Cheka and Red Terror

Question 1

How did the nature of Cheka change in March 1918?

Answer 1

Formation of local branches - no longer just in Petrograd

Question 2

What happened in May 1918 to boost Cheka?

Answer 2

A conference of all local Chekas to co-ordinate their activities

Question 3

How many political opponents did Cheka arrest during the Civil War?

Answer 3

100,000

Question 4

Who was shot without a trial on 16 July 1918?

Answer 4

The Romanov family

Question 5

Who was the only survivor of the assassination of the Romanov family?

Answer 5

Joy, the spaniel

Question 6

Who was assassinated on 30 September 1918?

Answer 6

The Petrograd chairman of the Cheka, Uritsky

Question 7

Who was subject to a failed assassination on 30 September 1918, leaving him seriously wounded?

Answer 7

Lenin

Question 8

What was the immediate consequence of the attempted assassination of Lenin in September 1918?

Answer 8

The formalisation of Red Terror as state policy on 5 September 1918 - “mass liquidation of the bourgeoisie”

Question 9

What happened two days before Red Terror became official state policy?

Answer 9

Cheka shot dead over 500 hostages in Petrograd

Question 10

Why was the violence of Cheka not a total shock to the Russian people?

Answer 10

Violence and coercion had been normalised by the First World War

Question 11

What did Martin Latsis say about the purpose of Red Terror in November 1918?

Answer 11

“Ask him to which class he belongs, his background, his education, his profession. These are the questions that will determine the fate of the accused. That is the meaning and essence of the Red Terror”

Question 12

How many forced labour camps were in Russia at the time of Lenin’s death in 1924?

Answer 12

315

(For context, there were around 30,000 at the time of Stalin)

Question 13

Which three groups of people were held in the labour camps under Lenin?

Answer 13

White prisoners of war

Uncooperative peasants

Political opponents

Question 14

Where were the forced labour camps situated?

Answer 14

In inhospitable areas, like Siberia

Question 15

What did a Cheka decree declare about labour camps in May 1919?

Answer 15

Every provincial city should have a labour camp capable of holding at least 300 inmates

Question 16

How many inmates were in labour camps at the time of Lenin’s death?

Answer 16

Around 70,000

Question 17

Who were the best treated inmates in Lenin’s labour camps? How were they treated?

Answer 17

The political prisoners (e.g. SRs)

They had electric light and a library, they could receive mail and food packages from home, and even had occasional visits from relatives

Question 18

What was the usual sentence for attempting to flee one of Lenin’s labour camps?

Answer 18

The length of the sentence would be increased 10x

Question 19

How many successful escapes were there from labour camps in the summer of 1922?

Answer 19

6,882

Question 20

Give an example of the food a prisoner in one of Lenin’s labour camps would receive in a day

Answer 20

Breakfast: one potato

Lunch: a soup made of potato peelings

Dinner: one potato

Question 21

Who made up 73% of labour camp inmates in November 1920?

Answer 21

Ordinary peasants and workers

Question 22

Give three examples of terror methods used by Cheka under Lenin

Answer 22

1) The ‘glove trick’ – burning the victim’s hands in boiling water until the blistered skin could be peeled off: this left the victims with raw and bleeding hands and their torturers with ‘human gloves’

2) Rolling naked victims in nail-studded barrels

3) Crushing skulls by tightening a leather strap with an iron bolt around their head

4) Affixing a cage with rats to the victim’s torso and heated it so that the enraged rats ate their way through the victim’s guts in an effort to escape

5) Chaining victims to planks and pushed them slowly into a furnace or a tank of boiling water

6) Pouring water on the naked victims until they became living ice statues

Question 23

Who was put on show trial between April and August 1922? What was the outcome?

Answer 23

The SRs and the Moscow clergy - imprisoned

Question 24

What did Lenin argue was the purpose of the courts in Russia?

Answer 24

“Not to eliminate terror but to legitimise it”

Question 25

What was the attitude of the Cossacks to the Bolsheviks when they first assumed power?

Answer 25

“Benevolent neutrality”

Question 26

What did the Bolsheviks think about the Cossacks and why?

Answer 26

Wealthy and counterrevolutionary - they were historically supporters of the Tsar and held over 80% of the land in the Don and the Kuban

Question 27

What did the Orgburo announce about the Cossacks on 24 January 1919?

Answer 27

Called for “mass terror against wealthy Cossacks, exterminating every last one”, and “merciless mass terror against Cossacks of any kind who had participated directly or indirectly in the fight against Soviet power”

Question 28

How many Cossacks were rounded up and shot in the Don between January and March 1919?

Answer 28

10,000

Question 29

Apart from being shot, how else did the Bolsheviks target the Cossacks as part of decossackisation?

Answer 29

Non-Cossack settlers were imported onto Cossack land, breaking their identity

Deportations and confiscation of property

Question 30

What was the impact of decossackisation on the Civil War?

Answer 30

Cossacks were now prepared to fight outside their own homelands in support of the Whites

Question 31

What did the Bolshevik Central Committee announce about decossackisation on 16 March 1919?

Answer 31

Terror would now only be against those who had engaged in counterrevolutionary acts - Cossacks would no longer be targeted because of who they were

Question 32

What happened to a quarter of the Terek Cossack population in 1920 and why?

Answer 32

Deported

There had been a revolt by five Cossack stanitsas against the Bolsheviks in the Terek, including blowing up bridges and shooting trains

Question 33

How were Cossacks deported in the Terek?

Answer 33

All adult males up to the age of 50 were loaded onto special trains and made to do heavy labour in the north