We went to power to hang, but we had to hang to come to power (Kornilov)

The stream of articles and notes about the "good Tsar-Father", the noble white movement and the red ghouls-murderers opposing them does not become scarce. I'm not going to play for one or the other side. I'll just give you the facts. Just bare facts, taken from open sources, and nothing more. Tsar Nicholas II, who had abdicated the throne, was arrested on March 2, 1917 by General Mikhail Alekseev, his chief of staff. The Tsarina and the family of Nicholas II were arrested on March 7 by General Lavr Kornilov, the commander of the Petrograd Military District. Yes, yes, those very future heroes-founders of the white movement ...

The Lenin government, which assumed responsibility for the country in November-17, offered the Romanov family to go to their relatives - in London, but the English royal family REFUSED their permission to move to England.

The overthrow of the tsar was welcomed by all of Russia. “Even close relatives of Nikolai put red bows on their breasts,” writes historian Heinrich Ioffe. Grand Duke Michael, to whom Nicholas intended to transfer the crown, refused the throne. Russian Orthodox Church having committed the perjury of the church's oath of allegiance, she welcomed the news of the tsar's abdication.

Russian officers. 57% of them were supported by the white movement, of which 14 thousand later switched to the red ones. 43% (75 thousand people) - immediately went for the Reds, that is, in the end - more than half of the officers supported the Soviet regime.

The first few months after the October uprising in Petrograd and Moscow were not in vain called "the triumphal march of Soviet power." Out of 84 provincial and other large cities, only 15 were established as a result of armed struggle. “At the end of November, in all the cities of the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia, the power of the Provisional Government no longer existed. It passed almost without any resistance into the hands of the Bolsheviks, Soviets were formed everywhere ", - testifies Major General Ivan Akulinin in his memoirs" The Orenburg Cossack army in the fight against the Bolsheviks 1917-1920 ".

“Just at this time,” he writes further, “combat units — regiments and batteries — began to arrive in the Army from the Austro-Hungarian and Caucasian fronts, but it turned out to be absolutely impossible to count on their help: they did not even want to hear about the armed struggle against the Bolsheviks. ".


Russian officers were divided in their sympathies ...

How, under such circumstances, did Soviet Russia suddenly find itself in a ring of fronts?

And here's how: from the end of February - the beginning of March 1918, the imperialist powers of both coalitions fighting in the world war began a large-scale armed invasion of our territory.

On February 18, 1918, German and Austro-Hungarian troops (about 50 divisions) launched an offensive from the Baltic to the Black Sea. In two weeks they occupied vast territories.

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on March 3, 1918, but the Germans did not stop. Taking advantage of the agreement with the Central Rada (by that time already firmly established in Germany), they continued their offensive in Ukraine, overthrew Soviet power in Kiev on March 1 and advanced further in the eastern and southern directions to Kharkov, Poltava, Yekaterinoslav, Nikolaev, Kherson and Odessa ...

5th of March german troops 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 the Crimea, and on April 30 they captured Sevastopol.

By mid-June, more than 15,000 German troops with aviation and artillery were stationed in Transcaucasia, including 10,000 in Poti and 5,000 in Tiflis (Tbilisi).

Turkish troops have been operating in the Transcaucasus since mid-February.

On March 9, 1918, an English landing entered Murmansk under the pretext ... of the need to protect warehouses of military property from the Germans.

On April 5, a Japanese landing party landed in Vladivostok, but already under the pretext of ... protecting Japanese citizens "from banditry" in this city.

May 25 - the performance of the Czechoslovak corps, whose echelons were located between Penza and Vladivostok.

It should be borne in mind that the "whites" (generals Alekseev, Kornilov, Anton Denikin, Pyotr Wrangel, Admiral Alexander Kolchak), who played a role in the overthrow of the tsar, renounced the oath of the Russian Empire, but did not accept the new power, starting a struggle for their own rule in Russia.


The landing of the Entente in Arkhangelsk, August 1918

In southern Russia, where the Russian Liberation Forces were mainly active, the situation was veiled by the Russian form of the White Movement. Ataman of the "Don Cossack" Pyotr Krasnov, when he was told about the "German orientation" and was set up as an example of Denikin's "volunteers", answered: "Yes, yes, gentlemen!" The volunteer army is pure and infallible.

But it is I, the Don chieftain, who take German shells and cartridges with my dirty hands, wash them in the waves of the quiet Don and hand them over to the Volunteer Army with clean ones! The whole shame of this case lies with me! "

Kolchak Alexander Vasilievich, so beloved "romantic hero" of the modern "intelligentsia". Kolchak, breaking the oath of the Russian Empire, was the first in the Black Sea Fleet to swear allegiance to the Provisional Government. Having learned about the October Revolution, he handed the British ambassador a request for admission to the British army. The ambassador, after consulting with London, handed Kolchak the direction to the Mesopotamian front. On the way there, in Singapore, he was overtaken by a telegram from the Russian envoy to China, Nikolai Kudashev, who invited him to Manchuria to form Russian military units.


Murdered Bolshevik

So, by August 1918, the armed forces of the RSFSR were fully or almost completely opposed by foreign troops. “It would be a mistake to think that throughout this year we fought on the fronts for the cause of the Russians hostile to the Bolsheviks. On the contrary, the Russian White Guards fought for OUR cause, ”Winston Churchill later wrote.

White liberators or murderers and robbers? Doctor of Historical Sciences Heinrich Ioffe in the journal "Science and Life" No. 12 for 2004 - and this magazine managed to last years to be marked with ardent anti-Sovietism - in an article about Denikin he writes: "A real revanchist sabbath was going on in the liberated territories from the Reds. The old masters returned, tyranny, robberies, terrible Jewish pogroms reigned."

The atrocities of Kolchak's troops are legendary. The number of those killed and tortured to death in Kolchak's dungeons could not be counted. In the Yekaterinburg province alone, about 25 thousand people were shot.
"V Eastern Siberia horrible murders were committed, but they were not committed by the Bolsheviks, as is usually thought. I will not be mistaken if I say, - American General William Sydney Greves, an eyewitness to those events, later admitted, - that for every person killed by the Bolsheviks, there were 100 people killed by anti-Bolshevik elements. "

The "ideology" of whites in this matter was clearly expressed by General Kornilov:
“We went to power in order to hang, but we had to hang in order to come to power” ...


Americans and Scots guard the captured Red Army soldiers in Bereznik.

The "allies" of the white movement - the British, French and other Japanese - took out everything: metal, coal, bread, machinery and equipment, engines and furs. Hijacked civilian steamers and steam locomotives. Until October 1918 alone, the Germans 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 from Ukraine. There was a large-scale plunder of Russia.

And about the atrocities (no less bloody and massive - no one argues) of the Red Army and the Chekists read in the writings of the democratic press. This text is intended solely to dispel the illusions of those who admire the romance and nobility of the "white knights of Russia". There was dirt, blood and suffering. Wars and revolutions cannot bring anything else ...

"White Terror in Russia" is the title of the book of the famous historian, Doctor of Historical Sciences Pavel Golub. The documents and materials collected in it, stone on stone, do not leave fictions and myths widely circulating in the media and publications on a historical theme.

There was everything: from demonstrations of the force of the interventionists to the execution of the Red Army by the Czechs

Let's start with statements about the cruelty and bloodthirstiness of the Bolsheviks, who, they say, destroyed their political opponents at the slightest opportunity. In fact, the leaders of the Bolshevik Party began to treat them firmly and irreconcilably to the extent that they were convinced by their own bitter experience of the need for decisive measures. And at first there was a certain gullibility and even carelessness. Indeed, in just four months, October triumphantly marched from edge to edge of a huge country, which became possible thanks to the support of the power of the Soviets by the overwhelming majority of the people.

Hence the hopes that its opponents themselves realize the obvious. Many leaders of the counter-revolution, as can be seen from the documentary materials - generals Krasnov, Vladimir Marushevsky, Vasily Boldyrev, a prominent politician Vladimir Purishkevich, ministers of the Provisional Government, Alexei Nikitin, Kuzma Gvozdev, Semyon Maslov, and many others - were released on fair word, although their hostility to the new government was not in doubt.

These gentlemen broke their word by taking an active part in the armed struggle, in organizing provocations and sabotage against their people. The generosity shown in relation to the obvious enemies of the Soviet regime turned into thousands and thousands of additional victims, suffering and torment of hundreds of thousands of people who supported the revolutionary changes. And then the leaders of the Russian communists drew the inevitable conclusions - they knew how to learn from their mistakes ...


Tomichi carry the bodies of the executed participants of the anti-Kolchak uprising

Having come to power, the Bolsheviks by no means banned the activities of their political opponents. They were not arrested, allowed to publish their own newspapers and magazines, hold rallies and processions, etc. The People's Socialists, Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks continued their legal activities in the organs of the new government, starting with the local Soviets and ending with the Central Executive Committee. And again, only after the transition of these parties to an open armed struggle against the new system, their factions were expelled from the Soviets by a decree of the Central Executive Committee of June 14, 1918. But even after that, the opposition parties continued to operate legally. Only those organizations or individuals who were found guilty of specific subversive activities were punished.


Excavation of the grave in which the victims of the Kolchak repressions of March 1919 are buried, Tomsk, 1920


Kolchak's victims in Novosibirsk, 1919

"Civilized" Czechoslovak punishers dealt with their "Slavic brothers" with fire and bayonet, literally wiping out entire villages 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 who lived there. When the uprising of the prisoners of the Alexander Transit Prison was suppressed in September 1919, the Czechs shot them point-blank from machine guns and cannons. The massacre lasted three days, about 600 people died at the hands of the executioners. And there are a great many such examples.


Bolsheviks killed by Czechs near Vladivostok

By the way, foreign interventionists actively contributed to the deployment of new concentration camps on Russian territory for those who opposed the occupation or sympathized with the Bolsheviks. Concentration camps began to be created by the Provisional Government. This is an indisputable fact, which the debunkers of the "bloody atrocities" of the communists also keep silent about. When French and British troops landed in Arkhangelsk and Murmansk, one of their leaders, General Poole, on behalf of the allies, solemnly promised the northerners to ensure "the triumph of law and justice" in the occupied territory.

However, almost immediately after these words, a concentration camp was organized on the island of Mudyug captured by the invaders. Here are the testimonies of those who happened to be there: “Every night, several people died, and their corpses remained in the barracks until morning. And in the morning a French sergeant appeared and gloatingly asked: "How many Bolsheviks are kaput today?" More than 50 percent of those imprisoned on Mudyuga lost their lives, many went mad ... ”.

American invader poses near the corpse of a murdered Bolshevik

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 masses." Their most inhuman personification was the exiled convict prison in Yokanga, which one of the prisoners described as "the most brutal, sophisticated method of exterminating people by slow, painful death."

Here are excerpts from the memoirs of those who miraculously managed to survive in this hell: "The dead lay on bunks with the living, and the living were no better than the dead: dirty, covered with scabs, in torn rags, decaying alive, they presented a nightmarish picture."


Red Army prisoner at work, Arkhangelsk, 1919

By the time of the liberation of Yokanga from the whites, 576 of the 1,500 prisoners remained there, of whom 205 could no longer move.

The system of such concentration camps, as shown in the book, was deployed in Siberia and the Far East by Admiral Kolchak - perhaps the most cruel of all the White Guard rulers. They were created both on the basis of prisons and in those prisoner-of-war camps that were built by the Provisional Government. In more than 40 concentration camps, the regime drove almost a million (914,178) people who rejected the restoration of the pre-revolutionary order. To this must be added about 75 thousand more people languishing in white Siberia. The regime drove more than 520 thousand prisoners to slave, almost unpaid labor in enterprises and in agriculture.

However, neither in Solzhenitsyn's "GULAG Archipelago", nor in the writings of his followers Alexander Yakovlev, Dmitry Volkogonov and others about this monstrous archipelago - not a word. Although the same Solzhenitsyn begins his "Archipelago" with the Civil War, depicting the "Red Terror". Classic example lies by simple silence!


American Bolshevik hunters

In anti-Soviet literature about the civil war, a lot is written with anguish about the "barges of death", which, they say, were used by the Bolsheviks to crack down on White Guard officers. The book by Pavel Golub contains facts and documents showing that the "barges" and "trains of death" began to be actively and massively used by the White Guards. When in the fall of 1918, on the eastern front, they began to suffer defeat from the Red Army, "barges" and "death trains" with prisoners of prisons and concentration camps moved to Siberia, and then to the Far East.

Horror and death - this is what the White Guard generals carried to the people who rejected the pre-revolutionary regime. And this is by no means a publicistic exaggeration. Kolchak himself frankly wrote about the "vertical of command" he created: "The activities of the chiefs of the district militias, special forces, all kinds of commandants, chiefs of individual detachments is a continuous crime." It would be good to ponder these words for those who today admire the "patriotism" and "dedication" of the white movement, which, in contrast to the Red Army, defended the interests of "Great Russia."


Red Army prisoners in Arkhangelsk

Well, as for the "red terror", its dimensions were completely incomparable with the white, and it was mainly of a reciprocal nature. Even General Grevs, the commander of the 10,000-strong American corps in Siberia, admitted this.

And this was the case not only in Eastern Siberia. This was the case throughout Russia.
However, the frank confessions of the American general by no means relieve him of guilt for participating in the massacres of the people who rejected the pre-revolutionary order. The terror against him was carried out by the joint efforts of foreign invaders and white armies.

In total, there were more than a million invaders on the territory of Russia - 280 thousand Austro-German bayonets and about 850 thousand British, American, French and Japanese. The joint attempt of the White Guard armies and their foreign allies to inflict the Russian "Thermidor" cost the Russian people, even according to incomplete data, very dear: about 8 million killed, tortured in concentration camps, died of wounds, hunger and epidemics. The material losses of the country, according to experts, amounted to an astronomical figure - 50 billion gold rubles ...

Who and when unleashed the Civil War?

The answer to these two questions is obvious to everyone - both communists and liberals. The first argue that after the Great October Socialist Revolution and the "triumphal march of Soviet power" the whites and the interventionists began the Civil War, but the time of its beginning varies from the end of 1917 (Kaledin's revolt) to June 1918 (the Czechoslovak revolt). Liberals are of the opinion that the Bolsheviks staged the Civil War, but the dates of its beginning remain the same.

