Civil War Red Terror briefly. All terror is terrible

Terror, regardless of purpose, color and level of application, is a terrible and disgusting phenomenon. However, depending on the general point of view, the assessment of this or that terror can be modified to the complete opposite. This happened in the 20th century with the "red" and "white" terrors. Being noted in the history of the Civil War in Russia, as real phenomena, the "red" and "white" terror remain the subject of comparison and dispute over which of them is more terrible.

An attempt to compare the common and peculiar aspects of the Red and White terrors makes it possible to form an attitude towards the facts of violence. This approach leads to the conclusion that the legal policy of the Soviet government and its utilitarian implementation is very similar to the practice of white terror. Differences are noted only in particular cases of the execution of the policy of terror. The revolution and the counter-revolution romanticized violence in a marvelous way, which in itself is unnatural.

All terror is terrible

AT Soviet era Much was said about the atrocities of the White Guards and the justification in connection with this "Red Terror". During the years of perestroika and the subsequent bourgeois restoration, priorities changed dramatically and now the crimes of the Bolsheviks are condemned in more than the forced reaction of "white" sufferers for Russia. It all depends on who and in what audience appeals to well-known facts.

One way or another, terror claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people on both sides of the conflict, because terror is a way of violence and intimidation, reprisals against political rivals. The violence was universal way the struggle against the oppressors, and the effective method of the opponents of the revolution in Russia.

Targets of the Red and White Terror

Speaking of terror, it is important to know the goals for which terror is carried out. The end, of course, does not justify the means, however, in a certain context it makes it “nobler”, if such a term is applicable to terror. Terror in the Civil War turned out to be in demand by everyone.

The "Red Terror", in essence, was directed not against some individuals, but against the exploiting class as a whole. Therefore, there was no need for a strict evidence base for the guilt of the exterminated bourgeoisie. The main thing to determine the fate of the doomed was social background, education and profession. This is the meaning of the "Red Terror".

The "White Terror" was carried out by adherents of the overthrown ruling classes. Opponents of the revolution acted both as a method of individual terror against active troublemakers and representatives of the victorious revolutionary power, and mass repressions against supporters of Soviet power in the regions where the counter-revolutionaries established their control.

At some point, both sides lost control over mass manifestations of terror, and the scope of repressions crossed all reasonable limits. On the part of the "Reds" (the VI Congress of Soviets - on revolutionary legality) and on the part of the "Whites" there were attempts to limit the rampant elements, but it was already impossible to stop the terror.

Origins of the Red and White Terror

It is fair to divide terror according to the type of origin:

Along the line of events, the comparison is confirmed by the repeated analogy of terrorist actions, which are confirmed by many documents that tell not only about murders, but also about mass and perverted sadism and violence against people.

"Red Terror"	"White Terror"

September 5, 1918 - the decree "On the Red Terror" was signed, making murder and terror a state policy.	The murder of Commissar for Press, Agitation and Propaganda V. Volodarsky and Chairman of the Petrograd Cheka S. Uritsky.
The execution of 512 generals, senior dignitaries and other representatives of the old elite in September 1918.
On November 3, 1918, in Pyatigorsk, by order No. 3, by the decision of the Cheka, 59 people taken hostage were shot, suspected of belonging to counter-revolutionary organizations.	Order of March 27, 1919 of the Yenisei and Irkutsk Governor S. N. Rozanov Order No. 564 of September 30, 1919 of General Maikovsky on organizing repressions in the rebellious villages of Siberia.
According to estimates in the publication of M. Latsis, in 1918 and for seven months in 1919, the Cheka shot 8389 people: in Petrograd - 1206 people; in Moscow - 234 people; in Kyiv - 825 people; 9,496 people were imprisoned in concentration camps, 34,334 people were imprisoned; taken hostage 13111 people. and 86,893 people were arrested.	In the Ekaterinburg province, the "whites" shot over 25 thousand people in 1918 and 1919.

The above facts are far from exhausting the huge list of atrocities committed by all participants in the civil conflict in post-revolutionary Russia. Monstrous murders in terms of the degree of sadism and violence beyond reasonable understanding accompanied both the “red” and “white” terrors.

The terror carried out during the years of the Russian Civil War is usually divided into red and white. Let's start with red. (See also the articles White Terror during the Russian Civil War and Red and White Terror - Comparison.) Those interested can recommend the book by S. P. Melgunov "Red Terror", which was based on the materials of the Denikin commission investigating Bolshevik atrocities.

