Red Terror

Categories / Social Life/Political Repressions
RED TERROR, a policy of repression pursued by the Soviet government in its early years in order to frighten and kill actual and potential (often imaginary) opponents to the Bolshevik regime. The Red Terror was officially proclaimed by the Soviet of Peoples' Commissars on 5 September, 1918, which gave authority to shoot any person involved with White organizations, conspiracies and revolts, and to banish other classes of enemies to concentration camps. The institution of taking accused opponents into custody, which was in practice from summer 1918, was legalized in September. The leaders of the Red Terror were the bodies of the All-Russian Emergency Commission (in Petrograd, the Petrograd Emergency Commission), as well as revolutionary tribunals and various emergency courts (troikas, or commissions of three), which were governed more by urgent revolutionary needs than legal rules. Officially, the Red Terror was meant to apply to upper classes, calling for “prison for the bourgeoisie and comradely pressure for workers and peasants”; in fact, however, people of all ranks were repressed if they were suspected of opposition to the Soviet government. In Petrograd, the lynching laws in effect from 1917 to early 1918, along with shootings in summer 1918 (the murder of officers and cadets; in January 1918, the murder of Central Committee members A.I. Shingarev and F.F. Kokoshkin), foreshadowed the Red Terror. According to some reports, about 300 people were shot in Petrograd in March - August 1918. A more widespread Red Terror is considered to have begun with the assassination of M.S. Uritsky, Chairman of the Petrograd Emergency Committee, and the attempted assassination of Vladimir I. Lenin on 30 August 1918 in Moscow. In September 1918, about 900 people in custody were shot in Petrograd, and more than 500 in Kronstadt (including bourgeoisie, intelligentsia, former officers, officials, policemen, and gendarmes). In January 1919, four grand dukes were shot at the St. Peter and Paul Fortress as part of the Red Terror. Mass shootings occurred in spring - autumn 1919, throughout 1920 (according to S.P. Melgunov, 5,000 people were killed), during and after the Kronstadt Rebellion of 1921, and during summer 1921 in relation to the Petrograd Military Organization Affair. Between August 1918 and January 1920, the Petrograd Extraordinary Commission issued 30 orders to shoot 1,215 people in total; including 682 people considered to be involved in counterrevolutionary activities (no full lists of those shot were ever published). The question of how many exactly fell victims to the Red Terror is still open.

References: Смолин А. В. У истоков красного террора // ЛП. 1989. № 7. С. 25-28; Мельгунов С. П. Красный террор в России, 1918-1923. М., 1990; Литвин А. Л. Красный и белый террор в России, 1918-1922 гг. Казань, 1995; Ратьковский И. С. Красный террор в Петрограде (осень 1918 г.) // Петербургские чтения-96. СПб., 1996. С. 175-177.

A. M. Kulegin. Dmitry Konstantinovich, Grand Prince
Georgy Mikhailovich, Grand Prince
Kokoshkin Fedor Fedorovich
Lenin (real name Ulyanov) Vladimir Ilyich
Melgunov Sergey Petrovich
Nikolay Mikhailovich, Grand Prince
Pavel Alexandrovich, Grand Prince
Shingarev Andrey Ivanovich
Uritsky Moisey Solomonovich
Zinovyev Grigory Evseevich
Мельгунов С. П. Красный террор в России, 1918-1923. М., 1990
Смолин А. В. У истоков красного террора // Ленингр. панорама, 1989
Литвин А. Л. Красный и белый террор в России, 1918-1922 гг. Казань, 1995
Ратьковский И.С. Красный террор в Петрограде (осень 1918 г.) // Петербургские чтения-96. СПб., 1996 St. Peter and Paul fortress
St. Peter and Paul fortress
Petrograd Fighter Organization
Kronstadt Rebellion of 1921
Kresty Prison.
Smolny Institute
Red Terror
1918
1918
1919