Everything is clear and understandable to both of them, but not to me alone. Let's figure it out. Fast forward to early December 1916 to the shores of Lake Geneva. A short, stocky 46-year-old man is walking there, accompanied by two companions - his wife Nadia and Inessa, a partaigenosse. What is he thinking about? How to arrange a civil war in Russia? Yes, two years ago he put forward the slogan "about turning the imperialist war into a civil war," but what has been done during this time? Alas, nothing, everything was limited to chatter in a narrow circle of Social Democrats.

Moreover, a number of historians claim that at the end of 1916 Vladimir Ulyanov was depressed and even argued that the current generation of revolutionaries could not wait for the collapse of the tsarist autocracy. And there were plenty of reasons for that. The World War greatly impeded the actions of the Bolsheviks. Hundreds of their functionaries in Russia were sent to Siberia or executed by a court-martial sentence. The actions of Russian and foreign counterintelligence services made it extremely difficult to communicate both inside and outside the country. The war scattered the future Soviet leaders all over the world - some in Switzerland, some in the USA, some “in the depths of Siberian ores,” and in Petrograd in December 1916 - February 1917 there were no influential Bolsheviks.

By 1917, the Bolshevik organizations that survived the police pogroms were extremely few in number, but they were saturated to the limit with agents of the secret police. Before the revolution, M.Ye., a member of the Central Committee and editor of Pravda, worked for the secret police. Chernomazov (salary 200 rubles per month), member of the Central Committee and head of the Bolshevik faction in the IV State Duma R.V. Malinovsky (500 rubles). Members of regional committees and students of the Lenin school in Longjumeau received less - 100, 75 and 50 rubles. The Council of Workers 'Deputies, formed after the February Revolution, consisted of more than thirty informants of the secret police, and one of them was the chairman, three were his deputies, two were editors of Izvestia of the Council of Workers' Deputies, etc.

Where is Ulyanov to think about organizing a civil war! Meanwhile, in December 1916, shock units specially created for waging the civil war in Russia marched across Europe. Already in February 1915, a scout camp was opened in Germany, initially for only 200 people. There young Finnish guys studied military science, methods military intelligence and guerrilla warfare. Studying at the courses was not in vain: under Mannerheim, 165 graduates became officers, 25 of them became generals, making up the backbone of the Finnish army, police, special services and a schutzkor. And by February 1917, thousands of Finnish rangers were already under arms in Germany.

The Germans and Austrians formed Polish legions, German submarines landed groups of separatists on the coast of the Caucasus. I emphasize, not saboteurs to blow up a bridge or a military warehouse, but future "field commanders".
In Lvov, in August 1914, the nationalists founded the "Zagalna Ukrainian Rada", which was headed by the deputy of the Austrian Reichstag Kost Levytsky. 28 thousand wide-eyed Ukrainians have expressed a desire to kill the "evil Muscovites." However, only 2.5 thousand people entered the Ukrainian Legion. Later, the legionnaires were renamed into "Ukrainian Sichev Archers".

Note that neither the Finnish, nor the Polish, nor the Ukrainian units of Berlin and Vienna threw the battles into the fire, they say, let them die, not full-fledged German soldiers. They were trained for the civil war in Russia.
Well, okay, Germany and Austria-Hungary were opponents of Russia in the war, and the Russians themselves formed Czechoslovak units in the same way.

And why did France, an ally of Russia, begin to form Polish units at home? Alas, Paris and London, no less than Berlin and Vienna, dreamed of the dismemberment of Russia, which could only be accomplished in the only way — civil war.

And so the February Revolution took place in Petrograd. Whether we like it or not, it turned out to be a Masonic coup, as a result of which the Masonic Provisional Government came to power. And we will call as witnesses ... Lenin. Why, he never used the word "Freemasons"! So what. So after all, the Masons themselves did not call their comrades-in-arms (accomplices) Masons, but always expressed themselves in some allegorical way.

So this is what the leader wrote: “This eight-day revolution was, if one may say so metaphorically, was“ played out ”exactly after a dozen major and minor rehearsals; "Actors" knew each other, their roles, their places, their surroundings up and down, through and through, to any significant shade of political directions and methods of action. " Replace the word "actors" with "brothers" and everything will fall into place.

According to the Mason N.N. Berberova, the first composition of the Provisional Government (March-April 1917) included ten "brothers" and one "layman". Masons called "profane" people close to them, who, however, were not formally included in the lodges. Cadet P.N. Milyukov, appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Berberova writes that the composition of the future government was presented to the "Supreme Soviet of the Peoples of Russia" already in 1915.

Berberova cites statistics without undue modesty: “If out of the eleven ministers of the Provisional Government of the first composition, ten turned out to be Masons, brothers of Russian lodges, then in the last composition, the“ third coalition ”(the so-called Directory), in September-October, when the Minister of War Verkhovsky left, all were freemasons, except for Kartashov, those who spent the night from 25 to 26 October in the Winter Palace and who were arrested and imprisoned in the fortress, and those who were “on the run”.

Masons relatively easily seized power in Petrograd, forming the Provisional Government, and commissars of the Provisional Government were sent to the governors' place. But, alas, the Masons did not have any political, military, or economic, more or less satisfactory program.

In the summer of 1917, only a few army units and ships retained a relative combat capability and could conduct active operations. The rest of the troops did not want to fight and practically did not obey the commanders, both the old ones and those appointed by the Provisional Government.

The provisional government could not solve the agrarian question. Give land to the peasants immediately? The Masonic ministers were afraid of offending the landlords. Send punitive detachments to the village with fire and sword to restore order? The same is not possible - there are no units capable of carrying out this order. The only way out is to promise that we will gather a Constituent Assembly at the end of the year, and it will decide the land issue. But it is necessary to sow in the spring. And who will sow, harrow, etc., when it is not known who will get the harvest in the fall?

In March-June 1917, 2,944 peasant demonstrations took place in European Russia alone. By the fall of 1917, 105 landowners' estates were seized and destroyed in the Tambov province, 30 in the Oryol province, etc. March - October 1917 in Russia, it seems, there was no civil war.

The main thing is that since March 1917 separatists have raised their heads throughout the Russian Empire. By October 1917, several hundred thousand servicemen of "illegal armed formations" created by separatists in Finland, the Baltic States, Ukraine, Bessarabia, Crimea (Tatars), the Caucasus and Central Asia were put under arms. These formations (armies) were subordinate exclusively to the powerful state formations of the separatists.

Note that not only the self-styled leaders of the "foreigners" wanted to separate from Russia, but also the top of the Cossacks in the Kuban, the "oblastniks" (the left-liberal bourgeoisie) in Siberia, etc. At first they spoke only about the federal structure of Russia, and then directly about separation from the center, both Soviet and White.

It is important to note that separatists of all stripes claimed not only the lands inhabited by their peoples, but also vast regions dominated by persons of other nationalities. Thus, the Poles demanded the revival of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth "from Mozha to Mozha," that is, from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The Finns claimed the Kola Peninsula, the Arkhangelsk and Vologda provinces, as well as the whole of Karelia. The separatists' territorial claims were overlapped many times. So, Poles, Ukrainians and Romanians claimed Odessa. It is clear that it was impossible to resolve these territorial disputes without a major civil war.

Suppose for a second that the Bolsheviks in mid-October 1917 decided to abandon the seizure of power, and their leaders would go back to Switzerland, the USA, Siberian exile, etc. Would the separatist leaders have abandoned their plans and disbanded their bandit formations? Would the German command have refused to strike at the collapsed Russian army and would not have conspired with the Baltic and Ukrainian nationalists?

In the spring and summer of 1918, a German invasion would inevitably take place. The allies would also land in the North and the Far East of Russia. A sluggish civil war would have turned into an all-out civil war, but without the participation of the Bolsheviks.
The question arises - would the Provisional Government, which did not represent anyone, headed by Kerensky, have been able to win this war? The answer is unequivocal - no! Who would have won? And I don’t want to think about it, but I refer those who are interested to the authors of numerous “fantasy” stories, who will tell us what would happen if Hitler captured England, took Moscow and so on and so forth ...

So what exactly October Revolution and the ensuing dictatorship of the Bolsheviks saved Russia from the collapse, which was planned in 1915 in the ministerial offices of London and Paris.

Was the Bolshevik dictatorship bloody? Yes, there was, but her opponents would have staged an even bloodier bath if they could. “If they say about the sovereign that he is kind, his reign has failed,” said not Lenin, but Bonaparte.

Having shot the royal family - a symbol of the Divine principle in the earthly world, the people renounced God, lost that sacred that was in their souls. Like foam, all the dark sides of human life surfaced to the surface: cruelty, aggression, cowardice, greed, sexual promiscuity. The values ​​that had existed for centuries - the institution of the family, the culture and traditions of the peoples of multinational Russia, deep faith in God - all of this was practically destroyed literally in the decade that followed the revolutions of 1917.

What a civil war expert tells about:

• How did the policy of eliminating groups dangerous for the Bolsheviks begin?
• Why were the executions carried out in hundreds, and then a smaller number of victims was indicated?
• What is the difference between the Red and White terror? Are they comparable in terms of the number of victims?
• What instructions did one of the top leaders of the Cheka give to local authorities for making a decision on the execution?
• How many intelligentsia remained in the country in comparison with tsarist Russia 12 years after the 1917 revolution?

Interview with the famous historian of the Civil War, Doctor of Historical Sciences Sergei Vladimirovich Volkov. The interview is conducted by the coordinator of the People's Cathedral movement Artyom Perevoshchikov.

AP: Sergei Vladimirovich, it is believed that the "Red Terror" began with the decree of the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) of September 5, 1918. How fair is this? After all, reprisals against officers, priests, representatives of the intelligentsia began much earlier, and often took place with the participation of Soviet authorities. Can we say that they had nothing to do with the "Red Terror", and it really began only on September 5?

S.V .: In fact, the policy of eliminating groups dangerous for the Bolsheviks began even before they took power. In accordance with Lenin's instructions (based on the experience of 1905), priority was naturally given to the physical and moral destruction of officers: “We should not preach passivity, not just“ waiting ”for the army to“ cross over ”- no, we should call everyone bells about the need for a bold attack and attack with weapons in hand, about the need to exterminate the commanders. "

As a result of Bolshevik agitation at the front, several hundred officers were killed and no less committed suicide (there are more than 800 registered cases only). Officers became the main target of the Red Terror immediately after the October coup. In the winter of 1917-1918 and in the spring of 1918, many of them died on the way from the disintegrated front in trains and on railway stations, where a real "hunt" for them was practiced: such reprisals then took place every day. At the same time, there was a mass extermination of officers in a number of localities: Sevastopol - 128 people. December 16-17, 1917 and more than 800 January 23-24, 1918, other Crimean cities - about 1,000 in January 1918, Odessa - more than 400 in January 1918, Kiev - up to 3.5 thousand at the end of January 1918, on the Don - more 500 in February-March 1918, etc.

Usually terror is associated with the activities of the "extraordinary commissions", but at the first stage - at the end of 1917 - the first half of 1918, the bulk of the reprisals against the "class enemy" were carried out by local military revolutionary committees, the command of individual Red detachments and simply propagandized in the appropriate spirit of the group " conscientious fighters "who, guided by" revolutionary legal consciousness ", carried out arrests and executions.

According to the information of the Bolshevik newspapers themselves, it is not difficult to be convinced that group executions along the Cheka line were carried out long before the official announcement of the "Red Terror" and even before the execution of the officers of the Life Guards was announced later. Semenovsky regiment of brothers A.A. and V.A. Skull-Spiridovichi on May 31, 1918 and were quite common (for example, from the note in Izvestia at the very beginning of March, "The Shooting of Seven Students" it is clear that they were caught in the apartment while drawing up a proclamation to the population, after which they were taken by employees Cheka on one of the wastelands, where they were shot, and the names of two were not even established). In the summer, hundreds of executions were carried out (for example, against the Kazan organization, the Yaroslavl case and many others), i.e. then, when, according to later statements, only 22 people were allegedly shot. According to random and very incomplete data published in Soviet newspapers, 884 people were shot during this time.

More than two months before the official proclamation of terror, Lenin (in a letter to Zinoviev dated June 26, 1918) wrote that "the energy and mass character of terror against counter-revolutionaries must be encouraged, and especially in St. Petersburg, the example of which decides."

That is, mass terror was quite obvious fact both for the population and for the Bolshevik leadership, which, however, was dissatisfied with its scale. The proclamation of the "Red Terror" on September 2, and three days later, and the adoption of the corresponding resolution of the Council of People's Commissars was precisely aimed at bringing the scale of terror in line with the needs of the Bolshevik government.

A.P .: Was the character of the Red and White terror similar?

SV: Since the term "terror" is interpreted quite broadly and usually means a variety of actions, it should, first of all, specify what is meant in this case.

Etymologically, the term "terror" means actions aimed at intimidating the enemy and making him behave in a certain way. Actions such as killings of officials, acts of terrorism (explosions, etc.), shootings of hostages can therefore be considered as manifestations of this. However, not all repressions, even of a mass character, can be regarded as terror: motivation is essential, the way the repressive side voices their direction.

“It was the time that one of the eyewitnesses called the“ wild orgy of the Red Terror ”. It was alarming and scary at night to hear, and sometimes even be present, when dozens of people were taken to be shot. Cars came and took their victims away, and the prison did not sleep and trembled at every car whistle. They will enter the cell and demand someone "with things" in the "shower room" - that means to be shot. And there they will be tied in pairs with wire. If you only knew what a horror it was! "

Genuine terror (in the sense of "intimidation") is not equivalent to the concept of "mass repression"; it implies instilling total fear not on real fighters against the regime (they already know about the consequences and are ready for them), but on entire social, confessional or ethnic communities. In one case, the authorities demonstrate their intention to exterminate their political opponents, in the second - to exterminate generally all representatives of this or that community, except for those who will faithfully serve it. This is the difference between "normal" repression and terror.

