TERRORThe use of terror in the establishment of the new regime.

The Red Terror

‘We will turn our hearts into steel, which we will temper in the fire of suffering and the blood of the fighters for freedom. We will make our hearts cruel , hard and immovable, so that no mercy will enter them, and so that they will not quiver at the sight of a sea of enemy blood. We will not let loose the floodgates of the sea. Without mercy, without sparing, we will kill our enemies in scores of hundreds. Let them be thousands; let them drown themselves in their own blood. For the blood of Lenin and Uritsky, Zinovief and Volodarski, let there be floods of the blood of the bourgeois- more blood, as much as possible.’( – From Bolshevik newspaper Krasnaya Gazeta 1st September 1918.)

The Cheka

‘This is no time for speechmaking. Our revolution is in serious danger… We have no need for justice now. Now we have a battle to the death’

- Felix Dzerzhinsky

Execution of the Tsar(and family)

‘The execution of the Tsar and his family was needed not only to frighten, horrify and instill a sense of hopelessness in the enemy, but also to shake up our own ranks, to show that there was no retreating, that ahead lay total victory or total doom.’ -Trotsky

Methods of Terror

Nikolai Krylenko, argued, ‘We must execute not only the guilty. Execution of the innocence will impress the masses even more.’

White Terror (retaliation)

American troops in Arkangelsk -- aiding the resupply of the White army. U.S. Signal Corps, National Archives Elson, p. 40

Was the Terror Justifiable?Class Discussion

Was the Terror Justifiable?Yes:

Necessary measure for the Reds to overcome threats such as:

-The ‘Whites’ (Civil War)-Alternative political groups-’Foreign intervention’-‘Imminent economic collapse’

Repression ‘a necessary and unavoidable part of any political creed’

‘Instrument of political control’

‘Coercion is necessary for the transition from capitalism to socialism’

No:

A number of Chekists were ‘mentally unstable and got perverse pleasure from torturing and killing’

People killed without legitimate evidence or reason. ‘All pretence of legality abandoned’

‘Savagery’ of the Cheka’s methods concerned even some members of the Bolsheviks party

Just a powerful extension of Dzerzhinsky, who ‘never allowed finer feelings or a sense or compassion to deter him from the task of destroying the real or potential opponents of the Bolshevik regime.’

‘Persecution directed against whole classes.’

There is no greater joy, not better music

Than the crunch of broken lives and bones

This is why when our eyes are languid

And passion begins to see the stormily in the breast,

I want to write on your sentence

One quavering thing: ‘Up against the wall! Shoot!’

‘To be a Chekist a man must have a

clear mind, a passionate heart, and

clean hands. A Checkist must be more

honest and trustworthy than the

average. He must be as pure as crystal’

-Felix Dzerzhinsky

-From a mentally unstable Chekist

Historiography

Historiography

The terror erupted from below. It was an integral element of the social revolution from the start. The Bolsheviks encouraged but did not create this terror. –Orlando Figes

Bibliography Author Unknown. (Date Unknown). Lenin and the Use of Terror-

Important Quotations. Retrieved 2013, from World Future Fund: http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Quotes/leninkeyquotes.htm

Lynch, M. (2005). Reaction and Revolutions: Russia 1881-1924. Hodder and Stoughton

Many Authors. (2013, May). Hoover Archivists' Musings. Retrieved 2013, from The Hoover Institution Library and Archives: http://hooverinstitutionla.blogspot.com.au/

Perfect, Lauren. Ryan, Tom. Sweeny, Scott. (2008). Reinventing Russia. Victoria: History Teachers' Assosation of Victoria.

Spartacus Educational. (2013). Red Terror. Retrieved 2013, from Russian Revolution: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSterror.htm

Waugh, Steve. Wright, John. (2006). The Russian Revolution and Soviet Union 1910-1991. Hodder Education.

Red Terror

Fact: This fish is named ‘red terror’