Examples of Red Terror during the Civil War. Chronicle of the White Terror in Russia during the Civil War

Test 9k Civil War.

Option I.

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

a) strengthening the Soviet state;

b) 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. An intervention is called:

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

b) negotiations between representatives of foreign powers and Soviet authorities;

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

4. Mass terror during the Civil War:

a) used red ones;

b) used white;

c) used both military-political camps.

5. The execution of the royal family in Yekaterinburg occurred:

6. Movements led by Antonov and Makhno include:

a) to labor movements;

b) to the movements of the intelligentsia;

c) to peasant movements.

7. Did not participate in the intervention:

a) England;

b) Japan;

8. The White movement in Siberia and the Far East was led by:

a) Baron Wrangel;

b) General Denikin;

c) Admiral Kolchak.

9. Do not belong to the white movement:

b) Mensheviks;

10. As a result of the Civil War on Russian territory:

a) the standard of living of the population has increased;

b) Soviet power was destroyed;

c) the white movement was defeated.

11.List the reasons for the Civil War in Russia.

Option II.

1 . Combine the names of the opposing forces and their goals in the struggle:

a) Red camp; 1. destruction of secular power;

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

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

2. Distribute parties and social groups among those entering the red camp (A) and the white camp (B):

a) Bolsheviks;

b) cadets;

c) industrialists;

d) wealthy peasantry;

e) the poorest peasantry;

g) landowners;

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. Wrangel. 4) North-West Russia.

4. The authorities of the Soviet republic during the Civil War do not include:

a) Council of Labor and Defense;

b) Revolutionary Military Council;

c) Committee of members of the Constituent Assembly.

a) after a verdict of a public court;

b) at the request of the population;

c) secretly without trial.

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

mass character;

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

opponents;

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

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

a) V.K. Blucher;

b) S. M. Budyonny;

c) M. V. Frunze;

d) E. K. Mueller;

d) .

9. Correlate the statement of a politician about signing peace with Germany with its author:

a) “Declare a revolutionary struggle for Germany and its allies,

to spark a world revolution"; 1. Trotsky

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

c) “Sign peace on Germany’s terms.” 3. Bukharin

10. The reasons for the victory of the Soviet government in the civil war do not include:

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) lack of career military officers and generals with the white movement.

Sample answers:

Option I

Option II

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

2 A - Bolsheviks, the poorest peasantry, the majority of workers; B - cadets, industrialists, wealthy peasantry, landowners.

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

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

Answer criteria:

The civil war was a continuation of the revolution. And revolutions do not arise at the whim of revolutionaries. They, like social earthquakes, have been brewing in the depths of society for a very long time due to the aggravation of social contradictions. And no one can cause them artificially or prevent them when they are ripe. Revolutions take away property from previously dominant classes, overthrow the old “elite,” and deprive certain social groups of privileges. Those who have lost power and property fiercely resist, and a civil war begins.

This was the case after the victory of the Great October Revolution. At first, the resistance of the bourgeoisie and landowners, their allies to Soviet power, was weak, since they found themselves in the minority, and their support - the old state and army - disappeared. The counter-revolution was able to resist the Soviets with arms in a few places, mainly in the Cossack regions, and was easily suppressed by the small armed forces of the Reds. On April 29, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee approved Lenin’s program for the use of a mixed economy in the transition to socialism. This was the basis for class compromise.

However, the internal counter-revolution received outside help. The Germans supported anti-Soviet forces in areas occupied by German troops. In March-April 1918, the military intervention of the Entente countries began in Russia. At the end of May, by order of the Entente Military Council, the Czechoslovak corps, then recognized as part of the French armed forces, raised an anti-Soviet rebellion, located on the Trans-Siberian Railway from Penza to Irkutsk and in Vladivostok. With the help of the Czechoslovaks, Socialist Revolutionary governments arose in Samara, Novonikolaevsk, Izhevsk, and after the arrival of the Allied squadron - in Arkhangelsk. They began to form their armies. Volunteers in the South and White Cossacks became more active. A full-scale Civil War broke out in Russia.

White apologists are silent about the goals of the Entente. And they are well known to historians: the dismemberment of Russia into parts, their transformation into colonies and semi-colonies of Western countries and Japan. W. Churchill cynically admitted in 1932: “It would be a mistake to think that... we fought for the cause of the Russians hostile to the Bolsheviks, on the contrary, the Russian White Guards fought for our cause.” So in recent years, the Western imperialists have found accomplices in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Ukraine, and Georgia, creating puppet governments there.

