The Secret Police Under Lenin

Question 1

What were his reasons for founding the secret police?

Answer 1

To preserve the revolution
To guarantee internal protection

Question 2

What was terror an essential part of?

Answer 2

Lenin’s strategy for staying in power

Question 3

What was Lenin willing to do from the earliest phase of the revolution?

Answer 3

To use terror against his political opponents

Question 4

What had Lenin and other Communist leaders studied? What impact did this have?

Answer 4

The French Revolution

Lenin knew that terror was one of the weapons used by the new rulers against the old rulers

Lenin believed that revolutionary terror was a legitimate part of a revolution

Question 5

What did Lenin repeatedly state about French Revolutionary terror?

Answer 5

He hoped the Red Terror would be less severe than the French Revolutionary terror

Question 6

Lenin believed that political terror was a _________ measure - which should be _________ once the revolution was secure

Answer 6

temporary
abandoned

Question 7

What was the first secret police?

Answer 7

The Cheka

Question 8

When was the Cheka established?

Answer 8

20 December 1917

Question 9

Who did the Cheka target?

Answer 9

The counter-revolutionaries

Question 10

Who were the counter-revolutionaries?

Answer 10

Those who tried to overthrow the revolution

Question 11

Who served as the head of the Cheka from 1917-26?

Answer 11

Feliks Dzerzhinsky

Question 12

In what way did the Cheka link to Tsarism?

Answer 12

The Cheka was in many ways a reincarnation of the Okhrana - the Tsarist security service

Question 13

In what ways was the Cheka similar to the Okhrana?

Answer 13

The Cheka made use of its methods and in some cases its personnel

Question 14

What is the relationship between Dzerzhinsky and the Okrana?

Answer 14

Dzerzhinsky had spent years in Tsarist prisons or exile. He had learned his tradecraft from the Okhrana

Question 15

What was the nickname given to Dzerzhinsky?

Answer 15

Iron Felix

Question 16

What was the role give to the Cheka during the Civil War?

Answer 16

To protect Communist rule in areas held by Communists

Question 17

The Cheka attacked capitalist enemies from the early days of the revolution. Who else did they attack?

Answer 17

Other socialists

Question 18

Give evidence to support the claim that the Cheka attacked other socialists.

Answer 18

The Cheka and the Red Army closed down the Constituent Assembly (January 1918)

The Constituent Assembly was dominated by the Socialist Revolutionaries - their rivals

Question 19

The Cheka did not ________ laws. Nor were they _______ by laws. Rather they dispensed __________ __________ - allowing them to act ________

Answer 19

enforce
bound
revolutionary
justice
arbitrarily

Question 20

The Cheka used terror in a variety of ways during the Civil War. What are some examples of this?

Answer 20

• Helped the Red Army requisition grain from the peasants as part of War Communism\
• Supported the attack on the Kronstadt Naval base: Cheka agents with machine guns were positioned behind Red Army soldiers and instructed to shoot any soldiers who retreated or refused to fight
• Ran concentration camps that housed enemies
• Stopped private trading (which was outlawed under War Communism)

Question 21

What was the Cheka replaced with?

Answer 21

GPU - The State Political Directorate (also translated as the State Political Administration)

Question 22

Who was the head of the GPU

Answer 22

Felix Dzerzhinsky

Question 23

Lenin instructed Felix Dzerzhinsky to set up an agency within the GPU. When was this?

Answer 23

1922

Question 24

Lenin instructed Felix Dzerzhinsky to set up an agency within the GPU. To do what?

Answer 24

Monitor the press

Question 25

The GPU kept former _____ officers (who now served in the _____ Army) under ________

Answer 25

Tsarist
Red
surveillance

Question 26

Lenin was also suspicious of intellectuals and experts who did not support the government fully. Provide evidence to support this claim.

Answer 26

Lenin instructed Felix Dzerzhinsky to supervise the deportation of professors and engineers that he suspected of anti-Communist sympathies (1922)

Question 27

Lenin was profoundly ________ about the future of the revolution. He feared that the _______ __________ of the NEP would lead to political _________. Therefore he ordered Felix Dzerzhinsky to set up ______ ______ of his leading socialist opponents. These took place in ____.

Answer 27

insecure
economic
compromise
overthrow
political
trials
1922

Question 28

Political trials under Felix Dzerzhinsky and Lenin

Answer 28

Felix Dzerzhinsky organised the trial of Socialist Revolutionary leaders (1922)

They were accused of treason and sabotage - plotting to overthrow the Soviet state

Question 29

What was the outcome of the 1922 political trials?

Answer 29

Only some were sentenced to death

Most were imprisoned and only executed in the Stalinist terror of the mid-1930s

Question 30

The GPU also policed the semi-capitalist marketplace established by the NEP. This included:

Answer 30

• Imprisoning Nepmen who had grown too rich
• Harassing women who dressed in Western styles
• Persecuting young people who danced to jazz
• Persecuting priests