The specifics of the policy of the Bolsheviks in 1917-1922. consisted in the installation according to which people were subject to destruction by the very fact of belonging to certain social strata, except for those of their representatives who “prove by deeds” their loyalty to Soviet power. It is precisely this feature, which (since it became possible to talk about it) was in every possible way obscured by representatives of Soviet-communist propaganda and their followers, who sought to "dissolve" these specific social aspirations of the Bolsheviks in total mass"Atrocities" of the Civil War and, mixing completely different things, they liked to talk about the "red and white terror".

Civil wars, like all "irregular" wars, do tend to be relatively more brutal. Things like shootings of prisoners, extrajudicial killings of political opponents, taking hostages, etc. to a greater or lesser extent are characteristic of all parties involved. And in the Russian Civil War, whites, of course, also happened to do this, especially to individuals taking revenge for cut families, etc. But the essence of the matter is that the red attitude meant, if possible, the complete elimination of "harmful" estates and groups of the population, and the white - the elimination of the carriers of such an attitude.

The fundamental difference between these positions stems from an equally fundamental difference in the goals of the struggle: "world revolution" against "United and Indivisible Russia", the idea of ​​a class struggle against the idea of ​​national unity in the struggle against an external enemy. If the first by necessity presupposes and requires the extermination of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people (of the most diverse convictions), then the second only presupposes the liquidation of the functionaries of the particular party preaching this. Hence the comparative scale of repression. It is curious that the adherents of the Bolshevik doctrine were never embarrassed by the obvious absurdity of the tasks of the "white terror" from the point of view of their own interpretation of events as the struggle of "workers and peasants" against the "bourgeoisie and landowners" (it is rather difficult to imagine a manufacturer who dreams of slaughtering his workers; and if the "bourgeoisie" is physically possible to exterminate in principle, then it is not only impossible for it to do the same with the "workers and peasants", but from the point of view of its "class" interests there is simply no reason whatsoever).

AP: Modern apologists of Bolshevism like to say that the "Red Terror" was a response to the "White Terror" and is comparable in terms of the number of victims. How true are their statements?

SV: Well, the “answer” was, to put it mildly, strange. The official reason for the announcement of the "Red Terror" was, as is known, the murder of Uritsky and the attempt on Lenin's life - both actions carried out by the Social Revolutionaries. “In response,” several thousand people, who had nothing to do with either the Socialist-Revolutionaries or these actions, and primarily representatives of the former Russian elite, were shot in several days. When, for the actions of the Socialist-Revolutionaries against the Bolsheviks, the latter shoot not the Socialist-Revolutionaries, but the Tsarist dignitaries and officers (at one time the main target of the Socialist-Revolutionaries), then this "answer" hardly needs comment.

Talking about "red and white terror" is generally inappropriate, since we are talking about phenomena of a completely different order. But this combination has become a favorite in certain circles, since with this approach, the murder of a couple of Bolshevik bosses and the execution of several thousand people who have nothing to do with this turn out to be equivalent phenomena.

For example, the Bolsheviks in Kiev are arranging a meat grinder before the fall of the city - thousands of corpses, the mass of which did not have time to bury. White people come, they arrest and shoot 6 people who have been accused of participating in this "action" - and here you are (and better with a reference to some "progressive writer" like Korolenko): "Why is the white terror better than the red one ?! "

Sometimes, by the way, the very resistance to the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks is considered the "white terror", and thus it turns out to be the cause of the red (if they did not resist, they would not have to shoot). A gang of international criminals, possessed by the insane idea of ​​a "world revolution" in Petrograd, is seized by the authorities, and the next day those who do not agree to consider them "the authorities" are declared criminals - bandits and terrorists. Such is the logic ...

AP: How do you assess the time frame of the "Red Terror" and the number of victims?

S.V .: In fact, it was held from 1917 to 1922, i.e. from the beginning of the coup until the end of the Civil War (officially from the fall of 1918 to January 1920). If we proceed from the social meaning of this phenomenon - the elimination of "harmful" or "unnecessary" social groups and layers, then we can say that the Red Terror continued (in 1924-1927 less intense) until the beginning of the 30s (when this task was completed).

The total number of victims of the Red Terror of 1917-1922 it is rather difficult to define. It consisted not only of those executed by the Cheka authorities, as well as by the verdicts of the revolutionary tribunals and military courts (about which there is an approximate idea from various documents and personal records), but also from the victims of massacres in the areas involved in the Red troops, victims of numerous local revolutionary committees of the end 1917 - 1918, as well as those killed during the suppression of numerous peasant uprisings, which are especially difficult to take into account.

However, it should be noted that during the civil war and in the 1920s and 1930s, the Bolsheviks (to the chagrin of their later apologists) were not at all shy about the "Red Terror" itself, nor its "mass character", but, on the contrary, how easy it is to conclude their press, were proud of the scale of their accomplishments in the spirit of “that real, nationwide, really renewing the country of terror for which the Great French Revolution glorified itself” (this is how Lenin saw terror long before 1917), and left behind very eloquent documents.

For the period 1917-1922. you can, perhaps, single out four "bursts" of terror by the number of victims: late 1917 - early 1918 (when there were massacres on the Black Sea coast, on the Don and Ukraine), autumn 1918, summer 1919 (mainly in Ukraine) and late 1920 - early 1921. (mass executions after the evacuation of the white armies in the Crimea and in the Arkhangelsk province).

At the same time, the autumn of 1918 is hardly in the first place in terms of the number of victims, it is simply due to circumstances that it is best covered. In the newspapers of that time, you can find information about dozens of people shot on the crest of the September-October terror in almost all district towns, and hundreds in regional ones. In a number of cities (Usman, Kashin, Shlisselburg, Balashov, Rybinsk, Serdobsk, Cheboksary), the "shot" contingent was completely exhausted. In Petrograd, with the announcement of the “red terror” on September 2, 1918, 512 people were shot according to an official report. (almost all officers), but this number did not include those hundreds of officers who were shot at the same time in Kronstadt (400) and Petrograd at the behest of local councils, and taking into account which the number of those executed reaches 1,300. In addition, in the last days of August, two barges filled with officers were sunk in the Gulf of Finland. In Moscow, in the first days of September, 765 people were shot, 10-15 were executed every day in Petrovsky Park.

From the beginning of 1919, the central newspapers began to publish fewer reports of executions, since the county Cheka was abolished and executions were concentrated mainly in provincial cities and capitals. The number of those executed according to the published lists is much higher than that announced later, in addition, not all of those executed were included in the lists (for example, in the Shchepkin case in Moscow in September 1919, more than 150 people were shot. years 100-150 with a list of 19, etc.). In the first three months of 1919, according to newspaper estimates, 13 850 people were shot.

“The slaughter went on for months. The deadly rattling of a machine gun was heard until the morning ... On the very first night, 1,800 people were shot in Simferopol, 420 in Feodosia, 1,300 in Kerch, and so on. "

From the book by Sergei Melgunov "The Red Terror in Russia"

In 1919, the terror, somewhat weakened in central Russia for a significant depletion of the supply of victims and the need to save the lives of some of the officers for their use in the Red Army, spread to the territory of Ukraine occupied by the Bolsheviks. “Routine” executions began immediately after the occupation of the respective cities, but a massive campaign, similar to the autumn of 1918, began in the summer, when the White troops went on the offensive and began to clear Ukraine of the Bolsheviks: the latter were in a hurry to exterminate all potentially hostile elements in the areas they still held. (indeed, the Ukrainian cities gave the whites a lot of volunteers, and many officers who served in the red units in Ukraine also went over). Before the capture of Kiev by volunteers, several thousand people were shot by the Bolsheviks for two weeks, and in 1919, according to various sources, 12-14 thousand people, in any case, only 4,800 people were identified. In Yekaterinoslav, before its occupation by the Whites, more than 5 thousand people died, in Kremenchug - up to 2,500. In Kharkov, before the arrival of the Whites, 40-50 people were shot daily, more than 1,000 in total. In Chernigov, before the occupation by the Whites, over 1,500 were shot. people, in Volchansk - 64. In Odessa, for three months from April 1919, 2,200 people were shot, lists of several dozen of those who were shot were published almost every day; in the summer, up to 68 people were shot every night.

In January 1920, on the eve of the proclamation of the abolition of the death penalty (formally from January 15 to May 25, 1920, but which, of course, no one actually canceled - Izvestia reported about the execution from January to May, 521 people) went through prisons a wave of executions, more than 300 people died in Moscow alone, 400 in Petrograd, 52 in Saratov, etc. From May to September 1920, according to official data, the military revolutionary tribunals alone executed 3,887 people. The shootings carried out after the end of hostilities were especially massive, especially late 1920 - early 1921 in the Crimea, where about 50 thousand people were killed. and in the Arkhangelsk province (where, in addition to the captive ranks of the Northern Army of General Miller, were taken out those arrested during the mass campaign in the summer of 1920 in the Kuban, who surrendered at the beginning of 1920 in the Ural army and other "counter-revolutionaries").

This short film tells about the activities of one of the "furies of the red terror" Rosalia Zalkind, who is responsible for carrying out mass shootings of the inhabitants of the peninsula and captured officers of the Russian army P.N. Wrangel in Crimea:

The total number of victims of the "Red Terror" over these five years is estimated at about 2 million people (according to various estimates, 1.7 - 1.8 million), and I believe that it is close to reality. Of course, there are also more significant figures, but I think that they also include such kinds of victims as death from hunger and diseases of the family members of the executed who were left without a livelihood, etc.

AP: Is it possible to speak of the "Red Terror" as a genocide of the Russian people, after all, the most educated and active strata of society came under attack in the first place?

S.V .: We can say that the "Red Terror" is a large-scale campaign of repression of the Bolsheviks, built on social characteristics and directed against those estates and social groups, which they considered an obstacle to the achievement of the goals of their party. This was precisely its meaning from the point of view of its organizers. In fact, it was about the cultural layer of the country.

Lenin said: “Take the entire intelligentsia. She lived a bourgeois life, she was accustomed to certain conveniences. Since it hesitated towards the Czechoslovakians, our slogan was a merciless struggle - terror. "

One of the top leaders of the Cheka M. Latsis, giving instructions to local authorities, wrote: “Do not look in the case for accusatory evidence about whether he rebelled against the Council with weapons or words. The first thing you should do is ask him what class he belongs to, what his background is, what kind of education he has and what his profession is. These are the questions that should decide the fate of the accused. This is the meaning and essence of the Red Terror. "

Of course, on average, the most educated and capable people suffered from the terror - the first (officers, officials, intellectuals) suffered as "socially alien", the second (members of non-Bolshevik parties, peasants who did not want to give up their goods, in general all kinds of "dissent") - as "Competitors". I don’t know how much we can talk about “genocide” (this word has become too fashionable and is not always used in a strict sense - extermination on a national basis), but the fact that the genetic fund of Russia was inflicted monstrous, not replenished until now, damage, seems to me certain.

AP: Our revolutionaries loved to appeal to the French Revolution. Did the Russian revolutionary terror repeat the French one, or were there significant differences?

S.V .: As you know, the Bolsheviks were very fond of comparing themselves with the Jacobins and their revolution with the French. As I mentioned above, they were inspired by the French (“real, renewing the country”) terror. Therefore, of course, there were similar features, as they are in any really massive repression. At least in the fact that the bulk of the victims of terror are usually not those against whom it is officially directed, but ordinary people.

For example, during the French Revolution, nobles made up only 8-9% of all victims of revolutionary terror. So in Russia, since the policy of the Bolsheviks caused discontent among the broadest strata of society, primarily the peasantry, although in percentage terms (in relation to their own number) the educated strata suffered the greatest losses, in absolute terms, most of the victims of terror fell precisely on the workers. and peasants - in the absolute majority, they were killed after the suppression of hundreds of various uprisings (in Izhevsk alone, 7,983 people of the family members of the uprising workers were killed). Among the approximately 1.7-1.8 million of all those shot in these years, only about 22% (about 440 thousand people) belong to the educated strata.

In this interview, we are talking only about the victims of terror - about 2 million were shot in the period from 1918 to 1922. During the period of the civil war, many more people- about 10 million (!) People, including those who died from disease and hunger.

From the editorial board

But when it comes to eliminating the old elite, the Bolsheviks far surpassed their teachers. The eradication of the Russian service class and the cultural stratum in general in the revolutionary and subsequent years was of a radical nature, many times exceeding the indicators of the French revolution late XVIII century (for 1789-1799. 3% of all nobles died there from repression, two to three tens of thousands of people emigrated). In Russia, firstly, a much higher percentage of the old cultural stratum was physically destroyed (apart from those shot and killed, an even larger number died from hunger and diseases caused by the events), and secondly, the emigration of representatives of this stratum, calculated not less than 0.5 million people, not counting those remaining in the territories that were not part of the USSR. Russia lost more than half of its elite, and the rest, in the absolute majority, was socially "left out" (it is characteristic that if in France, even 15-20 years after the revolution, more than 30% of officials were those who had previously served in the royal administration, then in Russia after 12 years after the revolution there were less than 10% of them).

Such a difference, however, naturally followed from the essence of the French and Russian coups: if the French revolution was carried out under national and patriotic slogans, and the word "patriot" there was equivalent to the word "revolutionary", then the Bolshevik - under slogans openly hostile to Russian statehood as such - in the name of the International and the world revolution, and the word "patriot" was then equivalent to the word "counterrevolutionary."

Photos of the victims of the Red Terror in Russia during the Civil War and their executioners.
Attention! Shock content! Not to look nervous!


