Cheka
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The Cheka (ЧК - чрезвычайная комиссия) was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917 by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky. After 1922, the Cheka underwent a chain of reorganisations.
Traditionally, it has been called "the first Soviet secret police"; there was, however, nothing particularly secret in its functions, being akin to those of its immediate predecessor, the Revolutionary Tribunal.
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[edit] Name
The full designation of the agency ran Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия по борьбе с контрреволюцией и саботажем (The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage), but was commonly abbreviated to ЧК (Cheka) or ВЧК (Vecheka). In 1918 its name was slightly altered, becoming Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия по борьбе с контрреволюцией, спекуляцией и преступлениям по должности, or All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Profiteering and Official Corruption.
A member of Cheka was called a chekist. Chekists of the post-October Revolution years wore leather jackets creating a fashion followed by Western communists; they are pictured in several films in this apparel. Despite name and organisational changes over time, Soviet secret policemen were commonly referred to as "Chekists" throughout the entire Soviet period and the term is still found in use in Russia today (for example, President Vladimir Putin has been referred to in the Russian media as a 'chekist').
[edit] History
The Cheka was created immediately after the October Revolution, during the first days of Bolshevik government. Its immediate precursor was the "commission for the struggle with counter-revolution", established on December 4 [O.S. November 21] 1917, by the Milrevkom (the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet) on the proposal of Dzerzhinsky[1]. Its members were the Bolsheviks Skrypnik, Flerovski, Blagonravov, Galkin, and Trifonov[2].
The Vecheka was established on December 20 [O.S. December 7] 1917, by a decision of the Sovnarkom. It was subordinated to the Sovnarkom and its functions were, "to liquidate counter-revolution and sabotage, to hand over counter-revolutionaries and saboteurs to the revolutionary tribunals, and to apply such measures of repression as 'confiscation, deprivation of ration cards, publication of lists of enemies of the people etc.'"[3]. The original members of the Vecheka were Peters, Ksenofontov, Averin, Ordzhonikidze, Peterson, Evseev, and Trifonov[4], but the next day Averin, Ordzhonikidze, and Trifonov were replaced by Fomin, Shchukin, Ilyin, and Chernov[5]. A circular published on December 28 [O.S. December 15] 1917, gave the address of Vecheka's first headquarters as "Petrograd, Gorokhovaya 2, 4th floor"[6].
Originally, the members of the Vecheka were exclusively Bolshevik; however, in January 1918, left SRs also joined the organisation[7]
The agency quickly initiated mass arrests, imprisonments, and executions of "enemies of the people". In this, the Cheka targeted "class enemies" such as the bourgeoisie, members of the clergy, and political opponents of the new regime. The Cheka played a role in the suppression of the Kronstadt Rebellion in 1921 and orchestrated the campaign of repression that came to be known as "Red Terror", which was implemented by Dzerzhinsky on September 5th, 1918. The organ of the Red Army, "Krasnaya Gazeta," described it:
“Without mercy, without sparing, we will kill our enemies in scores of hundreds. Let them be thousands, let them drown themselves in their own blood. For the blood of Lenin and Uritsky . . . let there be floods of blood of the bourgeoisie - more blood, as much as possible. . ."[8]
Stalin was instrumental with the Cheka.
Estimates on Cheka executions vary widely. The lowest figures are provided by Dzerzhinsky’s lieutenant Martyn Latsis, limited to RSFSR over the period 1918–1920:
- For the period 1918-July 1919, covering only twenty provinces of central Russia:
-
- 1918: 6,300; 1919 (up to July): 2,089; Total: 8,389
- For the whole period 1918-19:
-
- 1918: 6,185; 1919: 3,456; Total: 9,641
- For the whole period 1918-20:
-
- January-June 1918: 22; July-December 1918: more than 6,000; 1918-20: 12,733
Experts generally agree these semi-official figures are vastly understated.[9] W. H. Chamberlin, for example, claims “it is simply impossible to believe that the Cheka only put to death 12,733 people in all of Russia up to the end of the civil war.”[10] He provides the "reasonable and probably moderate" estimate of 50,000[11], while others provide estimates ranging up to a whopping 500,000.[12][13] Several scholars put the number of executions at about 250,000.[14][15] Some believe it is possible more people were murdered by the Cheka than died in battle.[16] Lenin himself seemed unfazed by the killings. On 14 May 1921, the Politburo, chaired by Lenin, passed a motion "broadening the rights of the [Cheka] in relation to the use of the [death penalty]."[17]
The Cheka is reported to have practiced torture which rivaled that of the Spanish Inquisition. Victims were skinned alive, scalped, "crowned" with barbed wire, impaled, crucified, hanged, stoned to death, tied to planks and pushed slowly into furnaces or tanks of boiling water, and rolled around in internally nail-studded barrels. Some of the atrocities were truly inventive. Chekists poured water on naked prisoners in the winter-bound streets until they became living ice statues; others beheaded their victims by twisting their necks until their heads could be torn off. The Chinese Cheka stationed in Kiev amused itself by attaching an iron tube to the torso of a bound victim and inserting a rat into the other end which was then closed off with wire netting. The tube was then held over a flame until the rat began gnawing through the victim's guts in an effort to escape. Denikin’s investigation discovered corpses whose lungs, throats, and mouths had been packed with earth.[18][19][20]
Women and children were also victims of Cheka terror. Women would sometimes be tortured and raped before being shot. Children between the ages of 8 and 16 were imprisoned and occasionally executed.[21]
In 1922, the Cheka was transformed into the State Political Administration or GPU, a section of the NKVD of the Russian SFSR.