Terror, which has been gradually spreading since the victory of Soviet power, is openly introduced into the system immediately after the establishment of one-party rule - in the summer of 1918, along with surplus appropriation, prohibition commodity relations, combos etc. And just as the surplus was not a consequence of the famine (on the contrary, it was its cause), so the red terror was by no means a response to the white, but an integral part of the new order created Bolsheviks. He was not a means to an end, but an end in itself. In the monstrous dystopia of the Leninist state, terror was supposed to destroy those parts of the population that do not fit into the scheme drawn by the Leader and are recognized as harmful and superfluous.

It wasn't yet the terror of the Stalinist camps using Slave work. According to Lenin's original plan, all of Russia was to become such a camp, giving away free labor and receiving a ration of bread in return. People who were not suitable for such a scheme simply needed to be exterminated. The right to make plans was granted only to the party elite, and it was precisely the thinking part of the population that turned out to be superfluous. First of all, the intelligentsia and other sections of citizens who are accustomed to thinking independently, for example, the cadre workers of Tula or Izhevsk, the prosperous part of the peasantry (“ fists"). The "Red Terror" did not just massacre people - it destroyed the best. He killed the soul of the people in order to replace it with a party propaganda surrogate. Ideally, a constantly operating punitive apparatus was supposed to "shear" everything in the slightest degree rising above the obedient gray mass.

White Guard poster depicting the Red Terror

The most powerful repressive system was created during the Civil War: Cheka, people's courts, tribunals of several types, army special departments. Plus the rights to repression granted to commanders and commissars, party and Soviet representatives, food detachments and detachments, local authorities. The basis of all this complex apparatus was the Cheka. They led a centralized politics terror.

The extent of the repressions can be judged from indirect data, since detailed data are still not available. Executioner theorist Latsis in the book "Two Years of Struggle for home front” cited the number of executed 8389 people. with many stipulations.

Firstly, this number refers only to 1918 - the first half of 1919, i.e. does not take into account the summer of 1919, when many people were exterminated "in response" to Denikin's offensive and Yudenich when, when the whites approached, the hostages and those arrested were shot, drowned in barges, burned or exploded along with prisons (for example, in Kursk). The years 1920-1921, the years of the main reprisals against the defeated White Guards, members of their families and "accomplices", are not taken into account either.

Secondly, the given figures refer only to the Cheka "in order extrajudicial execution”, it did not include the acts of the tribunals and other repressive bodies.

Thirdly, the number of those killed was given only for 20 central provinces of Russia - not including the front-line provinces, Ukraine, Don, Siberia, etc., where the Chekists had the most significant "volume of work."

And fourth, Latsis emphasized that these data are "far from complete." Indeed, they look understated. In Petrograd alone, in only one campaign after assassination attempt on Lenin 900 people were shot.

The Red Terror was carried out according to the instructions of the government - either in massive waves throughout the state, or selectively, in certain regions- for example, during decossackization».

Narrative. Painting by D. Shmarin

Another feature is the reinforcement of the terror of the era by class theory. The "bourgeois" or "fist" was declared a subhuman, a kind of inferior being. Therefore, his destruction was not considered murder. As in Nazi Germany - the destruction of "racially inferior" peoples. From the "class" point of view, torture was recognized as acceptable. The question of their applicability was openly discussed in the press and resolved positively. Their range already in the Civil War was very diverse - torture by insomnia, light - car headlights in the face, salty "diet" without water, hunger, cold, beatings, flogging, cauterization with cigarettes. Several sources tell of cabinets where you could only stand up straight (sit crouched as an option) and sometimes push several people into a "single" cabinet. Savinkov and Solzhenitsyn mention a "cork cell," hermetically sealed and heated, where the prisoner suffered from lack of air, and blood oozed from the pores of the body. Moral torture was also used: placing men and women in a common cell with a single bucket, mockery, humiliation and bullying. Many hours of kneeling was practiced for arrested women from the cultural strata of society. Option - in the nude. And one of the Kyiv Chekists, on the contrary, drove the “bourgeois women” into tetanus by interrogating them in the presence of naked girls who groveled before him - not prostitutes, but the same “bourgeois women” whom he had broken before.

