Red Terror
The official date of the beginning of the Red Terror is considered to be August 17, 1918, when in St. Petersburg a former student, a cadet during the war, the socialist Kannegiesser was killed people's commissar Northern Commune, head of the St. Petersburg Extraordinary Commission - Uritsky. The official document about this act reads: “During interrogation, Leonid Kannegiesser stated that he killed Uritsky not by order of the party or any organization, but by his own motive, wanting to take revenge for the arrest of the officers and the shooting of his friend Pereltsweig.”
In response to these two terrorist attacks, the Soviet government announced the start of an entire campaign of terror. At the same time, the objects of mass executions were not individuals, not any class, but entire segments of the population, namely, everyone who did not belong to the working class or the poorest peasantry.
We do not know and probably will never know the exact number of these victims - we do not even know their names. It is safe to say, however, that the actual figure is significantly higher than the figure given later in the semi-official report (no official announcement was ever published). In fact, on March 23, 1919, the English military chaplain Lombard reported to Lord Curzon: “In last days August, two barges filled with officers were sunk and their corpses were thrown out on the estate of one of my friends, located on the Gulf of Finland; many were tied in twos and threes with barbed wire."
One of the leaders of the Cheka, Peters, called these days in Petrograd “historical terror” in an interview given to a newspaper correspondent in November: “Contrary to popular belief,” said Peters, “I am not at all as bloodthirsty as they think.” In St. Petersburg, “the soft-bodied revolutionaries were thrown out of balance and began to be overzealous. Before the murder of Uritsky, there were no executions in Petrograd, and after it there were too many and often indiscriminately, while Moscow, in response to the assassination attempt on Lenin, responded only by shooting several tsarist ministers.” And then, however, the not too bloodthirsty Peters threatened: “I declare that any attempt by the Russian bourgeoisie to once again raise its head will meet such a rebuff and such reprisal, before which everything that is understood as the Red Terror will pale.”
White terror
Violence and terror were indispensable companions centuries-old history humanity. Russia has traditionally been one of the countries where the price human life was minuscule, and humanitarian rights were not respected. Lenin argued that the Red Terror during the Civil War in Russia was forced and became a response to the actions of the White Guards and interventionists.
Currently, the historian Melgunov’s thesis has become widespread that whites are more than red, they tried to adhere to legal norms during punitive actions.
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o legal declarations and resolutions of the confronting parties did not protect the population of the country in those years from tyranny and terror. They could not be prevented neither by the decisions of the VI All-Russian Extraordinary Congress of Soviets (November 1918), nor by the resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the abolition death penalty(January 1920), nor instructions from the governments of the opposing side. Both of them shot, took hostages, and practiced torture. The Whites also had institutions similar to the Cheka and revolutionary tribunals - various counterintelligence and military courts, propaganda "Red" terror
organizations with intelligence tasks, such as Denikin’s Osvag (propaganda department of the Special Meeting under the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia). Already the first acts of violence carried out by the one- and then two-party Soviet government (Bolsheviks and left Socialist Revolutionaries): the closure of newspapers that defended the ideas of February, and not October 1917, the outlawing of the Cadet Party, the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the introduction of the right of extrajudicial struggle for power - caused the rejection of many. Lenin proceeded from the fact that “the benefit of the revolution, the benefit of the working class - this is the highest law”, that only he is the highest authority that determines “this benefit”, and therefore can resolve all issues, including the main one - the right to life and activity. The principle of expediency of means used to protect power was guided by Trotsky, Bukharin and others: “Proletarian coercion in all its forms, from executions to labor conscription, is a method of developing communist humanity from the human material of the capitalist era.” In a note by E.M. Sklyansky (August 1920), deputy. Prev. Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, Lenin wrote: “...Under the guise of the “greens” (we will blame them later) we will walk 10-20 miles and outweigh the kulaks, priests, and landowners. Prize: 100,000 rubles for a hanged man”.
TO 
Autsky argued that viewing the Red Terror as a response to the White Terror is the same as justifying one’s own theft by the fact that others steal. He prophetically predicted that “Bolshevism will remain a dark page in the history of socialism.”
The leadership of the Soviet Republic officially recognized the creation of rule of law, where arbitrariness has become the norm of life, and terror is the most important tool for maintaining power. It is characteristic that the right of the Cheka to extrajudicial killings, created by Trotsky, was signed by Lenin; the tribunals were given unlimited rights by the People's Commissar of Justice; the resolution on the Red Terror was endorsed by the People's Commissars of Justice, Internal Affairs and the Administrator of the Council of People's Commissars; The tasks of the military tribunals were determined by the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Tribunal of the Republic. “Military tribunals are not and should not be guided by any legal norms. These are punitive bodies created in the process of intense revolutionary struggle, which decide
their verdicts, guided by the principle of political expediency and the legal consciousness of communists”. On September 11, 1918, from the pages of the newspaper Pravda, Osinsky stated: “From the dictatorship of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie, we moved to extreme terror - a system of destruction of the bourgeoisie as a class.”. The Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of February 15, 1919 allowed “to take hostages from the peasants with the understanding that if the snow is not cleared, they will be shot”.
The territories occupied by whites cannot be considered as isolated territories: there was a civil war, which means the warring parties influenced each other. At the same time and interconnected with the red, white terror dominated the country.
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In 1918, “environmental terror” began to reign, when the symmetry of the parties’ actions became inevitably similar. This continued in 1919-1920, when both the Reds and the Whites simultaneously built their dictatorial states. None of the leaders of the warring parties avoided the use of terror against their opponents and civilians. The forms and methods of terror were different. but they were also used by adherents of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch in Samara, the Provisional Regional Government in the Urals, the Provisional Siberian Government, the Upper Administration of the Northern Region), and the white movement itself.
Kolchak and Denikin were professional military men, patriots who had their own views on the future of the country. In Soviet historiography, Kolchak is characterized as a reactionary and a hidden monarchist. The image of a liberal who enjoyed the support of the population was created abroad. These are extreme points of view. During interrogations at the Irkutsk Cheka in 1920, Kolchak stated that he did not know about many facts of the ruthless attitude towards workers and peasants on the part of his punishers. Perhaps he was telling the truth. But it is difficult to talk about support for his policies in Siberia and the Urals, if out of approximately 400,000 Red partisans of that time, 150,000 acted against him, and among them were 4-5% of wealthy peasants, or, as they were then called, kulaks.
The Kolchak government created the punitive apparatus based on the traditions of pre-revolutionary Russia, but changing the names: instead of the gendarmerie - state security, police - militia, etc. The managers of punitive authorities in the provinces in the spring of 1919 demanded “not to comply with legal norms created for peacetime, but to proceed from expediency”. This was true, especially during punitive operations. General Sakharov, by order to the army of October 12, 1919, demanded that every tenth hostage or resident be shot, and also in the event of armed uprisings against the military: “such populated areas should be immediately surrounded, all residents shot, and the village itself destroyed to the ground.” "A year ago, - wrote the Minister of War of the Kolchak government A. Budberg in his diary on August 4, 1919, - the population saw us as deliverers from the harsh captivity of the commissars, and now they hate us as much as they hated the commissars, if not more; and, what’s even worse than hatred, it no longer believes us, it doesn’t expect anything good from us.”.
The White Terror turned out to be as meaningless in achieving its goal as any other. As the commander of US troops in Siberia, General Graves, recalled, “in Eastern Siberia, for every person killed by the Bolsheviks, 100 people were killed by anti-Bolshevik elements” And “The number of Bolsheviks in Siberia by the time of Kolchak had increased many times in comparison with their number at the time of our arrival”.
“... six months later, as a result of the October Revolution, Lenin and the Bolsheviks came to power. The Russian Empire turned into the USSR. New leaders promised the exhausted country a bright and just future. However, violence became the main political tool of the new regime.
From a video shown at the Yeltsin Center.
The question of who unleashed terror in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century requires a definition of the concepts of “white terror”, “red terror” and “civil war”.
“Red terror” means revolutionary terror, and “white” terror means counter-revolutionary terror. At the same time, linking the “red terror,” like the “white terror,” with any one party is historically incorrect. The origins of the Red and White Terror go far beyond the revolutionary process of 1917.
The beginning of the “Red Terror” in Russia should be linked to the radical left wing of the Socialist Revolutionary Party (1902-1911); the beginning of the “White Terror” - with the emergence of monarchical organizations and their “Black Hundreds” (1905 - February 1917). The historical ignorance of the broad masses on this issue plays into the hands of those who carry out political orders to denigrate the personalities of Lenin, Dzerzhinsky, Stalin, and the USSR as a whole.
The beginning of the “Red Terror” in Russia (1902-1911)
“In order not to leave room for omissions, let us now make a reservation that, in our personal opinion, terror is currently an inappropriate means of struggle...”
Lenin V.I. Draft of our program, 1899 //PSS. T. 4. P. 223.
In the second half of the 80s - 90s of the 19th century, Blanquist populist terrorist groups became more active in Russia, seemingly defeated after the regicide on March 1, 1881. They began to prepare assassination attempts on the son of Alexander II - Emperor Alexander III. In connection with the assassination attempt in 1887, Lenin's elder brother Alexander Ulyanov was executed. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, populist groups joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party (AKP, Socialist Revolutionaries).
In 1902-1911, the Combat Organization of the Social Revolutionaries became “the most effective terrorist formation of the early 20th century.” Its leaders during this period were Grigory Gershuni, Yevno Azef, Boris Savinkov. It is with their activities that the beginning of the revolutionary “Red Terror” can be historically linked.
Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin consecrated revolutionary terror in detail in his speech on February 11, 1909 in the State Duma “Concerning the Azef Case.” The Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Empire linked terror with revolutionary movement and the activities of socialist revolutionaries, not social democrats. //Complete collection of speeches in the State Duma and State Council/.
Over 10 years, the Social Revolutionaries committed 263 terrorist attacks, as a result of which 2 ministers, 33 governor-general, governor and vice-governor, 16 mayors, 7 admirals and generals, and 26 police agents were killed. The activities of the “Combat Organization” became an example for smaller terrorist groups of populist parties.
Here is the social class characteristics of the participants in the revolutionary terror. In 1903-1906, the “Combat Organization of the AKP” included 64 people: 13 hereditary nobles, 3 honorary citizens, 5 from families of clergy, 10 from merchant families, 27 were of bourgeois origin and 6 were of peasant origin. As a rule, all of them were united by the university student environment.
According to the national characteristics, among the members of the “Combat Organization” 43 terrorists were Russians, 19 Jews and two Poles.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin sharply dissociated himself from the Narodniks and Socialist Revolutionaries. He insisted on distinguishing between terror as a component of war and terror as a criminal offense in peacetime, without a declaration of war.
“In principle, we have never renounced and cannot renounce terror. This is one of the military actions that can be quite suitable and even necessary at a certain moment of the battle, with a certain state of the army and with known conditions. But the essence of the matter is precisely that terror is being put forward at the present time not as one of the operations of the active army, closely connected and consistent with the entire system of struggle, but as an independent means of a single attack, independent of any army. ...That is why we resolutely declare such a means of struggle under the given circumstances to be untimely, inappropriate, ...disorganizing not the government, but the revolutionary forces...”
Lenin V.I. Where to start? 1901 // PSS. T. 5. P. 7
The beginning of the “White Terror” in Russia (1905 - February 1917).
Extreme right-wing organizations in Russia, operating in 1905-1917, acted under the slogans of monarchism, great-power chauvinism and anti-Semitism. The first Black Hundred organization was the Russian Assembly, created in 1900. The leaders of the Black Hundred movement - Alexander Dubrovin, Vladimir Purishkevich, Nikolai Markov (Markov the Second), encouraged the creation of small armed organizations that dispersed rallies, demonstrations, and carried out pogroms in Jewish neighborhoods. This is how the monarchists created the appearance of popular support for the monarchy. Sometimes the Fighting Squad was called "White Guard".
The activities of the Black Hundreds were supported by Nicholas II. He was an honorary member of the Union of the Russian People party, which was distinguished by extreme nationalism.
Armed squads of the Black Hundreds operated legally in Arkhangelsk, Astrakhan, Yekaterinoslav, Kyiv, Chisinau, Moscow, Odessa, St. Petersburg, Tiflis, Yaroslavl and other cities.
Child victims of the Jewish pogrom in Yekaterinoslav
Propaganda leaflet for the election campaign for the elections to the State Duma of the Russian Empire of the third convocation of a single bloc: the Union of the Russian People and the Union of October 17.
There were no general principles for the creation of fighting squads, since the official creation of armed detachments by “patriotic parties” was prohibited; each of the departments of the “Union of the Russian People” acted at its own discretion. In Odessa, the fighting squad, according to the principle of the Cossack army, was divided into six “hundreds”, each of which, in turn, had an independent name (for example, “The Evil Hundred”, etc.). The vigilantes were led by the “mandatory ataman”, “esauls”, and “foremen”. They all took patriotic pseudonyms: Ermak, Minin, Platov, etc. //Stepanov S.A. Black Hundred terror of 1905-1907.
Publication of the Odessa branch of the Union of Russian People.
The authorities considered armed groups of “patriots” their support and in some cases used them to maintain order on the streets and in striking enterprises. The Black Hundred squads suffered serious losses in fierce clashes with militant groups of Socialist Revolutionaries and Social Democrats at St. Petersburg enterprises during the First Russian Revolution. In 1907, 24 monarchists were killed in clashes //Stepanov S.A. Quote. op.
However, the Black Hundreds considered their main political opponents not socialists, but liberals. P. N. Milyukov was attacked by the Black Hundreds. On July 18, 1906, a member of the Central Committee of the Cadet Party, M. Ya. Herzenstein, was killed.
On March 14, 1907, a member of the “Union of the Russian People” Kazantsev organized the murder of cadet G. B. Yollos. Kazantsev gave the worker Fedorov a revolver and said that Yollos was betraying the revolutionaries. Having killed Yollos and then learned from newspapers about the falsity of the information given to him, Fedorov killed Kazantsev and fled abroad //Kazantsev / The fall of the tsarist regime. Interrogations and testimony. T. 7 / Index of names to volumes I-VII. / TO.
The hatred of the Black Hundreds towards them was determined by the fact that both of them were liberals, former deputies the “rebellious” First State Duma and the Jews.
After February Revolution In 1917, Black Hundred organizations were banned.
The Black Hundreds went underground. During the Civil War, many prominent Black Hundred leaders joined the white movement, some to various nationalist organizations. The Bolshevik government saw Russian ethnic nationalism as a type of fascism. The remnants of the active members of the Black Hundred movement went into exile, and those who continued the struggle were destroyed.
Modern monarchists.
During perestroika and glasnost Gorbachev returned to Russia monarchical organizations, including the Union of the Russian People and the Black Hundreds. The restoration Congress of the Union of the Russian People took place in Moscow on November 21, 2005. The first chairman of the Union was the sculptor V. M. Klykov Websites of modern Black Hundred organizations: Official portal of the social-patriotic movement “Black Hundred”, Official regional portal of the OPD “Black Hundred” in St. Petersburg, Society “Union of the Russian People”, Newspaper “ Orthodox Rus'", Publishing House "Russian Idea", Publishing House "Black Hundred".
Monarchists are active today in Crimea:
“The main thing is that we eradicate the “scoop” from ourselves and raise our children in the Russian, Orthodox, imperial spirit. And of course, our main work is propaganda. We remind Crimeans what their great-grandfathers were like, what values our glorious ancestors held in high esteem. So that they can see what they have become. And they made the proper conclusions. To make it easier to carry out our tasks, like-minded people united into monarchical organizations that sympathize with this idea. There are several of these in Crimea - some Cossack associations, branches of the Union of the Russian People and the Russian Imperial Union-Order (RISO), as well as ours, the very first monarchical, officially legalized organization on the peninsula - the “Union of Zealots of the Memory of Emperor Nicholas II.”
Monarchists in Crimea.
Who and how unleashed terror in Soviet Russia.
V.I. Lenin noted in September 1917 that Soviet power has popular support, and the internal opposition has no chance of starting a Civil War in Russia.
“...The alliance of the Bolsheviks with the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks against the Cadets, against the bourgeoisie has not yet been tested. ...If there is an absolutely indisputable lesson of the revolution, absolutely proven by facts, it is only this: only an alliance of the Bolsheviks with the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, exclusively the immediate transfer of all power to the Soviets would make a civil war in Russia impossible. For against such an alliance, against the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, any civil war started by the bourgeoisie is unthinkable...”
Lenin V.I. Russian revolution and civil war. They are afraid of civil war / “Worker's Path”. No. 12, 29 (16) September 1917 / PSS. T. 34 pp. 221-222).
On November 1, 1917, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a resolution “On the terms of an agreement with other parties.” The program for the democratization of Russia and the creation of a “homogeneous socialist government”, a “government of the working people” was thwarted by the internal opposition, which was responsible for starting the Civil War.
But first, let us pay attention to Lenin’s state policy, which, ahead of its time, was fully consistent with today’s international law:
"Homogeneous Socialist Government"(will be recognized by N. S. Khrushchev at the XX Congress of the CPSU in 1956 and raised to the principle international law- in relation to Yugoslavia and other people's democracies);
Decree on peace. He declared the goal of the new government to be the immediate conclusion by all warring peoples and their governments of a just democratic peace without annexations and indemnities, and the renunciation of secret diplomacy. Today, the peaceful resolution of interstate conflicts and the inviolability of state borders are the basic norms of international law. Most of all, the Entente countries and the United States, which were already preparing the Versailles agreements on a new division of spheres of influence in a world where there was no place for Russia, neither with the Tsar nor with the Communists, were not interested in this agreement.