In a fierce civil war, the use of terror by all its participants was inevitable. But the terror was both spontaneous, when class enemies destroyed each other without instructions from above, and organized, on the part of the whites and the Soviet government. The Bolsheviks tried at first to avoid terror. The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets abolished the death penalty. Arrested enemies of the Soviets were released on parole - not to fight with the new government (for example, generals Krasnov, Marushevsky and others were released, who did not keep their word). The Soviet government began to use the death penalty against political opponents in June 1918, when the Civil War broke out. The anarchic element was manifesting itself. The anarchists were temporary companions of the Bolsheviks in overthrowing the power of the bourgeoisie. But they acted uncontrollably. Thus, under the leadership of anarchists, sailors of the Black Sea Fleet killed about 500 officers in Crimea in January 1918. At the same time, anti-Soviet forces also rose spontaneously. In the Cossack regions, the Cossacks, for example, began to destroy non-residents - peasants demanding the redistribution of all lands, including Cossack lands. In May, the rebel Orenburg Cossacks captured the village of Alexandrov Gai, Samara province. The captured Red Army soldiers - 97 people - were immediately shot. On the advice of local kulaks, they began to crack down on supporters of Soviet power. In total, about 800 people were killed.

When the Socialist Revolutionary governments appeared, state white terror began. In Samara, during the coup, about 300 people were killed by the whites. When Syzran was taken by the Czechoslovaks and the army of the Samara Komuch - 500, when Volsk was taken - 800. The Samara government created a punitive body - the State Guard, in addition, counterintelligence of the People's Army of the Komuch, Czechoslovaks and Serbs operated. All of them arbitrarily arrested not only supporters of the Soviets, but also, for the slightest suspicion of disloyalty to the whites, without trial they shot whoever they considered necessary. The prisons of the Samara government were overcrowded, so the first concentration camps in the history of Russia appeared on the territory of Komuch - in the Totsky military camps. Barges were used to contain prisoners.

The Socialist Revolutionary West Siberian government unleashed terror in even more brutal forms, on whose territory officers of the old army and White Cossacks actively manifested themselves. In September 1918, the peasants of the Slavgorod district in Altai rebelled. They refused to give conscripts to the Siberian Army and captured Slavgorod. On September 11, the punitive detachment of Ataman Annenkov arrived in Slavgorod. On this day, the punitive forces captured, tortured, shot, and hanged 500 people. The village of Cherny Dol, where the rebel headquarters was, was burned to the ground.

How did the governments of the white generals behave? I will give examples from Siberia. On November 18, 1918, the Directory - the Socialist Revolutionary government - was overthrown in Omsk. Power passed to the creature of the British - Admiral Kolchak. At the insistence of the Entente, he was declared the Supreme Ruler of Russia. On December 3, 1919, Kolchak signed a decree on the widespread use of the death penalty for attempts on the health and life of the Supreme Ruler, for the fight against the white regime.

After the coup, the Kolchakites began to arrest and destroy the Socialist Revolutionaries they had overthrown. On December 22, a group of Bolsheviks and soldiers attacked a prison in Omsk and freed those arrested. Some of the Social Revolutionaries, about 60 people, decided to return to prison, hoping that the “legitimate authorities” would acquit them. But at night the convoy took them out onto the ice of the Irtysh and shot them. In total, in connection with the events of December 22, Kolchak’s men killed one and a half thousand people in Omsk; the corpses of the dead were taken out on sleighs in bulk, like cattle carcasses.

There were mass arrests in the Urals and Siberia. At the end of 1918, there were 914 thousand prisoners in Siberian concentration camps, 75 thousand in prisons. There were also prisons and concentration camps of other white governments. For comparison: in Soviet Russia at that time there were just over 42 thousand prisoners, of which 2 thousand were in concentration camps.

The Kolchakites began plundering Siberian peasants and brutally suppressed resistance. How did the white punishers behave? “Having hung several hundred people on the gates of Kustanai, shot a little, we spread to the village,” said Frolov, the headquarters captain of the dragoon squadron from Kappel’s corps, “... the villages of Zharovka and Kargalinsk were cut to pieces, where all the men had to be shot for sympathizing with Bolshevism from 18 to 55 years old, after which the “rooster” will be let in. Further, the captain reported on the execution of two or three dozen men in the village of Borovoye, in which the peasants greeted the punishers with bread and salt, and the burning of part of this village...

The Kolchakites, with their atrocities, so alienated the Siberian peasantry that a powerful partisan movement arose here. 150 thousand partisans helped the Red Army expel the Kolchakites and interventionists from Siberia. Other White Guard governments behaved just as cruelly. Terror against supporters of the Reds and Soviets was used by interventionists, kulaks, greens, and nationalists.