A corpse found in the courtyard of the Kherson Cheka.
Head severed, right leg slashed, body burned

The mutilated corpses of the victims of the Kherson Cheka

The headman of the village in the Kherson province E.V. Marchenko,
tortured in the Cheka

The corpses of the tortured at one of the stations in the Kherson province.
Victims' heads and limbs mutilated

The corpse of Colonel Franin, tortured to death in the Kherson Cheka
in Tyulpanov's house on Bogorodskaya street,
where was the Kherson emergency

The corpses of the hostages found in the Kherson Cheka
in the basement of Tyulpanov's house

Captain Fedorov with traces of torture on his hands.
On the left hand there is a trace of a bullet wound received during torture.
At the last minute, he managed to escape from the execution.
Below is a photograph of an instrument of torture,
depicted by Fedorov

Leather found in the basement of the Kharkov Cheka,
ripped from the hands of victims with a metal comb
and special forceps

Skin stripped from the limbs of victims
in the house of Rabinovich on the street. Lomonosov in Kherson,
where did the Kherson emergency police torture

Executioner - N.M. Demyshev.
Chairman of the Executive Committee of Evpatoria,
one of the organizers of the red "St. Bartholomew's Night".
Executed by whites after the liberation of Yevpatoria

Executioner - Kebabchants, nicknamed "bloody".
Deputy Chairman of the Evpatoria Executive Committee,
participant of "St. Bartholomew's Night".
Executed by whites

The woman executioner is Varvara Grebennikova (Nemich).
In January 1920 she sentenced officers to death
and the "bourgeoisie" aboard the ship "Romania".
Executed by whites

Executioners.
Participants of the "St. Bartholomew's Night"
in Evpatoria and shootings on "Romania".
Executed by whites

The executioners of the Kherson Cheka

Dora Evlinskaya, under 20, female executioner,
who executed 400 officers in the Odessa Cheka with her own hands

Saenko Stepan Afanasevich,
concentration camp commandant in Kharkov

The corpses of the hostages shot in the Kharkiv prison

Kharkov. The corpses of hostages who died under torture by the Bolsheviks

Kharkov. The corpses of tortured female hostages.
Second from the left is S. Ivanova, the owner of a small shop.
Third from the left - A.I. Karolskaya, wife of the colonel.
The fourth is L. Khlopkova, a landowner.
All have their breasts cut and slashed alive,
the genitals were burned and coals were found in them

Kharkov. The body of the hostage of Lieutenant Bobrov,
whose tongue was cut off by the executioners, his hands were cut off
and removed the skin along the left leg

Kharkiv, emergency court.
The body of the hostage I. Ponomarenko, a former telegraph operator.
The right arm is chopped off. There are several deep cuts across the chest.
There are two more corpses in the background

The corpse of the hostage Ilya Sidorenko,
owner of a fashion store in the city of Sumy.
The dead man's arms are broken, his ribs are broken,
the genitals were cut.
Tortured in Kharkov

Snegirevka station, near Kharkov.
The corpse of a tortured woman.
No clothes were found on the body.
The head and shoulders were chopped off
(during the opening of the grave, they were never found)

Kharkov. The corpses of the dead, dumped in a cart

Kharkov. The corpses of those tortured in the Cheka

The courtyard of the Kharkiv Gubchek (Sadovaya Street, 5)
with the corpses of the executed

Concentration camp in Kharkov. Tortured to death

Kharkov. Photo of the head of Archimandrite Rodion,
Spassovsky Monastery scalped by the Bolsheviks

Excavation of one of the mass graves
at the building of the Kharkiv Cheka

Kharkov. Excavation of a mass grave
with the victims of the red terror

Khutoryane I. Afanasyuk and S. Prokopovich,
scalped alive. At the neighbor, I. Afanasyuk,
there are traces of burns of a red-hot checker on the body

The bodies of three hostage workers from a striking factory.
The middle one, A. Ivanenko, has his eyes burnt out,
lips and nose cut off. Others have their hands chopped off

Corpse of an officer killed by the Reds

The bodies of four peasant hostages
(Bondarenko, Plokhikh, Levenets and Sidorchuk).
The faces of the dead are terribly cut.
The genitals were mutilated in a special savage way.
Doctors performing the examination expressed an opinion
that such a technique should only be known
Chinese executioners and according to the degree of pain
exceeds everything available to the human imagination

Left corpse of hostage S. Mikhailov,
grocery store clerk,
apparently hacked to death with a saber.
In the middle, the body of the one who was cut to death with ramrods,
with a broken lower back, teacher Petrenko.
On the right is Agapov's corpse, with
previously described genital torture

The corpse of a 17-18-year-old boy
with a carved side and a mutilated face

Permian. Station Georgievskaya.
The corpse of a woman.
Three fingers right hand compressed for baptism

Yakov Chus, a badly wounded Cossack,
abandoned by the retreating White Guard.
The approached red ones are doused with gasoline
and burned alive

Siberia. Yenisei province.
Officer Ivanov, tortured to death

Siberia. Yenisei province.
The corpses of the tortured victims of the Bolshevik terror.
In the Soviet encyclopedia
"Civil War and Military Intervention in the USSR" (Moscow, 1983, p. 264)
this photograph, from a slightly different angle, is given as a sample
"Victims of Kolchak" in Siberia in 1919

Doctor Belyaev, Czech.
Brutally killed in Verkhneudinsk.
The photo shows a severed hand
and disfigured face

Yeniseisk. Captured Cossack officer
brutally murdered by the red (burned legs, arms and head)

The victim's legs were broken before he died

Odessa. Reburial of victims from mass graves,
excavated after the departure of the Bolsheviks

Pyatigorsk, 1919. Excavation of mass graves
with the corpses of hostages executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918

Pyatigorsk, 1919.
Reburial of the victims of the Bolshevik terror.
Memorial service

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, 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 traditionally belonged to the countries where the cost of human life was scanty, and humanitarian rights were not respected. The 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, establishing revolutionary lawlessness. Never before in history have utopian ideas been introduced into the minds of people so cruelly, cynically and bloody. 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, a merciless fanatical evil won out. which brought so much unprecedented suffering to people. The policy of violence and terror 1 pursued by the Bolsheviks in Russia changed the consciousness of the population. Pushkin in Boris Godunov noted the silence of the people during executions; Bolshevik periodicals are full of vociferous endorsements of the massacre. The eternal questions are: who is to blame? What are the causes of the tragedy? How to explain, try to understand what happened?

The main tendencies of their solution were outlined for Soviet historiography by the statements of V.I. Lenin 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 the 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 counterrevolution."

At the same time, through the efforts, primarily of the Russian emigration, books and stories about the dungeons of the Cheka were created, the difference between the white and red terror was characterized. According to SP Melgunov, the Red Terror had an official theoretical basis, was of a systemic, governmental nature, and the White Terror was seen "as excesses on the basis of unbridled power and revenge." Therefore, the Red Terror was worse than the White Terror in its scale and cruelty.4 At the same time, a third point of view emerged, according to which any terror was inhuman and should be abandoned as a method of struggle for power.

For a long time politicized Soviet historiography was concerned with justifying the Red Terror.6 Publicists were the first to criticize this position. They saw in the Red Terror not "an emergency measure of self-defense", but an attempt to create universal remedy solutions to any problems, ideological justification for the criminal actions of the authorities, and in the Cheka - an instrument of mass murder 7.

Currently, Melgunov's thesis has spread that whites are more than red, they 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 decisions of the confronted parties did not protect the population of the country in those years from arbitrariness and terror. They could not be prevented either by the decisions of the VI All-Russian Extraordinary Congress of Soviets (November 1918) on amnesty and "On revolutionary legality", nor by the resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the abolition of the death penalty (January 1920), or by instructions from the governments of the opposite side. They both shot, took hostages, practiced decimation and torture. The comparison itself: one terror is worse (better) than the other is incorrect. Killing innocent people is a crime. No terror can be a model. Whites also had institutions like the Cheka and Revolutionary Tribunals - various counterintelligence services and military-field courts, propaganda organizations with informational tasks, such as Denikin's Osvag (the 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 with the confession of the Chekist M.I.Latsis that similar orders were resorted to in relation to the Whites in the Red Army are very similar to each other. Those who viewed terror as a destructive force, which is a factor of demoralization for all its participants, are right.

The desire to understand the origins of the tragedy gave rise to several research explanations: the Red Terror and mass repressions of the 30s - the result of the Bolshevik rule in the country; Stalinism is a special type of totalitarian society; the leaders are to blame for all the troubles - Lenin, Sverdlov, Stalin, Trotsky 10. Despite the apparent differences, the general statement is that the Bolsheviks are guilty. At the same time, the extent to which the terrorist actions of the opponents of Bolshevism were influenced by the Soviet repressive policy remains unclear.

In Russian historiography, one can distinguish periods of propaganda of the slogan "Stalin is Lenin today", criticism of the "cult of personality" and the continuing canonization of Lenin and Bolshevism (from the late 1950s), the statement of the formula: Stalinism arose on the basis of Leninism (from the late 1980s. x years) 1. The latter point of view coincides with the opinion widely held in the West 13

There is another opinion: Lenin was better than Stalin. Lenin conducted the Red Terror during the Civil War, Stalin shot unarmed people in peacetime. R. Conquest wrote that in 1918-1920. the terror was carried out by fanatics, idealists - "people in whom, for all their ruthlessness, one can find some features of a kind of perverted nobility." And he continued: in Robespierre we find a narrow but honest view of violence, which was also characteristic of Lenin. The Stalinist terror was different. It was carried out by criminal methods, 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 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 name only the instructions for committing the murder, written by the leader (they have become known recently). We will 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: “A wonderful plan! Finish it together with Dzerzhinsky. Under the guise of "green" (we will blame them later) we will walk 10-20 miles and hang the kulaks, priests, landowners. Bonus: 100,000 rubles for the hanged "15.

In a secret letter to the members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), written on March 19, 1922, after the introduction of NEP, Lenin suggested taking advantage of the famine in the Volga region and carrying out the confiscation of church valuables. This action, in his opinion, “must be carried out with merciless determination, without stopping at anything and in the shortest possible time. The more representatives of the reactionary clergy and 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 would not dare to think about any resistance. " Stalin knew many of those whom he decided to execute, and Lenin did not know any of those whom he had condemned to death..

Those who knew Lenin and met with him noted his adherence 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, not law, and the recognition of state arbitrariness as a highly moral deed. Lenin, Trotsky, Bukharin and other associates of the leader tried to theoretically substantiate such an anti-human practice.

Already the first acts of violence carried out by one, and then by the bipartisan Soviet government (Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries): the closure of newspapers that defended the ideas of February, 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 as not an extraordinary, but a traditional means of the struggle for power - aroused rejection by many. Among them were M. Gorky, R. Luxemburg, I. Bunin, thousands of residents of the country who left memories of this time, or expressed their protest even then 18. They protested against the murder of ideological opponents, the prohibition of dissent in the country, the rampant arbitrariness of the authorities and the means by which the Bolshevik leadership decided to achieve its goals.

Lenin and his associates defended the need for a tougher punitive policy in the country. This was especially 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 created 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 — this is the highest law,” 21 that he alone is the highest authority that determines “this benefit,” and therefore is able to solve all issues, including the main one - the right to life and activity. Trotsky, Bukharin and many others were guided by the principle of the expediency of the means used to protect the authorities. Moreover, they all considered the right to dispose of people's lives as natural. Trotsky, after the end of the civil war, to the question: "Do the consequences of the revolution justify the sacrifices it causes?" - answered: “The question is theological and therefore fruitless. With the same right, one can ask in the face of difficulties and sorrows of personal existence: is it worth being born at all? "23

Kautsky adhered to a different point of view, taking the abolition of the death penalty for granted 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 reaction to the White is the same as justifying one's own theft by saying that others are stealing. He saw in Trotsky's book a hymn to inhumanity and myopia and prophetically predicted that "Bolshevism will remain a dark page in the history of socialism."

It is difficult to name the first acts of the red and white terror. Usually they are associated with the beginning of the civil war in the country, which actually began with the act of the 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 transition from individual to mass terror took little time. It is easy to see the connection between different types of terror and the socio-political actions of governments and opposing organizations.

The attempt on Lenin's life took place 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 took place on the night of January 6-7. 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 to tough political actions against the bulk of the country's population - peasantry (introduction of kombeds, food requisitions, extraordinary tax collection, etc.). The connection between the military victories (defeats) of the parties and the tightening of the punitive policy is less traced. Crimean tragedy (autumn 1920) - the execution by the Chekists 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 release of the Council of People's Commissars' decree of September 5, 1918, as a response to the white one. There are other points of view linking the beginning of the Red Terror with the murder of the tsarist family, with Lenin's call for terror in Petrograd in response to the murder of Volodarsky, 28 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 was the essence of the Soviet system and until August 1918 was carried out in fact, 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 the authorities believed was slowing down. Among the reasons for the victory of Bolshevism in the country were: an ideology intolerant of dissent, meeting the momentary aspirations of the impoverished masses, demanding social justice; the right of the leadership to dispose of personnel, privileges, the organization of the authorities: brutal terror. The Bolsheviks managed to create an illusory idea of ​​fair equalization, to assure the majority of the population that they would receive land, bread, and peace. War, famine, requisition and terror became a reality.

The class characteristics of the red and white terror appeared in 1918 to justify and justify the actions of the parties. In Soviet explanations, it was noted that the methods of both terror are similar, but "decisively differ in their goals": the red terror is directed against the exploiters, the white - 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 existence of various forms of terror 49 more 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 actual white movement. The lack of clearly developed concepts and criteria leads to discrepancy.

Although a manifestation of mass terror is the shooting of about 500 soldiers in the Moscow Kremlin (October 28, 1917), the murders in Orenburg during the capture of the city by the Dutov Cossacks (November 1917), the beating of wounded Red Guards in January 1918 near Saratov, and others.

Dating different types terror should begin not with reprisals against well-known public figures, not with decrees that legitimized the ongoing lawlessness, but with the innocent victims of the confronting parties. They are forgotten, especially the defenseless sufferers of the Red Terror34. The terror was carried out by officers - participants of the ice campaign of General Kornilov; Chekists who have received the right to extrajudicial execution; revolutionary courts and tribunals; guided not by law, but by political expediency3.

