More Proof Is Found on the Soviet Archives Exhibit at the Library of Congress of the U.S. Government
Welcome to the Library of Congress's Soviet Archives exhibit.
· Who Lenin took his orders from:
THE RED TERROR [Section of Article]
http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/guest/radical/ES-BOLSH.HTM#4
The Red Terror was partly a reaction to the greater horrors of the anti-Bolshevik terror in which 23,000 Reds were killed in Finland and 100,000 Jews were murdered in the Ukraine. Nevertheless Lenin repeatedly advocated terror even before the attempt on his life in September 1918. For example during one anti-Bolshevik revolt he told the authorities to organise "mass terror, shoot and deport the hundreds of prostitutes who are making drunkards of the soldiers."
Such attitudes enabled the Cheka to acquire widespread powers with virtually no external controls. By the end of the war its head, Dzerzhinsky, was able to say that "the prisons are packed chiefly with workers and peasants instead of the bourgeoisie", and one of his chief lieutenants, Latsis, wrote that: "there is no sphere of life exempt from Cheka coverage." Lenin himself said that "during the war - anybody who placed his own interest above the common interests ... was shot.... we could not emerge from the old society without resorting to compulsion as far as the backward section of the proletariat was concerned."
Estimates of the numbers executed include 50,000 and 140,000 and George Leggett lists many accusations of tortrure
Victor Serge later claimed that "during the civil war there was perfect order behind the front itself.... There was nothing to prevent the functioning of regular courts." But most of those killed never had a trial and one Cheka member recalled that "our Red detachments would 'clean up' villages exactly the way the Whites did. What was left of the inhabitants, old men, women, children, were machine-gunned for having given assistance to the enemy."
The Bolshevik leadership sometimes clearly encouraged brutality. For instance, as the Whites threatened Petrograd, Lenin asked Trotsky: "Is it impossible to mobilise another 2,000 Petrograd workers plus 10,000 members of the bourgeoisie, set up cannons behind them, shoot a few hundred of them and obtain a real mass impact on Yudenich?" Trotsky thankfully disregarded this but the Bolsheviks did use terror against whole groups of people such as the Cossacks or the Tambov peasants. The Tambov rebellion of 1920-21 was extremely brutal and the Red Army crushed the uprising with the burning of villages and mass executions. One government order demanded that peasants should be shot simply for "giving shelter to members of a 'bandit's' family".
The Terror encouraged many anarchists to join Nestor Makhno's peasant movement in the Ukraine. This movement was much more popular than the Bolsheviks in some areas so the Red Army made three successful alliances with him against the Whites. In these areas only 'working people' could stand for soviet elections, not Bolsheviks or SRs, but there were no restrictions on their press provided they did not advocate an armed uprising. However in the summer of 1919 the Bolsheviks executed several of Makhno's officers and tried to ban the Makhnovist peasant congresses. From then on the two sides fought fiercely whenever the White threat diminished. Both sides shot prisoners but Makhno's army tended to restrict executions to those in authority whereas the Bolsheviks shot many rank-and-file Makhnovists. 31 Notes used: 30 Farber, 117-19; LCW v35, 349; v30, 510; Leggett, 465, 198, 184, 328-33, 349; E.Poretsky, Our Own People, 214. In the first months repression was relatively mild and many prisons had education facilities. However concentration camps were set up from July 1918 and mortality reached 30% in those in the north. Leggett says they were sometimes cleared by mass executions. The death penalty was formally abolished in 1920 but it was evaded by the local chekas and revoked by the summer. M.Jakobson, The Origins of the Gulag, 37, 23-4, 40. 31 Farber, 123; Service, 43; M.Palij, The Anarchism of Nestor Makhno, 151-2, 175-7, 212-19; M.Malet, Nestor Makhno..., 32, 39, 100, 129, 136.
Welcome to the Library of Congress's Soviet Archives exhibit.
· Who Lenin took his orders from:
THE RED TERROR [Section of Article]
http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/guest/radical/ES-BOLSH.HTM#4
The Red Terror was partly a reaction to the greater horrors of the anti-Bolshevik terror in which 23,000 Reds were killed in Finland and 100,000 Jews were murdered in the Ukraine. Nevertheless Lenin repeatedly advocated terror even before the attempt on his life in September 1918. For example during one anti-Bolshevik revolt he told the authorities to organise "mass terror, shoot and deport the hundreds of prostitutes who are making drunkards of the soldiers."
Such attitudes enabled the Cheka to acquire widespread powers with virtually no external controls. By the end of the war its head, Dzerzhinsky, was able to say that "the prisons are packed chiefly with workers and peasants instead of the bourgeoisie", and one of his chief lieutenants, Latsis, wrote that: "there is no sphere of life exempt from Cheka coverage." Lenin himself said that "during the war - anybody who placed his own interest above the common interests ... was shot.... we could not emerge from the old society without resorting to compulsion as far as the backward section of the proletariat was concerned."
Estimates of the numbers executed include 50,000 and 140,000 and George Leggett lists many accusations of tortrure
Victor Serge later claimed that "during the civil war there was perfect order behind the front itself.... There was nothing to prevent the functioning of regular courts." But most of those killed never had a trial and one Cheka member recalled that "our Red detachments would 'clean up' villages exactly the way the Whites did. What was left of the inhabitants, old men, women, children, were machine-gunned for having given assistance to the enemy."
The Bolshevik leadership sometimes clearly encouraged brutality. For instance, as the Whites threatened Petrograd, Lenin asked Trotsky: "Is it impossible to mobilise another 2,000 Petrograd workers plus 10,000 members of the bourgeoisie, set up cannons behind them, shoot a few hundred of them and obtain a real mass impact on Yudenich?" Trotsky thankfully disregarded this but the Bolsheviks did use terror against whole groups of people such as the Cossacks or the Tambov peasants. The Tambov rebellion of 1920-21 was extremely brutal and the Red Army crushed the uprising with the burning of villages and mass executions. One government order demanded that peasants should be shot simply for "giving shelter to members of a 'bandit's' family".
The Terror encouraged many anarchists to join Nestor Makhno's peasant movement in the Ukraine. This movement was much more popular than the Bolsheviks in some areas so the Red Army made three successful alliances with him against the Whites. In these areas only 'working people' could stand for soviet elections, not Bolsheviks or SRs, but there were no restrictions on their press provided they did not advocate an armed uprising. However in the summer of 1919 the Bolsheviks executed several of Makhno's officers and tried to ban the Makhnovist peasant congresses. From then on the two sides fought fiercely whenever the White threat diminished. Both sides shot prisoners but Makhno's army tended to restrict executions to those in authority whereas the Bolsheviks shot many rank-and-file Makhnovists. 31 Notes used: 30 Farber, 117-19; LCW v35, 349; v30, 510; Leggett, 465, 198, 184, 328-33, 349; E.Poretsky, Our Own People, 214. In the first months repression was relatively mild and many prisons had education facilities. However concentration camps were set up from July 1918 and mortality reached 30% in those in the north. Leggett says they were sometimes cleared by mass executions. The death penalty was formally abolished in 1920 but it was evaded by the local chekas and revoked by the summer. M.Jakobson, The Origins of the Gulag, 37, 23-4, 40. 31 Farber, 123; Service, 43; M.Palij, The Anarchism of Nestor Makhno, 151-2, 175-7, 212-19; M.Malet, Nestor Makhno..., 32, 39, 100, 129, 136.