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The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (links=yes), abbreviated as VChK (p=vɛ tɕe ˈka), and commonly known as the Cheka (p=tɕɪˈka), was the first Soviet secret police organization. It was established on by the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian SFSR, and was led by Felix Dzerzhinsky. (2025). 9780748782673, Nelson Thornes. ISBN 9780748782673 By the end of the Russian Civil War in 1922, the Cheka had at least 200,000 personnel.
Ostensibly created to protect the October Revolution from "class enemies" such as the bourgeoisie and members of the clergy, the Cheka soon became a tool of repression wielded against all political opponents of the Bolshevik regime. The organization had responsibility for counterintelligence, oversight of the loyalty of the Red Army, and protection of the country's borders, as well as the collection of human and technical intelligence. At the direction of Vladimir Lenin, the Cheka performed mass arrests, imprisonments, torture, and executions without trial in what came to be known as the "Red Terror". It policed the Gulag system of labor camps, conducted Prodrazvyorstka, and put down rebellions by workers and peasants. The Cheka was responsible for executing at least 50,000 to as many as 200,000 people, though estimates vary widely.
The Cheka, the first in a long succession of Soviet secret police agencies, established the security service as a major player in Soviet politics. It was dissolved in February 1922, and succeeded by the State Political Directorate (GPU). Throughout the Soviet era, members of the secret police were referred to as "Chekism".
In 1918, its name was changed, becoming All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Profiteering and Corruption.
A member of Cheka was called a chekist (a=Ru-чекист.ogg). Also, the term chekist often referred to Soviet secret police throughout the Soviet period, despite official name changes over time. In The Gulag Archipelago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn recalls that zeks in the Gulag used old chekist as a mark of special esteem for particularly experienced camp administrators. The term is still found in use in Russia today (for example, President Vladimir Putin has been referred to in the Russian News media as a chekist due to his career in the KGB and as head of the KGB's successor, FSB).
The Chekists commonly dressed in black leather, including long flowing coats, reportedly after being issued such distinctive coats early in their existence. Western communism adopted this clothing fashion. The Chekists also often carried with them Greek-style worry beads made of amber, which had become "fashionable among high officials during the time of the 'cleansing.Louis Rapoport, Stalin's war against the Jews: the doctors' plot and the Soviet solution, 1991, p. 44
After 1922, Cheka groups underwent the first of a series of reorganizations; however the theme of a government Chekism persisted indefinitely afterward, and Soviet citizens continued to refer to members of the various organs as Chekism.
The Cheka was largely controlled by people who came from well off backgrounds and from a diverse set of ethnicities. Eleven of the top twenty ranking Chekists were of the bourgeoisie or bourgeoisie-intelligentsia, one came from a family of wealthy landowners, two came from families of the industrial proletariat, only three were peasants, and three have unknown backgrounds. Six of the twenty were ethnic Russians, three were Polish Jews, three were Latvians, two were ethnic Poles, one was Ukrainian, one was an Azerbaijani Jew, one was Georgian, one was Armenian, one was a Russified Greek, and one was a Lithuanian Jew.George Leggett (1981). 9780198225522, Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press. . ISBN 9780198225522
On December 1, 1917, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK or TsIK)All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK or TsIK) is not to be confused with the Central Committee of RDSRP(Bolshevik) reviewed a proposed reorganization of the VRK, and possible replacement of it. On December 5, the Petrograd VRK published an announcement of dissolution and transferred its functions to the department of TsIK for the fight against "counterrevolutionaries". Mozokhin, O.B. out of history of activities of VChK, OGPU, NKVD, MGB. FSB archives. On December 6, the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom) strategized how to persuade government workers to strike against counter-revolution across Russia. They decided that a special commission was needed to implement the "most energetically revolutionary" measures. Felix Dzerzhinsky (the Iron Felix) was appointed as Director and invited the participation of the following individuals: Vasiliy Averin, Ivan Ksenofontov, S. K. Ordzhonikidze, Ya. Kh. Peters, Karl Peterson, V. A. Trifonov, I. S. Unshlikht, V. N. Vasilevsky, V. N. Yakovleva, Vasily Yakovlev, D. G. Yevseyev, N. A. Zhydelev.