On June 16, 1918, People's Commissar of Justice P. Stuchka canceled all previously issued circulars on revolutionary tribunals and declared that these institutions "are not bound by any restrictions in the choice of measures to combat counterrevolution, sabotage, etc." On June 21, 1918, the Revolutionary Tribunal at the All-Russian Central Executive Committee passed a death sentence to the chief of the Baltic Fleet's naval forces, Captain A. M. Shchastny, without convincing evidence37. According to the rights granted by the Cheka and the tribunals, one can judge the development of Soviet punitive policy, for these institutions considered mainly political crimes, and they included "everything that is against Soviet power." ; the tribunals were granted 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. Kurskiy, G. Petrovskiy, V. Bonch-Bruevich); the military tribunals were assigned tasks by the chairman of the Republican Revolutionary Military Tribunal, K. Danishevsky. He stated: “Military tribunals are not and should not be guided by any legal rule. These are punitive bodies, created in the process of an intense revolutionary struggle, which pass their sentences, guided by the principle of political expediency and the sense of justice of the communists. " The granting of the right to sign the most important acts of punitive policy not only to the highest bodies, but also to the lower ones, testified that these acts were not given priority importance, that terror was quickly becoming commonplace. The leadership of the Soviet Republic officially recognized the creation of a non-legal state, where arbitrariness has become the norm of life, and terror is the most important tool for retaining power40. The lawlessness was beneficial to the belligerent parties, since it allowed any actions with references to the like from the enemy. Its origin is explained by the traditional cruelty of Russian history, the severity of the confrontation between the revolutionaries and the autocracy, by the fact that Lenin and Plekhanov saw no 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 coup in Russia at the initial stage of the creation of the dictatorial regime. They not only became part of the Council of People's Commissars at the beginning of December 1917, but along with the Bolsheviks were the founders of the Cheka and its local commissions, who were involved in the "sin of the revolution." Moreover, their representatives remained in the Cheka until July 6, 1918, although the Left Social Revolutionaries left the Council of People's Commissars after Lenin signed the Brest Peace Treaty with Germany (March 1918). The terror was carried out not only by the Chekists. Units of the Red Army, internal troops (VOKhR - 71,763 people, in April 1920), special forces units (ChON - from communists and Komsomol members), food detachments (23,201 people, in October 1918), the food army (62,043 people, in December 1920) 43. But the main conductor of the terror was the Cheka, the head of the policy of its implementation was the Bolshevik leadership. The Central Committee of the RCP (b) in a message to the Chekists reported: “The need for a special organ of ruthless reprisals was recognized by our entire party from top to bottom. Our party entrusted this task to the Cheka, providing it with extraordinary powers and putting it in direct contact with the party center ”44.

The Cheka was created as an elite organization: the majority were communists; practically unlimited power over people; increased salaries (in 1918 the salary of a member of the board of the Cheka - 500 rubles - was equal to the salary of the people's commissars, ordinary security officers received 400 rubles) 45, food and industrial rations. The privileges were worked out. Many Chekists became executioners, executors of the party's will. The partocracy initiated, developed a punitive policy, convincing itself and others of the importance of observing the class principle.

The constantly declared class principle was not always observed in the conduct of the Red Terror. In the book of S. P. Melgunov, 1286 representatives are indicated 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. Thus, he was passed off as a traditional revolutionary method, without disclosing the results of Robespierre's actions ... The Bolshevik leaders passed off the "necessity" of terror for the expression of the will of the masses47, as a policy of the state of workers and peasants, committed for the benefit of the working people. So that the latter were sure of this N. Osinsky from the pages of the newspaper "Pravda". On September 11, 1918, he asserted: "From the dictatorship of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie, we have passed to extreme terror - the system of annihilating the bourgeoisie as a class." Latsis detailed this provision, giving instructions to the local Cheka: “Do not look in the case for indictments about whether he rebelled against the Council with weapons or words. Your first duty is to ask him what class he belongs to, what his background is, what kind of education he has and what his profession is. All these questions must resolve 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 Chekists of the Nolinsky district of the Vyatka province to apply 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" for terror to retain 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 touch them, but was directed only against the "rich counter-revolutionaries." But the class principle, especially when the peasant uprisings were suppressed, was not maintained.51 It was easier to justify the intensification of terrorist acts in response to the murders (or attempted murders) of the Bolshevik leaders. The opinion about the omnipotence and ruthlessness of those in power was created by the executions of members of the royal family: if they were killed, then there is nothing to say about the rest ... they will kill. The skillful use of these acts to incite hatred towards the opponents of the regime was aimed at both intimidating and suppressing the possible resistance of every citizen to it52.

Acquaintance with the investigative cases of the murder of V. Volodarsky, commissioner for press, propaganda and agitation of the Petrograd Soviet, M. Uritsky, chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, and the attempt on Lenin's life raises many questions that are difficult to find answers. Volodarsky was killed on June 20, 1918 in Petrograd by a painter Sergeev, a Socialist-Revolutionary. It is not clear why Volodarsky 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 her. The investigation lasted a long time (until the end of February 1919), but no results were obtained. The Bolsheviks used the act of assassinating Volodarsky to call for a massive Red Terror and to launch a large-scale agitation campaign against democratic parties: Mensheviks and Right Social Revolutionaries54.

But this was not enough to convince the population of the need for total terror. The murder of Volodarsky, a little-known in the country (a Jew, a Bolshevik with little party experience) could not cause mass indignation of the masses. The situation in the country has become extremely aggravated. The Bolsheviks went to the creation of a one-party system, stirring up the class struggle, believing that only in this case they can stay in power. On June 14, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee expelled from its membership and offered to do this to the local I Soviets of the Socialist-Revolutionaries (right and center), Mensheviks "seeking to discredit and overthrow the power of the Soviets" 55. At the same time, the Soviets created commissaries, intensified requisition measures, increased the number of the Cheka and ... suffered defeat from the 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 did away with the Left SRs and quickly began to transform the country into a "single military camp" full of concentration camps. A catalyst was needed for the transition to decisive action. And, as Latsis wrote, when “s. staged an attempt on the life of comrade. Lenin, Volodarsky, Uritsky, etc., then the Cheka had no choice but to begin the destruction of the enemy's manpower, to mass executions, that is, to the Red Terror "56. The murder of Uritsky and the attempt on Lenin took place on the same day - 30 August 1918 Uritsky was not the worst of the Chekists; on the contrary, many found in him honesty and humanity57. Leonid Akimovich Kannegisser, poet and socialist, shot at Uritsky 58. In the course of the investigation, various versions of the motives for the murder of Uritsky were put forward. The most likely was the one that Kannegisser imposed on the investigation: he shot in protest against the shooting as a hostage of one gymnasium friend. The Chekists, 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's life. Kaplan was shot before the end of the investigation, without trial, without a decision of the Cheka Collegium, on the oral instructions of the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Sverdlov, without proof that she was the one who shot61.

The number of those executed in the first days of September 1918, before the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars on the Red Terror, is difficult to count. It is important to note that this decree recorded what was already happening and gave it a legislative basis, the authorities sanctified terror as a 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 the districts the right to shoot on their own ... Take hostages ... concentration camps... Tonight the Presidium of the Cheka will consider the cases of counter-revolution and shoot all obvious counter-revolutionaries. The same should be done by the regional Cheka. Take measures so that the corpses do not fall into unwanted hands ... "62 The lawlessness exceeded the most gloomy expectations: 6185 people were shot, 14,829 were imprisoned, 6407 were imprisoned, 4068 were taken hostage. how many lives were then ruined by the local Cheka 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 staff of the Extraordinary Commission” 64.

Thus, attempts on the life of the Bolshevik leaders contributed to the rampant terror in the country, which for many years became an integral part of the military-communist state. This method will be used in the early 30s, when the inspired assassination of Kirov will lead to great terror and will be carried out by the Chekists of the Civil War: Yagoda, Beria, Agranov Zakovsky and many others ...

In September 1918, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs GI Petrovsky was indignant over "an insignificant number of serious repressions and mass executions" and suggested that the provincial executive committees, that is, the executive bodies of Soviet power, show "special initiative" in spreading mass terror. This experience was used by Stalin when he criticized Yagoda's actions and complained that the NKVD was two years late with the deployment of the Great Terror ...

The Red Terror with its indispensable companions - arbitrariness, concentration camps, hostages, torture - functioned throughout the civil war. Its tides and some of its limitations depended on many circumstances, as well as the development of the accompanying institutions. This was the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of February 15, 1919, allowing to take "hostages from the peasants so 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 should not declaring an official mass red terror, he instructed the Cheka to actually carry it out ”6.

The investigation into the attempt on Lenin's life was typical of that time and showed that the authorities were not interested in revealing the circumstances of the crime and the identity of the terrorist. The very fact of what had happened was important to them in order to proceed to the total extermination of those whom they considered "counter-revolutionaries". By declaring that Kaplan represented the party of the right-wing Social Revolutionaries (this was not proven), the authorities attacked not only the members of this party, who at that time were leading with the Reds. "military action, but also against all potentially conceivable adversaries 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.

Simultaneously and interconnected with the red, the white terror also raged in the country. And if the red terror, in contrast to the white, we consider the implementation of state 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 formations. None of the leaders of the opposing sides escaped the use of terror against their opponents and the civilian population. The forms and methods of terror were different. But they were also used by the 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 Constituents in the cities of the Volga region in the summer of 1918 was characterized by the massacres of many party and Soviet workers68, the prohibition of the Bolsheviks and Left Socialist Revolutionaries to work in power structures69. One of the first departments of Komuch created state security (counterintelligence, 60-100 employees in cities), military-field courts, which, as a rule, passed death sentences, trains and “death barges”. On September 3, 1918, they brutally suppressed a workers' protest in Kazan, and on October 1, in Ivaschenkovo. "The regime of terror," admitted S. Nikolaev from the komchev, "took on especially cruel forms in the Middle Volga region, through which the movement of Czechoslovak legionnaires took place."

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 a year in power in the northern territory with a population of 400 thousand people, 38 thousand arrested persons passed through the Arkhangelsk prison. Of these, 8 thousand were shot and more than a thousand died from beatings and diseases 71.

The political regimes that were established in 1918 in Russia are quite comparable, first of all, in terms of predominantly violent methods of resolving issues of organizing power. In November 1918, Kolchak, who came to power in Siberia, began by expelling and killing the Social Revolutionaries. "I prohibit the arrest of the workers, but I order them to be shot or hanged"; "I order all the arrested workers to hang on the main street and not shoot for three days" - this is from the orders of the Krasnovskaya captain of the commandant of the Makeyevsky district of November 10, 191872. for whatever purposes it was used. Already in 1918, the "terror of the environment" began to rule in Russia, when the symmetry of the actions of the parties became inevitably similar. This found its continuation 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 soldiers, patriots who had their own views on the future of the country. For many years, in Soviet historiography, Kolchak was characterized as a reactionary and a hidden monarchist; abroad, the image of a liberal was created, enjoying the support of the population. These are extreme points of view. During interrogations in the Irkutsk Cheka in January 1920, Kolchak stated that he did not know about many facts of the ruthless attitude towards the 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 policy in Siberia and the Urals, if out of about 400 thousand red partisans of that time, 150 thousand acted against him, and among them 4-5% were wealthy peasants, or, as they were then called, 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 - the state security, the police - the militia, etc. out of expediency75. This was the case, especially during the punitive actions. “A year ago,” wrote A. Budberg, the needy minister of the Kolchak government, in his diary on August 4, 1919, “the population saw us as deliverers from the grievous commissar captivity, but now they hate us just as they hated the commissars, if not more; and what is even worse than hatred, 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 number reached by September 1919 almost 78 thousand people 77 (note that Denikin's active army then had about 110 thousand bayonets and sabers). Denikin, like Kolchak, denied his involvement in any repressive measures. He blamed the counterintelligence, which had become a "hotbed of provocation and organized robbery," the governors and military leaders of this 78. Oswag's reports informed Denikin about robberies, looting, military brutality against the civilian population79, it was under his command that 226 Jewish pogroms took place, which resulted in the deaths thousands of innocent people 80.

Numerous testimonies speak of the cruelty of the punitive policy of Wrangel8183 Yudenich82 and other generals. They were complemented by the actions of many atamans speaking on behalf of the regular white armies. ... The White Terror turned out to be as meaningless to achieve its goal as any other 84.

An essential part of the civil war was the numerous peasant uprisings against the local policy of the Soviet authorities. For the most part, they flared up spontaneously, as a protest against requisitions, taxes, various duties, mobilization into the army, as a reaction of people who are being robbed, offering a “bright future” instead of selected food products, that is, nothing.

Mass peasant uprisings began in the fall of 1918 and reached their climax in 1920, contributing to the maintenance of martial law in 36 provinces of the country until the end of 1922. Hundreds of thousands of multinational peasant population took part in the resistance movement to 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 served then in the Red Army), the best generals - M.N. Tukhachevsky, I.P. Uborevich , V.I.Shorin and others.

The fierceness and ruthlessness of the Russian revolt then manifested itself in all its strength. In 1918, during the suppression of these uprisings, 5 thousand security officers and about 4.5 thousand food detachments were killed86. The number of victims on the part of the peasants was immeasurably higher. In 1920, a real war of the proletarian state was waged against the majority of its own population. That is why Lenin called it more dangerous for the Soviet regime than Denikin, Yudenich and Kolchak put together. The ferocity and ruthlessness with which villages were burned, peasants were shot, and as hostages entire peasant families are just becoming a subject of study.

There are no exact estimates of the number of victims of the White and Red Terror. The figures cited in the literature are contradictory, their sources, calculation methods are not reported. The commission set up by Denikin to investigate the acts of the Bolsheviks in 1918-1919, named 1,700,000 victims of the Red Terror.

Latsis reported that during these two years the number of arrested Cheka was 128,010, of which 8641 people were shot... Modern Soviet historians have calculated that in 1917-1922. killed 15-16 million Russians, of which 1.3 million steel in * 1918-1920. victims of terror, banditry, pogroms, participation in peasant uprisings and their suppression.

Install exact numbers killed during the red or white terror is not possible 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 be shot; 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 Provincial Cheka, during two days of the meeting in December 1918, 75 cases of those arrested were considered, of which 14 were sentenced to death; in 1919, out of about 3 thousand cases considered, 169 were sentenced to death, in 1920 - 65, in 1921 - 16 9<0.

