Red Terror
Lesson 3: 1918–1922
Introduction: Mask Off. Once the Bolsheviks had the money (Lesson 2) and the chaos (Lesson 1), they made their move. The “October Revolution” was not a glorious uprising of the people. It was a violent, precise military coup followed by a period of systematic mass murder known as the Red Terror. This was not a side effect of war. It was the plan.
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The Takeover
October Coup (Not Revolution)
History books call it the “October Revolution.” In reality, it was a hostile takeover by a small, armed minority.
- Event: On October 25, 1917, Bolshevik Red Guards seized the telegraph offices, power stations, and bridges in Petrograd. They isolated the city using the weapons bought with German gold.
- Winter Palace: They stormed the seat of the Provisional Government. There were hardly any defenders left because the government was so unpopular. The coup was so quiet that the trams in the city kept running while the government fell.
- Dictatorship: Lenin immediately dissolved the “Constituent Assembly” (the elected parliament) because the Bolsheviks lost the vote (they only got 24%). He declared that democracy was a “bourgeois trick” and established the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
The Weapon
Cheka: Sword of Party
To hold power against the will of the people, Lenin needed a weapon.
- Iron Felix: He appointed Felix Dzerzhinsky, a Polish aristocrat turned communist, to run the new secret police: the Cheka (Extraordinary Commission).
- Power: The Cheka was given the power to arrest, judge, and execute anyone they considered an “enemy of the revolution” without a trial.
- Scale: In Tsarist Russia, the secret police (Okhrana) had about 15,000 staff. By 1920, the Cheka had over 250,000 agents. They turned Russia into a prison camp.
The Strategy
Method: Industrialized Cruelty
The Red Terror was unique because it didn’t care what you did. It cared who you were. The goal was to “exterminate the bourgeoisie as a class.”
- Latsis Quote: Martin Latsis, a Cheka commander, gave the chilling order: “Do not look in the file of incriminating evidence to see whether or not the accused rose up against the Soviets… Ask him instead to which class he belongs, what is his background, his education, his profession. These are the questions that will determine the fate of the accused.”
- Statistics: By February 1922, an estimated 1,766,118 people had been executed. This included:
6,000
9,000
54,000
260,000
1,219
70,000
- Torture Methods: The violence was sadistic and specific to different regions:
- Kharkoff: Victims were scalped and had the skin of their hands peeled off “like a glove.”
- Voronezh: Victims were rolled in barrels studded with nails.
- Kiev: Victims were buried alive in chests with decomposing corpses.
- Branding: The Red Five-Pointed Star was often branded with hot irons onto the foreheads of victims.
War on Old World
Symbolism
The Bolsheviks adopted symbols that were direct insults to the old Russian culture and religion.
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Red Star
Red Star: The five-pointed Red Star was chosen as the symbol of the Red Army.
- Statue of Judas: In a move to mock Christianity, Communist leaders proposed erecting a statue in Moscow to Judas Iscariot. They honored him as a “misunderstood man” who rebelled against the “wrong path” of Christ. This signaled that the new state was not just political, but anti-religious.
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The Execution
Romanovs: Regicide
The ultimate symbol of the old world had to be destroyed to ensure no one could ever rally around him again.
- Imprisonment: Tsar Nicholas II and his family (wife Alexandra, four daughters, and young son Alexei) were held prisoner in the “House of Special Purpose” in Yekaterinburg.
- Execution: On the night of July 17, 1918, the family was woken up and told they were being moved. They were taken to the basement.
- Massacre: A squad of Cheka gunmen opened fire. It was chaotic. The daughters had sewn diamonds into their corsets to hide them, which acted as armor, causing the bullets to ricochet. The executioners had to finish them off with bayonets.
- Cover-up: The bodies were soaked in acid, burned, and buried in a secret pit. The Soviet government lied for years, claiming the Tsar was dead but the family was safe.
Sources:
Terror Statistics: Sergei Melgunov, The Red Terror in Russia (1924). Documents the 1.7 million figure and the specific torture methods in Kharkoff and Kiev.
Report Suppression: Foreign Office Document 371/3945 (The Findlay Report).
Regicide: Greg King, The Fate of the Romanovs. The definitive forensic account of the basement execution.
Symbolism: The Russian Revolution by Richard Pipes. Discusses the anti-religious campaigns and the Judas statue proposal.
