Part of the Russian Civil War | |
![]() Propaganda poster in Petrograd, 1918: "Death to the Bourgeoisie and its lapdogs – Long live the Red Terror"[1] | |
Native name | Красный террор / Красный терроръ Krasnyy terror |
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Date | August 1918 – February 1922 |
Duration | 3–4 years |
Location | Soviet Russia |
Motive | Political repression |
Target | Anti-Bolshevik groups, clergy, rival socialists, counter-revolutionaries, peasants, and dissidents |
Organized by | Cheka |
Deaths | Estimate: |
The Red Terror (Russian: красный террор, romanized: krasnyy terror) was a campaign of political repression and executions in Soviet Russia carried out by the Bolsheviks, chiefly through the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police. It officially started in early September 1918 and lasted until 1922.[5][6] Arising after assassination attempts on Vladimir Lenin along with the successful assassinations of Petrograd Cheka leader Moisei Uritsky and party editor V. Volodarsky[7] in alleged retaliation for Bolshevik mass repressions, the Red Terror was modeled on the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution,[8] and sought to eliminate political dissent, opposition, and any other threat to Bolshevik power.[9]
More broadly, the term can be applied to Bolshevik political repression throughout the Civil War (1917–1922).[10][11][12].
Lowe
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).By contrast, the figure of victims quoted by White Russian General Denikin for the years 1918-19 is 1,700,000, which appears to be a considerable exaggeration. W.H.Chamberlain's rough estimate of fifty thousand executed by Cheka during the Civil War must be nearer the truth.
The poet was just one of many victims of the Red Terror, a state-sponsored wave of violence that was decreed in Russia on September 5, 1918, and lasted until 1922.
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was invoked but never defined (see the help page).BlackBook_chptr4
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).