The reports of various terrorist attacks are inaccurate. It is known that after the evacuation of Wrangel's troops, tens of thousands of former officers and military officials remained in Crimea, who for various reasons decided to refuse to emigrate. Many of them were registered and then shot. The named number of those shot ranges from 50 to 120 thousand people. There is not enough documentary evidence. The archive of the Crimean Cheka is not yet available to researchers. In the discovered award list of E.G. Evdokimov (1891-1940), a Chekist, in the fall of 1920, the head of the Special Department of the Southern Front, it is said that he was nominated for the award of the Order of the Red Banner of the Battle. The justification emphasized: “During the defeat of the army, General. Wrangel in the Crimea comrade. Evdokimov with an expedition cleared the Crimean peninsula of the white officers and counterintelligence officers who remained there for the underground, seizing up to 30 governors, 50 generals, more than 300 colonels, the same number of counterintelligence officers and, in general, up to 12,000 white elements, thus preventing the possibility of white gangs appearing in Crimea ”91. In this document, an impressive figure is 12 thousand people who were shot only by employees of the Special Department of the Front.... But it should be noted that the Chekists were also involved in reprisals in all cities and towns of the Crimea. Therefore, the number of victims was much higher.... Of course, it is impossible to assume that former governors or generals who ended up 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 eventually become known and once again shake the minds of people, and not only 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 once again unleashed with particular fury against its own people after a decade and a half. And no matter how the participants, eyewitnesses, historians describe the events of those years - the essence is the same - the red and white terror was the most barbaric method of the 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 motivation it may be.

Notes (edit)

1 The well-known researcher of totalitarianism H. 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 is carried out when violence, having destroyed all power, does not exhaust itself, but gains new control." (Age n d t Hannah. On Violence. N. Y. 1969. P. 55.)

2 Lenin V.I. PSS T. 39.C. 113-114, 405.

3 Bystryansky V. Counter-revolution and its methods. White terror before and now. Pb., 1920.S. 1.

4 Melgunov S. P. The Red Terror in Russia. 1918-1923. Berlin, 1924.S. 5-6.

5 See: M. Gorky. Untimely thoughts. Notes on revolution and culture. Pg., 1918. S. 68, 101; V. G. Korolenko during the Revolution and Civil War. 1917-1921: Biographical Chronicle. ... Vermont, 1985.S. 184-185; Martov and his family. New York, 1959, p. 151.

6 Golinkov DL Collapse of the anti-Soviet underground in the USSR. Book. 1. M., 1986. S. 137, 188; V e-lidov 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. Soloviev. Modern bourgeois historiography on the suppression of counter-revolution in Soviet Russia during the Civil War // Historical Experience of the Great October. M., 1975. P. 420.

7 Feldman D. Crime and ... justification // New world. 1990. No. 8. S. 253; Feofanov Y. Ideology in power // Izvestia 1990. October 4; Vasilevsky A. Ruin // New World, 1991. No. 2. P. 253.

8 See: G. Ioffe 3. "White Cause". General Kornilov. M., 1989.S. 233; Latsis M.I. 1927.No. 21.P. 18.

9 See: M. L e w in The Civil War: dynamics and legacy // Party, State and Society in the Russian Civil War. Indiana University Press. 1989. P. 406; its the same. Civil War in Russia: Driving Forces and Legacy // History and Historians. M., 1990. S. 375. Not only 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 beaten and robbed. The pogroms covered about 1300 towns and cities of Ukraine and about 200 Belarus (Larin Yu. Jews and anti-Semitism in the USSR. Moscow; L., 1929, p. 39). V.P.Danilov mentions other data: Petliura's terror (it can be called black or yellow) claimed 300,000 Jewish lives. Neither white nor red can take such sacrifices personally (Rodina. 1990, No. 10. P. 15).

10 Cohen S. Rethinking the Soviet Experience (Politics and History Since 1917). Vermont, 1986.S. 47-78; Avtorkhanov A. Lenin in the destinies of Russia // Novy Mir, 1991. No. 1; Volkogonov D.A.Stalinism: essence, genesis, evolution // Questions of history. 1990. No. 3; Ts and p to about A. S. Violence of a lie, or how a ghost got lost. M., 1990, etc. The accusations of modern Black Hundred organizations, the magazine "Molodaya Gvardiya" (1989. Nos. 6, 11) against Jews as the culprits of revolution and terror are anti-Semitic in nature and were sufficiently fully exposed on the pages of the newspaper Izvestia (1990 . 11, 29 August). Anti-Semitic inventions include speeches with reference to Sverdlov as the organizer of the civil war and to him and Trotsky as the initiators of the "decossackization". Nazarov G. Ya. M. Sverdlov: organizer of the civil war and mass repressions // Young Guard, 1989. No. 10; its the same. More ... more ... more ... to the truth // Moscow, 1989. No. 12; Literary newspaper. 1989.29 March.

11 Reds and whites explained the cruelty by referring 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: D. Volkogonov "With merciless determination ..." // Izvestia, 1992. April 22.

13 See: Brzezinski 3. Big failure. N. Y. 1989, p. 29; Keer J. Lenin's Time Budget: the Smolny period // Revolutionin Russia: Reassessment of 1917. Cambridge, 1992. P. 354.

14Conquest R. The Great Terror. L., 1974.S. 16-17.

15 RTSKHIDNI, 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 one must not be afraid to resort to the guillotine (Valentinov N. Meetings with Lenin. N. Y., 1979. S. 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 to cancel the decree. (Trotsky L. About Lenin: Materials for a biographer. M., 1925. S. 72-73). P. Kropotkin told I. Bunin about his meeting with Lenin in 1918: “I realized that it is completely in vain to convince this man of anything! I reproached him that he allowed the murder of two and a half thousand innocent people 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 are many similar testimonies. Lenin more than once made a cynical demand for the execution of the innocent, justifying them with the highest interests of the class struggle. (See: Lenin V.I. PSS, T. 38. S. 295; T. 45, S. 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 grandfather from the Cheka, from which one can be convinced "how things are done in the Cheka, with what light baggage they are sent there to a better world." Kozlovsky gave examples of such 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 the threat of being shot. When Kozlovsky asked where this investigator was, he was told that he had been shot as a provocateur. There is no evidence of cooperation between Sergeeva and Savinkov and his organization in the case. At a meeting of the Collegium of the Cheka on December 17, 1918. Kozlovsky's letter of protest was discussed. They decided that Kozlovsky had no right to interfere in the affairs of the Cheka, and demanded that he provide proof of 50% of the innocently executed Cheka in order to file a protest with the Central Committee of the party on this matter, "to consider his actions completely unacceptable and completely disorganizing the work of the Cheka." At the suggestion of Dzerzhinsky, the Collegium of the Cheka demanded the 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, Kozlovsky, stating that his protest was supported by the Collegiums of the People's Commissariat of Justice, again wrote to Lenin on December 19, 1918 that he had protested as illegal 16 executions out of 17 carried out by the Cheka. Lenin agreed with Dzerzhinsky. (RCKHIDNI, 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 perpetrated in Tsaritsyn in the summer of 1918 ... (Medvedev R. About Stalin and Stalinism. M., 1990. S. 40-42).

18 See: M. Gorky. Untimely Thoughts: Notes on Revolution and Culture. Pg., 1918; By and N. I. A. Cursed days. L., 1984; Luxemburg R. Manuscript about the Russian revolution // Questions of history, 1990. No. 2.

1 Lenin V.I. PSS. T. 38. The proletarian revolution and the renegade Kautsky; Trotsky L. D. Terrorism and communism // Soch., M .; L., 1925.T. XII; Kautsky K. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Wien, 1918; its the same. 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 row. The trial of the socialist revolutionaries in Moscow. Berlin, 1922, p. 9.

21 Lenin V.I. PSS. T. 35.P. ​​185.

22 L. D. Trotsky substantiated: “The question of the form of repression, or its degree, of course, is not“ principled. ”This is a question of expediency. fierce 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. " 59. NI Bukharin was in solidarity 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 service, 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.

23 L. D. Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution. T. II. Part II. Berlin, 1933, p. 376.

24 Kautsky K. Terrorism and Communism. S. 7, 196, 204; his e. From democracy to state slavery. S. 162, 166.

25 The investigation into the attempted murder of Lenin and the murder of Kokoshkin and Shingarev was conducted by the head 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 had attempted to assassinate Lenin were arrested and then sent to the front against the German troops that had launched the offensive. (Bonch-Bruevich V. Three attempts on Lenin's life. M., 1930. S. 10, 43-44.) A survey report on this attempt on Lenin was compiled by the NKVD in August 1936. It contains the testimony of the driver of the car Lenin Taras Gorokhovik dated January 2, 1918 and the former second lieutenant G. G. Ushakov arrested in 1935. The driver said that "the shooting began when the car was being lowered 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 "confessed" that, together with Semyon Kazakov, he was the perpetrator of the assassination attempt. But he threw the grenade not at the car, but at the Moika; other officers started shooting at the car, but it quickly left. Ushakov was shot in 1936.

The investigation into the murder of Kokoshkin and Shingarev found out the actual organizers of the crime: the head of the police commissariat of Petrograd P. Mikhailov, his assistants P. Kulikov and Basov, who provoked a group of sailors, soldiers and Red Guards to commit atrocities. (Ioffe G. 3. "White matter ..." S. 246-247.)

26 Spirin L.M. Classes and Parties in the Civil War in Russia (1917-1920). M., 1968.S. 210, 213.

27 R. Piles: "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,” wrote Trotsky, “was needed not only to intimidate, horrify, and deprive the enemies of hope, but also to shake up their own ranks, to show that the retreat no, that there is a complete victory or complete destruction ahead. ”(Trotsky L. D. Diaries and Letters. Tenafly, 1986. S. 100-101.)

29 Carr E. The Bolshevik Revolution. 1917-1923. M., 1990. T. 1. S. 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, FF Raskolnikov, a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Eastern Front, telegraphed Trotsky that it was "absolutely unthinkable" to do without executions. He suggested: “All active White Guards convicted of preparing an armed uprising against Soviet power, or caught up in arms ... Black Hundred agitators ... hands of the Soviets, are outlawed and punishable by death without investigation and trial. " (Rodina, 1992. No. 4. P. 100.)

30 Milyukov P. Russia at a turning point. The Bolshevik period of the Russian revolution. T. 1. Paris, 1927. S. 192. Former People's Commissar of Justice of the RSFSR I. Steinberg wrote: “Terror is not an isolated act, not an isolated, accidental, 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 ... " (Sh teinberg I. The moral face of the revolution. Berlin, 1923. S. 18-24.)

31 See: D. Volkogonov Trotsky. Political portrait. M., 1992. S. 191. According to the testimony of Yu. P. Gaven, the Red Terror was used long before its official introduction. So, in January 1918. he, being the chairman of the Sevastopol Military Revolutionary Committee, ordered the execution of more than 500 "counterrevolutionary officers". (Rodina. 1992. No. 4. S. 100-101.)

32 Y. Steklov. White Terror // Izvestia, 1918. September 5; Shishkin V.I.Disputable problems of October and the civil war // Actual problems of the history of Soviet Siberia. Novosibirsk, 1990.S. 25.

33 Grunt A. Ya.Moscow 1917th. Revolution and counter-revolution. M., 1976.S. 318; Bolsheviks of the Urals in the struggle for the victory of the October Socialist Revolution. Sat. doc. and materials. Sverdlovsk, 1957.S. 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 in the Ukrainian village where he lived, whites raged and how the Chekists shot hostages for not surrendering weapons, remarked: “But this is a phenomenon. We all heard it, we knew it. Two years have passed and have already been forgotten. We remember the shootings by whites of the first Soviets, the stories of the atrocities of whites are in our memory, and the recent Red Terror has been completely forgotten. Several of our fellow villagers were captured by the whites and tasted the ramrods, but the head was brought home intact. And they, too, remembered the atrocities of whites and were more willing to talk about white ramrods than about the recent KGB shootings. " (Grigorenko P. Memories. // Zvezda. 1990. No. 2. P. 195.) About this reasoning back in the 20s. General AA von Lampe: “When the Reds left, the population calculated with satisfaction what they had left ... When the Whites left, the population angrily calculated what had been taken from them ... they took a part - the population was deceived and ... satisfied. Whites promised legality, took little - and the population was embittered "(Denikin A. I., Lampe A. A. von Tragedy of the White Army. M., 1991. S. 29.)

35 Gul R. Ice hike. 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 for combating counterrevolution. M., 1921. S. 9; Mel Gunov S. Red terror in Russia. S. 37.)

36 Collection of legalizations and orders of the Workers 'and Peasants' Government (hereinafter - RMS). 1918. No. 44. S. 536. P. Stuchka in 1918 said to 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. S. 67.)

38 In 1918, in the tribunals, cases of counter-revolutionary actions accounted for 35%, in 1920 - 12%. The rest - cases of crimes by office, speculation, forgery, pogroms, etc. (T and to in Yu. P. Development of the system of Soviet revolutionary tribunals. M., 1987, p. 14; Rodin D. Revolutionary tribunals in 1920-1922. // Bulletin of statistics. 1989. No. 8. P. 49. Berman Y. On revolutionary tribunals // Proletarian revolution and law. 1919. No. 1. P. 61; Portnov

B. P., Sl and n M. M-. Formation of justice in Soviet Russia (1917-1922). M., 1990.

S. 51-52, 122.

40 Bonch-Bruyevich, in his memoirs, quoted Dzerzhinsky, who had taken up the duties of chairman of the Cheka: “Don't think that I am looking for forms of revolutionary justice; we don't need justice now. Such a struggle is breast with breast, a struggle for life and death - whose will it take! I propose, I demand the organization of a revolutionary reprisal against the leaders of the counter-revolution. " (Bonch-Bruevich V. At the combat posts of the February and October revolutions. M., 1931. S. 191-192.)

41 See: G. A. Solomon Among the Red Leaders. Personally experienced and seen in the Soviet service. Part 1. Paris, 1930; P. 242.

42 Axelrod P.B. Berlin, 1923. Book. 1.S. 195-199; Novgorodtsev P.I.On the ways and tasks of the Russian intelligentsia // From the depths. Paris, 1967, p. 258; P. Payp with 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. Narodism in Russia: Utopia or Rejected Opportunities // Questions of history. 1991. No. 1. S. 14 and others.

43 Internal troops of the Soviet republic. 1917-1922: Documents and materials. M., 1972.S. 165; Strizhkov Yu. K. Food detachments during the civil war and foreign intervention. M., 1968. Dis. ... Cand. ist. sciences. S. 183, 392.