While there is no doubt that the Cheka were responsible for a number of hideous acts, most "verified sources" are from emigré literature, often ex-aristocrats.[citation needed]
[edit] The Cheka in popular culture
- The cheka were popular staples in Soviet film and literature. This was partly due to a romanticization of the organisation in the post-Stalin period, and also because they provided a useful action/detection template. Films featuring the Cheka include Osterns Miles of Fire, Nikita Mikhalkov's At Home among Strangers, and also Dead Season starring Donatas Banionis and the 1992 Soviet Union film Chekist.[1]
- In Spain, during the Spanish Civil War, the detention and torture centers operated by the Communists were named checas after the Soviet organization. [2]
- In George Orwell's Animal Farm, The Dogs are Napoleon's (Stalin's) secret police and bodyguards (inspired by Cheka, NKVD, OGPU, MVD).
[edit] See also
- Russian Revolution of 1917
- Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria
- Mensheviks
- Bolsheviks
- Decossackization
- Lenin's Hanging Order
[edit] Notes
- ^ Carr (1958), p. 1.
- ^ Ibid.
- ^ Ibid., p. 2.
- ^ Ibid., p. 3.
- ^ Ibid.
- ^ Ibid.
- ^ Schapiro (1984).
- ^ page 9, Applebaum (2003).
- ^ pages 463-464, Leggett (1986).
- ^ pages 74-75, Chamberlin (1935).
- ^ Ibid.
- ^ page 39, Rummel (1990).
- ^ Statue plan stirs Russian row (BBC)
- ^ page 28, Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield, paperback edition, Basic books, 1999.
- ^ page 180, Overy, The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, W. W. Norton & Company; 1st American Ed edition, 2004.
- ^ page 649, Figes (1996).
- ^ page 238, Volkogonov (1994).
- ^ pages 177-179, Melg(o)unov (1925).
- ^ pages 383-385, Lincoln (1999).
- ^ page 646, Figes (1996).
- ^ page 198, Leggett (1986).
[edit] Sources
- Andrew, Christopher M. and Vasili Mitrokhin (1999) The Sword and the Shield : The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0465003125.
- Applebaum, Anne (2003) Gulag: A History. Doubleday. ISBN 0767900561
- Carr, E. H. (1958) The Origin and Status of the Cheka. Soviet Studies, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 1–11.
- Chamberlin, W. H. (1935) The Russian Revolution 1917-1921, 2 vols. London and New York. The Macmillan Company.
- Figes, Orlando (1997) A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924. Penguin Books. ISBN 0670859168.
- Leggett, George (1986) The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0198228627
- Lincoln, Bruce W. (1999) Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0306809095
- Melgounov, Sergey Petrovich (1925) The Red Terror in Russia. London & Toronto: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd.
- Overy, Richard (2004) The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia. W. W. Norton & Company; 1st American edition. ISBN 0393020304
- Rummel, Rudolph Joseph (1990) Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 1560008873
- Schapiro, Leonard B. (1984) The Russian Revolutions of 1917 : The Origins of Modern Communism. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0465071546.
- Volkogonov, Dmitri (1994) Lenin: A New Biography. Free Press. ISBN 0029334357
[edit] External links
- The Cheka - Spartacus Schoolnet collection of primary source extracts relating to the Cheka
- Origins of the Cheka
- The Cheka and the Institutionalization of Violence