On December 7, 1917, all of those invited except Zhydelev and Vasilevsky gathered in the Smolny Institute with Dzerzhinsky to discuss the competence and structure of the commission to combat counterrevolution and sabotage. The obligations of the commission were: "to liquidate to the root all of the counterrevolutionary and sabotage activities and all attempts to them in all of Russia, to hand over counter-revolutionaries and saboteurs to the revolutionary tribunals, develop measures to combat them and relentlessly apply them in real-world applications. The commission should only conduct a preliminary investigation". The commission should also observe the press and counterrevolutionary parties, sabotaging officials and other criminals.
Three sections were created: informational, organizational, and a unit to combat counter-revolution and sabotage. Upon the end of the meeting, Dzerzhinsky reported to the Sovnarkom with the requested information. The commission was allowed to apply such measures of repression as 'confiscation, deprivation of ration cards, publication of lists of enemies of the people etc.'". That day, Sovnarkom officially confirmed the creation of VCheKa. The commission was created not under the VTsIK as was previously anticipated, but rather under the Council of the People's Commissars.
On December 8, 1917, some of the original members of the Cheka were replaced. Averin, Ordzhonikidze, and Trifonov were replaced by V. V. Fomin, S. E. Shchukin, Ilyin, and Chernov. On the meeting of December 8, the presidium of VChK was elected of five members, and chaired by Dzerzhinsky. The issues of "speculation" or profiteering, such as by black market grain sellers and "corruption" was raised at the same meeting, which was assigned to Peters to address and report with results to one of the next meetings of the commission. A circular, published on , gave the address of VCheka's first headquarters as "Petrograd, Gorokhovaya 2, 4th floor". On December 11, Fomin was ordered to organize a section to suppress "speculation." And in the same day, VCheKa offered Shchukin to conduct arrests of counterfeiters.
In January 1918, a subsection of the anti-counterrevolutionary effort was created to police bank officials. The structure of VCheKa was changing repeatedly. By March 1918, when the organization came to Moscow, it contained the following sections: against counterrevolution, speculation, non-residents, and information gathering. By the end of 1918–1919, some new units were created: secretly operative, investigatory, of transportation, military (special), operative, and instructional. By 1921, it changed once again, forming the following sections: directory of affairs, administrative-organizational, secretly operative, economical, and foreign affairs.
All results of its activities, VCheKa had either to transfer to the Investigatory Commission of Revtribunal, or to dismiss. The control of the commission's activity was provided by the People's Commissariat for Justice (Narkomjust, at that time headed by Isaac Steinberg) and Internal Affairs (at that time headed by Grigory Petrovsky). Although the VCheKa was officially an independent organization from Internal Affairs, its chief members such as Dzerzhinsky, Martin Latsis, Unszlicht, and Moisei Uritsky (all main chekists), since November 1917 composed the collegiate of Internal Affairs headed by Petrovsky. In November 1918, Petrovsky was appointed as head of the All-Ukrainian Central Military Revolutionary Committee during VCheKa's expansion to provinces and front-lines. At the time of political competition between Bolsheviks and SRs (January 1918), Left SRs attempted to curb the rights of VCheKa and establish through the Narkomiust their control over its work. Having failed in attempts to subordinate the VCheKa to Narkomiust, the Left SRs tried to gain control of the Extraordinary Commission in a different way: they requested that the Central Committee of the party be granted the right to directly enter their representatives into the VCheKa. Sovnarkom recognized the desirability of including five representatives of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary faction of VTsIK. Left SRs were granted the post of a companion (deputy) chairman of VCheKa. However, Sovnarkom, in which the majority belonged to the representatives of RSDLP(b) retained the right to approve members of the collegium of the VCheKa.