That is why the Soviet government declared red terror in response to the white terror on September 2, 1918. There are statistics about his victims, although they are incomplete. The Cheka and its local commissions shot 6,300 people in September-December 1918 and 2,089 in the first seven months of 1919. This information is not believed and exaggerated by anti-Soviet supporters. Of course, other Soviet bodies also carried out executions. The white governments did not keep records of the people killed by the White Guards. Although the scale of their terror was many times greater than that of the Red Terror. General Greves, commander of the American intervention corps in Eastern Siberia, wrote in his memoirs in 1922: “Terrible murders were committed in Eastern Siberia, but they were not committed by the Bolsheviks, as was usually thought. I will not be mistaken if for every person killed by the Bolsheviks, a hundred were killed by anti-Bolshevik elements.” This subjective idea objectively characterizes the relationship between the scales of white and red terror. It should be borne in mind that the whites had to suppress the resistance of the majority of the people, and the reds - the minorities. Finally, the Bolsheviks also showed mercy. Beginning in May 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee declared amnesties for revolutionary holidays for prisoners, primarily peasants and workers drawn into anti-Soviet uprisings. I have not seen any reports of white government amnesties. The Bolsheviks won the difficult Civil War not because they used terror, but because they were ultimately supported by the majority of workers and peasants who did not want a return to the bourgeois system and linked their life prospects with Soviet power. 2

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

Currently, the term “red terror” has two definitions:

- For some historians, the concept of Red Terror includes all repressive policies Soviet power , beginning with lynchings October 1917. According to their definition, the Red Terror is a logical continuation October revolution , started earlier white terror and was inevitable, since Bolshevik violence was directed not against the existing resistance, but against entire sections of society that were declared 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 white terror, and considers the decree to be the beginning of the Red Terror Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR from September 5, 1918 « About the Red Terror ».

The very concept of “red terror” was first introduced by the Socialist Revolutionary Party Zinaida Konoplyannikova , who stated at the trial 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 destruction that does not want to perish.”

The new wave of terror in Russia is usually started with 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 during the period revolutions of 1905-1907). In 1907, an average of 18 people died every day. According to the police, from February 1905 to May 1906 alone the following were killed: Governors General , governors And mayors - 8, vice governors and advisers to provincial boards - 5, police chiefs , district chiefs and police officers - 21, gendarmerie officers - 8, generals (combatants) - 4, officers (combatants) - 7, bailiffs and their assistants - 79, district guards - 125, policemen - 346, constables- 57, guards - 257, gendarmerie lower ranks - 55, security agents - 18, civil ranks - 85, clergy - 12, village authorities - 52, landowners - 51, manufacturers and senior employees in factories - 54, bankers and large merchants - 29.

The death penalty in Russia was abolished on October 26, 1917 by the decision Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies .

November 24, 1917 Council of People's Commissars (SNK) published Decree “On the Court” , according to which workers and peasants were created Revolutionary Tribunals for the fight against counter-revolutionary forces in the form of taking measures to protect the revolution and its gains from them, as well as for resolving matters related to the fight against looting And predation , sabotage and other abuses of traders, 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 agencies on an all-Russian scale. It was decided to create emergency commission to determine the possibility of combating such a strike through “the most energetic revolutionary measures.” A candidate was proposed for the post of chairman of the commission 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 its activities, according to Dzerzhinsky, it 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, evict criminal elements, deprive food cards, publish lists enemies of the people . Council of People's Commissars headed by Lenin, having heard Dzerzhinsky, agreed with his proposals to vest the new body with emergency powers.

At the same time, on December 17, 1917, in his address to the cadets, L. Trotsky announced the beginning of the stage of mass terror against the enemies of the revolution in a more severe form:

“You should know that in no later than a month, terror will take very strong forms, following the example of the great French revolutionaries. The guillotine, not just prison, will await our enemies.”

The use of executions.

1. All former gendarmerie officers according to 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. Anyone who has a weapon without permission, unless there are extenuating circumstances (for example, membership in a revolutionary Soviet party or workers' organization).

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

5. Exposure of criminal relations with Russian and foreign counter-revolutionaries and their organizations, both located on the territory of Soviet Russia and outside it.

6. All active members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party of the center and right. (Note: active members are considered to be members of leading organizations - all committees from central to local city and district; members of combat squads and those who have relations with them on party affairs; carrying out any assignments of combat squads; serving between individual organizations, etc.) d.).

7. All active figures in revolutionary parties (cadets, Octobrists, etc.).

8. The case of executions must be discussed in the presence of a representative of the Russian Party of Communists.

9. The execution is carried out only if there is a unanimous decision of three members of the Commission.

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

II. Arrest followed by imprisonment in a concentration camp.

11. All those calling and organizing political strikes and other active actions to overthrow Soviet power, unless they are shot.

12. All former officers who are suspicious according to the search data and do not have a specific occupation.

13. All famous leaders of the bourgeois and landowner counter-revolution.

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

15. All members of the Socialist-Revolutionary parties without exception. center and right, people's socialists, cadets and other counter-revolutionaries. As for the rank-and-file members of the Social Revolutionary Party of the Center and the right-wing workers, days can be released on receipt that they condemn the terrorist policies of their central institutions 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 characteristics listed in the note to paragraph 6.