Decree on land. He abolished private ownership of land and transferred it to the disposal of working rural communities. State farms were formed on the lands of landowners, which were to become highly technical, exemplary large farm-factories for the production of agricultural products.
At the beginning of the 20th century, half of Russia's arable land fund was owned by 30 thousand landowner families (70 million dessiatines); the second half - 10.5 million peasant farms (75 million dessiatines).
However, even in the peasant village, the land was concentrated in the hands of a handful of kulaks. 15% of the rich owned 47% of the peasant land fund.
A poor medieval village, horseless and landless, was completely ruined during the First World War by constant mobilizations of men and expropriations of horses and dairy cattle for the needs of the war. The only one effective way The way out of the economic crisis was the socialization of the land, its transfer to the peasants.
Lenin and Stalin talk with peasants in their office in the Kremlin. Artist I. E. Grabar. 1938. State Historical Museum.
In the future, the technical modernization of agriculture will require the creation of large farms equipped with tractors and combines, and cars. But in this situation, the socialization of the land was the right economic and political decision. The peasant majority of the country's population supported the new government and moved away from revolutionary activities, immersed themselves in work, until the Civil War was unleashed, and the White Guards began to return the land to the old owners - the kulaks and landowners. The peasants again found themselves without work, without land in most of the country, where Kolchak’s troops and other white armies ruled.
Under the auspices of Great Britain and France, after the collapse of the Russian Empire, a group of limitrophe (border) states was created along the European borders of Soviet Russia, formed from the outskirts of the former Tsarist Russia, mainly from the western provinces (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Finland).
In central Europe, from the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Czechoslovakia was created at Versailles, in the Balkans, from Serbia and Croatia, the Kingdom of Serbs and Croats (KSH, later Yugoslavia). Much work was carried out to separate Ukraine and Belarus and secede from Russia.
All these territories in the future will be used by Hitler as limitrophe states for Nazi propaganda and to create a “fifth column” in them. In the 90s, with the collapse of the USSR and the world system of socialism, the term “limitrophe” came to life again: the United States and NATO countries intensified their activities to create a belt of states with an anti-Russian orientation from the former Soviet republics and CMEA countries. Since the 1990s, the term has become widely used again in Western plans to dismember the Russian Federation.
Constitution of the RSFSR 1918
The Basic Law does not contain any legal provisions on the persecution of the church, priests, and religious citizens:
1. The church is separated from the state.
2. Within the Republic, it is prohibited to make any local laws or regulations that would restrict or restrict freedom of conscience, or establish any advantages or privileges on the basis of the religious affiliation of citizens.
3. Every citizen can profess any religion or none at all. All legal deprivations associated with the confession of any faith or non-profession of any faith are abolished.
Note. From all official acts, any indication of religious affiliation or non-religious affiliation of citizens is eliminated.
4. The actions of state and other public legal social institutions are not accompanied by any religious rites or ceremonies.
5. The free performance of religious rites is ensured insofar as they do not violate public order and are not accompanied by attacks on the rights of citizens of the Soviet Republic.
Local authorities have the right to take all necessary measures to ensure public order and security in these cases.
6. No one can, citing their religious views, avoid fulfilling their civic duties.
Exceptions from this provision, subject to the condition of replacing one civil duty with another, are allowed in each individual case by decision of the people's court.
7. The religious oath or oath is canceled.
In necessary cases, only a solemn promise is given.
8. Civil status records are maintained exclusively by civil authorities: departments for registering marriages and births.
9. The school is separated from the church.
Teaching religious doctrines in all state and public, as well as private educational institutions where general education subjects are taught, is not permitted.
Citizens may teach and study religion privately.
10. All ecclesiastical and religious societies are subject to the general provisions on private societies and unions, and do not enjoy any benefits or subsidies either from the state or from its local autonomous and self-governing institutions.
11. Forced collection of fees and taxes in favor of church and religious societies, as well as measures of coercion or punishment on the part of these societies over their fellow members, are not permitted.
12. No church or religious societies have the right to own property. Right legal entity they do not have.
13. All property of church and religious societies existing in Russia is declared national property.
Buildings and objects intended specifically for liturgical purposes are given away, according to special regulations of the local or central state power, for the free use of the respective religious societies.
Beginning of the confrontation
The Western trace in organizing provocations in the capital was quickly discovered. On December 6, 1917, Vladimir Dmitrievich Bonch-Bruevich, at a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, reported on the “combat groups” prepared to cause unrest in the capital:
Vladimir Dmitrievich Bonch-Bruevich (1873-1955).
Manager of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR (1917-1920)
Bolshevik. Doctor historical sciences
When interviewing the detained individual military ranks, it turned out that they were drunk and a special institute was organized from them to incite their brothers to drink, for which they paid 15 rubles a day; ... Petrograd was flooded with a flurry of drunken destruction. ...The destruction began with small fruit stores, and they were followed by the warehouses of Koehler and Petrov, and a large ready-made clothing store. In one half hour we received 11 notices of pogroms and barely had time to send military units to the sites...”
Suspicious persons distributed proclamations that looked like Bolshevik ones, with the headings: “Workers of all countries, unite!” and ending with: “Down with imperialism and its lackeys!”, “Long live the workers’ revolution and the world proletariat!” In terms of content, these were provocative leaflets containing Black Hundred ideas. The leaflets incited soldiers, sailors, and workers to destroy wine warehouses and disrupt the normal life of the capital in every possible way.
“The detainees turned out to be employees of the reactionary newspaper Novaya Rus.” Under threat of execution, they said that they had been sent by the organization and gave us their addresses. When we went to the first address, we came across 20 thousand copies of this appeal... We moved on and arrested many people. ... It is clear that we are dealing with a conspiracy of counter-revolution on an all-Russian scale, organized extremely widely with large amounts of money, with the goal of strangling ... the revolution.”
Golinkov D. L. The collapse of the anti-Soviet underground in the USSR (1917-1925). M.: Politizdat, 1975. T. 1. P. 23.
In the first years of Soviet power, the danger came not from the Bolsheviks, but from anarchist gangs supported by the allies, the British ambassador Robert Bruce Lockhart argued in his memoirs:
Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart
(1887-1970), British diplomat,
secret agent, journalist, writer.
“Terror did not yet exist; it could not even be said that the population was afraid of the Bolsheviks.” “Life in St. Petersburg in those weeks had a rather unique character. ... Newspapers of the Bolshevik opponents were still published, and the policies of the Soviets were subjected to the most severe attacks in them ... In this early era of Bolshevism, the danger to bodily integrity and life came not from the ruling party, but from anarchist gangs. ...The allies are also largely to blame for the civil war. ...With our policies we contributed to the intensification of terror and bloodshed. ... Alekseev, Denikin, Kornilov, Wrangel tried with all their might to overthrow the Bolsheviks. ... For this purpose they, without support from abroad, were too weak, because in their own country they found support only in the officers, who were already very weakened in themselves.”
Storm over Russia. Confession of an English diplomat. - pp. 227-234.
From January to September 1918, Lockhart was the head of the special British mission to the Soviet government, then he was arrested. In October 1918, he was expelled from Soviet Russia for participating in the “conspiracy of the three ambassadors.” Robert Bruce Jr., his son, wrote that his father collected about 8,400,000 rubles from Russian capitalists through an English company, which were used to finance subversive activities against Soviet Russia. // “The ace of spies”, London, 1967. R. 74). Quote by: Golinkov D.L. The truth about the enemies of the people. M.: Algorithm, 2006.
At the beginning of the Second World War, Lockhart was one of the heads of the political intelligence department of the British Foreign Office (1939-1940) and director of the Committee on Affairs political war, in charge of propaganda and intelligence issues (1941-1945).
Menshevik D.Yu. Dalin wrote in exile in 1922:
“The Soviet system existed, but without terror, the civil war gave impetus to its development. ...The Bolsheviks did not immediately embark on the path of terror; for six months the opposition press continued to publish, not only socialist, but also openly bourgeois. The first case of capital punishment took place only in May 1918. Everyone who wanted to speak at the meetings, with almost no risk of getting into the Cheka.”
On December 7 (20), 1917, the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage (VChK) was created under the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR. The Cheka was headed by Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky. Necessary qualities Dzerzhinsky considered the Chekists to be devoted to revolutionary ideals, honesty, restraint and politeness.
Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinky (1877-1926) Chairman of the Cheka under the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR
"Invasion of armed men on private apartment and the deprivation of freedom of guilty people is an evil, which even now must be resorted to in order for good and truth to triumph. But we must always remember that this is evil, that our task is to use evil to eradicate the need to resort to this means in the future.
Therefore, let all those who are entrusted with carrying out a search, depriving a person of freedom and keeping them in prison, treat people arrested and searched with care, let them be much more polite with them than even with a loved one, remembering that a person deprived of freedom cannot defend himself and that he is in our power. Everyone must remember that he is a representative of Soviet power - workers and peasants, and that his every shout, rudeness, immodesty, impoliteness is a stain that falls on this power.”
"1. Weapons are only drawn if danger threatens. 2. Treatment of those arrested and their families must be the most polite; no moralizing or shouting is acceptable. 3. Responsibility for the search and behavior falls on everyone in the squad. 4. Threats with a revolver or any weapon whatsoever are unacceptable.
Those guilty of violating this instruction are subject to arrest for up to three months, removal from the commission and deportation from Moscow.”Draft instructions of the Cheka on the conduct of searches and arrests // Historical archive. 1958. No. 1. P. 5–6.
Western services, based on Socialist-Revolutionary-Anarchist elements, posed a serious threat to Russia, fanning chaos and banditry in the country in opposition to the creative policies of the new government.
The former Minister of War of the Provisional Government and Kolchakite A.I. Verkhovsky joined the Red Army in 1919. //“At a difficult pass”.
According to the official version, he switched sides to the “Reds” in 1922. In his memoirs, Verkhovsky wrote that he was an activist in the “Union for the Revival of Russia,” which had a military organization that trained personnel for anti-Soviet armed protests, which was financed by the “allies.”
Alexander Ivanovich Verkhovsky (1886-1938)
“In March 1918, I was personally invited by the Union for the Revival of Russia to join the military headquarters of the Union. The military headquarters was an organization that had the goal of organizing an uprising against Soviet power... The military headquarters had connections with the allied missions in Petrograd. General Suvorov was in charge of relations with the allied missions... Representatives of the allied missions were interested in my assessment of the situation from the point of view of the possibility of restoring... the front against Germany. I had conversations about this with General Nissel, a representative of the French mission. The military headquarters, through the cashier of the headquarters, Suvorov, received funds from the allied missions.”
In May 1918 he was arrested, but was soon released. After that he served in the Red Army. // /
Vasily Ivanovich Ignatiev (1874-1959)
The evidence of A. I. Verkhovsky is fully consistent with the memoirs of another figure in the Union for the Revival of Russia, V. I. Ignatiev (1874-1959, died in Chile).
In the first part of his memoirs, “Some Facts and Results four years Civil War (1917-1921),” published in Moscow in 1922, he confirms that the source of the organization’s funds was “exclusively allied.” Ignatiev received the first amount from foreign sources from General A.V. Gerua, to whom General M.N. Suvorov sent him. From a conversation with Gerua, he learned that the general was instructed to send officers to the Murmansk region at the disposal of the English General F. Poole, and that funds were allocated to him for this task. Ignatiev received a certain amount from Gerua, then received money from one agent of the French mission - 30 thousand rubles.
A spy group was operating in Petrograd, headed by sanitary doctor V.P. Kovalevsky. She also sent officers, mainly guards, to the English General Bullet in Arkhangelsk via Vologda. The group advocated the establishment of a military dictatorship in Russia and was supported by British funds. The representative of this group, English agent Captain G. E. Chaplin, worked in Arkhangelsk under the name Thomson.
On December 13, 1918, Kovalevsky was shot on charges of creating military organization associated with the English mission. On January 5, 1918, the Union for the Defense of the Constituent Assembly was preparing a coup d'etat, which was prevented by the Cheka. The Constituent Assembly was dispersed. The English plan failed. Detailed information about the activities of the Socialist Revolutionaries in various committees “Saving the Motherland and Revolution”, “Defense of the Constituent Assembly” and others, disclosed by the Cheka, was given already in 1927 by Vera Vladimirova in her book “The Year of Service of the “Socialists” to the Capitalists. Essays on history, counter-revolution in 1918".
Today, in liberal literature, the prevention of the coup d'etat in early January 1918 and the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly is put forward as a justification for the undemocratic policies of the Bolsheviks, which led to the civil war. Dzerzhinsky was aware of the counter-revolutionary activities of the socialists, mainly the Socialist Revolutionaries; their connections with British services, about the flow of their funding from the Allies.
Venedikt Aleksandrovich Myakotin (1867, Gatchina - 1937, Prague)
Russian historian and politician V. A. Myakotin, one of the founders and leaders of the Union for the Revival of Russia, also published his memoirs in 1923 in Prague, “From the Recent Past. On the wrong side." According to his story, relations with the diplomatic representatives of the allies were carried out by members of the “Union for the Revival of Russia” specially authorized for this purpose. These connections were carried out through the French ambassador Noulens. Later, when the ambassadors left for Vologda, through the French consul Grenard. The French financed the “Union”, but Nulans directly stated that “the allies, in fact, do not need the assistance of Russian political organizations” and could well land their troops in Russia themselves. //Golinkov D. L. Secret operations of the Cheka
The civil war and "Red Terror" in Soviet Russia were provoked by British services, with the active support of British Prime Minister Lloyd George and US President Woodrow Wilson.
The US President personally supervised the work of agents to discredit Soviet power, and above all, the young government led by Lenin, both in the West and in Russia.
In October 1918, on the direct orders of Woodrow Wilson, Washington published "Sisson papers", allegedly proving that the Bolshevik leadership consisted of direct agents of Germany, controlled by directives of the German General Staff. The “documents” were allegedly purchased at the end of 1917 by the special envoy of the US President to Russia, Edgar Sisson, for $25,000.
The “documents” were fabricated by Polish journalist Ferdinand Ossendowski. They allowed the myth to spread throughout Europe about the leader of the Soviet state, Lenin, who allegedly “made a revolution with German money.”
Sisson's mission was "brilliant." He “obtained” 68 documents, some of which allegedly confirmed Lenin’s connection with the Germans and even the direct dependence of the Council of People’s Commissars on the Government of Kaiser Germany until the spring of 1918. More details about the forged documents can be found on the website of Academician Yu. K. Begunov.
Counterfeits continue to be spread in modern Russia. Thus, in 2005, the documentary film “Secrets of Intelligence. Revolution in a suitcase."
Lenin:
“We are reproached for arresting people. Yes, we are arresting. ...We are reproached for using terror, but we do not use terror, such as was used by the French revolutionaries who guillotined unarmed people, and I hope we will not use it. And, I hope, we will not use it, since the power is behind us. When we arrested you, we said that we will let you go if you sign that you will not sabotage. And such a subscription is given.”
“Soviet terror” was a retaliatory, protective, and therefore fair measure against the armed campaign of the interventionists, against the actions of the White Guards, against the large-scale white terror planned by the aggressor states.
Mutiny of the Czechoslovak Corps in support white movement in May 1918 had the goal of uniting the conspirators “to cut off the Siberian road, stop the supply of Siberian grain and starve the Soviet Republic”:
“The Ural bandit Dutov, the steppe colonel Ivanov, the Czechoslovaks, fugitive Russian officers, agents of Anglo-French imperialism, former landowners and Siberian kulaks united in one sacred alliance against the workers and peasants. If this union had won, rivers of people's blood would have been shed, and the power of the monarchy and the bourgeoisie would have been restored on Russian soil. ...In order...to wipe away bourgeois treason from the face of the earth and to ensure the Great Siberian Road from further...attacks, the Council of People's Commissars considers it necessary to take exceptional measures.”
Among them it was proposed:
“All Councils of Deputies are charged with vigilant supervision over the local bourgeoisie and harsh reprisals against conspirators... Conspiratorial officers, traitors, accomplices of Skoropadsky, Krasnov, Siberian Colonel Ivanov, must be mercilessly exterminated... Down with the traitor-rapists! Death to the enemies of the people!
One of the instigators of the uprising, Radola Gaida, commander of the Czechoslovak troops, with his guards
With the beginning of the Civil War and intervention, the “Red Terror” changed its character, and the Cheka began to use extrajudicial measures - execution on the spot. The Cheka became not only an agency for search and investigation, but also for direct reprisals against the most dangerous criminals. All previous revolutions enjoyed such a legal right to their defense: the English, American and French, during which the bourgeoisie asserted its power. And no one, neither England, nor the USA, nor France, now reproaches this.
On January 1, 1918, an attempt was made on Lenin. At about 19:30, the car in which Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova and the secretary of the Swiss Social Democratic Party Friedrich Platten were located was fired upon by terrorists on the Simeonovsky Bridge across the Fontanka.
The assassination attempt was never solved. In the same month, the Extraordinary Commission for the Protection of the City of Petrograd, headed by Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov, began to receive information about an impending new attempt on Lenin’s life, about surveillance of the apartments of senior officials, including Bonch-Bruevich.
In mid-January, the Cavalier of St. George Ya. N. Spiridonov came to Bonch-Bruevich and said that he had been instructed to track down and capture Lenin alive (or kill) and was promised 20 thousand rubles for this. It turned out that the terrorist acts were developed by members of the Petrograd Union of Knights of St. George. Lenin gave the order: “The matter must be stopped. Release. Send to the front."
On June 21, 1918, the revolutionary tribunal under the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, in a public open meeting, pronounced the first death sentence.
On August 30, 1918, at the Mikhelson plant, a new attempt was made on Lenin, committed, according to the official version, by the Socialist-Revolutionary Fanny Kaplan. The question of the organizers and participants in the assassination attempt, as well as the involvement of Fanny Kaplan, remains unclear to this day.