Originally, members of the Cheka were exclusively Bolshevik; however, in January 1918, Left SRs also joined the organization.Schapiro (1984). The Left SRs were expelled or arrested later in 1918, following the attempted assassination of Lenin by an SR, Fanni Kaplan.
On February 23, 1918, VCheKa sent a radio telegram to all Soviets with a petition to immediately organize emergency commissions to combat counter-revolution, sabotage and speculation, if such commissions had not been yet organized. February 1918 saw the creation of local Extraordinary Commissions. One of the first founded was the Moscow Cheka. Sections and commissariats to combat counterrevolution were established in other cities. The Extraordinary Commissions arose, usually in the areas during the moments of the greatest aggravation of political situation. On February 25, 1918, as the counterrevolutionary organization Union of Front-liners was making advances, the executive committee of the Saratov Soviet formed a counter-revolutionary section. On March 7, 1918, because of the move from Petrograd to Moscow, the Petrograd Cheka was created. On March 9, a section for combating counterrevolution was created under the Omsk Soviet. Extraordinary commissions were also created in Penza, Perm, Novgorod, Cherepovets, Rostov, Taganrog. On March 18, VCheKa adopted a resolution, The Work of VCheKa on the All-Russian Scale, foreseeing the formation everywhere of Extraordinary Commissions after the same model, and sent a letter that called for the widespread establishment of the Cheka in combating counterrevolution, speculation, and sabotage. Establishment of provincial Extraordinary Commissions was largely completed by August 1918. In the Soviet Republic, there were 38 guberniya Chekas (Gubcheks) by this time.
On June 12, 1918, the All-Russian Conference of Cheka adopted the Basic Provisions on the Organization of Extraordinary Commissions. They set out to form Extraordinary Commissions not only at Oblast and Guberniya levels, but also at the large Uyezd Soviets. In August 1918, in the Soviet Republic had accounted for some 75 Uyezd-level Extraordinary Commissions. By the end of the year, 365 Uyezd-level Chekas were established. In 1918, the All-Russia Extraordinary Commission and the Soviets managed to establish a local Cheka apparatus. It included Oblast, Guberniya, Raion, Uyezd, and Volost Chekas, with Raion and Volost Extraordinary Commissioners. In addition, border security Chekas were included in the system of local Cheka bodies.
In the autumn of 1918, as consolidation of the political situation of the republic continued, a move toward elimination of Uyezd-, Raion-, and Volost-level Chekas, as well as the institution of Extraordinary Commissions was considered. On January 20, 1919, VTsIK adopted a resolution prepared by VCheKa, On the abolition of Uyezd Extraordinary Commissions. On January 16 the presidium of VCheKa approved the draft on the establishment of the Politburo at Uyezd militsiya. This decision was approved by the Conference of the Extraordinary Commission IV, held in early February 1920.
The beginning of a systematic work of organs of VCheKa in RKKA refers to July 1918, the period of extreme tension of the civil war and class struggle in the country. On July 16, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars formed the Extraordinary Commission for combating counterrevolution at the Czechoslovak (Eastern) Front, led by Martin Latsis. In the fall of 1918, Extraordinary Commissions to combat counterrevolution on the Southern (Ukraine) Front were formed. In late November, the Second All-Russian Conference of the Extraordinary Commissions accepted a decision after a report from I. N. Polukarov to establish at all frontlines, and army sections of the Cheka and granted them the right to appoint their commissioners in military units. On December 9, 1918, the collegiate (or presidium) of VCheKa had decided to form a military section, headed by M. S. Kedrov, to combat counterrevolution in the Army. In early 1919, the military control and the military section of VCheKa were merged into one body, the Special Section of the Republic, with Kedrov as head. On January 1, he issued an order to establish the Special Section. The order instructed agencies everywhere to unite the Military control and the military sections of Chekas and to form special sections of frontlines, armies, military districts, and .
