The Terror Flashcards
What did white terror do to jews?
bw 50,000- 200,000 jews killed, jewish bols boiled alive.
White methods of torture:
suspected communists: nail to trees by their hands, socialist workers: half buried then ran over,
Red soldiers: captured, then limbs cut off,
buried alive.
Impact of Red Terror on peasants:
during Tambov rebellion (1920-1921) approx 100,000 peasants imprisoned, 15,000 executed.
Imprisoned in gulags with high mortality rates and repeated massacres eg. Cheka at Kholmogry drowned bound prisoners.
Tambov rebellion:
was the largest and most organised rebellion ∴ effect food in cities from 1920-1921
approx 100,000 peasants imprisoned, 15,000 executed.
Purpose of red terror quote:
(Commissar for Justice: “we must execute not only the guilty. Execution of the innocent will impress the masses even more”).
What are quotes by Latsis on who/how the Cheka operates
Who:
“first you must ask him what class he belongs … that must determine the fate of the accused”.
“we are not waging war against individual persons. We are exterminating the B as a class”
How: “Make the foe feel that there was, everywhere about him, a seeing eye and a heavy hand, ready to come down on him the moment he undertook anything against the Soviet Government”
Felix Dzerzhinsky on the cheka:
Felix: “we stand for organised terror”
How many cheka staff by March 1918
over 1000 (grew from an initial 23)
Purpose of Red Terror?
targeting the most privileged members of society - trying to implement class warfare by getting society to denounce the upper class. An extension of the struggle of protecting the revolution
Decree on Red Terror?
5th Sept 1918: Sverdlov + Dzerzhinsky direct Sovnarkom to pass decree… creation of concentration camps to imprison class enemies + authorise cheka to execute anyone involved in counter-rev
What happened due to the Decree on Red Terror?
1000’s of suspected ‘counter-rev’ arrested. Zinoviev ordered immediate execution of 500 B hostages + 1000s more executed w/out trial.
Death estimates on Red terror?
1918-1921: (highest) 2 million, (lowest) 250,000
Methods of torture:
shooting victims body party by body part.
Held hand in boiling water until skin comes off.
Rolled in spiked barrels.
Blunt saws to sever bones.
Rats eating into stomach.
Mock executions.
Normal executions.
Lists of those executed published in newspapers to foster fear and paranoia.
“mass shootings must inflicted without hesitation” order from soviet commissar for interior to local cheka units.
Lenin’s hanging order:
Aug 1918: instruct communists in Penza to execute 100 dissident peasants who opposed grain requisitioning as public deterrent.
Justification for executing the tsar:
done on 17th July 1918:
“not leave the Whites a live banner to rally around” (Sverdlov), and that the execution was needed to “frighten, horrify and instil a sense of hopelessness in the enemy”.