Lenin left for the plant without security, and there was no security at the plant itself. Immediately after the assassination attempt, the leader was unconscious; doctors discovered a dangerous wound in his neck under the jaw, blood had entered his lung. The second bullet hit him in the arm, and the third hit the woman who was talking to Lenin when the shooting began.
Moses Solomonovich Uritsky (1873-1918). Chairman of the Petrograd Cheka
On the morning of the same day, the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, Uritsky, who was opposed to executions in general, was killed in Petrograd.
On September 2, 1918, Yakov Sverdlov, in an appeal to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, declared the Red Terror as a response to the assassination attempt on Lenin on August 30 and the murder on the same day of the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, Uritsky (the decision was confirmed by a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of September 5, 1918, signed by the People's Commissar of Justice D.I. Kursky, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs G.I. Petrovsky and SNK Affairs Manager V.D. Bonch-Bruevich).
Below we will examine in detail that the methods of the Red and White Terror differed.
The Red Terror was declared as one of the types of war against combat units of enemies of the revolution and interventionists, against especially dangerous terrorists, spies, saboteurs, participants in sabotage preparations, propagandists, criminals, and concealers. White terror was more reminiscent of genocide, which is usually used by foreign occupiers to instill terror in the peaceful indigenous population in order to warn them against resistance.
Siberian old-timers still remember the horrors of the White Terror. The Kolchakites were distinguished by their special bestial cruelty. They burned villages, raped, tortured and buried the local civilian population alive.
One of the characteristic examples of Kolchak’s genocide is the activity of Surov’s punitive detachment, which was sent to suppress the peasant uprising in the village of Ksenyevka.
Severity
Surov Vladimir Aleksandrovich was born in 1892, graduated from a four-year city school.
In October 1913, Surov was enlisted in the second-class state militia. In 1915, he was called up for mobilization, ending up in the 9th Siberian Rifle Reserve Battalion, and enrolled in the Irkutsk School of Warrant Officers. On April 1, 1916, he was promoted to warrant officer in the army infantry and assigned to the 4th Siberian reserve rifle brigade.
In June 1918, Surov was an assistant to the commander of the detachment A. T. Aldmanovich, who was engaged in clearing the southern districts of the Tomsk province from the Red Guards. In 1919, Captain Surov led a punitive detachment in the Chulym region. Later he was promoted to lieutenant colonel.
On May 4, 1919, at 15:00, Surov, at the head of a detachment of punitive forces, set out from the Cathedral Square of Tomsk along the Irkutsk Highway. Under his command were 32 officers, 46 sabers (cavalry) and 291 infantry riflemen with three machine guns. The detachment consisted of three shock groups, a team of foot scouts, hussars, as well as mounted and foot militia.
Punitive detachment of Surov
The very next day at 16:00 the first battle took place near Surov - near the village of Novo-Arkhangelskoye. The punitive forces made arrests and confiscated weapons in the village, then broke into the village of Latatsky.
On May 7, the Serbians occupied the villages of Klyuevsky and Kaibinsky, and at 7 p.m., after a two-hour battle, the village of Malo-Zhirovo, they seized documents of the rebels, which discussed the restoration of Soviet power in the territory covered by the peasant uprising and the mobilization of men born in 1897 into the “people's army.” .
On May 9, 1919, the punitive forces occupied Voronino-Pashnya, as well as the villages of Tikhomirovsky and Troitsky, without a fight.
On May 10, the Severians occupied the village of Novo-Kuskovo, 35 people - organizers and members of the Novo-Kuskovo Council of Deputies were executed. The detachment of the commander of the partisan detachment, member of the Tomsk Council Ivan Sergeevich Tolkunov (pseudonym Goncharov) retreated to the village of Ksenyevsky and the village of Kazanskoye.
Following them, the 2nd strike group was sent (each strike group had approximately 100 people) with a team of foot scouts, the 3rd strike group went to the villages of Kaynary, Novo-Pokrovsky (Kulary), Ivano-Bogoslovsky and Boroksky.
The punitive forces burned the villages of Kulyary and Tatar.
The Surovtsy defeated Ksenyevka, They burned the partisans' houses and killed their families. A lot of people were flogged.
From May 11 to 14, the Surtsy occupied the village of Kazanskoye and moved to the village of Chelbakovsky, where, according to intelligence data, there were 450 fighters of the partisan detachment. There was a battle with the use of grenades, bayonet strikes, and hand-to-hand combat.
The Reds, taking advantage of the wind blowing towards the punishers, lit the dry grass and created a smoke screen, which made it possible to regroup on the flanks. Meanwhile, the Surovites brought up reinforcements and machine guns and, after a 3.5-hour battle, drove back the partisans, who suffered huge losses in killed and wounded.
A Red detachment of 80-100 people managed to cross to the other side of Chulym.
12 May total torture residents were subjected to Kazanka and Chelbak village . 22 people were executed for “belonging to the revolutionary committee”; their property and houses were burned.
Surov reported to the command: “A bullet factory was discovered in Ksenyevskoye, 12 participants were court-martialed. The peasant Pleshkov, a former member of the executive committee of the Council of Soldiers’ and Workers’ Deputies of Tomsk, was arrested and shot.” 
On May 15, the 1st strike group of the Sursky detachment moved to the village of Filimonovsky, the village of Mitrofanovskoye, the Karakolsky yurts, the village of Mikhailovsky, the village of Novikovsky and back through the village of Antonovsky, the village of Mitrofanovskoye and the village of Filimonovsky.
Arrests were made persons involved in Bolshevism. Surovtsy established contact with another punitive detachment under the command of Captain Orlov, operating in neighboring volosts.
On May 16, Surov received news that a partisan detachment of Pyotr Lubkov, numbering three hundred people, was moving to the area of the peasant uprising. In the village of Khaldeevo, Lubkovites attacked a transport with wounded White Guards from Surov’s detachment, and in the village of Vorono-Pashnya they fired at Orlov’s detachment.
On the night of May 17, Surov with two shock groups set out for the village of Tikhomirovsky, where the Lubkovites settled down to spend the night. The partisans were defeated in the battle, losing part of their convoy and prisoners.
Next, Surov crossed on the steamship "Ermak" to the opposite bank of Chulym to pursue the "small gangs". Having knocked down the rebel outposts, the Severians marched through 18 settlements for several days, including the villages of Sakhalinsky, Uzen, Makarovsky, Tsaritsynsky, Voznesensky, Lomovitsky, the village of Rozhdestvenskoye, the village of Sergeevo, the yurts of Burbina, Ezhi and others.
By the end of May 1919, the peasant uprising was suppressed. But the partisan detachment created by Goncharov during the days of the uprising continued to operate. Having united with Lubkov’s detachment, Goncharov’s detachment operated on the territory of the Tomsk and Mariinsky districts.
Pyotr Kuzmich Lubkov. Peasant of the village of Svyatoslavka, Malo-Peschanaya volost, Mariinsky district, Tomsk province. In May 1917 he returned from the front of the First World War. Knight of St. George with the rank of senior non-commissioned officer. In October 1917, Svyatoslav peasants created a Council of Deputies in the village, which included Lubkov. In the spring of 1918, white punitive forces came to the village of Svyatoslavka and arrested Pyotr Lubkov and his brother Ignat, but they were able to escape and joined the partisan movement. In 1919, Lubkov joined the Red Army, participated in the battles for the liberation of Eastern Siberia, and worked in the Cheka. In September 1920, he rebelled against the surplus appropriation system and hid in the taiga. On June 23, 1921, it was liquidated as a result of a Cheka operation. http://svyatoslavka.ucoz.ru/in...
On June 24, Lubkov’s detachment attacked the Izhmorka station and the railway bridge over the Yaya River. The Czechoslovak detachment guarding them was defeated. The station's equipment was disabled, trophies were captured - rifles, cartridges, grenades, and many sets of uniforms. However, during the retreat, near the village of Chernaya Rechka the partisans were overtaken by the Whites.
The Lubkovites retreated to Mikhailovka, and Goncharov’s detachment approached here. The Whites attacked the combined forces of the partisans from Gagarino. Goncharov led his men to attack the bridge over the river.
On June 25, in the village of Mikhailovka, a large detachment of punitive forces surrounded a handful of brave men, led by Goncharov, who had rushed forward. In an unequal battle, 20 partisans died here, including the commander of the partisan detachment, member of the Tomsk Council, Ivan Sergeevich Tolkunov-Goncharov. V. Zvorykin became the commander of the detachment. Lubkov was seriously wounded in the battle.
The historical memory of the white punitive forces and the red partisans has been preserved in the form of monuments in the settlements of the Asinovsky district of the Tomsk region.
“Mass grave of partisans, underground fighters and victims of white terror.” Station square in the city of Asino, Tomsk region. On the pedestal there is the inscription “Eternal glory to the partisans of the Civil War.” https://kozyukova.jimdo.com/r...
Mass grave of partisans, supporters of Soviet power, who provided assistance to the partisans. With. Kazanka of the Tomsk region.http://memorials.tomsk.ru/news…
Mass grave of partisans who died in 1919 in the village. Novokuskovo, Tomsk region.
Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs V.N. Pepelyaev, having learned about the actions of V.A. Surov and his detachment, telegraphed to the governor of the Tomsk province B.M. Mikhailovsky:
“I read your report with satisfaction... Please convey my gratitude to Captain Surov. Say hello and my gratitude to the police officers. Give generous benefits to those who suffered and distinguished themselves... I look forward to equally energetic actions in all directions.”
Surov with the remnants of Kolchak’s army retreated first to Transbaikalia, and then ended up in exile in China. In 1922, he volunteered for the Siberian Volunteer Squad, formed by General A. N. Pepelyaev. In 1924 he was arrested and shot.
From the decision of the trial of Surov:
“In early May 1919, Captain Surov received command of expeditionary punitive detachments, whose tasks included a merciless fight against the insurgent movement. From that time on, the dark days of harshness hung over the Tomsk province, especially over the Tomsk and Mariinsky districts. Surov’s cruelty and inhumanity knew no bounds: the strong and the weak, old men and women, women and children were subjected to torture, flogging, shooting and hanging.”
Interventionists
When talking about white terror, it is imperative to take into account: this is terror that was carried out as part of the intervention of foreign aggressors on the territory of young Soviet Russia.
On March 1, 1918, German troops overthrew Soviet power in Kyiv and moved towards Kharkov, Poltava, Yekaterinoslav, Nikolaev, Kherson and Odessa. The German occupiers created the government of General P.P. Skoropadsky and proclaimed him Hetman of Ukraine.
Skoropadsky's meeting with Hindenburg at the train station in the German city of Spa, September 1918.
On March 5, the Germans, under the command of Major General von der Goltz, invaded Finland, where they soon overthrew the Finnish Soviet government. On April 18, German troops invaded Crimea, and on April 30 they captured Sevastopol.
By mid-June, more than 15 thousand German troops with aviation and artillery were in Transcaucasia, including 10 thousand people in Poti and 5 thousand in Tiflis (Tbilisi). Turkish troops have been in Transcaucasia since mid-February.
On May 25, the Czechoslovak Corps, whose echelons were located between Penza and Vladivostok, advanced.
Entente landing in Arkhangelsk, August 1918
American intervention in Vladivostok. August 1918
Japanese occupation units in Vladivostok. 1918
Allied parade in Murmansk in honor of victory in the First World War. November 1918.
Unloading British tanks in Arkhangelsk
American interventionists guard the arrested "bolos" - that's what they called the Bolsheviks. Dvinskoy Bereznik, Vinogradovsky municipal district of the Arkhangelsk region.
A special form of intervention was Russian collaborationism under the guise of the white movement.
Kolchak with foreign allies
Don Ataman Pyotr Krasnov:
“The volunteer army is pure and infallible. But it’s me, the Don Ataman, who, with my dirty hands, takes German shells and cartridges, washes them in the waves of the quiet Don and hands them over clean to the Volunteer Army! The entire shame of this matter lies with me!”
General Krasnov during the Second World War (from March 30, 1944 - head of the Main Directorate of Cossack Troops (Hauptverwaltung der Kosakenheere) http://alternathistory.com/pop…
The real genocide of the inhabitants of the Far East was carried out by American interventionists.
So, for example, having captured the peasants I. Gonevchuk, S. Gorshkov, P. Oparin and Z. Murashko, the Americans buried alive them for connections with local partisans. And the wife of partisan E. Boychuk was dealt with as follows: pierced the body with bayonets and drowned in a garbage pit. The peasant Bochkarev was mutilated beyond recognition with bayonets and knives: “his nose, lips, ears were cut off, his jaw was knocked out, his face and eyes were stabbed with bayonets, his whole body was cut up.” At the station In Sviyagino, partisan N. Myasnikov was tortured in the same brutal way, who, according to an eyewitness, “first they cut off the ears, then the nose, arms, legs, cutting them into pieces alive».
Murdered Bolshevik
“In the spring of 1919, a punitive expedition of interventionists appeared in the village, carrying out reprisals against those who were suspected of sympathizing with the partisans,” testified A. Khortov, a resident of the village of Kharitonovka, Shkotovsky district. - Punishers arrested many peasants as hostages and demanded to hand over the partisans, threatening to shoot(...) The interventionist executioners also dealt savagely with the innocent peasant hostages. Among them was my elderly father, Philip Khortov. He was brought home bloodied. He was still alive for several days, and kept repeating: “Why were they tortured me, you damned beasts?!” The father died, leaving five orphans.
Caption under the photo: “Shooted Russian. At Post No. 1, on January 8, 1919, at 3 a.m., an enemy patrol of seven men attempted to approach the American post. Village High mountain. Ust Padega. Vaga River Village of Visorka Gora, Ust Padenga, Vaga River Column, Russia. Jan. 8, 1919. (Official U.S. Army Signal Corps caption for photo 152821).
American soldiers appeared in our village several times and each time carried out arrests of residents, robberies, and murders. In the summer of 1919, American and Japanese punitive forces staged a public flogging with ramrods and whips peasant Pavel Kuzikov. An American non-commissioned officer stood nearby and, smiling, clicked his camera. Ivan Kravchuk and three other guys from Vladivostok were suspected of having connections with the partisans, they tortured me for several days. They knocked out their teeth, cut off their tongues».
“The interventionists surrounded Little Cape and opened fire on the village. Having learned that there were no partisans there, the Americans became bolder and burst into it, burned down the school. Brutally flog everyone whoever came their way. Peasant Cherevatov, like many others, had to be carried home, bloodied and unconscious. American infantrymen carried out brutal oppression in the villages of Knevichi, Krolevtsy and other settlements. In front of everyone, an American officer fired several bullets into the head wounded boy Vasily Shemyakin." //https://topwar.ru/14988-zverst…
US Army Colonel Morrow: " couldn't sleep without killing someone on this day (...) When our soldiers captured the Russians, they took them to the Andriyanovka station, where the wagons were unloaded, prisoners were brought to huge pits, where they were shot from machine guns».
Colonel Morrow's "most memorable" day was "when 1600 people were shot, delivered in 53 wagons."
In May 1918 the squadron allied forces The Entente entered Murmansk for intervention. The crew of the Olympia assigned people to the Anglo-French-American landing force that occupied the city. The Americans created a real Sonderkommando: they hunted the Bolsheviks.
The Japanese invaders were no less cruel than the American ones. In January 1919, the Japanese burned the village of Sokhatino, and in February the village of Ivanovka.
Reporter Yamauchi from the Japanese newspaper Urajio Nippo:
“The village of Ivanovka was surrounded. The 60-70 households that it consisted of were completely burned, and its inhabitants, including women and children (300 people in total) - captured. Some tried to take refuge in their homes. And then these houses were set on fire along with the people in them».
In the first days of April 1920 alone, the Japanese, suddenly violating the truce agreement, killed about 7 thousand people in Vladivostok, Spassk, Nikolsk-Ussuriysk and surrounding villages.
The interventionists mercilessly plundered all the occupied territories of Russia. They exported metal, coal, bread, machinery and equipment, engines and furs. Civilian ships and steam locomotives were stolen. From Ukraine alone, by October 1918, the Germans had exported 52 thousand tons of grain and fodder, 34 thousand tons of sugar, 45 million eggs, 53 thousand horses and 39 thousand heads of cattle.
In total, more than a million invaders visited Russia - 280 thousand Austro-German, 850 thousand British, American, French and Japanese. The Russian people, according to incomplete data, lost about 8 million killed, tortured in concentration camps, and died from wounds, hunger and epidemics. The country's material losses, according to experts, amounted to 50 billion gold rubles. //Based on materials from varjag_2007
Atrocities of the White Guards
Doctor of Historical Sciences Heinrich Ioffe in the magazine “Science and Life No. 12 for 2004” in an article about Denikin writes:
“In the territories liberated from the Reds there was a real revanchist Sabbath. The old masters returned and reigned arbitrariness, robberies, terrible Jewish pogroms…».
William Sydney Graves (1865-1940)
“There were terrible murders in Eastern Siberia, but they were not committed by the Bolsheviks, as was usually thought. I won't be wrong if I say that For every person killed by the Bolsheviks, 100 people were killed by anti-Bolshevik elements».
Czechoslovak punitive forces literally wiped out entire towns and villages from the face of the earth. In Yeniseisk alone, for example, more than 700 people were shot for sympathizing with the Bolsheviks - almost a tenth of those living there. When suppressing the uprising of prisoners at the Alexander Transit Prison in September 1919, the Czechs shot the prisoners at point-blank range with machine guns and cannons. The massacre lasted three days. About 600 people died at the hands of the executioners.