Examples of Red Terror:

The newspaper “Socialist Herald” dated September 21, 1922 writes about the results of an investigation into torture practiced in the criminal investigation department, which was conducted by a commission of the provincial tribunal of Stavropol, headed by public prosecutor Shapiro and investigator-reporter Olshansky. The commission found 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, Grigorovich, a member of the Stavropol Executive Committee, the Provincial Committee of the RCP (b), and the deputy head of the local State Political Administration:

1. hot cellar- a cell without windows, 3 steps in length and one and a half in width 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 “discharge of natural needs” "

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

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

4. murder of prisoners “allegedly during an escape attempt”

According to the research of the Italian historian G. Boffa, in response to the wounding of V.I. Lenin, about 1000 counter-revolutionaries were shot in Petrograd and Kronstadt.

Women arrested during 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 of 1919, 8389 people were shot, of which: Petrograd Cheka - 1206; Moscow - 234; Kievskaya - 825; Cheka 781 people, 9496 people imprisoned in concentration camps, prisons - 34334; 13,111 people were taken hostage and 86,893 people were arrested.

For modern domestic media serving the ruling elite, the October Revolution was a putsch that was forcefully imposed on a passive society by a bunch of cynical conspirators who did not have any real support in the country.
This putsch, and the media do not call the October Revolution otherwise, crossed out the natural path of development of rich, hardworking pre-revolutionary Russia, which was on the right path to democracy.
Within the framework of these views, a myth developed about the civil war, in which the Bolshevik party, using “red” terror, defeated the bourgeois “white” parties. The victims of the Red Terror were 20 million citizens, including a million Cossacks, destroyed as a class, and 300 thousand Russian priests, killed for their faith.
The purpose of this myth was to demonstrate the final break of the current elite, almost entirely consisting of the Soviet nomenklatura, with the Soviet system that gave birth to it and a symbolic transition to the side of its irreconcilable enemies.
As always in well-constructed, historical myths, this myth contains elements of truth, thickly mixed with malicious lies and unreliable information.
Indeed, the main opposing forces in the civil war were the “reds” and the “whites”.
Indeed, according to various sources, between 15 and 20 million people died in the civil war.
Indeed, the Bolsheviks announced the introduction of red terror.
To understand a myth, it is necessary to clarify the basic concepts used in it.
About the warring forces. The left Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists participated in the coalition with the Bolsheviks. In addition to the whites and reds, various nationalists and “greens” took part in the civil war. The White coalition was represented by a whole spectrum of parties of various orientations, from monarchists and Cadets, to Socialist Revolutionaries and Social Democrats. In the ranks of the Whites, from the end of 1918, the so-called “democratic revolution” declared the need to fight both against the Bolsheviks and against the generals’ dictatorship.
A civil war is always a tragedy, the collapse of statehood, a social catastrophe, unrest, the decomposition of society, accompanied by terror.
About terror. This term covers two fundamentally different phenomena. Terror is the name given to mass repressions officially applied by the government on the territory it controls.
Another meaning of the word terror is demonstrative murders or attempted murders of political opponents. The first type of terror is usually called state terror, and the second - individual terror.
Civil war is always accompanied by terror. First of all, state terror in territories controlled by the warring forces. However, the creators of myths try to classify “red” terror as “institutional” terror, and define “white” terror as “secondary, retaliatory and conditioned by the vicissitudes of the civil war.” But this position does not stand up to criticism. I will refer to a serious study of this issue: “A review of the legislative acts of white governments contradicts judgments about the absence of an “institutional component” of white terror, about its supposedly exclusively “hysterical” form.”
(Tsvetkov V. Zh. White terror - crime or punishment? The evolution of judicial and legal norms of responsibility for state crimes in the legislation of white governments in 1917-1922)
Individual terror, as is known, was widely used by the Socialist Revolutionary Party. The Bolsheviks, and above all, V.I. Lenin denied the usefulness of individual terror in political struggle.
The excesses of an armed crowd that kills officers, for example, for calling for the continuation of the imperialist war, can hardly be attributed to terror of the first or second type. It should be classified as a third type of terrorism, rooted in the depths of history, marked by the centuries-old hatred of peasants for landowners, distrust of the city, and of any form of government intervention. This anarchist, peasant terrorism was quite common during the Civil War, but it would be wrong to attribute it to the Bolsheviks. As M. Gorky wrote in the brochure “On the Russian Peasantry”:
“I explain the cruelty of the forms of the revolution by the exceptional cruelty of the Russian people. The tragedy of the Russian revolution is played out among “semi-savage people... When the leaders of the revolution - a group of the most active intelligentsia - are accused of “atrocity” - I consider this accusation as lies and slander, inevitable in the struggle of political parties , or - among honest people - as a conscientious delusion... A recent slave became the most unbridled despot as soon as he acquired the opportunity to be the ruler of his neighbor."
Banal banditry, of which millions of people became victims during the civil war, has much in common with anarchist terrorism, but unlike terrorism, the motivating force of banditry is self-interest. At the same time, not only criminals, but also sometimes representatives of armed formations of various colors, green and white, red and anarchists, took part in banditry.