In November 1920, the Soviet of Labor and Defense created a Special Section of VCheKa for the security of the state border. On February 6, 1922, after the Ninth All-Russian Soviet Congress, the Cheka was dissolved by VTsIK, "with expressions of gratitude for heroic work." It was replaced by the State Political Administration (GPU), a section of Internal Affairs of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Dzerzhinsky remained as chief of the GPU.
Within a month, the Cheka had extended its repression to all political opponents of the communist government, including Anarchism and others on the left. On April 11/12, 1918, some 26 anarchist political centres in Moscow were attacked. Forty anarchists were killed by Cheka forces, and about 500 were arrested and jailed after a pitched battle took place between the two groups.P. Avrich. G. Maximoff In response to the anarchists' resistance, the Cheka orchestrated a massive retaliatory campaign of repression, executions, and arrests against all opponents of the Bolshevik government, in what came to be known as "Red Terror". The Red Terror, implemented by Dzerzhinsky on September 5, 1918, was vividly described by the Red Army journal Krasnaya Gazeta:
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 Moisei Uritsky … let there be floods of blood of the bourgeoisie – more blood, as much as possible..."Applebaum (2003), p. 9.
An early Bolshevik, Victor Serge described in his book Memoirs of a Revolutionary:
The Cheka was also used against Nestor Makhno's Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine. After the Insurgent Army had served its purpose in aiding the Red Army to stop the White Army under Anton Denikin, the Soviet communist government decided to eliminate the anarchist forces. In May 1919, two Cheka agents sent to assassinate Makhno were caught and executed.Avrich, Paul, "Russian Anarchists and the Civil War", Russian Review, Volume 27, Issue 3 (July 1968), pp. 296–306. Many victims of Cheka repression were "bourgeois hostages" rounded up and held in readiness for summary execution in reprisal for any alleged counter-revolutionary act. Wholesale, indiscriminate arrests became an integral part of the system.Figes (1996), p. 643. The Cheka used trucks disguised as delivery trucks, called "Black Marias", for the secret arrest and transport of prisoners.
It was during the Red Terror that the Cheka, hoping to avoid the bloody aftermath of having half-dead victims writhing on the floor, developed a technique for execution known later by the German words " Nackenschuss or " Genickschuss, a shot to the nape of the neck, which caused minimal blood loss and instant death. The victim's head was bent forward, and the executioner fired slightly downward at point-blank range. This had become the standard method used later by the NKVD to liquidate Joseph Stalin's Great Purge victims and others.Paul, Allen. Katyn: Stalin's Massacre and the Seeds of Polish Resurrection. Naval Institute Press, 1996. . pp. 111/112.
In September 1918, according to The Black Book of Communism, in only twelve provinces of Russia, 48,735 deserters and 7,325 "bandits" were arrested, 1,826 were killed and 2,230 were executed. The exact identity of these individuals is confused by the fact that the Soviet Bolshevik government used the term 'bandit' to cover ordinary criminals as well as armed and unarmed political opponents, such as the anarchists.
Experts generally agree these semi-official figures are vastly understated.pp. 463–464, Leggett (1986). Pioneering historian of the Red Terror Sergei Melgunov claims that this was done deliberately in an attempt to demonstrate the government's humanity. For example, he refutes the claim made by Latsis that only 22 executions were carried out in the first six months of the Cheka's existence by providing evidence that the true number was 884 executions.Sergei Melgunov, "The Record of the Red Terror" , paulbogdanor.com. W. H. Chamberlin claims, "It is simply impossible to believe that the Cheka only put to death 12,733 people in all of Russia up to the end of the civil war."pp. 74–75, Chamberlin (1935). Donald Rayfield concurs, noting that, "Plausible evidence reveals that the actual numbers … vastly exceeded the official figures."Donald Rayfield. Stalin and His Hangmen: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him. Random House, 2004. , p. 1926: GBYi. Chamberlin provides the "reasonable and probably moderate" estimate of 50,000, while others provide estimates ranging up to 500,000. p. 39, Rummel (1990). Several scholars put the number of executions at about 250,000. page 28, Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield, paperback edition, Basic books, 1999.p. 180, Overy, The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, W. W. Norton & Company; 1st American Ed edition, 2004. Some believe it is possible more people were murdered by the Cheka than died in battle.p. 649, Figes (1996). Historian James Ryan gives a modest estimate of 28,000 executions per year from December 1917 to February 1922.Ryan, James (2012). Lenin's Terror: The Ideological Origins of Early Soviet State Violence. London: Routledge. p. 2.