Concentration camps were set up for those who opposed the occupation or sympathized with the Bolsheviks.
August 23, 1918 on Mudyug Island near Northern Dvina In the Arkhangelsk region, Entente interventionists created a concentration camp for Bolsheviks and sympathizers.
Because of this, Mudyug received the nickname “Island of Death”. On June 2, 1919, the British handed over the concentration camp to the White Guards. By this time, out of 1,242 prisoners, 23 had been shot, 310 died from disease and mistreatment, and more than 150 people became disabled.
After the departure of the Anglo-French interventionists, power in the North of Russia passed into the hands of the White Guard general Yevgeny Miller. He not only continued, but also intensified repression and terror, trying to stop the rapidly developing process of Bolshevization of the population. Their most inhumane embodiment was the convict prison in Yokanga, which one of the prisoners described as the most brutal, sophisticated method of exterminating people with a slow, painful death:
“The dead lay on bunks along with the living, and the living were no better than the dead: dirty, covered with scabs, in torn rags, decomposing alive, they presented a nightmarish picture.”
Yokang Prison
Model of the Yokanga prison in the Murmansk Museum of Local Lore
By the time Iokanga was liberated from the whites, out of one and a half thousand prisoners, 576 people remained there, of whom 205 could no longer move.
A system of similar concentration camps was deployed by Admiral Kolchak in Siberia and the Far East. The Kolchak regime imprisoned 914,178 people who rejected the restoration of pre-revolutionary orders. Another 75 thousand people were in white Siberia. Kolchak drove more than 520 thousand prisoners into slave, almost unpaid labor in enterprises and agriculture.
Bodies of workers and peasants shot by Kolchak's men
When in the fall of 1918 the White Guards began to suffer defeat from the Red Army, barges and death trains with prisoners of prisons and concentration camps reached the Eastern Front, Siberia, and then the Far East.
When the death trains were in Primorye, they were visited by members of the American Red Cross. One of them, Bukeli, wrote in his diary:
Fracture
As stated above, Lenin was initially determined to release the enemies of the revolution on a signature with guarantees of non-participation in sabotage. This was due to the phenomenal success of the October Revolution, which in four months spread throughout Russia, thanks to the support of the Soviet power by the overwhelming majority of the common people. Lenin hoped that opponents would realize the irreversibility of the accomplished self-determination of the people and the change in the political system.
However, brutal white terror and intervention forced the Bolsheviks to change tactics.
Then many enemies of the revolution were released on parole. Among them were Pyotr Krasnov, Vladimir Marushevsky, Vasily Boldyrev, Vladimir Purishkevich, Alexey Nikitin, Kuzma Gvozdev, Semyon Maslov and others.
However, the counter-revolutionaries again launched an armed struggle, propaganda, sabotage, terrorist attacks, and entered into an alliance with the aggressors, which resulted in the death of several more million citizens for the country during the years of the Civil War and intervention. Then the Soviet leadership decided to change tactics, although we emphasize once again this measure was solely a response.
Red Terror
The Red Terror was aimed at those who purposefully acted against the authorities and was governed by certain principles: there had to be justification and public announcement of the reprisals.
Let us turn, following the main scientific principle, to historical documents:
If you carefully study the newspaper clippings of those years, we are always talking about enemy combat units: those who are waging a specific fight against the new state, participating in the white movement, or committing other counter-revolutionary crimes prohibited by law.
Let us also pay attention to the method of carrying out terror. This is, as a rule, a court-martial, that is, execution on the spot. Google, on the other hand, returns child victims and sadistic pictures when searching for “red terror.”
True, it is not clear on what basis photographs of dug up corpses and severed fingers on the bodies of old women are attributed to the Red Terror, that is, the actions of the security officers.
This may well be nothing more than evidence of the brutal chaos of those years. The old government collapsed in the country, and the new one still did not control everything. Forest bandits, nationalists, city gangs and looters were active. Millions of people returned from the war fronts demoralized. The emperor who declared war renounced his country, and the conspirators who accepted the renunciation treacherously destroyed the army right during the fighting outside their native lands.
As a result, Russia not only did not receive the Bosporus and Dardanelles promised by its allies, but also abandoned all the conquests of the soldiers of the First World War. Why did almost three million Russians die, and seven million were wounded or captured?
Many became marginalized, poverty and ruin reigned everywhere, and millions of uncontrolled weapons were walking around the country, the large-scale production of which was launched for the First World War.
Unlike Kolchak’s punishers, who burn villages, torture and kill local men, women, and children, the security officers look like real fighters for establishing order in the newly established state. We will not take on the role of judges here, but at least in the context of what is happening in the country, described in detail above, such a fight may seem justified.
Chekists-Red Guards of the railway junction of the station. Chrysostom 1919
Various cultural and educational societies sponsored by the Soros, MacArthur foundations, the US government and others have said a lot about the Red Terror.
Now let us give the floor to the official position of the Soviet government.
As we see, there is no talk of any “billions of victims of Bolshevism” that liberal human rights activists constantly talk about.
However, let us briefly look at how anti-Soviet fables are created, using one specific example.
There is such a site “Historical Memory”. Its focus can be judged from its description:
Many problems of modern Russian society that interest us are mentioned here: the supernatural interest in “victims of the regime”, and “reconciliation”, and the Yeltsin Center, and graduate School economy.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin taught to see the interests of certain classes behind any activity:
“People have always been and will always be stupid victims of deception and self-deception in politics until they learn to look for the interests of certain classes behind any moral, religious, political, social phrases, statements, promises.”
//Lenin V.I. Three sources and three components of Marxism // Complete. collection op. – T. 23. – P. 47.
In this vein, the partners of the mentioned Internet portal are interesting.
Special thanks to oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov for his participation in the creation of the site.
Here is the typical content of this site:
There is a caption under the photo:
In August 1918, after the assassination attempt on Lenin and the murder of Uritsky, the Bolsheviks announced an action of retaliation in the country - the Red Terror. Rybinsk did not stand aside either. On September 4, 1918, in the newspaper “Izvestia of the Rybinsk Council of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Red Army Deputies” a menacing notice from the Rybinsk District Military Commissariat appeared: “Red bloody terror is declared to everyone who lives on capital, exploiting the labor of others!” The trial of traitors will be brief and merciless - within 24 hours there will be a verdict and execution!”
The Rybinsk district emergency commission drew up a “planned order” for executions. The mass executions continued for two days. Both single and mass executions were carried out. The families of Rybinsk merchants Polenovs, Durdins, Zherebtsovs, Sadovs and others were shot.
The mechanism for carrying out the Red Terror was as follows. The chairman of the Rybinsk district Cheka, P. Golyshkov, called his subordinates and gave the order to shoot specific individuals. A firing squad of 4-5 security officers was assembled. This group went to a specific address, a search was carried out and valuable property was confiscated. Then the owner of the house or several family members were taken out of the house under the pretext of sending them to the Cheka for interrogation. However, those arrested were not taken to the Cheka, but to a forest or barn and shot there. Some of the property of the murdered was divided among the members of the firing squad, and some was handed over to the Cheka. On the way from the place of execution to the Cheka, members of the firing squad entered the house of one of the security officers, where they drank to the point of severe alcoholic intoxication. The Red Army soldiers from the military registration and enlistment office, who also participated in the Red Terror campaign, acted in a similar way.
Here's what really happened.
Popenov was not on the execution lists examined by a local historian. Then the granddaughter of this merchant appeared, who explained literally the following:
The family of Leonty Lukich Popenov was indeed shot. But not the whole family, but those who were at home when the bandits arrived. The Popenovs' house was located on the left bank of the Volga (opposite Rybinsk). They were photographed near their home. By the way, it was preserved. There has been a clinic there since the 1930s.
So, the head of the family, who was in the city at that moment, as well as his two daughters, who were in Rybinsk (at classes), were lucky to avoid execution. In addition, she was lucky that her eldest daughter, who was in Kyiv in 1918, got married in January 1911. And one more son survived, because... he served in the army. The First World War and the Civil War ended for him in Serbia.
L. L. Popenov buried his wife and murdered children in the fence of the Iverskaya Church Mother of God, located near their home, also on the left bank of the Volga.
The execution of the family of L.L. Popenov took place for the purpose of a banal robbery.
L. L. Popenov himself lived to a ripe old age and died at the age of more than 90 years (in 1942), buried near Moscow.
In this situation, the Rybinsk security officers were credited with something that they did not do, and Popenov lived in Soviet Russia until a very old age, and no one executed him just because he was a merchant under the capitalist system.
This is how historical myths are created.
Instead of a conclusion
After the end of the Civil War, the Red Terror was curtailed.
Is it possible for the Soviet state to return to a new wave of terror? Lenin answered this question prophetically. The first People's Commissar of the USSR - to the last People's Commissar of the USSR I.V. Stalin:
“Terror was imposed on us by Entente terrorism, when world-powerful powers attacked us with their hordes, stopping at nothing. We could not have held out even for two days if these attempts by the officers and White Guards had not been responded to in a merciless manner, and this meant terror, but this was imposed on us by the terrorist methods of the Entente. And as soon as we won a decisive victory, even before the end of the war, immediately after the capture of Rostov, we abandoned the use of the death penalty...
And I think, hope and am confident that the All-Russian Central Executive Committee will unanimously confirm this measure of the Council of People's Commissars and resolve it in such a way that the use of the death penalty in Russia becomes impossible.
It goes without saying that any attempt by the Entente to resume the methods of war will force us to resume the previous terror. We know that we live in a time of predation, when kind words are not acted upon; This is what we had in mind, and as soon as the decisive struggle was over, we immediately began to abolish the measures that are applied indefinitely in all other powers.”
Report on the work of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars // Lenin V.I. PSS vol. 40. P. 101)
What remains for us is to study history well in order to clearly determine where good and evil are, and to preserve the values of the victory of the Great October Revolution, which our ancestors achieved with such difficulty and with such losses.
In the USSR, it was customary to view the White Guards as enemies of Soviet power and to depict their atrocities. In the post-perestroika era, the term “red terror” came into use, which is usually used to designate the Bolshevik policy towards the nobility, bourgeoisie and other “alien classes”. What about the “white terror”? Did it actually take place?
Execution at the Kremlin
“White terror” is a rather conventional term that modern historians use to designate repressive measures directed against the Bolsheviks and their supporters.
As a rule, violent acts were spontaneous, unorganized, but in some cases they were sanctioned by the temporary military and political authorities.
The first officially recorded act of “white terror” took place on October 28, 1917. The cadets, who were liberating the Moscow Kremlin from the rebels, lined up the unarmed soldiers of the 56th reserve regiment, who had sided with the Bolsheviks, at the monument to Alexander II, ostensibly for the purpose of checking, and opened fire on them with rifles and machine guns. As a result of this action, about 300 people died.
Kornilov's "answer"
It is believed that one of the White Guard “leaders”, General L.G. Kornilov allegedly gave the order not to take prisoners, but to shoot them on the spot. But no official order in this regard was ever found. Kornilovets A.R. Trushnovich later said that, unlike the Bolsheviks, who declared terror by law, ideologically justifying it, Kornilov’s army stood for law and order, so it avoided requisitioning property and unnecessary bloodshed. However, it also happened that circumstances forced the Kornilovites to respond with cruelty to cruelty on the part of their enemies.
For example, in the area of the village of Gnilovskaya near Rostov, the Bolsheviks killed several wounded Kornilov officers and the nurse who accompanied them. In the Lezhanka area, the Bolsheviks captured a Cossack patrol and buried them alive in the ground. There they ripped open the belly of a local priest and dragged him by the intestines throughout the village. Many relatives of the Kornilovites were tortured by the Bolsheviks, and then they began to kill prisoners...
From the Volga region to Siberia
In the summer of 1918, supporters of the Constituent Assembly came to power in the Volga region. The White Guards massacred many party and Soviet workers. On the territory under the control of Komuch, security structures, military courts were created, and so-called “death barges” were used to execute Bolshevik-minded individuals. In September-October, workers' uprisings in Kazan and Ivashchenkovo were brutally suppressed.
In northern Russia, 38 thousand people were imprisoned in Arkhangelsk on charges of Bolshevik activity. About 8 thousand prisoners were shot, and more than a thousand died within the prison walls.
In the same 1918, about 30 thousand people became victims of the “White Terror” in the territories under the control of General P.N. Krasnova. Here are the lines from the order of the commandant of the Makeevsky district dated November 10, 1918: “I forbid arresting workers, but order them to be shot or hanged; I order all arrested workers to be hanged on the main street and not removed for three days.”
In November 1918, Admiral A.V. Kolchak actively pursued a policy of expulsion and execution of Siberian Socialist Revolutionaries. Member of the Central Committee of the Right Socialist Revolutionary Party D.F. Rakov wrote: “Omsk simply froze in horror... There were an infinite number of those killed... in any case, no less than 2,500 people. Entire cartloads of corpses were transported around the city, just as they transport lamb and pork carcasses in winter...”
General A.I. Denikin was accused of treating the Bolsheviks too softly. However, there is Order No. 7 signed by him on August 14 (27), 1918, according to which “all persons accused of promoting or favoring the troops or authorities of the Soviet Republic in their military or other hostile actions against the Volunteer Army, as well as for premeditated murder, rape, robbery, robbery, deliberate incendiary or drowning of someone else’s property” was ordered to be brought before “court-martial of the military unit of the Volunteer Army, by order of the military governor.”
Be that as it may, one cannot consider the “reds” bad and the “whites” exceptionally good, or vice versa - as you like... Any war is, first of all, violence. And a civil war is a terrible tragedy in which it is difficult to find those who are right and those who are guilty...
When you turn to a white person, the question arises: did he exist at all? If we define “terror” as a centralized, mass phenomenon, as part of a general policy and state system, then the answer will definitely be negative.
The White Guards were not “angels”. The civil war is a terrible, cruel war. There were reprisals against the enemy and violence. But such cases are completely incomparable with the Red Terror, either quantitatively or qualitatively. I’ll make a reservation right away - everything said applies to the areas of operation of regular white armies, and not to independent “ atamanshchina“, where both sides destroyed each other “on equal terms.” But the “atamanshchina” did not obey the orders of the supreme white power, committing atrocities in spite of them.
As for other areas, it can be noted that the overwhelming share of the atrocities of the so-called White Terror occurred in the “partisan” phase of the White Movement. For example, the beginning Ice hike, when they didn’t take prisoners, where were they to go if Volunteer Army had neither rear nor shelter. But already during the retreat from Ekaterinodar in April 18th, the situation began to change - even many prominent Bolsheviks were released on the condition that they would protect the untransportable wounded who were left behind from reprisals. Cases of extrajudicial executions were repeated later. But they were strictly prohibited by the command and were in the nature of spontaneous excesses. And they usually only treated commissars, security officers and Soviet workers. Often “internationalists” were not taken prisoner: Germans, Hungarians, Chinese. Former officers who found themselves in service in Red Army, – they were treated as traitors. And the bulk of the prisoners became one of the main sources of replenishment of the white armies. On the red side, massacres of prisoners were observed both in the 19th and 20th.
The main outbreaks of repression against the Reds occurred during the anti-Bolshevik uprisings in the Kuban, the Don, the Urals, and the Volga region, being especially fierce where social discord was complemented by ethnic discord (Cossacks against nonresidents, Kyrgyz against peasants, etc.). Again, we are dealing with the "guerrilla" phase. With spontaneous explosions, when the hatred of the population spilled out against the Bolsheviks. But even during such outbreaks, the degree of red and white reprisals was by no means unambiguous. Remember Serafimovich’s “Iron Stream”. Taman Army, carving out villages on its way, sparing neither women nor children, in order to raise fighting anger, is forced to turn off the path and make a detour of 20–30 miles to look at five hanged Bolsheviks. Veshensky rebels almost immediately after their victory (after the genocide!) they decided to cancel the executions. In 1947, the trial took place Skin, Krasnov, Sultan-Girey Klych and other White Guards who collaborated with Germany, and in the materials of the trial there is no mention of massacres against civilians. Everywhere we are talking only about “commanders and commissars”, listed by name. But these were the acts of the most “brutal” white units that were being investigated!
In the summer of the 18th, A. Stetsenko, wife Furmanova, went to Yekaterinodar and fell into the clutches of Denikin’s counterintelligence. The whole city knew that she was a communist, the daughter of a prominent Ekaterinodar Bolshevik who was shot Rada. And she arrived from the Soviet of Deputies... After making sure that she was not a spy, but simply came to visit her relatives, they released her. During the uprisings on the Volga and Siberia, prominent communists who managed to avoid spontaneous massacres, as a rule, remained alive. Red leaders in Samara were gradually exchanged or escaped from prison. The leader of the Vladivostok communists P. Nikiforov quietly sat in prison from June 1918 to January 1920 - both under the Derber government and under Ufa Directory, and under Kolchak - and without much difficulty he led the local party organization from there. In 1919-1920 was in Kolchak prison and Bolshevik Krasnoshchekov- future chairman of the government of the Far Eastern Republic. And the Cossacks Mamontova from the raid, hundreds of kilometers away, they took with them the captured commissars and security officers for trial in Kharkov - and many of them later also remained alive.
On the Soviet side, terror during the Civil War was implemented centrally. The “White Terror” manifested itself in the form of spontaneous excesses, which were suppressed in every possible way by the authorities as the “disaster” was organized. In the complete works Lenin there are many documents demanding merciless and wholesale reprisals, and you will not find excerpts from such orders for the white armies anywhere - although many enemy documents in the “liberated” cities fell into the hands of the Reds. And Soviet historical literature made statements about the “white terror” of the Civil War either unfoundedly or based on “terrible” documents, such as the telegram of the Stavropol governor dated 08/13/19, which demanded, in order to fight the rebels... compiling lists of partisan families and evicting them outside the province. The order of the general is often cited as an example. Rozanov, who, with reference to Japanese methods, proposed “strict and cruel” measures to suppress the Yenisei uprising. They just keep silent about the fact that Rozanov was fired by Kolchak for this. And Wrangel, declaring Crimea a besieged fortress, threatened to mercilessly... expel opponents of the government behind the front line.