The writer N. Teffi recognized the commissar, who terrified the entire district of Unechi, as a quiet and downtrodden woman-dishwasher, who had always volunteered to help the cook butcher chickens. "No one asked - she went with her hunting, she never missed." The portraits of Chekists - sadists, cocaine addicts, half-mad alcoholics - are not accidental either. Just such people took positions according to their inclinations. And for massacres, they tried to attract the Chinese or Latvians, since ordinary Red Army soldiers, despite the issuance of vodka and permission to profit from the clothes and shoes of the victims, often could not stand it and scattered.

If torture remained at the level of "amateur" and experiments, then the executions of the Civil War era were brought to a single methodology. Already in 1919-1920. they were carried out in the same way in Odessa, and in Kyiv, and in Siberia. The victims were stripped naked, laid face down on the floor, and shot in the back of the head. Such uniformity allows us to assume centralized guidelines, with the aim of maximum "savings" and "convenience". One cartridge per person, a guarantee against unwanted excesses at the last moment, again - it writhes less, does not cause inconvenience when falling. Only in mass cases did the form of murder differ - barges with pierced bottoms, rifle volleys or machine guns. However, even in 1919 before surrender of Kyiv, when in one fell swoop many prisoners were thrown under the volleys of the Chinese, even in the rush that reigned under execution, they did not forget to punctually undress. And during the period massacres in the Crimea, when crowds were driven under a machine gun every night, the doomed were forced to undress while still in prison, so as not to drive vehicles for things. And in winter, in the wind and frost, columns of naked men and women were driven to execution.

At the building of the Kharkov Cheka after the liberation of the city by the whites. Summer 1919

Such an order fit perfectly into the projects of the new society and was justified by the same Bolshevik dystopia, which completely spoiled the moral and moral "survivals" and left the new state only the principles of naked rationalism. Therefore, the system that destroys unnecessary people was obliged to scrupulously preserve everything that could be useful, not disdaining even dirty linen. The clothes and shoes of the executed were accounted for and entered the "asset" of the Cheka. A curious document got through an oversight into the Complete Works of Lenin, vol. 51, p. 19:

“Invoice to Vladimir Ilyich from the economic department of the IBSC for the goods sold and released to you ...”
Listed: boots - 1 pair, suit, suspenders, belt.
In total for 1 thousand 417 rubles. 75 kop."

Involuntarily, you will wonder who owned the Lenin coats and caps exhibited later in museums? Did they manage to cool down after the previous owner, when their leader pulled on himself?

Based on the materials of the book by V. Shambarov "White Guard"

Red terror - a set of punitive measures carried out Bolsheviks during Russian Civil War (1917–1923) against the social groups proclaimed class enemies , as well as against persons accused of counterrevolutionary activities. Was part of a repressive public policy of the Bolshevik government, was applied in practice both through the implementation of legislative acts, and outside the framework of any legislation, served as a means of intimidation both anti-bolshevik forces and the civilian population

Currently, the term "red terror" has two definitions:

- For some historians, the concept of the Red Terror includes all repressive policies Soviet power , beginning with lynching October 1917. According to their definition, the Red Terror is a logical continuation October revolution , started before white terror and was inevitable, since the Bolshevik violence was not directed against the current resistance, but against entire sections of society that were proclaimed outlaws: nobles, landowners, officers, priests, kulaks, Cossacks, etc.

Another part of historians characterizes the Red Terror as an extreme and forced measure; a protective and retaliatory measure, as a reaction against the White Terror, and considers the decision to be the beginning of the Red Terror SNK RSFSR from September 5, 1918 « About the red terror ».

The very concept of "Red Terror" was first introduced by the Socialist-Revolutionary Zinaida Konoplyannikova who told the court in 1906

“The party decided to respond to the white but bloody terror of the government with red terror…

In turn, the term "Red Terror" was then formulated L. D. Trotsky as "a weapon used against a class doomed to perish that does not want to perish."