Lenin himself seemed unfazed by the killings. On 12 January 1920, while addressing trade union leaders, he said: "We did not hesitate to shoot thousands of people, and we shall not hesitate, and we shall save the On 14 May 1921, the Politburo, chaired by Lenin, passed a motion "broadening the rights of the Cheka in relation to the use of the death."p. 238, Volkogonov (1994).
According to Vadim Erlikhman's investigation, the number of the Red Terror's victims is at least 1,200,000 people. Потери народонаселения в XX веке.: Справочник М.: Издательский дом «Русская панорама», 2004. According to Robert Conquest, a total of 140,000 people were shot in 1917–1922. Candidate of Historical Sciences Nikolay Zayats states that the number of people shot by the Cheka in 1918–1922 is about 37,300 people, shot in 1918–1921 by the verdicts of the tribunals – 14,200, i.e. about 50,000–55,000 people in total, although executions and atrocities were not limited to the Cheka, having been organized by the Red Army as well.
According to anti-Bolshevik Socialist Revolutionary Sergei Melgunov (1879–1956), at the end of 1919, the Special Investigation Commission to investigate the atrocities of the Bolsheviks estimated the number of deaths at 1,766,188 people in 1918–1919 only.Часть IV. На гражданской войнe. // Sergei Melgunov «Красный террор» в России 1918–1923. – 2-ое изд., доп. – Берлин, 1924
Women and children were also victims of Cheka terror. Rape of women by Cheka guards and interrogators was commonplace, superiors would only put a stop to it if the rape became too brutal. Many of the women were shot after they were raped. Children between the ages of 8 and 16 were imprisoned and occasionally executed.George Leggett (1981). 9780198225522, Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press. . ISBN 9780198225522
All of these atrocities were published on numerous occasions in Pravda and Izvestiya: January 26, 1919 Izvestiya #18 article Is it really a medieval imprisonment? («Неужели средневековый застенок?»); February 22, 1919 Pravda #12 publishes details of the Vladimir Cheka's tortures, September 21, 1922 Socialist Herald publishes details of series of tortures conducted by the Stavropol Cheka (hot basement, cold basement, skull measuring, etc.).
The Chekists were also supplemented by the militarized Units of Special Purpose (the Party's Spetsnaz or ЧОН).
Cheka was actively and openly utilizing kidnapping methods.В. П. Данилов. «Советская деревня глазами ВЧК-ОГПУ-НКВД», 1918–1922, М., 1998. // РГВА (Российский Государственный Военно-исторический Архив), 33987/3/32. With kidnapping methods, Cheka was able to extinguish numerous cases of discontent especially among the rural population. Among the notorious ones was the Tambov rebellion.
Villages were bombarded to complete annihilation, as in the case of Tretyaki, Novokhopersk uyezd, Voronezh Governorate.
As a result of this relentless violence, more than a few Chekists ended up with psychopathic disorders, which Nikolai Bukharin said were "an occupational hazard of the Chekist profession." Many hardened themselves to the executions by heavy drinking and drug use. Some developed a gangster-like slang for the verb to kill in an attempt to distance themselves from the killings, such as 'shooting partridges', or 'sealing' a victim, or giving him a natsokal (onomatopoeia of the trigger action).page 647, Figes (1996).
On November 30, 1992, by the initiative of the President of the Russian Federation the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation recognized the Red Terror as unlawful, which in turn led to the suspension of Communist Party of the RSFSR.
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