Change and Continuity: Role of the Cheka

Question 1

CHEKA formed

Answer 1

7 December 1917

Question 2

How influential was the CHEKA initially?

Answer 2

Did not have significant powers and only had a staff of 23 people.

By 1921 the Cheka had developed to over 100,000 members

Question 3

Leader of the CHEKA

Answer 3

Felix Dzerzhinsky

Question 4

What factors led to the CHEKA getting more powerful?(3)

Answer 4

1) Assassination attempt on Lenin (30 August 1918)
2) Advancements of the German Army
3) Rise of opposition against the Bolsheviks in the Civil War (Decree on Red Terror)

Question 5

Richard Pipes - Role of the CHEKA

Answer 5

‘was not a reluctant response to the actions of others but a…measure designed to nip in the bud any thoughts of resistance to the dictatorship

Question 6

Dzerzhinsky - Role of the CHEKA

Answer 6

‘We stand for organised terror … The Cheka is obliged to defend the revolution and conquer the enemy even if its sword does by chance sometimes fall on the heads of the innocent’

Question 7

Decree ‘On Red Terror’

Answer 7

5 September 1918

Question 8

Decree on Red Terror - Obligations

Answer 8

‘anyone involved in White Guard organisations, conspiracies and rebellions

Question 9

Nikolai Krylenko - Terror

Answer 9

‘We must execute not only the guilty. Execution of the innocent will impress the masses even more’

Question 10

Continuity of a police state

Answer 10

1) Tsar = Ohkrana –> repress opposition to the state
2) Lenin = CHEKA –> deploy terror against enemies of the revolution

Question 11

How many were killed by the Cheka?

Answer 11

140,000 summary executions and another 140,000 through uprising suppressions

Question 12

How effective was the Cheka?

Answer 12

Exposed 142 different counter-revolutionary organisations and confronted by 245 separate revolts in 1918