Based on materials from the book “White Guard” by V. Shambarov
L. LITVIN
RED AND WHITE TERROR IN RUSSIA 1917-1922/// DISCUSSIONS AND DISCUSSIONS 1993
A. L. LITVIN RED AND WHITE TERROR IN RUSSIA 1917-1922
Violence and terror have always been indispensable companions of the centuries-old history of mankind. But in terms of the number of victims and the legalization of violence, the 20th century has no analogues. This century “owes”, first of all, to the totalitarian regimes in Russia and Germany, the communist and national socialist governments.
Russia has traditionally been one of the countries where the cost of human life was scanty and humanitarian rights were not respected. Extremely radical socialists - the Bolsheviks, having seized power, proclaiming the immediate task of accomplishing a world revolution in the shortest possible time and creating a kingdom of labor, destroyed the semblance of a rule of law state, establishing revolutionary lawlessness. Never before in history have utopian ideas been introduced into the consciousness of people so cruelly, cynically and bloodily. The non-resistance proposed to the century by Gandhi and Leo Tolstoy was not accepted either in Russia or in Germany. In a short ideological struggle, merciless, fanatical evil won. which brought so much unprecedented suffering to people. The policy of violence and terror 1 pursued in Russia by the Bolsheviks changed the consciousness of the population. Pushkin in “Boris Godunov” noted the silence of the people during executions; Bolshevik periodicals are full of vociferous approval massacres. The eternal questions: who is to blame? What are the causes of the tragedy? How to explain, try to understand what happened?
The main trends in their solution were outlined for Soviet historiography by V.I. Lenin’s statements that the Red Terror during the Civil War in Russia was forced and became a response to the actions of the White Guards and interventionists. At the same time, the thesis was formulated: “The repressive measures that workers and peasants are forced to use to suppress the resistance of the exploiters cannot be compared with the horrors of the white terror of the counter-revolution” 3.
At the same time, through the efforts of, first of all, the Russian emigration, books and stories were created about the dungeons of the Cheka, and the difference between the White and Red Terror was characterized. According to S.P. Melgunov, the Red Terror had an official theoretical justification, was systemic, governmental in nature, and the White Terror was seen “as excesses based on unbridled power and revenge.” Therefore, the red terror in its scale and cruelty was worse than the white one 4. At the same time, a third point of view arose, according to which any terror was inhuman and should be abandoned as a method of struggle for power 5.
For a long time, politicized Soviet historiography was engaged in justifying the Red Terror. 6 Publicists were the first to criticize this position. They saw in the Red Terror not an “extraordinary measure of self-defense,” but an attempt to create a universal means of solving any problems, an ideological justification for the criminal actions of the authorities, and in the Cheka, an instrument of mass murder 7.
Currently, Melgunov’s thesis has become widespread that the whites, more than the reds, tried to adhere to legal norms when carrying out punitive actions . It's hard to agree with this statement. The fact is that the legal declarations and resolutions of the confronting parties did not protect the population of the country in those years from tyranny and terror. They could not be prevented either by the decision of the VI All-Russian Extraordinary Congress of Soviets (November 1918) on amnesty and “On revolutionary legality”, or by the resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the abolition of the death penalty (January 1920), or by the instructions of the governments of the opposite side. Both of them shot, took hostages, practiced decimation and torture. The comparison itself: one terror is worse (better) than another is incorrect. Killing innocent people is a crime. No terror can be a model. The Whites also had institutions similar to the Cheka and revolutionary tribunals - various counterintelligence and military courts, propaganda organizations with information tasks, such as Denikin’s Osvag (propaganda department of the Special Conference under the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia).
General L. G. Kornilov’s call to officers (January 1918) not to take prisoners in battles with the Reds is very similar to the confession of the security officer M. I. Latsis that similar orders were resorted to in relation to the Whites in the Red Army8. Those who viewed terror as a destructive force, a factor of demoralization for all its participants, were right.
The desire to understand the origins of the tragedy has given rise to several research explanations: the Red Terror and mass repressions of the 30s are the result of Bolshevik rule in the country; Stalinism is a special type of totalitarian society; the leaders are to blame for all troubles - Lenin, Sverdlov, Stalin, Trotsky 10. Despite the apparent differences, the common thing is the assertion of the guilt of the Bolsheviks. At the same time, the extent of the influence of the terrorist actions of opponents of Bolshevism on the Soviet repressive policy remains unclear.
In domestic historiography, one can distinguish periods of propaganda of the slogan “Stalin is Lenin today”, criticism of the “cult of personality” and the ongoing canonization of Lenin and Bolshevism (from the late 50s), approval of the formula: Stalinism arose on the basis of Leninism (from the late 80s). x years)1 . Last point view coincides with the opinion widely spread in the West 13
There is another opinion: Lenin was better than Stalin. Lenin carried out the Red Terror during the civil war, Stalin shot the unarmed population in peaceful conditions. R. Conquest wrote that in 1918-1920. The terror was carried out by fanatics, idealists - “people in whom, for all their mercilessness, one can find some traits of a kind of perverted nobility.” And he continued: in Robespierre we find a narrow but honest view of violence, also characteristic of Lenin. Stalin's terror was different. It was carried out using criminal methods and was not started during a crisis, revolution or war. 14 This statement is objectionable.
Terror during the years of the Civil War was carried out not by fanatics, not by idealists, but by people deprived of any nobility and the mental complexes of the heroes of Dostoevsky’s works. Only insufficient knowledge of the sources can explain Conquest's conclusion about Lenin's “honest” view of violence. Let's just name the instructions for committing a murder written by the leader (they became known in Lately). Let's quote two of them. In a note to E. M. Sklyansky (August 1920), deputy chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, Lenin, apparently assessing the plan born in the bowels of this department, instructed: “An excellent plan! Finish it together with Dzerzhinsky. Under the guise of “greens” (we’ll blame them later) we’ll walk 10-20 miles and hang kulaks, priests, and landowners. Prize: 100,000 rubles for the hanged man.”15.
In a secret letter to members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), written on March 19, 1922, after the introduction of NEP, Lenin proposed taking advantage of the famine in the Volga region and confiscating church valuables. This action, in his opinion, “must be carried out with merciless determination, certainly stopping at nothing and in the most the shortest possible time. The more representatives of the reactionary clergy and the reactionary bourgeoisie we manage to shoot on this occasion, the better. It is now necessary to teach this public a lesson so that for several decades they will not dare to think about any resistance” 16. This was a criminal, not an “honest” view of violence, which differed from the execution lists signed by Stalin in that Stalin knew many of those whom he decided to execute, but Lenin did not know any of those whom he condemned to death..
Those who knew Lenin and those who met him noted his commitment to extreme measures of violence. 7. It was from Lenin that Stalin perceived the condemnation of the individual and the encouragement of mass terror, hostage-taking, power based on force and not on the law, and the recognition of state arbitrariness as a highly moral matter. Lenin, Trotsky, Bukharin and other associates of the leader tried to theoretically substantiate such anti-human practices.
Already the first acts of violence carried out by one, and then by the two-party Soviet government (Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries): the closure of newspapers that defended the ideas of February, and not October 1917, the outlawing of the Cadet Party, the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the introduction of the right of extrajudicial reprisals, the recognition of terror not as an emergency, but as a traditional means of struggle for power - caused the rejection of many. Among them were M. Gorky, R. Luxemburg, I. Bunin, thousands of residents of the country who left memories of this time, or expressed protest even then 18. They protested against the murder of ideological opponents, the ban on dissent in the country, the rampant arbitrariness of the authorities, those methods and the means by which the Bolshevik leadership decided to achieve its goals.
Lenin and his associates defended the need to tighten punitive policies in the country. This was particularly reflected in their books directed against the works of K. Kautsky, who accused the Bolsheviks of being the first to use violence against other socialist parties 19 and creating a situation in which “the opposition was left with only one form of open political speech- civil war"2.
Lenin proceeded from the fact that “the benefit of the revolution, the benefit of the working class is the highest law”21, that only he is the highest authority that determines “this benefit”, and therefore can resolve all issues, including the main one - the right to life and activity. Trotsky, Bukharin and many others were guided by the principle of expediency of means used to protect power. Moreover, they all considered the right to dispose of people’s lives as natural. Trotsky, after the end of the civil war, answered the question: “Do the consequences of the revolution, the sacrifices it causes, generally justify it?” - answered: “The question is theological and therefore fruitless. With the same right, one can, in the face of the difficulties and sorrows of personal existence, ask: is it worth being born at all?”23
Kautsky adhered to a different point of view, taking the abolition of the death penalty as a matter of course for a socialist. He said about the victory of Bolshevism in Russia and the defeat of socialism there, argued that viewing the Red Terror as a response to the White Terror is the same as justifying one’s own theft by the fact that others steal. He saw Trotsky’s book as a hymn to inhumanity and myopia and prophetically predicted that “Bolshevism will remain a dark page in the history of socialism” 24.
It is difficult to name the first acts of red and white terror. They are usually associated with the beginning of the civil war in the country, which actually began with an act of armed seizure of power by the Bolsheviks. Their victory immediately set in motion the levers of political and economic terror (one-party ideological, state monopoly, expropriation of property, etc.). At the same time, cases of physical destruction of opponents became known. The process of transition from individual to mass terror took little time. It is easy to see the connection between various types of terror and the socio-political actions of governments and opposing organizations.
The assassination attempt on Lenin occurred on the evening of January 1, 1918, shortly before the opening of the Constituent Assembly, and the murder of members of the Central Committee of the Cadet Party, deputies of this assembly, lawyer F.F. Kokoshkin and doctor A.I. Shingarev occurred on the night of January 6–75. That is, at the time when the All-Russian Central Executive Committee approved Lenin’s resolution on its dissolution. The introduction of mass terror did not stop individual terror, but, as a rule, it was linked with harsh political actions against the main part of the country's population - the peasantry (introduction of committees of poor people, food requisitions, levying an emergency tax, etc.). The connection between the military victories (defeats) of the parties and the tightening of punitive policies is less clear. The Crimean tragedy (autumn 1920) - the execution by security officers of thousands of officers and military officials of Wrangel's army - occurred after the victory of the Reds.
In Soviet historiography, for a long time there was an opinion that the white terror in the country began in the summer, and the red one - after the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of September 5, 1918, as a response to the white terror. There are other points of view that connect the beginning of the Red Terror with the murder of the royal family, with Lenin’s call to carry out terror in Petrograd in response to the murder of Volodarsky28, with the resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on July 29, 1918 on carrying out mass terror against the bourgeoisie, with the fact that terror amounted to the essence of the Soviet system and until August 1918 was carried out virtually, and “from September 5, 1918 - officially. This last conclusion is closer to the truth, since Soviet decrees either fixed what was already happening or initiated the acceleration of what, according to the authorities, was slowing down. Among the reasons that determined the victory of Bolshevism in the country were: an ideology intolerant of dissent that meets the immediate aspirations of the impoverished masses, demanding social justice; the right of management to dispose of personnel, privileges, and the organization of authorities: brutal terror. The Bolsheviks managed to create an illusory idea of fair equalization and convince the majority of the population that they would receive land, bread, and peace. War, famine, requisitions and terror became realities.
The class characteristics of the Red and White Terror appeared in 1918 to justify and justify the actions of the parties. Soviet explanations noted that the methods of both terrors were similar, but “decidedly diverged in their goals”: the red terror was directed against the exploiters, the white terror against the oppressed workers. Later, this formula acquired a broad interpretation and called the armed overthrow of Soviet power in a number of regions and the accompanying massacre of people as acts of white terror. This meant the presence of various forms of terror even 49 before the summer of 1918, and the term “white terror” meant the punitive actions of all anti-Bolshevik forces of that time, and not just the white movement itself. The lack of clearly developed concepts and criteria leads to different interpretations.
Although manifestations of mass terror are the shooting of about 500 soldiers in the Moscow Kremlin (October 28, 1917), the murders in Orenburg during the capture of the city by Dutov’s Cossacks (November 1917), the beating of wounded Red Guards in January 1918 near Saratov, etc.
The dating of various types of terror should begin not with the reprisal of famous public figures, not with the decrees legitimizing ongoing lawlessness, but with the innocent victims of the opposing sides. They are forgotten, especially the defenseless sufferers of the Red Terror34. The terror was carried out by officers - participants in the ice campaign of General Kornilov; security officers who received the right of extrajudicial execution; revolutionary courts and tribunals; guided not by the law, but by political expediency3.
On June 16, 1918, the People's Commissar of Justice P. Stuchka canceled all previously issued circulars on revolutionary tribunals and stated that these institutions “are not bound by any restrictions in the choice of measures to combat counter-revolution, sabotage, etc..” On June 21, 1918, the Revolutionary Tribunal under the All-Russian Central Executive Committee passed a death sentence without convincing evidence on the head of the naval forces of the Baltic Fleet, Captain A. M. Shchastny37. Based on the rights granted to the Cheka and the tribunals, one can judge the development of Soviet punitive policy, since these institutions considered primarily political crimes, and they included “everything that is against Soviet power.” 38. It is characteristic that the right of the Cheka to extrajudicial executions, composed by Trotsky, was signed by Lenin ; the tribunals were given unlimited rights by the People's Commissar of Justice; the resolution on the Red Terror was endorsed by the People's Commissars of Justice, Internal Affairs and the head of the Council of People's Commissars (D. Kursky, G. Petrovsky, V. Bonch-Bruevich); The tasks of the military tribunals were determined by the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Tribunal of the Republic, K. Danishevsky. He stated: “Military tribunals are not and should not be guided by any legal rules. These are punitive bodies created in the process of intense revolutionary struggle, which pronounce their sentences, guided by the principle of political expediency and the legal consciousness of communists.” Granting the right to sign the most important acts of punitive policy not only higher authorities, but also to those below testified that these acts were not given paramount importance, that terror was quickly becoming commonplace. The leadership of the Soviet Republic officially recognized the creation of a non-legal state, where arbitrariness became the norm of life, and terror was the most important tool for maintaining power40. Lawlessness was beneficial to the warring parties, as it allowed any actions with references to something similar from the enemy. Its origin is explained by the traditional cruelty of Russian history, the severity of the confrontation between revolutionaries and autocracy, and, finally, the fact that Lenin and Plekhanov did not see any sin in killing their ideological opponents, that “along with the poison of socialism, the Russian intelligentsia fully accepted the poison of populism” .
The Left Social Revolutionaries also took part in the radical revolution in Russia at the initial stage of creating the dictatorial regime. Not only did they become members of the Council of People's Commissars in early December 1917, but they were also, along with the Bolsheviks, the creators of the Cheka and its local commissions, which were involved in the “sin of the revolution.” Moreover, their representatives remained in the Cheka until July 6, 1918, although the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries left the Council of People's Commissars after Lenin signed the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty with Germany (March 1918). Terror was carried out not only by security officers. Participating in the suppression of large peasant, worker, soldier and sailor uprisings were units of the Red Army, internal troops (VOKhR - 71,763 people, in April 1920), special purpose units (ChON - from communists and Komsomol members), food detachments (23,201 people, in October 1918), food army (62,043 people, in December 1920)43. But the main conductor of terror was the Cheka, and the leader of the policy for its implementation was the Bolshevik leadership. The Central Committee of the RCP(b) in a message to the security officers reported: “The need for a special body for merciless reprisals was recognized by our entire party from top to bottom. Our party entrusted this task to the Cheka, providing it with emergency powers and placing it in direct contact with the party center” 44.
The Cheka was created as an elite organization: the majority were communists; almost unlimited power over people; increased salaries (in 1918, the salary of a member of the Cheka board - 500 rubles - was equal to the salary of people's commissars, ordinary security officers received 400 rubles)45, food and industrial rations. Privileges were worked out. Many security officers became executioners, executors of the party's will. The partyocracy initiated and developed a punitive policy, convincing itself and others of the importance of observing the class principle.
The constantly declared class principle during the Red Terror was not always respected. In the book by S.P. Melgunov, 1286 representatives are listed among the victims of terror in 1918! intelligentsia, 962 peasants, 1026 hostages (officials, officers)46, etc. In the Soviet press of that time, the Bolshevik terror was often compared with the Jacobin terror. Thus, it was presented as a traditional revolutionary method, without revealing the results of Robespierre’s actions... The Bolshevik leaders presented the “necessity” of terror as an expression of the will of the masses47, as a policy of the state of workers and peasants, carried out for the benefit of the working people. So that the latter can be sure of this, N. Osinsky from the pages of the Pravda newspaper. On September 11, 1918, he stated: “From the dictatorship of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie, we have moved to extreme terror - a system of destroying the bourgeoisie as a class.” Latsis detailed this position, giving instructions to the local Cheka: “Do not look for incriminating evidence in the case as to whether he rebelled against the Council with weapons or words. The first thing you must ask him is to what class he belongs, what his origin is, what his education is and what his profession is. All these questions must decide the fate of the accused. This is the meaning of the Red Terror."48.
This call by Latsis for the merciless class destruction of enemies was not accidental, as was the demand of the security officers of the Nolinsky district of the Vyatka province to use torture during interrogations until the arrested person “tells everything” 4. This was a consequence of the party’s policy of arbitrariness and permissiveness 50.