45 Review of the activities of the Cheka for 4 years. S. 13. The Red Army soldier received 150 rubles in 1918. per month, family - 250 rubles. (Portnov V., Slavin M. Legal foundations of the construction of the Red Army. M., 1985. S. 162.)

46 Melgunov S.P. Decree. Op. P. 105. According to P. Sorokin, in 1919 the terror of the authorities fell to a greater extent on the workers and peasants. He explained this by the fact that "since 1919, power has actually ceased to be the power of the working masses and has become just a tyranny, consisting of unprincipled intellectuals, declassed workers, criminals and all kinds of adventurers." (Sorokin P. The current state of Russia // New world. 1992. No. 4. P. 198.)

47 From the point of view of Dzerzhinsky, “the Red Terror was nothing more than an expression of the unyielding will of the poorest peasantry and the proletariat to destroy any attempts to revolt against us” (Dzerzhinsky F.E. Selected Works. T. I. M., 1957, p. 274).

48 Red Terror (Kazan). 1918. No. 1. S. 1-2. It is believed that Lenin criticized the statement of Latsis, refer to his words on this matter (Lenin V.I. PSS. T. 37. S. 410; Golinkov D.L. . P. 225). Latsis recalled this episode as follows: “Vladimir Ilyich reminded me that our task is by no means to physically destroy the bourgeoisie, but to eliminate the causes that give rise to the bourgeoisie. When I explained to him that my actions exactly corresponded to his directives and that I simply allowed a careless expression in my article, he withheld his article, which was scheduled for publication in Pravda. ”(RCKHIDNI, Cabinet of Lenin's Works. Latsis M. Lenin and counterrevolution on the home 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 acuteness of the issue under discussion disappeared and Latsis's criticism on the issue of terror did not have the same meaning.

49 VChK Weekly. 1918. No. 3. October 6. The Chekists demanded that the arrested Lockhart be tortured. As a result of public criticism of the actions and calls of the Nolinsk Chekists, sanctions followed; the publication of the VChK Weekly was discontinued at the end of 1918, and the Cheka Presidium on December 27, 1918 decided: “To deny the Nola Uyezd Cheka the right of executions. In urgent cases, it was proposed to act with the consent of the Executive Committee and the Committee of the RCP (b). " (Archive of the MB RF, f. 1, op. 2, d. 2, l. 11.)

50 Back in July 1918, the Petrograd newspapers demanded “ exterminate the enemies of the people", And the Petrosovet adopted a decision on August 28:" If even a hair falls from the head of our leaders, we will destroy those White Guards who are in our hands, we will exterminate the leaders of the counter-revolution. " (Past. Historical almanac. Paris, 1986. S. 94-95.)

1 Frenkin M. Tragedy of peasant uprisings in Russia. 1918-1921 Jerusalem, 1987.S. 93-95.

52 On February 24, 1918, shortly after the Cheka was granted the extrajudicial right of reprisals, the Cheka Collegium introduced the institution of secret agents. 10% of what was confiscated was paid to those of them who pointed to the speculator. (Review of the activities of the Cheka for 4 years. P. 11.) On September 19, 1918, Dzerzhinsky said: "The main task of the Cheka ... a ruthless struggle against counter-revolution, manifested in the activities of both individuals and entire organizations." (Collection of the most important orders and orders of the Cheka. T. 1. M., 1918. S. 12.)

53 Many details of the murder of Volodarsky, Uritsky and the attempt on Lenin's life became known from the brochure of the former Socialist-Revolutionary, from 1921 the communist G. Semyonov "Military and Combat Work of the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries in 1917-1918." (M., 1922), published simultaneously in Berlin and in the printing house of the GPU on Lubyanka. Lenin knew its content and hastened 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.) GI Semenov-Vasiliev (1891 -1937) since 1915 - Socialist-Revolutionary, in 1918 - the leader of the combat group of the party with. -R. The Cheka was arrested in October 1918, after which he collaborated with the Chekists. 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 having links 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 USSR Supreme Court. In August 1961, he was posthumously rehabilitated. (Archive of the MB RF, d. 11401, 1.)

54 Lenin, in a letter to the party leaders of Petrograd on June 26, 1918, decisively advocating mass terror in the city, urging: "to encourage the energy and massiveness of terror against counter-revolutionaries, and especially in St. Petersburg, the example of which decides." (Lenin V.I. PSS.Vol. 50.P. 106.)

56 RMS. 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, VP Zubov, recalled his meeting with Uritsky: “Before me is a deeply honest man, to the point of fanaticism devoted to his ideas and possessing, somewhere in the depths of his soul, a share of kindness. But fanaticism so forged his will 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. Suffering years of Russia. Memories of the revolution of 1917-1952. Munich, 1968. S. 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 "A more staunch and resolute comrade, capable of firmly and unswervingly pursuing the tactics of ruthless suppression and struggle against hostile elements that are destroying Soviet power and the revolution." This was caused by Uritsky's protests against the brutal methods of interrogation in the Cheka, especially children. Then Uritsky was left at his post. (Moscow News. 1991.10 November.)

58 L.A. Kannegisser (1896-1918) - comes from the family of an employee of the Ministry of Railways. In 1913-1917 he was a student at the Faculty of Economics at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, after February 1917 he was a cadet at the Mikhailovsky Artillery School, chairman of the Union of Socialist Junkers of the Petrograd Military District.

59 Investigators of the Petrograd Cheka, Otto and Ricks, who initially conducted the case, declared that the murder of Uritsky was the work of the 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 dismissed these investigators for anti-Semitic sentiments (in 1919 they were recruited into the Cheka again), and wrote on January 4, 1919 in Petrogradskaya Pravda: “During interrogation, Leonid Kannegisser said that he killed Uritsky not by order of a party or any organization, but on his own motivation, wishing to avenge the arrests of officers and for the shooting of his friend Perelzweig, with whom he had known for about 10 years. " Antipov admitted that the Cheka had failed “to establish precisely through direct evidence that the murder of Comrade. Uritsky was organized by a counter-revolutionary organization. " This version was supported by a friend of Kannegisser, the writer M.A.Aldanov, supplementing it with a note that Uritsky was chosen as a victim out of a Jew's desire to show the Russian people that among the Jews there are not only the Uritskys and Zinovievs. Aldanov M. Leonid Kannegisser. Paris, 1928, p. 22). December 24, 1918 Antipov dropped the murder case against Uritsky. Kannegisser was shot at the same time. All the months of interrogation, he repeated the same thing: he killed because Uritsky signed the list of hostages sentenced to be shot, and among them was his friend from the gymnasium, that he was with Uritsky and warned him about it. (Archive of the KGB of the USSR, no. 196. In 11 volumes.)

6 Ilyin-Zhenevsky A. F. Bolsheviks in power. L., 1929.S. 133; Fedyukin S.A. Great October and the intelligentsia. M., 1971. P. 96. Contemporaries recalled the terrible terror that began in Petrograd after the murder of Uritsky. (Mel'gunov S. P. Memoirs and Diaries. Issue 2. Part 3. Paris, 1964. P. 27; Smilg-Benario M. On Soviet Service // Archive of the Russian Revolution. Vol. 3. Berlin, 1921. S. 149-150, etc.) According to the instructions of the Cheka, a hostage is “a captive member of that society or that organization that is fighting with us. Moreover, such a member that has value, which this enemy values ​​... For some rural teacher, forester, miller or small shopkeeper, and even a Jew, the enemy will not intercede and will not give anything. They value what ... High-ranking dignitaries, large landowners, farbicants, outstanding workers, scientists, noble relatives of those in power, and the like. " (Review of the activities of the Cheka for 4 years. P.190;),

FE Kaplan (F., H. Roitman. 1887-1918), originally from the family of a rural Jewish teacher. In 1906 she was wounded while preparing a terrorist act against the Kiev governor-general; in 1907-1917 served hard labor. She returned sick and half-blind. Doubt that she shot Lenin on August 30, 1918, was 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 and others) Investigation case No. 2162 in the Archives of the KGB of the USSR does not contain substantiated evidence of Kaplan's guilt. 17 testimonies are contradictory and do not contain a statement that it was she who shot. For more details, see: A. L. Litvin. Who Shot at Lenin? // Megapolis-Continent. 1991.30 July; his e. Case 2162 and other cases // Interlocutor. 1991. October. No. 42. On the execution of Kaplan, see: P. D. Malkov. Notes of the Moscow Kremlin Commandant. M., 1959.S. 159-161. Izvestia VTsIK on September 4, 1918 reported on the execution of Kaplan by order of the Cheka: this was confirmed by the publication of the execution list in the Cheka Weekly (1918, No. 6, p. 27), where Kaplan was listed as 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. S. 190.

63 Latsis M. Two years of struggle on the internal front. M., 1920.S. 75; e g e. The Truth about the Red Terror // Izvestia of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, 1920. 6 February; Leger G. The CheKa: Lenin's Political Police Oxford, 1981. P. 181.

64 Review of the activities of the Cheka for 4 years. S. 183-189. In the fall of 1918, members of the Cheka collegium who carried out the policy of the red terror were: Dzerzhinsky, Petere, Latsis, Fomin, Puzyrev,

Ksenofontov, Polukarov, Yanushevsky, Yakovleva, Kamenshchikov, Pul'yanovsky, Skrypnik, Kedrov. It was they who worked out 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, 49.9% were communists and their sympathizers. Higher education had 1.03%, primary - 57.3%; illiterate people accounted for 2.3%. According to the ethnic composition, the 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. Financing of 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 Epistle of Patriarch Tikhon to the Council of People's Commissars on October 26, 1918 // Our contemporary. 1990. No. 4. S. 161-162.

68 In Samara, 66 people were arrested on suspicion of Bolshevism, many fell victim to lynching.(Popov F. G, 1918 in the Samara province: Chronicle of events. Kuibyshev, 1972. S. 133, 134). On the atrocities in Kazan, see: A. Kuznetsov, Kazan under the rule of the Chekhov-founding members // Proletarian revolution. 1922. No. 8. S. 58; Maisky I. M. Democratic counter-revolution. M .; Pg., 1923, S. 26-27; and etc.

69 Komuch's order on July 12, 1918 In August 1918, Kolchak wrote: “The civil war, of necessity, must be merciless. I order the commanders to shoot all captured communists. Now we are focusing on bayonets. " (Dotsenko P. The Struggle for democrasy in Siberia: Eyewiness account of contemporary. Stanford 1983. P. 109.)

70 Nikolaev S. The emergence and organization of the Komuch // Will of Russia. Prague, 1928.Vol. 8-9. P. 234.

71 Piontkovsky S. The Civil War in Russia. Reader. M., 1925.S. 581-582; Marushevsky V.V. Year in the North (August 1918 - August 1919) // Beloe Delo. 1926. T. 2. S. 53, 54; Poti litsy 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. S. 152-153; Kolosov E. How was it? (Massacres at Kolchak in December 1918 in Omsk and the death of N. V. Fomin) // Byloe. 1923. No. 21, p. 250; Rodina, 1990. No. 10. P. 79. Ioffe G. 3. Kolchak's adventure and its collapse. M., 1983.S. 179.

73Melgunov S.P. The tragedy of Admiral Kolchak. Part 2. Belgrade, 1930. S. 238; Fleming P. The Fate of Admiral Kolchak. N. Y. 1963 P. 111; and etc.

74 Interrogation of Kolchak. L., 1925.S. 210-213 ; Hins testified that Kolchak had told him more than once: civil war must be merciless... (Gins G.K. Siberia, the allies and Kolchak. T. 1. Harbin, 1921, p. 4; Zh urov Yu.V. Civil war in a Siberian village. Krasnoyarsk, 1986, pp. 96, 109.

75 GA RF, f. 147, op. 2, d. 2 "D", l. 17 - Report of Trotsky, governor of the Yenisei province. General Sakharov, by order of the army on October 12, 1919, demanded to shoot every tenth hostage or inhabitant, and also in the event of armed uprisings against the military, "immediately surround such settlements, shoot all residents, and destroy the village itself to the ground." (Party during the period of foreign military intervention and civil war / 1918-1920 /: Documents and materials. M., 1962. S. 357.)

76 Budberg A. Diary of a White Guard. L., 1929. S. 191. 78 K and D. Denikin. L., 1926.S. 80.

78 Denikin - Yudenich - Wrangel. M .; L., 1927.S. 64-65. On 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.S. 125-126; William G. White. M., 1923.S. 67-68; Arbatov 3. Yu. Yekaterinoslav. 1917-1922 yy / Archive of the Russian revolution. T. 12. Berlin, 1923. S. 94. et al.

80 GA RF, f. 440, op. 1, d. 34, l. 2, 12, 73; d. 12, l. 1-33.

80 Sht and f N.I. Volunteers: and Jewish pogroms // Denikin - Yudenich - Wrangel. S. 141, 154; Lekash B. When Israel dies ... L., 1928. S. 14, 22, 106; Fedyuk V.P.Denikin dictatorship and its collapse. Yaroslavl, 1990.S. 57 and others.

81 See: A.A. Valentinov. The Crimean Epic // Denikin - Yudenich - Wrangel. S. 359, 373; Kalinin I. Under the banner of Wrangel. L., 1925.S. 92, 93, 168; Rakowski G. End of the Whites. Prague, 1921.S. 11; Slash about Y. Crimea in 1920, M., L., 1923. pp. 4-6, 44, 72. The former Archives of the Crimean Regional Committee of the CPSU contains many documents about the terror of whites. Here are some of them: on the night of March 17, 1919, 25 political prisoners were shot in Simferopol; On April 2, 1919, in Sevastopol, counterintelligence shot 15 people; in April 1920, there were about 500 political prisoners in the Simferopol prison. (Archive of the Crimean OK KPSS, 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 made a report on the establishment of the "State Commission for the Fight against Bolshevism." He offered to investigate not individual "crimes", but "to embrace the destructive activities of the Bolsheviks as a whole." The report posed the task of studying Bolshevism as a "social disease" and then working out practical measures "for a real struggle against Bolshevism, not only within Russia, but also in the entire world." (GA RF, f. 6389, op. 1, f. 3, d. 3, l. 17-19.) Eyewitnesses testified about the reprisals, and not only with the Bolsheviks, Yudenich's punishers. (Gorn V. Civil war in North-Western Russia // Yudenich near Petrograd. L., 1927, fol. 12, 128, 138.) Miller signed an order on June 26, 1919, according to which the Bolshevik hostages were shot for any attempt on officer life.

