Red Terror 1918-1922 Flashcards
What was the Red Terror and what did it aim to achieve?
A campaign of mass arrests, executions, and repression by the Cheka (Bolshevik secret police) to eliminate opposition.
It aimed to crush counter-revolutionaries (Whites, SRs, anarchists), instill fear to secure Bolshevik power and enforce War Communism policies.
What events led to the Red Terror?
Assassination attempt on Lenin (Fanny Kaplan, SR member) and the murder of Cheka leader Moisei Uritsky in Petrograd.
Decree on Red Terror (Sept. 1918) legalized mass executions and hostage-taking.
What did Lenin state the Red terror will do?
“We will turn the bourgeoisie into dust.”
What were key methods of the Red Terror?
1) Mass executions: estimated 100,000–500,000 killed (figures debated) Victims: Whites, clergy, “kulaks,” intellectuals, former Tsarist officials. 1,200 executed in Petrograd in 3 days after Uritsky’s death.
2) Concentration camps: first GULAGs established (e.g., Solovki camp). Held 50,000+ prisoners by 1921.
3) Class-based terror: targeted “bourgeois enemies” (landlords, bankers, priests). Hostage-taking e.g. families of White officers executed.
4) Public demonstrations: Bodies displayed in streets to intimidate populations e.g. in Kiev, Cheka tied victims to planks and slowly fed them into furnaces.
What was the impact of the Red Terror?
Psychological Fear: Silenced dissent; even Bolsheviks feared the Cheka.
Destruction of Opposition: Whites, SRs, and anarchists decimated. Church persecuted (12 bishops executed, 3,000 clergy killed).
Legacy of Violence: Set precedent for Stalin’s Great Purges.
How did Felix Dzerzhinsky (Cheka founder) justify it?
“We stand for organized terror—this is absolute necessity.”
How did Lenin justify it?
“Terror is an absolute necessity during revolution.”