The reasons for the widespread use of terror to the detriment of legal methods of resolving social and political conflicts in Russia are fully explained by Herzen’s statement: “The legal insecurity that has weighed heavily on the people from time immemorial was a kind of school for them. The flagrant injustice of one half of his laws taught him to hate the other; he submits to them as a force. Complete inequality before the court killed all respect for the rule of law. A Russian, no matter what his rank, circumvents and breaks the law wherever this can be done with impunity, and the government does exactly the same.”
The well-known exposer of the Bolsheviks S.P. Melgunov in the book “Red Terror” writes: “The bloody statistics, in essence, cannot yet be counted, and it is unlikely that they will ever be counted.”
Dzerzhinsky’s note, submitted to the Council of People’s Commissars in February 1922, summarizing the work of the Cheka, states: “Under the assumption that the old hatred of the proletariat against the enslavers will result in a whole series of unsystematic bloody episodes, and the excited elements of popular anger will sweep away not only enemies, but also friends , not only hostile and harmful elements, but also strong and useful ones, I sought to systematize the punitive apparatus of the revolutionary government." Essentially, he agrees with Lenin's observations given in the description of myth 5 about the mood of the armed people. And he says that for To prevent bloody excesses caused by the people's hatred of politicians who do not want to listen to their aspirations, it is necessary to channel anger into legal frameworks. The declaration of the "Red Terror" by the decree of the Council of People's Commissars on September 5, 1918 was a step in this direction. The "Red" Terror set itself the task combating counter-revolution, profiteering and ex officio crimes by isolating “class enemies” in concentration camps and by physically exterminating “all persons connected with White Guard organizations, conspiracies and rebellions.” The basis for declaring “red” terror was “white” terror. The murder of Socialist-Revolutionary Kanegiser Uritsky, the attempt on V.I. Lenin, the Socialist-Revolutionary Kaplan, the uprising in Yaroslavl raised by the Socialist-Revolutionary terrorist B. Savinkov.
How many people became victims of terror during the Civil War?
S.P. In 1918, Melgunov cites the number of people executed by the Bolsheviks as 5,004. Of these, 19 are priests. At the same time, he adds that this is only the data that he was able to document,
Latsis, referring to the publication of “execution” lists, for the first half of 1918, that is, before the murder of Uritsky and the assassination attempt on Lenin, names 22 executed (the execution was legalized on June 18, 1918), and for the second half of the year, after the announcement of the “red » Terror - 4,500 executed. In total, taking into account those executed in north-eastern Russia, data on which were not included in the initial figures, Latsis gives the figure 6185. As you can see, the discrepancy is not that big, and is quite explainable by different counting methodology. Consequently, Latsis’s data obtained from the registration of those repressed by the Cheka authorities can be trusted
Latsis claims that in 1919, according to the regulations of the CheK, 3,456 people were shot, i.e., in just two years, 9,641, of which 7,068 were counter-revolutionaries. Formally, the Red Terror was stopped on November 6, 1918.
Data on victims of the White Terror vary quite widely depending on the source. It is reported that in June 1918, supporters of the white movement in the territories they captured shot 824 people from among the Bolsheviks and sympathizers, in July 1918 - 4,141 people, in August 1918 - more than 6,000 people (Lantsov S. A. Terror and terrorists: Dictionary .. - St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg University Publishing House, 2004. - 187 p.)
For comparison, data on the statistics of executions of revolutionaries for two years in tsarist Russia, given by P.A. Sorokin in his testimony in the Conradi case of 1907 - 1139; 1908 - 1340;
During the civil war, mutual bitterness increased. Thus, a former Narodnaya Volya member, repeatedly arrested by both the tsarist secret police and the provisional government of V.L. Burtsev, wrote in his newspaper “Common Cause”: “It is necessary to respond to terror with terror... there must be revolutionaries ready for self-sacrifice in order to call Lenin and Trotsky, Steklov and Dzerzhinsky, Latsis and Lunacharsky, Kamenev and Kalinin, Krasin and Karakhan, Krestinsky and Zinoviev, etc."
If before August-September 1918 there were almost no mentions of local Chekas directing the murders, then from the summer of 1918 the flywheel of the “red” terror began to work at full speed. Indirectly, the scale of the Red Terror can be judged by calculating the number of punitive bodies of Soviet power, which by 1921 reached a maximum of 31 thousand people (at the end of February 1918, this number did not exceed 120 people).
In total, according to various archival sources, up to 50 thousand people died from the “red” terror.
According to V.V. Erlikhman, 300 thousand people died from “white” terror.
(Erlikhman V.V. “Population losses in the 20th century.” Directory - M.: Publishing House “Russian Panorama”, 2004.)
The bulk of human losses during the Civil War (from 15 to 20 million) were associated not with the “red” and “white” terror, but with hunger, typhus, and the Spanish flu. and the actions of the “greens” and other military formations. It is believed that about 2-3 million people died from the actions of the regular armies of the “white” and “red”.
Where do the figures repeated on TV come from about a million Cossacks executed or hundreds of thousands of Orthodox priests who died “for their faith”? The message about the Cossacks is based on a fake published in the 80s in a Canadian newspaper: “In Rostov, 300,000 Cossacks of the Don Army were captured, December 19, 1919. - In the Novocherkassk region, more than 200,000 Cossacks of the Don and Kuban troops are held captive. In the city of Shakhty and Kamensk, more than 500,000 Cossacks are held. Recently, about a million Cossacks surrendered. The prisoners are located as follows: in Gelendzhik - about 150,000 people, Krasnodar - about 500,000 people, Belorechenskaya - about 150,000 people, Maikop - about 200,000 people, Temryuk - about 50,000 people. I ask for sanctions."