A new wave of terror in Russia is usually counted from a murder in 1901 SR militant of the Minister of Public Education Nikolai Bogolepov. In total, from 1901 to 1911, about 17 thousand people became victims of revolutionary terror (of which 9 thousand fell on the period revolutions of 1905-1907). In 1907, up to 18 people died on average every day. According to the police, only from February 1905 to May 1906 were killed: governor generals , governors and mayors - 8, vice-governors and advisers to provincial boards - 5, police chiefs , county chiefs and police officers - 21, gendarmerie officers - 8, generals (combatants) - 4, officers (combatants) - 7, bailiffs and their assistants - 79, district guards - 125, policemen - 346, officers- 57, guards - 257, gendarmerie lower ranks- 55, security agents - 18, civil ranks- 85, clerics - 12, rural authorities - 52, landowners - 51, manufacturers and senior employees in factories - 54, bankers and large merchants - 29.

The death penalty in Russia was canceled on October 26, 1917 by the decision Second All-Russian Congress councils of workers' and soldiers' deputies .

November 24, 1917 Council of People's Commissars (SNK) issued Decree "On Court" , according to which workers and peasants were created Revolutionary Tribunals for the struggle against the counter-revolutionary forces in the form of taking measures to protect the revolution and its conquests from them, as well as for solving cases of struggle against looting and predation , sabotage and other abuses of merchants, industrialists, officials and other persons.

On December 6, 1917, the Council of People's Commissars considered the possibility of an anti-Bolshevik strike of employees in government institutions on an all-Russian scale. It was decided to create emergency commission to find out the possibility of combating such a strike by "the most energetic revolutionary measures." Nominated for the post of Commissioner Felix Dzerzhinsky .

On December 7, Felix Dzerzhinsky at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars made a report on the tasks and rights of the commission. In her activities, she, according to Dzerzhinsky, should have paid attention primarily to the press, "counter-revolutionary parties" and sabotage. It should have been given fairly broad rights: to make arrests and confiscations, to evict criminal elements, to deprive food cards, to publish lists of enemies of the people . Council of People's Commissars headed by Lenin, having heard Dzerzhinsky, agreed with his proposals to endow the new body with emergency powers.

At the same time, on December 17, 1917, in his address to the Cadets, L. Trotsky announces the beginning of the stage of mass terror against the enemies of the revolution in a harsher form:

“You should know that within a month the terror will take on a very strong forms following the example of the great French revolutionaries. The guillotine will await our enemies, and not just prison.

The use of shots.

1. All former gendarmerie officers on a special list approved by the Cheka.

2. All gendarmerie and police officers suspicious of their activities, according to the results of the search.

3. All those who have weapons without permission, unless there are extenuating circumstances for the person (for example, membership in a revolutionary Soviet party or a workers' organization).

4. Everyone with found false documents, if they are suspected of counter-revolutionary activities. In doubtful cases, cases should be referred to the final consideration of the Cheka.

5. Exposure of dealings with a criminal purpose with Russian and foreign counter-revolutionaries and their organizations as being on the territory Soviet Russia, as well as outside of it.

6. All active members of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party of the Center and the Right. (Note: active members are members of leading organizations - all committees from central to local city and district; members of combat squads and who are in contact with them on party affairs; performing any assignments of combat squads; serving between individual organizations, etc. d.).

7. All active leaders in the c/revolutionary parties (the Cadets, Octobrists, etc.).

8. The case of executions is necessarily discussed in the presence of a representative of the Russian Party of Communists.

9. Execution is carried out only subject to unanimous three members of the Commission.

10. At the request of a representative of the Russian Committee of Communists or in case of disagreement among the members of the R.Ch.K. the case is necessarily referred to the decision of the All-Russian Cheka.

II. Arrest followed by imprisonment in a concentration camp.

11. All those who call for and organize political strikes and other active actions to overthrow Soviet power, if they are not subjected to execution.

12. All former officers who are suspicious according to the data of searches and do not have certain occupations.

13. All known leaders of the bourgeois and landlord counter-revolution.

14. All members of the former patriotic and Black Hundred organizations.

15. Without exception, all members of the S.-R. parties. center and rightists, popular socialists, Cadets and other counter-revolutionaries. As regards the rank-and-file members of the party of the Social-Revolutionaries of the Center and the right-wing workers, the days may be released on receipt that they condemn the terrorist policy of their headquarters and their point of view on the Anglo-French landing and in general the agreement with Anglo-French imperialism.

