenin’s Plan

• Stabalize the economy of Soviet Russia
• Block trade with other countries
• State supplied services
• Committees of the Poor
• Requisition Squads to secure food for cities

Reasons for intervention in the Summer of 1918

• Secure food for the cities
• Halt economic breakdown
• Focus industrial production on supplying the Red Army

Nationalization of industry

• Mark of War Communism
• State would take ownership for all factories
• Lenin was not successful due to manpower shortage, which led to civil war

Miltarizing Industry

• Attempt to control labor
• Workers sent to labor camps
• Strikes and protests suppressed
• Subbotniks

Bourgeoisie

• The privileged were mobilized to labor and would do menial tasks
• Slogan: “War to the Palace”

State Run Economy

• Lenin aimed for Communism
• Economy crashed
• Food was running out

Black Market

• Rouble died due to lack of private trade
• Trains and stations crowed

Factors that influenced Lenin to switch to War Communism

• All people would turn communist
• Social Stratification of the world
• Civil War declared

State Services

• A range of services
• Replaced cash wages
• Rent was abolished

Crusade to Secure Bread

• Obtaining enough food
• Thousands perished starvation
• Lenin blamed shortage to Kulaks
• Lenin called for the killing of Kulaks

War Communism Interpreted

• Historians state Lenin only used War Communism due to war, and the Soviet States dire situation
• Other believed Lenin used it for his overall image, and they wholly agreed with the actions
• The state became militant
• Used socialist to use Communism to guide economic policy
• Created a greater divide between rural areas, and urban areas
• According to Richard Pipes, Soviet leaders were amateurs
• There was no order, rules broken
• War Communism also divided ties with rural farming

Explore the Red Terror and War Communism era in Soviet history (1917-1927). Examine political, social, and economic factors influencing revolutionary compromises. Learn about the Cheka's role and the impact of key figures like Felix Dzerzhinsky during this transformative period.