Chairman of the V.Ch.K. Dzerzhinsky."

Lenin’s resolution in writing: “Shoot every single one. December 30, 1919.”
Neither the commission created by Denikin to document the victims of the “red” terror, nor Melgunov in his book “Red Terror” mentions anything about such massacres. Finally, there is no information about mass graves of Cossacks in these areas, and no one has ever seen the original document. It should be noted that the population of most of these settlements is less than the stated numbers of prisoners.
The situation is similar with the 300 thousand Russian priests tortured for their faith. I quote: “We’ll probably have to wait until geniuses appear who will describe, like Tolstoy, the battle of Austerlitz, the death of three hundred thousand Russian priests who did not betray the faith. In the meantime, thank God, we have Solzhenitsyn, Shalamov.... And, thank God, they are in school curricula! (Vice-president of Lyubimov’s “Media Union”, Zelinskaya. Foma magazine)
There is not a single document from which it follows that repressions against the clergy were carried out because of their faith. Priests were shot for participating in hostilities, for anti-Soviet agitation and calls in sermons to fight the authorities by armed means; there were numerous cases of murder for criminal reasons. Church historian D.V. Pospelovsky (member of the board of trustees of the St. Philaret Orthodox Christian Institute) wrote in 1994 that “during the period from January 1918 to January 1919, the following died: Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev, 18 archbishops and bishops, 102 parish priests, 154 deacons and 94 monastics of both sexes." The accuracy of the calculations is questionable, but it is clear that the historian did not find thousands of those executed. And where would 300 thousand priests come from, if in Russia in 1917 there were about 100 thousand clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the entire clergy with their families amounted to about 600 thousand people?
So why is Mrs. Zelinskaya lying? The question is rhetorical, but, involuntarily, casts a shadow of doubt on the veracity of the publications of honored writers from the school curriculum.

Within the framework of these views, a myth developed about the civil war, in which the Bolshevik party, using “red” terror, defeated the bourgeois “white” parties.

The victims of the Red Terror were 20 million citizens, including a million Cossacks, destroyed as a class, and 300 thousand Russian priests, killed for their faith. The purpose of this myth was to demonstrate the final break of the current elite, almost entirely consisting of the Soviet nomenklatura, with the Soviet system that gave birth to it and a symbolic transition to the side of its irreconcilable enemies. As always, in well-constructed historical myths, this myth contains elements of truth, densely mixed with malicious lies and false information. Indeed, the main opposing forces in the civil war were the “reds” and the “whites”. Indeed, according to various sources, between 15 and 20 million people died in the civil war. Indeed, the Bolsheviks announced the introduction of red terror. To understand a myth, it is necessary to clarify the basic concepts used in it.

About the warring forces. The left Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists participated in the coalition with the Bolsheviks. In addition to the whites and reds, various nationalists and “greens” took part in the civil war. The White coalition was represented by a whole spectrum of parties of various orientations, from monarchists and Cadets, to Socialist Revolutionaries and Social Democrats. In the ranks of the Whites, from the end of 1918, the so-called “democratic revolution” declared the need to fight both against the Bolsheviks and against the generals’ dictatorship.