83 In May 1926, former Major General of the Army Kolchak, Ataman B.V. Annenkov (1889-1927), was tried in Semipalatinsk. In 4 volumes of the investigation case (Archive of the MB RF, no. 37751) hundreds of testimonies of peasants, workers of the city of Slavgorod, relatives of those who fell victim to the punitive forces of the Semirechye army, acting under the motto “We have no bans! God and Ataman Annenkov are with us. Ruby right and left. " By the verdict of the court, Annenkov was shot. In 1946, former lieutenant general of the army Kolchak, Ataman G.I.Semenov (1890-1946), was tried in Irkutsk. The investigative case took 25 volumes. They contain the testimony of former Red partisans, testifying to the massacres of the civilian population of the Cossacks and soldiers of Semyonov. By the verdict of the court, Semenov was executed.

84 As the commander of the US troops 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 had increased many times in comparison with their number by the time our parish ”. (Graves V. American adventure in Siberia / 1918-1920 /. M., 1932. S. 80, 175.)

86 Frunze M.V. T. 1.M., 1929.S. 375.

88 Lenin V.I. PSS. T. 13.P. 24.

88 See: M. Frenkin, The Tragedy of Peasant Uprising in Russia. 1918-1921. Jerusalem. 1987.

89 See: S. P. Melgunov. The Red Terror in Russia. P. 88; Latsis M. The Truth about the Red Terror // Izvestia of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. 1920.6 February; Danilov V. Why did 16 million Russians die // Rodina. 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. S. 194). According to Solzhenitsyn, from June 1918 to October 1919, 16 thousand people were shot by the Reds, i.e. more than a thousand per month. In 1937-1938. 28 thousand of those arrested were shot a month. (A. Solzhenitsyn, 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. S. 407.)

90 Archive of the MB RF, 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 only in August-December 1937, the NKVD of Tatarstan shot 2521 people. (this is the number officially registered in the protocols).

91 Melgunov S. P. The Red Terror in Russia. P. 66; Gul R. Dzerzhinsky (the beginning of the terror). New York, 1974. P. 94. On the award list of Ye. G. Evdokimov, discovered in the RGVA by AA Zdanevich, there is a resolution by the commander of the Southern Front MV Frunze: “I consider the activities of Comrade Evdokimov deserving of encouragement. Due to the special nature of this activity, it is not very convenient to carry out the awards in the usual manner ”. Evdokimov was awarded the order without a public announcement about it. 62

The intensification of repressive measures became a general trend in the summer of 1918 for both Whites and Reds. Restoring order in the rear and widespread mobilization into the Red Army was accompanied by tougher punitive measures of the Soviet government. The organs of the Cheka mercilessly suppressed the counter-revolutionaries' speeches. During the mutiny in Tambov in mid-June 1918, more than 50 people were shot by local security officers. After the suppression of the counter-revolutionary uprising in Yaroslavl - more than 400 people. Moscow supported these measures. The number of counterrevolutionaries shot by the Cheka in August in various cities of Russia amounted to 600 people. In addition to the Cheka, repressive measures were carried out by the Revolutionary Tribunals and other emergency judicial bodies. Subsequently, the role of the tribunals in the punitive policy of the Bolsheviks increased.

The Social Revolutionaries again began individual terror: in June 1918, the editor of Krasnaya Gazeta, V. Volodarsky, was killed in Petrograd; on September 5, the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, M.S. Uritsky, V.I. Lenin was seriously wounded. In response to the "White Terror", the "Red Terror" was declared: hostages from the "former" were arrested and shot in the event of new terrorist acts. Most of all 2 600 people. were shot in September. Hostage executions were also practiced by the interventionists and white commanders.

The repression of the Bolsheviks, in contrast to the White Terror, was of a regulated nature. They disorganized the rear less than similar actions by whites, carried out on the orders of one or another military leader, sometimes spontaneously, but no less brutally. The communist leaders did not hide their punitive measures, while their opponents often sought to keep them secret, which undermined the authority of the entire white movement, leading to the idea of ​​its weakness. The growth of the Red repressions in the summer and autumn of 1918 affected only a part of the territories controlled by the Soviet government. In the fall of 1918, the White Terror also intensified. In September, Ataman B. Annenkov shot 1.5 thousand peasants in the Slavgorod district, and General V. Pokrovsky - 2.5 thousand people. during the occupation of Maykop.

Terrorist actions imparted an even more bitter and irreconcilable character to the struggle between the Reds and Whites. Citizens of the once united state, but who found themselves on opposite sides of the "barricades" were now ready to fight to the end - until the enemy was completely exterminated. Bloody battles unfolded near Tsaritsyn, the most important transshipment base for the delivery of grain from the southern regions of Russia to the central and northern regions of the country. In late 1918 - early 1919, the Cossack troops under the command of Ataman P. Krasnov tried several times to storm the city, the defense of which he actually headed. The losses on both sides were very heavy.

In the spring of 1919, the Red Terror reached the regions of the Upper Don, where, in connection with the military situation that had arisen, it was decided to pursue a policy of "decossackization". On January 24, 1919, a directive of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks appeared, signed by Sverdlov. It spoke of the need for a merciless struggle against all the tops of the Cossacks through their complete extermination. It was envisaged: “To carry out a mass terror against the rich Cossacks, exterminating them without exception; to carry out a merciless mass terror against all Cossacks in general who took any direct or indirect part in the struggle against Soviet power. It is necessary to apply to the middle Cossacks all those measures that provide a guarantee against any attempts on their part to new actions against Soviet power. Confiscate bread and force all surpluses to be poured into the indicated points ... Take all measures to help the resettling immigrant poor, organizing resettlement where possible. Equalize the newcomers "nonresident" with the Cossacks in land and in all other respects. Conduct complete disarmament, shooting everyone who is found to have weapons after the deadline ... "

The instructions of the center, with the approval of the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, Trotsky, on the ground wanted to bring to a cruel finale. In February 1919, the directive of the Don Bureau of the CPSU (b) ordered the physical extermination of at least 100 thousand Cossacks capable of carrying weapons and the destruction of the "top" of the village (chieftains, officers, judges), even those who did not take part in counter-revolutionary actions; the eviction of a significant part of the Cossack families outside the Don region. The villages and farms - many of whose residents had previously welcomed the Soviet regime - were hit by a wave of repression. Thousands of people were shot, deprived of their homes and property. In response, a powerful wave of Cossack uprisings arose, which also destroyed thousands of people who sympathized with the Bolsheviks. The bloody confrontation divided the villages, and sometimes even individual families. The policy of "decossackization" objectively contributed to the success of General Denikin's offensive in southern Russia in the summer of 1919. Punitive actions of the Reds on the Don and the eviction of wealthy Cossacks to the central regions of the country continued even after the defeat of the Whites.

Repressive measures, including executions, were practiced directly in the units of the fighting armies. For violation of discipline, desertion, the soldiers of Denikin, Kolchak and other white units were subjected to the death penalty. Lenin considered executions to be a necessary, although not the main means of maintaining the combat effectiveness of the troops. Trotsky assigned an even greater role to repression. Even after the situation on the Eastern Front had stabilized in the fall of 1918, he continued to orient the Revolutionary Military Councils of the armies on the application of the death penalty to those commanders and commissars in whose units the military experts deserted.

"SUPPORTING THE RANGE THROUGH TERROR"

The Council of People's Commissars, having heard the report of the chairman of the Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-revolution on the activities of this commission, finds that in this situation, providing the rear by means of terror is a direct necessity; that in order to strengthen the activities of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission and make it more systematic, it is necessary to send there as many responsible party comrades as possible; that it is necessary to secure the Soviet Republic from class enemies by isolating them in concentration camps; that all persons involved in White Guard organizations, conspiracies and revolts are to be shot; that it is necessary to publish the names of all those executed, as well as the grounds for applying this measure to them.

RED TERROR IN THE EYES OF OBSERVERS

One of the typical hostage-taking announcements , published in the first issue of "VChK Weekly" (September 22, 1918) under the heading "Red Terror":

"Announcement

To all citizens of the city of Torzhok and the district

The mercenaries of capital directed their hand at the leaders of the Russian proletariat. - In Moscow, Vladimir Lenin, chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, was wounded, and Comrade Uritsky was killed in Petrograd. - The proletariat must not allow its leaders to die from the villainous dirty hands of the hirelings of counter-revolutionaries, and must respond to terror with terror. For the head and life of one of our leaders, hundreds of heads of the bourgeoisie and all its henchmen must fly off. Bringing this to the attention of the citizens of the city and the district, the Novotorzhskaya Extraordinary Commission notifies that it has arrested and imprisoned - as hostages - the representatives of the bourgeoisie named below and their accomplices: the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. At the slightest counter-revolutionary action directed against the Soviets, at any attempt on the life of the leaders of the working class, these persons will be immediately shot by the Extraordinary Commission. "

Eyewitness impressions on all railways in November-December 1917 are approximately the same. “What a trip! Everywhere there were executions, everywhere the corpses of officers and ordinary people, even women and children. Revolutionary committees raged at the stations, their members were drunk and firing at the carriages to fear the bourgeoisie. A little stop, a drunken brutal crowd rushed onto the train, looking for officers (Penza-Orenburg) ... The corpses of officers were lying all along the way (on the way to Voronezh) ... I was pretty scared, especially when I saw corpses in the snow right in front of the house officers, - I looked at them with horror, - clearly hacked with sabers (Millerovo) ... The train started. On this terrible return journey - what a chilling horror! - before our eyes, on the platforms, eight officers were shot. We then saw how fifteen officers, together with the general and his wife, were being led somewhere along the railroad tracks. Less than a quarter of an hour later, rifle volleys were heard (Chertkovo). The same at st. Volnovakha and others ... He was taken out of the carriage to the station, took off his shoes and, leaving only in underpants, was taken to a room where there were already about 20 people in the same form. Almost all the officers turned up. They learned their fate - execution, as it was last day with fifty arrested (Kantemirovka). "

The message of the sisters of mercy on the Extraordinary Commission in Kiev

The Bolsheviks entered Kiev in February 1919, and on the very next day, the Emergency, or rather, not even one, but several, began their actions. Regimental headquarters, district committees, militia, each individual Soviet institution were like a branch of the Extraordinary Commission. Each of them was arrested and killed. People were being seized all over the city. When a person disappeared, it was very difficult to find him, especially since there were no lists of those arrested, and Soviet institutions were very reluctant to issue certificates. The All-Ukrainian Extraordinary Commission was the center of the investigation and executions. It had ramifications and departments: the so-called Gubcheka, that is, the Provincial Emergency, the Lukyanovskaya Prison, the Concentration Camp, which was housed in an old transit prison. Determining the relationship and even the number of these institutions is not easy. They were placed in different parts of the city, but mainly in Lipki, in elegant mansions, of which there are many in Kiev.

The All-Ukrainian Extraordinary Commission (VUCHK) occupied Popov's large mansion at the corner of Elizavetinskaya and Ekaterininskaya. It had a basement where the murders took place. In general, the massacres were committed near, so to speak, public places and places of detention. The screams and groans of those killed were heard not only in places of detention, but also in the hall where the investigators sat, spread throughout Popov's house. Around the VUCHK, the whole quarter was occupied by various departments of the Soviet Inquisition. The most important commissars lived across the road, in Lipsky Lane. Orgies took place in this house, intertwined with murder and blood. On the other side of the street there was a commandant's office, in the courtyard of which one house was set aside for prisoners. Shootings were sometimes carried out against this house in the courtyard. Prisoners from Elizavetinskaya Street were also brought there, where, in the so-called Special Department, there were mainly those arrested for political crimes. These houses, surrounded by gardens, and the whole quarter around them, turned under the rule of the Bolsheviks into a kingdom of horror and death. A little further, on Institutskaya Street, in the house of the Governor-General, the Provincial Extraordinary Commission was set up (abbreviated as Gubchek). Ugarov stood at its head. The people of Kiev associate the most terrible pages of the Bolshevik torture chambers with his name.

The activities of the Extraordinary Commission cannot be entered into any logical schemes. Arrests were carried out completely arbitrarily, most often on the basis of denunciations of personal enemies. Dissatisfied employees, servants who want to take revenge on their owners for something, selfish views on the property of those arrested - all could serve as a pretext for arrest, and then execution. But the basis, the ideology of the Cheka, was based on the theory of class struggle, or rather, class extermination. This was repeatedly stated by the Bolshevik press, it was carried out in special magazines of the Cheka, as, for example, in the newspaper "Red Mech".

Popularity was almost always paid for in prison. In addition, there have been cases of mass arrests of people by profession and not only officers, but bank employees, technicians, doctors, lawyers, etc. Sometimes Soviet employees also ended up in prison.

The Sisters of Mercy, who watched the life of Chrezvychak for seven months, never saw a Soviet employee arrested for violence against a human person or for murder. For immoderate robbery, for a quarrel with comrades, for fleeing from the front, for excessive condescension to the bourgeoisie — that is why Soviet employees fell into the hands of extraordinary people.

“Murder is always legal for the commissar,” the sister emphasized bitterly, “they can kill their enemies without hindrance.”

For the conduct of affairs under the Cheka there was an institute of investigators. In the All-Ukrainian Cheka, it was divided into five inspections. Each had about twenty investigators. Above the inspection was a board of six people. Among its members were men and women. There were almost no educated people. There were sailors, workers, undergraduate students. The investigators did not execute them with their own hands. We just signed the verdicts. They, like the commandants, were subordinate to the commissars from Emergency.

The duties of the jailers, as well as the execution of sentences, were entrusted to the commandants. The Bolsheviks gave this special military name to the institution of executioners. The official duties of the commandants and their assistants consisted of supervising prisoners and organizing executions. They usually killed prisoners with their own hands.