The “need” of terror to maintain the power of Bolshevism was obvious; it was important to convince the population of this. The propaganda apparatus played on the feelings of the lumpen, assuring them that terror would not affect them, but was directed only against “rich counter-revolutionaries.” But the class principle, especially when suppressing peasant uprisings, was not maintained. 51. It was easier to justify the intensification of terrorist actions in response to the murders (or attempted murders) of the Bolshevik leaders. The idea of the omnipotence and mercilessness of those in power was created by the execution of members of the royal family: if they were killed, then there is nothing to say about the rest... they will be killed. The skillful use of these acts to incite hatred towards opponents of the regime was aimed at intimidating and suppressing possible resistance to it by every citizen52.
Acquaintance with the investigative cases about the murder of the Commissioner for Press, Propaganda and Agitation of the Petrograd Soviet V. Volodarsky, the Chairman of the Petrograd Cheka M. Uritsky and the attempt on Lenin gives rise to many questions that are difficult to find answers53. Volodarsky was killed on June 20, 1918 in Petrograd by the painter Sergeev, a Socialist Revolutionary. It is not clear why it was Volodarsky who became the victim, why the car in which he was driving from the rally “broke down” on the road at the place where the terrorist was waiting for it. The investigation lasted a long time (until the end of February 1919), but did not produce results. The Bolsheviks used the act of Volodarsky's murder to call for mass red terror, launching a large-scale propaganda campaign against democratic parties: Mensheviks and Right Socialist Revolutionaries54.
But this was not enough to convince the population of the need for total terror. The murder of the little-known Volodarsky in the country (a Jew, a Bolshevik with little party experience) could not cause mass indignation among the masses. The situation in the country has become extremely aggravated. The Bolsheviks moved towards creating a one-party system and inciting class struggle, believing that only in this case they could stay in power. On June 14, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee expelled the Socialist Revolutionaries (right and center), Mensheviks, “who were striving to discredit and overthrow the power of the Soviets”55 from its composition and proposed to do so to the local First Soviets. At the same time, the Soviets created committees of the poor, intensified requisition activities, increased the number of the Cheka and... were defeated by detachments of the Czechoslovak Corps and the People's Army of the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch), created by the Social Revolutionaries in Samara to restore the power of the Constituent Assembly.
The Soviets put an end to the Left SRs and quickly began to turn the country into a “single military camp” filled with concentration camps. A catalyst was needed to take decisive action. And, as Latsis wrote, when “S.-R. made an attempt on the life of comrade. Lenin, Volodarsky, Uritsky and others, then the Cheka had no choice but to begin the destruction of the enemy’s manpower, mass executions, i.e., the Red Terror.”56. The murder of Uritsky and the attempt on Lenin occurred on the same day - 30 August 1918. Uritsky was not the worst of the security officers; on the contrary, many found honesty and humanity in him57. Uritsky was shot by Leonid Akimovich Kannegiesser, a poet and socialist 58. During the investigation, various versions of the motives for Uritsky’s murder were put forward59. The most probable was the one that Kannegiesser imposed on the investigation: he shot in protest against the shooting as a hostage of a school friend. The security officers, who were aimed at solving political crimes, could not prove otherwise.
However, the response was unusually cruel: up to 900 innocent hostages were shot in Petrograd 60. A significantly larger number of victims is associated with the attempt on Lenin. Kaplan was shot before the investigation was completed, without a trial, without a decision of the All-Russian Cheka Collegium, on the verbal instructions of the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Sverdlov, without proof that it was she who fired61.
The number of those executed in the first days of September 1918, before the Council of People's Commissars' resolution on the Red Terror, is difficult to calculate. It is important to note that this resolution recorded what was already happening and gave it a legislative basis; the authorities sanctified terror as state policy. During these days, the Central Committee of the RCP(b) and the Cheka developed practical instructions. It suggested: “Shoot all counter-revolutionaries. Give districts the right to shoot on their own... Take hostages... organize small-scale operations in the districts concentration camps...Tonight the Presidium of the Cheka will consider the affairs of the counter-revolution and shoot all obvious counter-revolutionaries. The district Cheka should do the same. Take measures to ensure that corpses do not fall into unwanted hands...” 62 The mayhem exceeded the darkest expectations: 6,185 people were shot, 14,829 were sent to prison, 6,407 were sent to concentration camps, 4,068 became hostages 63. These are approximate figures, since it is difficult to calculate , how many lives were then ruined by the local Chekas is almost impossible. The Cheka explained: during the civil war, legal laws are not written, therefore “the only guarantee of legality was the correctly selected composition of the employees of the Extraordinary Commission”64.
Thus, attempts on the lives of Bolshevik leaders contributed to the rampant mass terror in the country, which became an integral part of the military-communist state for many years. This method will be used in the early 30s, when the inspired murder of Kirov will lead to great terror and it will be carried out by the security officers of the civil war: Yagoda, Beria, Agranov Zakovsky and many others...
In September 1918, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs G.I. Petrovsky was indignant at the “insignificant number of serious repressions and mass executions” and suggested that the provincial executive committees, that is, the executive bodies of the Soviet government, should show “special initiative” in the spread of mass terror. Stalin used this experience when he criticized Yagoda’s actions and complained that the NKVD was two years late with the deployment of great terror...
The Red Terror with its indispensable companions - arbitrariness, concentration camps, hostages, torture - functioned throughout the civil war. Its tides and some limitations depended on many circumstances, as did the development of its attendant institutions. Such was the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of February 15, 1919, which allowed taking “hostages from the peasants with the understanding5 that if the snow is not cleared, they will be shot,” or Dzerzhinsky’s proposal on September 26, 1919 that “the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, declaring the official mass red terror, he instructed the Cheka to actually carry it out” 6.
The investigation into the assassination attempt on Lenin was typical for that time and indicated that the authorities were not interested in identifying the circumstances of the crime and the identity of the terrorist. The very fact of what happened was important to them in order to move on to the total extermination of those whom they considered “counter-revolutionaries.” Having stated that Kaplan represented the right-wing Socialist Revolutionary Party (this has not been proven), the authorities attacked not only members of this party who were fighting with the Reds at that time "military actions, but also against all potentially conceivable enemies V. They were shot in public to intimidate them. Patriarch Tikhon’s call for reconciliation and an end to the extermination of fellow citizens was not heard 67.
At the same time and interconnected with the red terror, white terror was rampant in the country. And if the red terror, unlike the white one, we consider the realization public policy, then, probably, one should take into account the fact that whites at that time also occupied vast territories and declared themselves as sovereign governments and state entities. None of the leaders of the warring parties avoided the use of terror against their opponents and civilians. The forms and methods of terror were different. But they were also used by adherents of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch in Samara, the Provisional Regional Government in the Urals, the Provisional Siberian Government, the Supreme Administration of the Northern Region), and the white movement itself. The coming to power of the founders in the cities of the Volga region in the summer of 1918 was characterized by reprisals against many party and Soviet workers68, and the prohibition of Bolsheviks and left Socialist Revolutionaries from working in government structures69. One of the first departments of Komuch was the creation of state security (counterintelligence, 60-100 employees in cities), military courts, which, as a rule, passed death sentences, trains and “death barges”. On September 3, 1918, they brutally suppressed the workers' uprising in Kazan, and on October 1 - in Ivashchenkovo. “The regime of terror,” admitted Komuchevets S. Nikolaev, “took particularly cruel forms in the Middle Volga region, through which the movement of Czechoslovak legionnaires took place” 70.
In the Urals, Siberia and Arkhangelsk, the Socialist Revolutionaries and People's Socialists immediately announced their commitment to the Constituent Assembly and the arrests of Soviet workers and communists. In just one year of being in power in the northern territory with a population of 400 thousand people, 38 thousand arrested people passed through the Arkhangelsk prison. Of these, 8 thousand were shot and more than a thousand died from beatings and illnesses 71.
The political regimes established in 1918 in Russia are quite comparable, primarily in their predominantly violent methods of resolving issues of organizing power. In November 1918, Kolchak, who came to power in Siberia, began with the expulsion and murder of the Socialist Revolutionaries. “I forbid arresting workers, but order them to be shot or hanged”; “I order all arrested workers to be hanged on the main street and not removed for three days” - this is from the orders of the Krasnov captain of the Makeyevsky district on November 10, 1918.72 Terror served as a means of maintaining power for the confronting parties; it was immoral and criminal, no matter who for whatever purposes it was used. Already in 1918, “environmental terror” began to reign in Russia, when the symmetry of the parties’ actions became inevitably similar. This continued in 1919-1920, when both the Reds and the Whites simultaneously built dictatorial militarized states, where the implementation of a given goal prevailed over the value of human life.
Kolchak and Denikin were professional military men, patriots who had their own views on the future of the country. In Soviet historiography, for many years Kolchak was characterized as a reactionary and a hidden monarchist; the image of a liberal who enjoyed the support of the population was created abroad. These are extreme points of view. During interrogations at the Irkutsk Cheka in January 1920, Kolchak stated that he did not know about many facts of the ruthless attitude towards workers and peasants on the part of his punishers. Perhaps he was telling the truth. But it is difficult to talk about support for his policies in Siberia and the Urals, if out of approximately 400 thousand Red partisans of that time, 150 thousand acted against him, and among them 4-5% were wealthy peasants, or, as they were called then, kulaks .
The Kolchak government created the punitive apparatus on the basis of the traditions of pre-revolutionary Russia, but changing the names: instead of the gendarmerie - state security, police - militia, etc. The managers of punitive authorities in the provinces in the spring of 1919 demanded not to comply with legal norms created for peacetime, but to proceed out of expediency75. This was true, especially during punitive actions. “A year ago,” the coniferous minister of the Kolchak government, A. Budberg, wrote in his diary on August 4, 1919, “the population saw us as deliverers from the heavy captivity of the commissars, but now they hate us just as much as they hated the commissars, if not more; and what’s even worse than hatred is that it no longer believes us, it doesn’t expect anything good from us.”6
A dictatorship is unthinkable without a strong repressive apparatus and terror. The word “execution” was one of the most popular in the vocabulary of the Civil War. The Denikin government was no exception in this regard. The police in the territory captured by the general were called state guards. Its numbers reached almost 78 thousand people by September 1919 77 (note that Denikin’s active army then had about 110 thousand bayonets and sabers). Denikin, like Kolchak, denied his participation in any repressive measures. He blamed this on counterintelligence, which became “a hotbed of provocation and organized robbery,” on governors and military leaders. 78 Osvag’s reports informed Denikin about robberies, looting, and military cruelty towards civilians, 79; it was under his command that 226 Jewish pogroms took place, resulting in deaths thousands of innocent people 80.
Numerous evidence speaks of the cruelty of the punitive policy of Wrangel8183 Yudenich82 and other generals. They were complemented by the actions of many atamans who acted on behalf of the regular white armies . The White Terror turned out to be as senseless in achieving its goal as any other 84.
An essential part of the civil war were numerous peasant uprisings against the local policies of the Soviet authorities. For the most part, they flared up spontaneously, as a protest against requisitions, taxes, various duties, mobilizations into the army, as a reaction of people who were robbed, offering a “bright future” in return for the taken food products, i.e., nothing.
Mass peasant uprisings began in the fall of 1918 and reached their climax in 1920, contributing to the preservation of martial law in 36 provinces of the country until the end of 1922. Hundreds of thousands of multinational peasant population participated in the resistance movement against the regime, and elite armed units took part in its suppression : cadets, detachments of the Cheka corps, internal troops, ChON, Latvian riflemen, internationalists (companies of Poles, Hungarians, Germans, Chinese, etc., who then served in the Red Army), the best commanders - M. N. Tukhachevsky, I. P. Uborevich , V.I. Shorin et al.
The fury and mercilessness of the Russian rebellion then manifested itself in all its strength. In 1918, during the suppression of these protests, 5 thousand security officers and approximately 4.5 thousand food detachments died86. The number of victims on the part of the peasants was immeasurably greater. In 1920, a real war was waged between the proletarian state and the majority of its own population. That’s why Lenin called her more dangerous for the Soviet regime than Denikin, Yudenich and Kolchak combined. The ferocity and mercilessness with which villages were burned, peasants were shot and entire peasant families were taken hostage is only just becoming the subject of study.
There are no exact estimates of the number of victims of the White and Red Terror. The figures given in the literature are contradictory; their sources and calculation methods are not reported. The commission created by Denikin to investigate the actions of the Bolsheviks in 1918-1919, named 1,700 thousand victims of the Red Terror.
Latsis reported that during these two years the number of those arrested by the Cheka was 128,010, of which 8,641 people were shot. Modern Soviet historians have calculated that in 1917-1922. 15-16 million Russians died, of which 1.3 million were killed in* 1918-1920. victims of terror, banditry, pogroms, participation in peasant uprisings and their suppression.
It is not possible to establish the exact numbers of those killed during the Red or White Terror 89.
An analysis of individual minutes of meetings of the Presidium of the Cheka/GPU shows that the number of people sentenced to death from among the cases considered is quite large. On May 8, 1919, 33 cases were considered - 13 people were sentenced to death; August 6, 1921, respectively - 43 and 8; August 20, 1921 - 45 and 17; September 3, 1921 - 32 and 26; November 8, 1922 - 45 and 18. According to the minutes of the meetings of the presidium of the Kazan Gubernia Cheka, during two days of meetings in December 1918, 75 cases of those arrested were considered, of which 14 were sentenced to death; in 1919, out of approximately 3 thousand cases considered, 169 were sentenced to death, in 1920 - 65, in 1921 - 16 9<0.
Reports of various terrorist attacks are inaccurate. It is known that in Crimea, after the evacuation of Wrangel’s troops, tens of thousands of former officers and military officials remained, who for various reasons decided to refuse emigration. Many of them were registered and then were shot. The estimated number of those executed ranges from 50 to 120 thousand people. Documentary evidence is not enough. The archive of the Crimean Cheka is not yet available to researchers. The discovered award list of E. G. Evdokimov (1891-1940), a security officer, and head of the Special Department of the Southern Front in the fall of 1920 speaks of his nomination for awarding the Order of the Red Banner of Battle. The rationale emphasized: “During the defeat of the army, Gen. Wrangel in Crimea comrade. Evdokimov and his expedition cleared the Crimean peninsula of the white officers and counterintelligence officers remaining there for the underground, seizing up to 30 governors, 50 generals, more than 300 colonels, the same number of counterintelligence officers and in total up to 12,000 white elements, thereby preventing the possibility of white gangs appearing in Crimea.”91 The number in this document is impressive - 12 thousand people were shot only by employees of the Special Department of the Front. But it should be noted that the security officers also carried out reprisals in all cities and towns of Crimea. Because the number of victims was significantly higher. Of course, it is impossible to imagine that former governors or generals who found themselves in Crimea would start creating gangs... But the stereotype of those years was this: arguments were not needed, political charges were equal to criminal ones.
Probably, the number of people who died from the Red Terror will become known over time and will once again shake the consciousness of people, and not only their compatriots. The civil, fratricidal war with its millions of human victims became a national tragedy; it devalued life. It is the beginning of that great terror that the party-state dictatorship again unleashed with particular fury against its own people a decade and a half later. And no matter how the participants, eyewitnesses, historians describe the events of those years, the essence is the same - the Red and White Terror were the most barbaric method of struggle for power. Its results for the progress of the country and society are truly disastrous. Contemporaries realized this. But many still do not fully understand the fact that any terror is a crime against humanity, no matter what its motivation.
Notes
1 The famous researcher of totalitarianism X. Arendt is right in seeing the connection and difference between violence and terror. “Terror is not the same as violence; it is rather a form of government that occurs when violence, having destroyed all power, does not exhaust itself, but gains new control.” (A g e n d t Hannah. On Violence. N. Y., 1969. P. 55.)
2 Lenin V.I. PSS T. 39. P. 113-114, 405.
3 Bystryansky V. Counter-revolution and its methods. White terror before and now. Pb., 1920. P. 1.
4 Melgunov S.P. Red terror in Russia. 1918-1923. Berlin, 1924. pp. 5-6.
5 See: Gorky M. Untimely Thoughts. Notes on revolution and culture. Pg., 1918. S. 68, 101; V. G. Korolenko during the years of revolution and civil war. 1917-1921: Biographical chronicle. . Vermont, 1985. pp. 184-185; Martov and his relatives. New York, 1959. P. 151.
6 Golinkov D. L. The collapse of the anti-Soviet underground in the USSR. Book 1. M., 1986. S. 137, 188; In e-l and d about in A.S. Preface to the “Red Book of the Cheka”. M., 1989. T. 1. P. 7. O. F. Soloviev even came to the conclusion that “the red terror brought immeasurably fewer victims than the white terror” (O. F. Soloviev. Modern bourgeois historiography on the suppression of counter-revolution in Soviet Russia during the Civil War // Historical experience of the Great October Revolution. M., 1975. P. 420.
7 Feldman D. Crime and... justification // New World. 1990. No. 8. P. 253; Feofanov Yu. Ideology in power // Izvestia 1990. October 4; Vasilevsky A. Ruin // New World, 1991. No. 2. P. 253.
8 See: Ioffe G. 3. “White Business”. General Kornilov. M., 1989. P. 233; Latsis M.I. Take no prisoners // Red Army soldier. 1927. No. 21. P. 18.
9 See: L e w i n M. The Civil War: dynamics and legacy // Party, State and Society in the Russian Civil War. Indiana University Press. 1989. P. 406; him. Civil war in Russia: driving forces and legacy // History and historians. M., 1990. P. 375. Not only the Red and White Terror, but also banditry and pogroms were destructive. Only in Ukraine in 1918-1920. More than 200 thousand Jews were killed and about a million more were beaten and robbed. Pogroms covered about 1,300 towns and cities in Ukraine and about 200 in Belarus (Larin Yu. Jews and anti-Semitism in the USSR. M.; Leningrad, 1929. P. 39). V.P. Danilov gives different data: Petliura’s terror (it can be called black or yellow) claimed 300 thousand Jewish lives. Neither whites nor reds can take such victims personally (Rodina. 1990. No. 10. P. 15).