A civil war is always a tragedy, a collapse of statehood, a social catastrophe, unrest, and decomposition of society accompanied by terror. About terror. This term covers two fundamentally different phenomena. Terror is the name given to mass repressions officially applied by the government on the territory it controls. Another meaning of the word terror is demonstrative murders or attempted murders of political opponents. The first type of terror is usually called state terror, and the second - individual terror. Civil war is always accompanied by terror. First of all, state terror in territories controlled by the warring forces. However, the creators of myths try to classify “red” terror as “institutional” terror, and define “white” terror as “secondary, retaliatory and conditioned by the vicissitudes of the civil war.” But this position does not stand up to criticism. I will refer to a serious study of this issue: “A review of the legislative acts of white governments contradicts judgments about the absence of an “institutional component” of white terror, about its supposedly exclusively “hysterical” form.” (Tsvetkov V. Zh. White terror - crime or punishment? The evolution of judicial and legal norms of responsibility for state crimes in the legislation of white governments in 1917-1922) Individual terror, as is known, was widely used by the Socialist Revolutionary Party. The Bolsheviks, and above all, V.I. Lenin denied the usefulness of individual terror in political struggle.

The excesses of an armed crowd that kills officers, for example, for calling for the continuation of the imperialist war, can hardly be attributed to terror of the first or second type. It should be classified as a third type of terrorism, rooted in the depths of history, marked by the centuries-old hatred of peasants for landowners, distrust of the city, and of any form of government intervention. This anarchist, peasant terrorism was quite common during the Civil War, but it would be wrong to attribute it to the Bolsheviks. As M. Gorky wrote in the brochure “On the Russian Peasantry”: “I explain the cruelty of the forms of the revolution by the exceptional cruelty of the Russian people. The tragedy of the Russian revolution is played out among “half-savage people... When the leaders of the revolution - a group of the most active intelligentsia - are accused of “atrocity” - I consider this accusation, as a lie and slander, inevitable in the struggle of political parties, or - among honest people - as a conscientious delusion... The recent slave became the most unbridled despot as soon as he acquired the opportunity to be the ruler of his neighbor." Banal banditry, the victim, has much in common with anarchist terrorism which became millions of inhabitants during the civil war, but unlike terrorism, the motivating force of banditry is greed.At the same time, not only criminals, but also sometimes representatives of armed groups of various colors, green and white, red and anarchists, participated in banditry.

The reasons for the widespread use of terror to the detriment of legal methods of resolving social and political conflicts in Russia are fully explained by Herzen’s statement: “The legal insecurity that has weighed heavily on the people from time immemorial was a kind of school for them. The flagrant injustice of one half of his laws taught him to hate the other; he submits to them as a force. Complete inequality before the court killed all respect for the rule of law. A Russian, no matter what his rank, circumvents and breaks the law wherever this can be done with impunity, and the government does exactly the same.”

The well-known exposer of the Bolsheviks S.P. Melgunov in the book “Red Terror” writes: “The bloody statistics, in essence, cannot yet be counted, and it is unlikely that they will ever be counted.”

Dzerzhinsky’s note, submitted to the Council of People’s Commissars in February 1922, summarizing the work of the Cheka, states: “Under the assumption that the old hatred of the proletariat against the enslavers will result in a whole series of unsystematic bloody episodes, and the excited elements of popular anger will sweep away not only enemies, but also friends , not only hostile and harmful elements, but also strong and useful ones, I sought to systematize the punitive apparatus of the revolutionary government." Essentially, he agrees with Lenin's observations given in the description of myth 5 about the mood of the armed people. And he says that for To prevent bloody excesses caused by the people’s hatred of politicians who do not want to listen to their aspirations, it is necessary to channel anger into a legal framework.

The declaration of the “red terror” by decree of the Council of People's Commissars on September 5, 1918 was a step in this direction. The “Red” Terror set itself the task of fighting counter-revolution, profiteering and ex officio crimes by isolating “class enemies” in concentration camps and by physically exterminating “all persons connected with White Guard organizations, conspiracies and rebellions.”

The basis for declaring “red” terror was “white” terror. The murder of Socialist-Revolutionary Kanegiser Uritsky, the attempt on V.I. Lenin, the Socialist-Revolutionary Kaplan, the uprising in Yaroslavl raised by the Socialist-Revolutionary terrorist B. Savinkov.

How many people became victims of terror during the Civil War? S.P. In 1918, Melgunov cites the number of people executed by the Bolsheviks as 5,004. Of these, 19 are priests. At the same time, he adds that this is only the data that he was able to document. Latsis, referring to the publication of “execution” lists, for the first half of 1918, that is, before the murder of Uritsky and the attempt on Lenin, names 22 executed (estimated execution was legalized on June 18, 1918), and in the second half of the year, after the announcement of the “red” terror, 4,500 were executed. In total, taking into account those executed in north-eastern Russia, data on which were not included in the initial figures, Latsis gives the figure 6185. As you can see, the discrepancy is not that big, and is quite explainable by different counting methodology. Consequently, the data of Latsis, obtained from the registration of those repressed by the Cheka authorities, can be trusted. Latsis claims that in 1919, according to the decisions of the Cheka, 3456 people were shot, i.e. in just two years 9641, of which 7068 were counter-revolutionaries. Formally, the Red Terror was ceased on November 6, 1918.