16. Active members of the Menshevik Party, according to the indications listed in the note to paragraph 6.

Examples of the Red Terror:

The newspaper "Socialist Vestnik" dated September 21, 1922 writes about the results of the investigation of torture practiced in the criminal investigation department, which was conducted by the commission of the provincial tribunal of Stavropol, headed by the public prosecutor Shapiro and the investigator-rapporteur Olshansky. The commission established that, in addition to "ordinary beatings", hangings and "other tortures", during the Stavropol criminal investigation under the leadership and in the personal presence of the head of the criminal investigation department Grigorovich, a member of the Stavropol Executive Committee, the Provincial Committee of the RCP (b), the deputy head of the local State Political Administration:

1. hot basement- a cell without windows, 3 paces long and one and a half wide, with a floor in the form of two or three steps, where 18 people are placed, as established, men and women, for 2-3 days without food, water and the right to "departure of natural needs ".

2. cold cellar- a pit from a former glacier, where during winter frosts a prisoner stripped “almost naked” is placed and watered, as established, up to 8 buckets of water were used.

3. skull measurement- the head of the interrogated is tied with twine, a stick, a nail, or a pencil is threaded through, necessary to narrow the circumference of the whip by rotation, as a result of which the skull is compressed, up to the separation of the scalp along with the hair.

4. killings of prisoners "supposedly while trying to escape"

According to the research of the Italian historian J. Boffa, about 1,000 counter-revolutionaries were shot in response to the wounding of V.I. Lenin in Petrograd and Kronstadt.

Women arrested in the course of the fight against the "counter-revolution" were subjected to cruelty - as reported, for example, from the Vologda transit prison, where almost all female prisoners were raped by the prison authorities

According to information published personally by M. Latsis, in 1918 and for 7 months in 1919 8389 people were shot, of which: Petrograd Cheka - 1206; Moscow - 234; Kyiv - 825; VChK 781 people, 9496 people imprisoned in concentration camps, 34334 people in prisons; 13,111 people were taken hostage and 86,893 people were arrested.

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

What the expert on the civil war says:

How did the policy of destroying dangerous groups for the Bolsheviks begin?
Why executions were carried out in hundreds, and then it was indicated lesser number victims?
What is the difference between Red and White terror? Are they comparable in terms of the number of victims?
What instruction local authorities to decide on the execution gave one of the top leaders of the Cheka?
How many intelligentsia are left in the country compared to tsarist Russia 12 years after the 1917 revolution?

Interview with renowned Civil War historian Dr. historical sciences Sergei Vladimirovich Volkov. The interview is conducted by Artyom Perevoshchikov, coordinator of the People's Cathedral movement.

A.P.: Sergey 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, and representatives of the intelligentsia began much earlier, and often took place with the participation of Soviet authorities. Is it possible to say that they had nothing to do with the "Red Terror", and that it really began only on September 5?

SV: In fact, the policy of destroying groups dangerous to the Bolsheviks began even before they took power. In accordance with Lenin's instructions (based on the experience of 1905), paramount attention was naturally given to the physical and moral destruction of the officers: bells about the need for a bold offensive and attack with weapons in their hands, about the need to exterminate the authorities at the same time.

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

Terror is usually associated with the activities of "extraordinary commissions", but at the first stage - at the end of 1917 - the first half of 1918, the main part of the reprisals against the "class enemy" was carried out by local military revolutionary committees, the command of individual red detachments and groups simply propagandized in the appropriate spirit " conscious 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 make sure that group executions were carried out along the line of the Cheka long before the official announcement of the "Red Terror" and even before the execution of officers of the Life Guards, which was announced later as the first. Semenovsky regiment of brothers A.A. and V.A. Cherep-Spiridovich on May 31, 1918 and were quite common (for example, from a note in Izvestia at the very beginning of March, “Shooting of seven students”, it is clear that they were caught in the apartment while compiling a proclamation to the population, after which they were taken by employees Cheka to 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, according to the Kazan organization, the Yaroslavl case and many others), i.e. when, according to later statements, only 22 people were allegedly shot. Only 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 of June 26, 1918) wrote that "we must encourage the energy and mass character of terror against the counter-revolutionaries, and especially in St. Petersburg, whose example decides."

That is, mass terror and until the fall was completely 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 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 nature of the Red and White terror similar?

S.V.: Since the term “terror” is interpreted quite broadly and it usually means the most different actions, it is necessary, first of all, to specify that in this case is meant.