10 Cohen S. Rethinking the Soviet experience (politics and history since 1917). Vermont, 1986. pp. 47-78; Avtorkhanov A. Lenin in the destinies of Russia // New World, 1991. No. 1; V about l about about in D. A. Stalinism: essence, genesis, evolution // Questions of history. 1990. No. 3; Ts i p k o A. S. The violence of lies, or how a ghost got lost. M., 1990, etc. Accusations of modern Black Hundred organizations, the magazine “Young Guard” (1989. No. 6, 11) against Jews as the perpetrators of revolution and terror are anti-Semitic in nature and were quite fully exposed on the pages of the newspaper “Izvestia” (1990 August 11, 29). Anti-Semitic fabrications include speeches pointing to Sverdlov as the organizer of the civil war and to him and Trotsky as the initiators of “decossackization.” N azarov G. Ya. M. Sverdlov: organizer of the civil war and mass repressions // Young Guard, 1989. No. 10; him. Further... further... further... to the truth // Moscow, 1989. No. 12; Literary newspaper. 1989. March 29.
11 Reds and Whites explained the cruelty of treatment by reference to similar actions of the opposite side - the newest type of “blood feud”. See, for example, Stalin’s telegram of January 10, 1939 (Izvestia of the Central Committee of the CPSU. 1989. No. 3. P. 145).
12 See, for example: Volkogonov D. “With merciless determination...”//Izvestia, 1992. April 22.
13 See: Brzezinski 3. Big failure. N.Y., 1989. P. 29; K e e r J. Lenin's Time Budget: the Smolny period // Revolutionin Russia: Reassessment of 1917. Cambridge, 1992. P. 354.
14Conquest R. The Great Terror. L., 1974. pp. 16-17.
15 RCKHIDNI, f. 2, 2, d. 380, l. 1. The document was partially published by D. A. Volkogonov (Izvestia. 1922. April 22).
17 Lenin told N. Valentinov in 1904 that the future revolution must be Jacobin and there is no need to be afraid to resort to the guillotine (Valentinov N. Meetings with Lenin. N. Y., 1979. P. 185). The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets abolished the death penalty in the country on October 25, 1917. Upon learning of this, Lenin was indignant: “Nonsense... How can you make a revolution without executions.” Lenin proposed canceling the decree. (Trotsky L. About Lenin: Materials for a biographer. M., 1925. P. 72-73). P. Kropotkin told I. Bunin about his meeting with Lenin in 1918: “I realized that it was completely in vain to convince this man of anything! I reproached him for allowing two and a half thousand innocent people to be killed for the attempt on his life. But it turned out that this did not make any impression on him...” (Bunin I.A. Memoirs. Paris, 1950. P. 58). There is a lot of similar evidence. Lenin more than once came out with a cynical demand for the execution of innocents, justifying them in the highest interests of the class struggle. (See: Lenin V.I. PSS, T. 38. P. 295; T. 45, P. 189; etc.) He, as a rule, defended the actions of the Cheka. In December 1918, M. Yu. Kozlovsky, a member of the board of the People's Commissariat of Justice of the RSFSR, wrote to Lenin that he was sending 8 grandfathers from the Cheka, from which one can see “how things are conducted in the Cheka, with what light baggage they are sent there to a better world.” Kozlovsky gave examples of similar cases: the shooting of the wife of a White Guard - an active monarchist - for stealing rye, etc. Sergeeva was shot for participating in the work of Savinkov’s organization. She stated that she confessed to this under threat of execution. When Kozlovsky asked where this investigator was, he was told that he had been shot as a provocateur. There is no information in the case about Sergeeva’s cooperation with Savinkov and his organization. At a meeting of the Board of the Cheka on December 17, 1918. Kozlovsky's letter of protest was discussed. They decided that Kozlovsky did not have the right to interfere in the affairs of the Cheka, and demanded from him evidence of 50% of the innocent people executed by the Cheka in order to file a protest about this to the Central Committee of the party, “considering his actions completely unacceptable and introducing complete disorganization into the work of the Cheka.” At the suggestion of Dzerzhinsky, the Board of the Cheka demanded full confidence of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) in its actions and declared the inadmissibility of control of its activities by the People's Commissariat of Justice. In response to this, Kozlovsky, stating that his protest was supported by the Collegium of the People's Commissariat of Justice, again wrote to Lenin on December 19, 1918, that he protested 16 of the 17 executions carried out by the Cheka as illegal. Lenin agreed with Dzerzhinsky. (RTSKHIDNI, f. 2. op. 2, d. 133, l. 1-2, 9, 11, 13; d. 134, l. 1.) Lenin did not object to the mass terror that Stalin committed in Tsaritsyn in the summer of 1918 . (Medvedev R. About Stalin and Stalinism. M., 1990. P. 40-42).
18 See: Gorky M. Untimely Thoughts: Notes on Revolution and Culture. Pg., 1918; B u n i n I. A. Damned days. L., 1984; Luxemburg R. Manuscript about the Russian Revolution // Questions of History, 1990. No. 2.
1 Lenin V.I. PSS. T. 38. Proletarian revolution and the renegade Kautsky; Trotsky L. D. Terrorism and communism // Soch., M.; L., 1925. T. XII; Kautsky K. Dictatorship of the proletariat. Wien, 1918; him. Terrorism and communism. Berlin, 1919; his e. From democracy to state slavery (answer to Trotsky). Berlin, 1922.
20 Kautsky K. Moscow court and Bolshevism // Twelve Death Rowers. The trial of socialist revolutionaries in Moscow. Berlin, 1922. P. 9.
21 Lenin V.I. PSS. T. 35. P. 185.
22 L. D. Trotsky justified: “The question of the form of repression, or its degree, of course, is not “fundamental.” This is a question of expediency. In a revolutionary era, a party thrown out of power, which does not put up with the stability of the ruling party and proves this by its frantic struggle against her, cannot be frightened by the threat of imprisonment, since she does not believe in his activities. It is this simple but decisive fact that explains the widespread use of executions in the civil war." Trotsky L. D. Soch. T. XII. With 59. N. I. Bukharin agreed with him: “From a broader point of view, that is, from the point of view of a large historical scale, proletarian coercion in all its forms, from executions to labor conscription, is , as paradoxical as it may sound, by the method of developing communist humanity from the human material of the capitalist era." (Bukharin N.I. Problems of theory and practice of socialism. M., 1989. P. 168.)
23 Trotsky L. D. History of the Russian Revolution. T. II. Part II. Berlin, 1933. P. 376.
24 Kautsky K. Terrorism and communism. pp. 7, 196, 204; his e. From democracy to state slavery. pp. 162, 166.
25 The investigation into the case of the assassination attempt on Lenin and the murder of Kokoshkin and Shingarev was led by the manager of the Council of People's Commissars, V.D. Bonch-Bruevich, although the Cheka had been created by that time. He pointed out that the three officers who attempted to assassinate Lenin were arrested and then sent to the front against the German troops who had begun the offensive. (Bonch-Bruevich V. Three attempts on V.I. Lenin. M., 1930. P. 10, 43-44.) An overview report about this attempt on Lenin was compiled by NKVD officers in August 1936. It contains the testimony of the car driver Lenin Taras Gorokhovik dated January 2, 1918 and former second lieutenant G. G. Ushakov, arrested in 1935. The driver reported that “the shooting began as the car was descending from the bridge onto Simeonovskaya Street.” Gorokhovik said that he heard up to 10 shots and that F. Platten was wounded while saving Lenin's head. Ushakov “admitted” that, together with Semyon Kazakov, he was the perpetrator of the assassination attempt. But he threw the grenade not at the car, but at Moika, other officers began to shoot at the car, but it quickly drove away. Ushakov was shot in 1936.
The investigation into the murder of Kokoshkin and Shingarev revealed the actual organizers of the crime: the head of the Petrograd police commissariat P. Mikhailov, his henchmen P. Kulikov and Basov, who provoked a group of sailors, soldiers and Red Guards to commit the crime. (Io f e G. 3. “White matter...” P. 246-247.)
26 Spirin L. M. Classes and parties in the civil war in Russia (1917-1920). M., 1968. S. 210, 213.
27 R. Pyles: “When the government arrogates to itself the right to kill people because their death is “necessary,” we enter a qualitatively new moral era. And this is the symbolic meaning of the events in Yekaterinburg that happened on the night of July 16-17, 1918.” (Izvestia. 1990. November 27.) “The execution of the royal family,” Trotsky wrote, “was needed not just to intimidate, terrify, and deprive the enemies of hope, but also to shake up one’s own ranks, to show that retreats no, that there is complete victory or complete destruction ahead." (Trotsky L. D. Diaries and letters. Tenafly, 1986. P. 100-101.)
29 Karr E. Bolshevik revolution. 1917-1923. M., 1990. T. 1. P. 144. The resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of July 29, 1918, apparently relied on calls from the localities. On July 28, 1918, a member of the RVS of the Eastern Front, F. F. Raskolnikov, telegraphed Trotsky that it was “completely unthinkable” to do without executions. He suggested: “All active White Guards who were caught preparing an armed uprising against the Soviet regime, or caught with weapons in their hands... Black Hundred agitators..., as well as all persons who dared to take power temporarily in one place or another, who had fallen from hands of the Soviets, are declared illegal and punishable by death without investigation or trial.” (Rodina, 1992. No. 4. P. 100.)
30 Miliukov P. Russia at a turning point. Bolshevik period of the Russian revolution. T. 1. Paris, 1927. P. 192. Former People's Commissar of Justice of the RSFSR I. Steinberg wrote: “Terror is not an isolated act, not an isolated, random, although repeated manifestation of the government majority... Terror is a legalized plan of mass intimidation , coercion, extermination by the authorities... Terror is not only the death penalty... The forms of terror are countless and varied... " (Shteinberg I. The moral face of the revolution. Berlin, 1923. P. 18-24.)
31 See: Volkogonov D. Trotsky. Political portrait. M., 1992. P. 191. According to Yu. P. Gaven, the Red Terror was used long before its official introduction. So, in January 1918 he, as chairman of the Sevastopol Military Revolutionary Committee, ordered the execution of more than 500 “counter-revolutionary officers.” (Motherland. 1992. No. 4. P. 100-101.)
32 Steklov Yu. White terror // Izvestia, 1918. September 5; Shishkin V.I. Discussion problems of October and the Civil War // Current problems of the history of Soviet Siberia. Novosibirsk, 1990. P. 25.
33 Grunt A. Ya. Moscow 1917. Revolution and counter-revolution. M., 1976. P. 318; Bolsheviks of the Urals in the struggle for the victory of the October Socialist Revolution. Sat. doc. and materials. Sverdlovsk, 1957. P. 251-252; Diary of the Russian Civil War. Alexis Babin in Saratov. 1917-1922 // Volga. 1990. No. 5. P. 127.
34 General Ts. Grigorenko, recalling how during the civil war the whites were rampant in the Ukrainian village where he lived and how security officers shot hostages for not surrendering their weapons, he remarked: “But here’s a phenomenon. We heard it all, we knew it. Two years have passed and they have already forgotten. We remember the executions of the first Soviets by the Whites, the stories about the atrocities of the Whites are in our memory, but the recent Red Terror has been completely forgotten. Several of our fellow villagers were captured by the whites and tasted ramrods, but they brought their heads home intact. And they also remembered the atrocities of the whites and were more willing to talk about white ramrods than about the recent KGB executions.” (Grigorenko P. Memoirs.//Zvezda. 1990. No. 2. P. 195.) I talked about this back in the 20s. General A.A. von Lampe: “When the Reds left, the population counted with satisfaction what they had left... When the Whites left, the population angrily calculated what they had taken... The Reds threatened... to take everything and they took part - the population was deceived and... satisfied. The whites promised legality, took little - and the population was embittered" (Denikin A.I., Lampe A.A. von Tragedy of the White Army. M., 1991. P. 29.)
35 Gul R. Ice campaign. M., 1990. S. 53-54. Chekist M. Latsis claimed that in the first half of 1918 the Cheka shot 22 people. S. Melgunov counted 884 people according to newspaper sources. (Latsis M. Extraordinary commissions to combat counter-revolution. M., 1921. P. 9; Mel Gunov S. Red terror in Russia. P. 37.)
36 Collection of laws and orders of the Workers' and Peasants' Government (hereinafter - SUR). 1918. No. 44. P. 536. P. Stuchka in 1918 told the people’s judges: “We now need not so much lawyers as communists.” (Stuchka P. 13 years of struggle for the revolutionary Marxist theory of law. M., 1931. P. 67.)
38 In 1918, cases of counter-revolutionary actions in the tribunals accounted for 35%, in 1920 - 12%. The rest are cases of crimes in office, speculation, forgery, pogroms, etc. (T and about in Yu. P. Development of the system of Soviet revolutionary tribunals. M., 1987, P. 14; R o d i n D. Revolutionary tribunals in 1920-1922 // Bulletin of Statistics. 1989. No. 8. P. 49. B erman Ya. About revolutionary tribunals // Proletarian Revolution and Law. 1919. No. 1. P. 61; Portnov
B.P., Slavin M.M-. The formation of justice in Soviet Russia (1917-1922). M., 1990.
pp. 51-52, 122.
40 Bonch-Bruevich in his memoirs quoted Dzerzhinsky, who had taken up the duties of chairman of the Cheka: “Do not think that I am looking for forms of revolutionary justice; We don't need justice now. Such a struggle - chest to chest, a struggle for life and death - who will win! I propose, I demand the organization of revolutionary reprisals against counter-revolutionary figures.” (Bonch-Bruevich V. At combat posts of the February and October revolutions. M., 1931. P. 191-192.)
41 See: Solomon G. A. Among the red leaders. Personally experienced and seen in Soviet service. Part 1. Paris, 1930; P. 242.
42 Axelrod P.B. Experienced and changed minds. Berlin, 1923. Book. 1. pp. 195-199; Novgorodtsev P.I. On the paths and tasks of the Russian intelligentsia // From the depths. Paris, 1967. P. 258; P a i p s R. Russia under the old regime. Cambridge, 1981. P. 426; Clark R. Lenin: The man behind the mask. L., 1988. P. 90-91, 255; Antonov V.F. Populism in Russia: utopia or rejected possibilities // Questions of history. 1991. No. 1. P. 14, etc.
43 Internal troops of the Soviet republic. 1917-1922: Documents and materials. M., 1972. P. 165; Strizhkov Yu. K. Food detachments during the civil war and foreign intervention. M., 1968. Dis. ...cand. ist. Sci. pp. 183, 392.
45 Review of the activities of the Cheka for 4 years. P. 13. A Red Army soldier received 150 rubles in 1918. per month, family - 250 rubles. (Portnov V., Slavin M. Legal principles of the construction of the Red Army. M., 1985. P. 162.)
46Melgunov S.P. Decree. op. P. 105. According to P. Sorokin, in 1919 the terror of the authorities fell to a greater extent on workers and peasants. He explained this by saying that “since 1919, power has actually ceased to be the power of the working masses and has become simply a tyranny, consisting of unprincipled intellectuals, declassed workers, criminals and assorted adventurers.” (Sorokin P. Current state of Russia // New World. 1992. No. 4. P. 198.)
47From Dzerzhinsky’s point of view, “the red terror was nothing more than an expression of the unyielding will of the poor peasantry and the proletariat to destroy any attempts to rebel against us” (Dzerzhinsky F.E. Selected Works. T.I.M., 1957. P. 274).
48 Red Terror (Kazan). 1918. No. 1. P. 1-2. It is believed that Lenin criticized Latsis’s statement; they refer to his words on this matter (Lenin V.I. PSS. T. 37. P. 410; Golinkov D.L. The collapse of the anti-Soviet underground in the USSR. Book 1. M., 1986 225). Latsis recalled this episode as follows: “Vladimir Ilyich reminded me that our task is not at all the physical destruction of the bourgeoisie, but the elimination of those causes that give rise to the bourgeoisie. When I explained to him that my actions exactly corresponded to his directives and that I simply made a careless expression in the article, he delayed his article, scheduled for publication in Pravda. counter-revolution on the internal front [Typescript]. P. 41.) Lenin’s article “A small picture for clarifying big questions” was first published in Pravda on November 7, 1926, when the urgency of the issue under discussion had disappeared and Latsis’s criticism on the issue of terror had no previous value.
49 Weekly of the Cheka. 1918. No. 3. October 6. The security officers demanded that Lockhart be tortured. As a result of public criticism of the actions and calls of the Nolin security officers, sanctions followed; The publication of the “Weekly Journal of the Cheka” was discontinued at the end of 1918, and the presidium of the Cheka decided on December 27, 1918: “Deny the district Nolinsk Cheka the right to execute. In emergency cases, it was proposed to act with the consent of the Executive Committee and the RCP(b) committee.” (Archive of the Ministry of Bank of the Russian Federation, f. 1, op. 2, d. 2, l. 11.)
50 Back in July 1918, Petrograd newspapers demanded “ exterminate the enemies of the people“, and the Petrograd Soviet made a decision on August 28: “If even a hair falls from the heads of our leaders, we will destroy those White Guards who are in our hands, we will exterminate the leaders of the counter-revolution without exception.” (The past. Historical almanac. Paris, 1986. P. 94-95.)