Data on victims of the White Terror vary quite widely depending on the source. It is reported that in June 1918, supporters of the white movement in the territories they captured shot 824 people from among the Bolsheviks and sympathizers, in July 1918 - 4,141 people, in August 1918 - more than 6,000 people (Lantsov S. A. Terror and terrorists: Dictionary .. - St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg University Publishing House, 2004. - 187 p.) For comparison, statistics on executions of revolutionaries for two years in tsarist Russia, given by P.A. Sorokin in testimony in the Conradi case 1907 - 1139; 1908 - 1340;

During the civil war, mutual bitterness increased. Thus, a former Narodnaya Volya member, repeatedly arrested by both the tsarist secret police and the provisional government of V.L. Burtsev, wrote in his newspaper “Common Cause”: “It is necessary to respond to terror with terror... there must be revolutionaries ready for self-sacrifice in order to call Lenin and Trotsky, Steklov and Dzerzhinsky, Latsis and Lunacharsky, Kamenev and Kalinin, Krasin and Karakhan, Krestinsky and Zinoviev, etc." If before August-September 1918 there were almost no mentions of local Chekas directing the murders, then from the summer of 1918 the flywheel of the “red” terror began to work at full speed. Indirectly, the scale of the Red Terror can be judged by calculating the number of punitive bodies of Soviet power, which by 1921 reached a maximum of 31 thousand people (at the end of February 1918, this number did not exceed 120 people).

In total, according to various archival sources, up to 50 thousand people died from the “red” terror. According to V.V. Erlikhman, 300 thousand people died from “white” terror. (Erlikhman V.V. “Population losses in the 20th century.” Directory - M.: Publishing House “Russian Panorama”, 2004.)

The bulk of human losses during the Civil War (from 15 to 20 million) were associated not with the “red” and “white” terror, but with hunger, typhus, and the Spanish flu. and the actions of the “greens” and other military formations. It is believed that about 2-3 million people died from the actions of the regular armies of the “white” and “red”.

Where do the figures repeated on TV come from about a million Cossacks executed or hundreds of thousands of Orthodox priests who died “for their faith”? The message about the Cossacks is based on a fake published in the 80s in a Canadian newspaper: “In Rostov, 300,000 Cossacks of the Don Army were captured, December 19, 1919. - In the Novocherkassk region, more than 200,000 Cossacks of the Don and Kuban troops are held captive. In the city of Shakhty and Kamensk, more than 500,000 Cossacks are held. Recently, about a million Cossacks surrendered. The prisoners are located as follows: in Gelendzhik - about 150,000 people, Krasnodar - about 500,000 people, Belorechenskaya - about 150,000 people, Maikop - about 200,000 people, Temryuk - about 50,000 people. I ask for sanctions." Chairman of the V.Ch.K. Dzerzhinsky." Lenin’s resolution in writing: “Shoot every single one. December 30, 1919.” Neither the commission created by Denikin to document the victims of the “red” terror, nor Melgunov in his book “Red Terror” mentions anything about such massacres. Finally, there is no information about mass graves of Cossacks in these areas, and no one has ever seen the original document.

It should be noted that the population of most of these settlements is less than the stated numbers of prisoners. The situation is similar with the 300 thousand Russian priests tortured for their faith. I quote: “We’ll probably have to wait until geniuses appear who will describe, like Tolstoy, the battle of Austerlitz, the death of three hundred thousand Russian priests who did not betray the faith. In the meantime, thank God, we have Solzhenitsyn, Shalamov.... And, thank God, they are in school curricula! (Vice-president of Lyubimov’s “Media Union”, Zelinskaya. Foma magazine)

There is not a single document from which it follows that repressions against the clergy were carried out because of their faith. Priests were shot for participating in hostilities, for anti-Soviet agitation and calls in sermons to fight the authorities by armed means; there were numerous cases of murder for criminal reasons. Church historian D.V. Pospelovsky (member of the board of trustees of the St. Philaret Orthodox Christian Institute) wrote in 1994 that “during the period from January 1918 to January 1919, the following died: Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev, 18 archbishops and bishops, 102 parish priests, 154 deacons and 94 monastics of both sexes." The accuracy of the calculations is questionable, but it is clear that the historian did not find thousands of those executed. And where would 300 thousand priests come from, if in Russia in 1917 there were about 100 thousand clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the entire clergy with their families amounted to about 600 thousand people? So why is Mrs. Zelinskaya lying? The question is rhetorical, but, involuntarily, casts a shadow of doubt on the veracity of the publications of honored writers from the school curriculum.