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

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

Genuine terror (in the sense of “intimidation”) is not equivalent to the concept of “mass repressions”, it means instilling total fear not in real fighters against the regime (they already know about the consequences and are ready for them), but in whole social, confessional or ethnic communities. In one case, the authorities demonstrate their intention to exterminate their political opponents, in the second, to exterminate all representatives of a particular community, except for those who will faithfully serve it. This is the difference between "ordinary" repression and terror.

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

Civil wars, as well as any "irregular" wars, indeed, are usually distinguished by a relatively more cruel character. Things like shooting 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, of course, whites also happened to do this, especially to individuals who were avenging families that had been slaughtered, and so on. But the essence of the matter is that the red attitude implied, if possible, the complete elimination of “harmful” classes and groups of the population, while the white attitude implied the elimination of the carriers of such an attitude.

The fundamental difference between these positions stems from the equally fundamental difference in the goals of the struggle: “world revolution” against “United and Indivisible Russia”, the idea of class struggle against the idea of national unity in the struggle against external enemy. If the first, of necessity, presupposes and requires the extermination of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people (of a wide variety of beliefs), then the second is only the liquidation of the functionaries of a 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 a struggle of "workers and peasants" against the "bourgeoisie and landowners" (it is rather difficult to imagine a manufacturer who dreams of killing his workers; and even if it is in principle possible to physically exterminate the “bourgeoisie”, 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).

A.P.: Modern apologists for 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 claims?

SV: Well, the “answer” was, to put it mildly, strange. The official reason for the announcement of the "Red Terror" was, as you know, the murder of Uritsky and the attempt on Lenin - both actions carried out by the Socialist-Revolutionaries. "In response" in a few days, several thousand people were shot, who had nothing to do with either the Social Revolutionaries or these actions, and primarily representatives of the former Russian elite. 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 such an “answer” hardly needs commentary.

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

Let's say, the Bolsheviks arrange a meat grinder in Kyiv before the fall of the city - thousands of corpses, a lot of which they did not have time to bury. Whites come, arrest and shoot 6 people who were convicted of participating in this “action” - and here you are (and it’s better with a reference to some “progressive writer” like Korolenko): “But why is white terror better than red?! »

Sometimes, by the way, the very resistance to the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks is considered “white terror”, and, thus, it turns out to be the cause of the red (if they didn’t resist, they wouldn’t have to be shot). A gang of international criminals, obsessed with the crazy idea of \u200b\u200ba "world revolution" seizes power in Petrograd, and the next day those who did not agree to consider them "authorities" are declared criminals - bandits and terrorists. Such is the logic...

A.P.: How do you assess the time frame of the Red Terror and the number of victims?

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

The total number of victims of the Red Terror 1917-1922 quite difficult to determine. It consisted not only of those shot by the organs of the Cheka, as well as by the verdicts of revolutionary tribunals and military courts (of which there is an approximate idea from various documents and personal records), but also from the victims of massacres in areas engaged in by the Red troops, the 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 annoyance of their later apologists) were by no means ashamed of either the “Red Terror” itself or its “mass character”, but, on the contrary, as it is easy to conclude from their presses, were proud of the scale of accomplishments in the spirit of “that real, nation-wide, 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. it is possible to single out four "bursts" of terror in terms of the number of victims: late 1917 - early 1918 (when massacres took place on the Black Sea coast, on the Don and Ukraine), autumn 1918, summer 1919 (mainly in Ukraine) and the end of 1920 - the beginning of 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, one can find information about dozens of people shot on the crest of the September-October terror in almost all county towns, and hundreds of regional. In a number of cities (Usman, Kashin, Shlisselburg, Balashov, Rybinsk, Serdobsk, Cheboksary), the “under-execution” contingent was completely exhausted. In Petrograd, with the announcement of the "Red Terror" on September 2, 1918, official communication 512 people were shot. (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 the local soviets, and taking into account which the number of 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; every day in Petrovsky Park, 10-15 were executed.

From the beginning of 1919, the central newspapers began to publish fewer reports about executions, since the county Chekas were abolished and executions were concentrated mainly in provincial cities and capitals. The number of those executed according to the published lists far exceeds what was announced later, in addition, far from all the executed were included in the lists (for example, in the Shchepkin case in Moscow in September 1919, more than 150 people were shot, with a list of 66, in Kronstadt in July of the same years 100-150 with a list of 19, etc.). During the first three months of 1919, according to newspaper estimates, 13,850 people were shot.