1 Frenkin M. The tragedy of peasant uprisings in Russia. 1918-1921 Jerusalem, 1987. pp. 93-95.
52 On February 24, 1918, shortly after the Cheka was endowed with extrajudicial rights of reprisal, the Collegium of the Cheka introduced the institution of secret agents. 10% of the confiscated money was paid to those who pointed out the speculator. (Review of the activities of the Cheka for 4 years. P. 11.) On September 19, 1918, Dzerzhinsky stated: “the main task of the Cheka ... is a merciless fight against counter-revolution, manifested in the activities of both individuals and entire organizations.” (Collection of the most important orders and instructions of the Cheka. T. 1. M., 1918. P. 12.)
53 Many details of the murder of Volodarsky, Uritsky and the attempt on Lenin became known from the brochure of the former Socialist Revolutionary, since 1921 communist G. Semenov, “Military and combat work of the Socialist Revolutionary Party for 1917-1918.” (M., 1922), published simultaneously in Berlin and in the GPU printing house on Lubyanka. Lenin knew its contents and hurried its publication in connection with the impending trial of the leaders of the Right Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1922. In January 1922, he instructed the Deputy Chairman of the GPU I. Unshlikht to take measures “so that the manuscript known to him would be published abroad no later than than in 2 weeks.” (RCKHIDNI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 256, l. 2.) G. I. Semenov-Vasiliev (1891 -1937) from 1915 - Socialist Revolutionary, in 1918 - leader of the party’s combat group. -R. He was arrested by the Cheka in October 1918, after which he collaborated with the security officers. In 1922 he was convicted and amnestied. Then he worked in the intelligence department of the Red Army. On February 11, 1937, he was arrested on charges of connections with Bukharin and the creation of “terrorist groups under his leadership.” This was not proven, but Semenov was shot on October 8, 1937 by the verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. In August 1961, he was posthumously rehabilitated. (Archive of the Ministry of Bank of the Russian Federation, no. 11401, 1.)
54 Lenin, in a letter to the party leaders of Petrograd on June 26, 1918, strongly advocated mass terror in the city, calling: “to encourage the energy and mass character of terror against counter-revolutionaries, and especially in St. Petersburg, whose example decides.” (Lenin V.I. PSS. T. 50. P. 106.)
56 SUR. 1918. No. 44. P. 538.
57 Review of the activities of the Cheka for 4 years. P. 74.
57 The director of the Gatchina Museum, V.P. Zubov, recalled his meeting with Uritsky: “Before me was a deeply honest man, fanatically devoted to his ideas and possessing somewhere in the depths of his soul a share of kindness. But fanaticism forged his will so much that he knew how to be cruel. In any case, he was far from the type of sadists who ran the check after him.” (Zubov V.P. The difficult years of Russia. Memories of the revolution of 1917-1952. Munich, 1968. P. 51.) At the 1st conference of the Cheka (June 1918) the issue of recalling Uritsky from the post of chairman of the Petrograd Cheka and replacing him was discussed “a more persistent and decisive comrade, capable of firmly and unswervingly pursuing the tactics of mercilessly suppressing and combating hostile elements that are destroying Soviet power and the revolution.” This was caused by Uritsky's protests against the brutal interrogation methods of the Cheka, especially children. Then Uritsky was left at his post. (Moscow News. 1991. November 10.)
58 L. A. Kannegisser (1896-1918) - comes from the family of an employee of the Ministry of Railways. In 1913-1917 - a student at the Faculty of Economics of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, after February 1917 - a cadet at the Mikhailovsky Artillery School, chairman of the Union of Socialist Junkers of the Petrograd Military District.
59 Petrograd Cheka investigators Otto and Ricks, who initially led the case, stated that the murder of Uritsky was the work of Zionists and Bundists who took revenge on the chairman of the Cheka for internationalism. This statement was rejected by the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka N. Antipov, who fired these investigators for anti-Semitic sentiments (in 1919 they were re-hired to serve in the Cheka), and wrote on January 4, 1919 in Petrogradskaya Pravda: “During interrogation, Leonid Kannegisser stated “that he killed Uritsky not by order of the party or any organization, but on his own impulse, wanting to take revenge for the arrests of the officers and for the shooting of his friend Pereltsweig, whom he had known for about 10 years.” Antipov admitted that the Cheka was unable to “establish accurately through direct evidence that the murder of Comrade. Uritsky was organized by a counter-revolutionary organization.” This version was supported by Kannegiesser’s friend, writer M.A. Aldanov, adding a note that Uritsky was chosen as a victim out of the Jew’s desire to show the Russian people that among the Jews there are not only Uritskys and Zinovievs. Aldanov M. Leonid Kannegisser. Paris, 1928. P. 22). December 24, 1918 Antipov dropped the case of Uritsky's murder. Kannegiesser was shot at the same time. All months of interrogation, he repeated the same thing: he killed because Uritsky signed a list of hostages sentenced to death, and among them was his friend from the gymnasium, that he was with Uritsky and warned him about this. (Archives of the KGB of the USSR, no. 196. In 11 volumes.)
6 Ilyin-Zhenevsky A.F. Bolsheviks in power. L., 1929. P. 133; Fedyukin S.A. The Great October Revolution and the intelligentsia. M., 1971. P. 96. Contemporaries recalled the terrible terror that began in Petrograd after the murder of Uritsky. (M e l g u n o v S. P. Memoirs and diaries. Issue 2. Part 3. Paris, 1964. P. 27; Smilg-Benario M. In Soviet service // Archive of the Russian Revolution. Vol. 3. Berlin, 1921. pp. 149-150, etc.) According to the instructions of the Cheka, a hostage is “a captive member of the society or organization that is fighting us. Moreover, such a member that has value, which this enemy values... For some village teacher, forester, miller or small shopkeeper, and even a Jew, the enemy will not stand up and will not give anything. They value something...High-ranking dignitaries, large landowners, farbikants, outstanding workers, scientists, noble relatives of those in power, and the like.” (Review of the activities of the Cheka for 4 years. P. 190;),
F. E. Kaplan (F., H. Roitman. 1887-1918), came from the family of a rural Jewish teacher. In 1906, she was wounded during the preparation of a terrorist attack against the Kyiv governor-general; in 1907-1917 served hard labor. She returned sick and half-blind. Doubts that she shot Lenin on August 30, 1918 have been expressed more than once. (Lyandres S. The 1918 Attempt on the Life of Lenin: a new look at the evidence // Slavik Review. 1989. V. 48. No. 3. P. 432-448, etc.) Investigative case No. 2162 in the Archives of the KGB of the USSR does not contain substantiated evidence of Kaplan's guilt. 17 witness statements are contradictory and do not state that she was the shooter. For more details, see: L i t v i n A. L. Who shot Lenin? // Megapolis-Continent. 1991. July 30; his e. Case 2162 and other cases // Interlocutor. 1991. October. No. 42. About the execution of Kaplan, see: Malkov P. D. Notes of the commandant of the Moscow Kremlin. M., 1959. S. 159-161. “Izvestia of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee” on September 4, 1918 reported about the execution of Kaplan by order of the Cheka: this was confirmed by the publication of the execution list in the “Weekly Journal of the Cheka” (1918. No. 6, p. 27), where Kaplan was listed at No. 33. In the same list of executed - Archpriest Vostorgov, former ministers of Justice Shcheglovitov, Internal Affairs Khvostov, Director of the Police Department Beletsky and others. But in the minutes of the meetings of the Presidium of the Cheka there is no information about the execution of Kaplan.
62 Review of the activities of the Cheka for 4 years. P. 190.
63 Latsis M. Two years of struggle on the internal front. M., 1920. P. 75; e g about e. The truth about the red terror // News of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, 1920. February 6; L e g g e t t G. The CheKa: Lenin's Political Police. Oxford, 1981. P. 181.
64 Review of the activities of the Cheka for 4 years. pp. 183-189. In the fall of 1918, members of the Cheka board who carried out the policy of red terror were: Dzerzhinsky, Petere, Latsis, Fomin, Puzyrev,
Ksenofontov, Polukarov, Yanushevsky, Yakovleva, Kamenshchikov, Pulyanovsky, Skrypnik, Kedrov. It was they who developed order No. 158, according to which “in the republics that are part of the RSFSR, the orders of the Cheka can be canceled only with the consent of the Cheka” (Ibid. p. 194). At the end of 1920 among the employees of the provincial Cheka there were 49.9% communists and their sympathizers. 1.03% had higher education, 57.3% had primary education; illiterate people accounted for 2.3%. By national composition, provincial security officers were distributed as follows: Russians - 77.3%, Jews - 9.1%, Poles - 1.7%, Latvians - 3.5%, Ukrainians - 3.1%, Belarusians - 0.5% , Germans - 0.6%, British - 0.004% (2 people), etc. Funding for the Cheka increased throughout the years of the civil war and amounted to 1918-1920. RUB 6,786,121 (Ibid. P. 2(57, 271, 272, 287-289.)
67 Message from Patriarch Tikhon to the Council of People's Commissars October 26, 1918 // Our contemporary. 1990. No. 4. P. 161-162.
68 In Samara, 66 people were arrested on suspicion of Bolshevism; many fell victim to lynchings.(Popov F.G., 1918 in the Samara province: Chronicle of events. Kuibyshev, 1972. P. 133, 134). About the atrocities in Kazan, see: Kuznetsov A. Kazan under the rule of the Czech founders // Proletarian Revolution. 1922. No. 8. P. 58; Maisky I.M. Democratic counter-revolution. M.; Pg., 1923, pp. 26-27; and etc.
69 Order of Komuch July 12, 1918 In August 1918, Kolchak wrote: “A civil war, of necessity, must be merciless. I order the commanders to shoot all captured communists. Now we are relying on bayonets.” (Dotsenko P. The Struggle for democracy in Siberia: Eyewiness account of contemporary. Stanford, 1983. P. 109.)
70 Nikolaev S. The emergence and organization of Komuch // Will of Russia. Prague, 1928. T. 8-9. P. 234.
71 Piontkovsky S. Civil war in Russia. Reader. M., 1925. S. 581-582; Marushevsky V.V. A year in the North (August 1918 - August 1919) // White Business. 1926. T. 2. P. 53, 54; P o t y litsy n A. I. White terror in the North. 1918-1920. Arkhangelsk, 1931.
72 Coup d’état of Admiral Kolchak in Omsk on November 18, 1918. Paris, 1919. P. 152-153; Kolosov E. How was it? (Mass murders under Kolchak in December 1918 in Omsk and the death of N.V. Fomin) // Bygone. 1923. No. 21. P. 250; Rodina, 1990. No. 10. P. 79. Io f e G. 3. Kolchak’s adventure and its collapse. M., 1983. P. 179.
73Melgunov S.P. The tragedy of Admiral Kolchak. Part 2. Belgrade, 1930. P. 238; Fleming P. The Fate of Admiral Kolchak. N.Y., 1963. P. 111; and etc.
74 Interrogation of Kolchak. L., 1925. S. 210-213 ; Gins testified that Kolchak told him more than once: the civil war must be merciless. (Gins G.K. Siberia, allies and Kolchak. T. 1. Harbin, 1921. P. 4; Zhur about in Yu. V. Civil war in a Siberian village. Krasnoyarsk, 1986. P. 96, 109.
75 GA RF, f. 147, op. 2, d. 2 "D", l. 17 - Report of the governor of the Yenisei province, Trotsky. General Sakharov, by order to the army on October 12, 1919, demanded that every tenth hostage or resident be shot, and also in the event of armed protests against the military, “such settlements should be immediately surrounded, all residents shot, and the village itself destroyed to the ground.” (The Party during the period of foreign military intervention and civil war /1918-1920/: Documents and materials. M., 1962. P. 357.)
76 Budberg A. Diary of a White Guard. L., 1929. P. 191. 78 K and N D. Denikinshchina. L., 1926. P. 80.
78 Denikin - Yudenich - Wrangel. M.; L., 1927. S. 64-65. For numerous facts of terrorist acts against the population under the Denikin government, see: Ustinov S. M. Notes of the head of counterintelligence (1915-1920). Berlin, 1923. pp. 125-126; William G. Whites. M., 1923. S. 67-68; Arbatov 3. Yu. Ekaterinoslav. 1917-1922 GSU/Archive of the Russian Revolution. T. 12. Berlin, 1923. P. 94. etc.
80 GA RF, f. 440, op. 1, d. 34, l. 2, 12, 73; d. 12, l. 1-33.
80 Sh t i f N. I. Volunteers: and Jewish pogroms // Denikin - Yudenich - Wrangel. pp. 141, 154; Lekash B. When Israel dies... L., 1928. P. 14, 22, 106; Fedyuk V.P. Denikin’s dictatorship and its collapse. Yaroslavl, 1990. P. 57, etc.
81 See: Valentinov A. A. Crimean epic // Denikin - Yudenich - Wrangel. pp. 359, 373; Kalinin I. Under the banner of Wrangel. L., 1925. S. 92, 93, 168; R akovsky G. The end of the whites. Prague, 1921. P. 11; S l a s h o v Ya. Crimea in 1920. M., L., 1923. P. 4-6, 44, 72. The former Archive of the Crimean Regional Committee of the CPSU contains many documents about the terror of the Whites. Here are some of them: on the night of March 17, 1919, 25 political prisoners were shot in Simferopol; On April 2, 1919, counterintelligence shot 15 people in Sevastopol; in April 1920, there were about 500 political prisoners in the Simferopol prison. (Archive of the Crimean OK CPSU, f. 150, op. 1, d. 49, l. 197-232; d. 53, l. 148).
82 In October 1919 The Minister of Justice of the Yudenich government, Lieutenant Colonel E. Kedrin, compiled a report on the establishment of the “State Commission to Combat Bolshevism.” He proposed to investigate not individual “crimes,” but “to cover the destructive activities of the Bolsheviks as a whole.” The report set the task of studying Bolshevism as a “social disease”, and then developing practical measures “for the real fight against Bolshevism not only within Russia, but throughout the whole world.” (GA RF, f. 6389, op. 1, f. 3, d. 3, l. 17-19.) Eyewitnesses testified to the reprisals, and not only against the Bolsheviks, of Yudenich’s punitive forces. (Gorn V. Civil War in North-West Russia // Yudenich near Petrograd. L., 1927, l. 12, 128, 138.) Miller signed an order on June 26, 1919, according to which Bolshevik hostages were shot for any attempt on officer's life.
83 In May 1926, former major general of Kolchak’s army, ataman B.V. Annenkov (1889-1927), was tried in Semipalatinsk. The 4 volumes of the investigative file (Archive of the Ministry of Security of the Russian Federation, no. 37751) collected hundreds of testimonies of peasants, workers of the city of Slavgorod, relatives of those who became victims of the punitive forces of the Semirechensk army, operating under the motto “We have no prohibitions! God and Ataman Annenkov are with us. Cut left and right." According to the court's verdict, Annenkov was shot. In 1946, the former lieutenant general of the Kolchak army, ataman G.I. Semenov (1890-1946), was tried in Irkutsk. The investigative file took up 25 volumes. They contain testimonies of former Red partisans testifying to reprisals against the civilian population of Cossacks and Semenov’s soldiers. By court verdict, Semenov was executed.
84 As the commander of US forces in Siberia, General Graves, recalled, “in Eastern Siberia, for every person killed by the Bolsheviks, there were a hundred people killed by anti-Bolshevik elements” and “the number of Bolsheviks in Siberia by the time of Kolchak increased many times in comparison with the number of them at the time our parish." (Graves V. American adventure in Siberia /1918-1920/. M., 1932. P. 80, 175.)
86 Frunze M.V. Op. T. 1. M., 1929. P. 375.
88 Lenin V.I. PSS. T. 13. P. 24.
88 See: Frenkin M. The tragedy of peasant uprisings in Russia. 1918-1921. Jerusalem. 1987.
89 See: Melgunov S.P. Red Terror in Russia. P. 88; Lats and M. The truth about the red terror // News of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. 1920. February 6; Danilov V. Why 16 million Russians died // Motherland. 1990. No. 10. P. 19. Miliukov named 1,766,118 people as victims of the Red Terror. (Milyukov P.N. Russia at a turning point. T. 1. Paris, 1927. P. 194). According to Solzhenitsyn, from June 1918 to October 1919, the Reds shot 16 thousand people, i.e. more than a thousand a month. In 1937-1938 28 thousand arrestees were shot per month. (Solzhenitsyn A. Gulag Archipelago // New World. 1989. No. 9. P. 141, 143.) Note that the number of victims of terror (1.3 million people) exceeded the losses of the Red Army in 1918-1922. (939,755 people). (The classification has been removed: Losses of the armed forces of the USSR in wars, hostilities and military conflicts. M., 1993. P. 407.)
90 Archive of the Ministry of Bank of the Russian Federation, f. 1, d. 1, l. 13; d. 3, l. 140, 145, 149; d. 7, l. 1; Archive of the KGB of the Republic of Tatarstan. Minutes of meetings of the Kazan Gubernia Cheka from December 28, 1918 to 1921. For comparison: from December 1918 to December 1921, the Kazan Gubernia Cheka shot 264 people, and in August-December 1937 alone, the NKVD of Tatarstan shot 2521 people. (this is the number officially recorded in the protocols).
91 Melgunov S.P. Red terror in Russia. P. 66; Gul R. Dzerzhinsky (beginning of terror). New York, 1974. P. 94. On the award list of E. G. Evdokimov, discovered in the RGVA by A. A. Zdanevich, there is a resolution from the commander of the Southern Front M. V. Frunze: “I consider the activities of Comrade Evdokimov worthy of encouragement. Due to the special nature of this activity, holding the awards ceremony in the usual manner is not entirely convenient.” Evdokimov was awarded the order without publicly announcing it. 62
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