“The massacre went on for months. The deadly tapping 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 "Red Terror in Russia"

In 1919, terror, somewhat weakened in central Russia after a significant depletion of the supply of victims and the need to save the lives of some 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 mass campaign, similar to the autumn of 1918, began in the summer, when the White troops went on the offensive and began to clear the 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 transferred). Before the capture of Kyiv by volunteers, the Bolsheviks shot several thousand people within two weeks, and in total in 1919, according to various sources, 12-14 thousand people, in any case, only 4,800 people were able to be identified. More than 5,000 people perished in Yekaterinoslav before it was occupied by the Whites, and up to 2,500 died in Kremenchug. people, in Volchansk - 64. In Odessa, in the three months since April 1919, 2,200 people were shot, lists of several dozen shot were published almost daily; in the summer, up to 68 people were shot every night.

In January 1920, on the eve of the proclamation of the abolition death penalty(formally from January 15 to May 25, 1920, but which, of course, no one has actually canceled - Izvestia reported on the execution from January to May of 521 people) a wave of executions went through prisons, more than 300 people died in Moscow alone ., in Petrograd - 400, in Saratov - 52, etc. From May to September 1920, according to official figures, the revolutionary military tribunals alone shot 3,887 people. The executions carried out after the end of hostilities were especially widespread, 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 captured ranks northern army gene. Miller, those arrested during the mass campaign in the summer of 1920 in the Kuban, the ranks of the Ural army and other "counter-revolutionaries" who surrendered at the beginning of 1920 were taken out).

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 executions 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 different 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 victims as death from starvation and disease of family members of those who were shot without a livelihood, etc.

A.P.: Is it possible to speak of the "Red Terror" as a genocide of the Russian people, because the most educated and active sections of society were hit first of all?

S.V.: We can say that the “Red Terror” is a large-scale campaign of repression against the Bolsheviks, which was built on social sign and directed against those classes and social groups that they considered an obstacle to achieving 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 all the intelligentsia. She lived a bourgeois life, she was accustomed to certain comforts. Since it vacillated in the direction of the Czechoslovaks, 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 for accusatory evidence in the case about whether he rebelled against the Soviet with weapons or words. Your first duty is to ask him what class he belongs to, what is his origin, what is his education and what is his profession. These questions 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 terror - the first (officers, officials, intellectuals) suffered as "socially alien", the second (members of non-Bolshevik parties, peasants who did not want to give away their property, in general, all sorts of "dissenters") - as "competitors". I don’t know how much one 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 dealt a monstrous, unrepaired until now, damage, seems to me undeniable.

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

SV: As you know, the Bolsheviks were very fond of comparing themselves with the Jacobins and their revolution with the French. As I mentioned above, it was the French (“real, renewing the country”) terror that they were inspired by. Therefore, similar features, of course, were, as they are in all really mass 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, the nobles made up only 8-9% of all victims of revolutionary terror. So in Russia, since the policy of the Bolsheviks aroused dissatisfaction with the widest sections of society, primarily the peasantry, then, although in percentage(in relation to their own numbers) the educated strata suffered the greatest losses, in absolute terms most of The victims of terror are precisely the workers and peasants - the vast majority of these are killed after the suppression of hundreds of various uprisings (in Izhevsk alone, 7,983 family members of the rebellious workers were destroyed). Among the approximately 1.7-1.8 million of all those who were shot in these years, on persons belonging to formed layers accounts for only about 22% (about 440 thousand people).

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

Editorial

But in regard to the liquidation of the former elite, the Bolsheviks far surpassed their teachers. The eradication of the Russian service class and the cultural layer in general in the revolutionary and subsequent years was of a radical nature, many times exceeding the figures of the French revolution of the late 18th century (in 1789-1799, 3% of all nobles died from repressions, two to three tens of thousands of people emigrated ). In Russia, first, much more high percent of the old cultural layer was physically destroyed (except for those who were shot and killed more died of starvation and diseases caused by the events), and secondly, the emigration of representatives of this stratum, estimated at no less than 0.5 million people, not counting those who remained in the territories that were not part of the USSR, had an incomparably larger scale. Russia lost more than half of its elite, and the rest in the vast majority was socially “lowered” (it is characteristic that if in France even 15-20 years after the revolution more than 30% of officials were previously serving in the royal administration, then in Russia after 12 years after the revolution, there were less than 10% of such people.

Such a difference, however, naturally followed from the essence of the French and Russian coups: if 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 Russian statehood as such - in the name of the International and the world revolution, and the word "patriot" then was equivalent to the word "counter-revolutionary".

On the topic "Civil War"

Option I

1. One of the main goals of the white movement in the Civil War was:

a) strengthening Soviet state;

b) the destruction of Soviet power;

c) restoration of the autocratic monarchy.

2. The White camp during the Civil War did not include:

a) representatives of the Cadets and Socialist-Revolutionaries;

b) Russian officers;

c) committees of the poor.

3. Intervention is called:

a) armed interference in the internal affairs of Russia by foreign powers;

b) negotiations of representatives of foreign powers with the Soviet authorities;

c) fundraising among the population of foreign powers in favor of the white movement.

4. Mass terror during the Civil War:

a) used red;

b) used white;

c) used both military-political camps.

5. Execution royal family in Yekaterinburg happened:

6. Movements under the leadership of Antonov and Makhno include:

a) to labor movements;

b) to the movements of the intelligentsia;

c) to peasant movements.

7. The following did not participate in the intervention:

a) England

b) Japan;

c) Denmark.

8. White movement in Siberia and Far East headed:

a) Baron Wrangel;

b) General Denikin;

c) Admiral Kolchak.

9. The following do not belong to the white movement:

a) the Bolsheviks;

b) the Mensheviks;

c) SRs.

10. As a result of the Civil War in Russia:

a) went up standard of living population;

b) Soviet power was destroyed;

c) the white movement was defeated.

Russian history test

On the topic "Civil War"

II- option

1. Align the name opposing forces and their goals in the fight:

a) the camp of the Reds; 1. destruction of secular power;

b) white camp; 2. preservation and strengthening of the Soviet state;

c) intervention camp. 3. political and economic weakening of Russia.

2. Separate the parties and social groups on the Reds (A) and the Whites (B) entering the camp:

a) the Bolsheviks;

b) cadets;

c) industrialists;

d) prosperous peasantry;

e) the poorest peasantry;

g) landlords;

h) the majority of workers.

3. Combine the names of the leaders of the white movement and the places of existence of their regimes:

a) A.V. Kolchak; 1) South of Russia;

b) A.I. Denikin; 2) Crimea;

c) N.N. Yudenich; 3) Siberia;

d) P.N. Wrangell. 4) Northwest Russia.

4. To the authorities Soviet republic during the Civil War does not apply:

a) Council of Labor and Defense;

b) Revolutionary Military Council;

c) Committee of members of the Constituent Assembly.

a) after the verdict of a public court;

b) at the request of the population;

c) secretly without trial.

a) the red and white terror during the Civil War were not inferior to each other in cruelty and

mass character;

b) whites and reds, with the help of terror, tried to keep the population in service and intimidate

opponents;

c) the growth of terror caused public demonstrations of the people.

7. Find a surname that falls out of the general row:

a) V.K. Blucher;

b) S.M. Budyonny;

c) M.V. Frunze;

d) E.K. Muller;

e) A.I. Egorov.

8. Brest peace was signed:

9. Match the statement politician, about the signing of peace with Germany with its author:

a) “Declare Germany and her allies revolutionary struggle,

to kindle the world revolution"; 1. Trotsky

b) "No peace, no war, disband the army"; 2. Lenin

c) "Sign peace on Germany's terms." 3. Bukharin

10. To the reasons for the victory of Soviet power in civil war not applicable:

a) heterogeneity and disunity of the forces of the white movement;

b) the absence of clear and popular slogans in the white movement;

c) ensuring the strength of their rear by the Bolsheviks;

d) the absence of regular military officers and generals from the white movement.

Sample answers:

I option

1-a

6-in

2-in

7-in

3-a

8-in

4-in

9-a, in

5-a

10-in

II option

1 a-2, b-1, c-3

2 A - Bolsheviks, the poorest peasantry, the majority of workers; V- Cadets, industrialists, prosperous peasantry, landowners.

3 a-3, b-1, c-4, d-2

4-in

5-in

6-in

7th

8-a

9 a-3, b-1, c-2

10th

Answer Criteria:

"5" - 17.18

"4" - 12-16

"3" - 9-11

"2" -< 9