Red and white terror in the civil war. White and red movement

The issue of white and red terror is one of the most controversial in the history of the Civil War. In the last decade, many articles and publications have been devoted to this issue. But they, as a rule, create a one-sided idea of ​​the “red” terror and the Bolsheviks as supposedly its ardent supporters.

After the victory of the October Revolution, the Soviet government for 8 months did not resort to judicial or extrajudicial executions of its political opponents. “Lenin condemned certain cases of lynchings against representatives of the old government (the murder by sailors of two former ministers of the Provisional Government who were in the Peter and Paul Fortress, the murder of the commander-in-chief of the old army, General N. N. Dukhonin, by soldiers in Mogilev, etc.).”* Until the summer of 1918 Not a single political opponent of Soviet power was shot.

The Soviet government did not seek to incite a civil war and at first treated its enemies very humanely. Released on parole by the Council of People's Commissars, General P. N. Krasnov led the Cossack counter-revolution on the Don in the spring and summer of 1918, and the cadets released for the most part became active participants in the white cause. The first was white terror, which caused red terror in response.

Historian P. M. Spirin, back in 1968, correctly believed that in the summer of 1918 “... the bourgeoisie switched to mass and individual terror, pursuing the goal, on the one hand, to intimidate workers and peasants with numerous murders, and on the other - tear out its leaders and best activists from the ranks of the revolution."* White terror acquired a particularly large scale in the Don, Kuban, Volga region, Orenburg province, Siberia, that is, in those areas where there was a larger layer of kulaks, wealthy Cossacks, where many whites had accumulated officers. In the North and Far East, mass terror was carried out by interventionists and White Guards. Hundreds and thousands of “non-resident” peasants, who formed the support of Soviet power in the Cossack regions, fell at the hands of rich Cossacks. In the villages, hundreds of food contractors became victims of kulak terror. The officers hunted for communists and Soviet activists.

The chronicle of the events of the Novouzensky district of the Samara province for several days in May 1918, which is cited by L.M. Spirin, is tragic: “May 5 - the village of Aleksandrov-Gai was occupied by the Ural Cossacks, the chairman of the volost Council Chugunkov was torn to pieces in the village; many Soviet workers were shot. 6 May - the kulak congress in Novouzensk decided to shoot all the Bolsheviks. On May 9, in Aleksandrov-Gai, the Cossacks killed all the Red Army soldiers who surrendered (96 people), covered the wounded with earth in a common pit. In total, the whites shot 675 people in the village."* * Pages of history Soviet society. M., 1989. P. 60.

The rampant white terror was accompanied by a revolt of the Socialist Revolutionaries under the leadership of Savinkov, raised on the night of July 6-7, 1918. The rebels held Yaroslavl for 16 days. Throughout the city, the White Guards were looking for party and Soviet workers and carried out reprisals against them. One of the active participants in the rebellion - former Colonel B. Vesarov - subsequently wrote: “Those who fell into the hands of the rebel commissars, various kinds of Soviet businessmen and their accomplices began to be taken to the courtyard of the Yaroslavl branch of the state bank. Bloody revenge was carried out here, they were shot without any pity.” .* More than 200 people were placed on a barge in the middle of the Volga, and were doomed to starvation and torture. When the prisoners tried to escape from the barge, they were shot at. Only on the thirteenth day did the prisoners of the floating prison manage to weigh anchor and bring the barge to the location of the Red Army troops.

Of these people, 109 remained alive. Mass terror was carried out in areas captured by the White Guards and interventionists. According to approximate data of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR, “in July-December 1918, in the territory of 13 provinces alone, the White Guards shot 22,780 people.”* * White Generals. Rostov-on-Don. 1998. P. 205.

• On August 30, the former cadet of the Mikhailovsky Artillery School, “people's socialist” L. Kanegisser, on instructions from the underground group of the right Socialist Revolutionary Filonenko, shot and killed the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, the Bolshevik M. S. Uritsky. At the same time, the Higher Military Inspectorate train crashed, in which the chairman of the Military Military Inspectorate, N.I. Podvoisky, miraculously survived. Earlier, a prominent Bolshevik, V. Volodarsky, was killed. A group of Socialist Revolutionary terrorists who arrived in Moscow after the murder of Volodarsky, under the leadership of the militant Semenov, began surveillance of V. I. Lenin. The city was divided into several sectors, each of which was assigned a terrorist executor. Among them was F. Kaplan. On August 30, she seriously wounded V.I. Lenin with two bullets. It is from this assassination attempt that the “Red Terror” should be counted.
• On September 5, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a resolution that went down in history as the resolution on the Red Terror, signed by the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs G.I. Petrovsky, the People's Commissar of Justice D.I. Kursky and the head of the affairs of the Council of People's Commissars V.D. Bonch-Bruevich. It said: “The Council of People's Commissars, having heard the report of the chairman of the Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution on the activities of this commission, finds that in this situation, ensuring the rear through terror is a direct necessity; that in order to strengthen the activities of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission and introduce greater systematicity into it it is necessary to send there as many responsible party comrades as possible; that it is necessary to secure the Soviet Republic from class enemies by isolating them in concentration camps; that all persons connected with White Guard organizations, conspiracies and rebellions are subject to execution; that it is necessary to publish the names of all those executed, as well as the reasons application of this measure to them." * * Golinkov D. L. The collapse of the anti-Soviet underground in the USSR. Book 1. M., 1980. P. 178.

Among those repressed by the decree of September 5 were many ardent counter-revolutionaries who distinguished themselves by their cruelty during the times of tsarism. Among them are monarchists - Minister of Internal Affairs A. N. Khvostov, Director of the Police Department S. P. Beletsky, Minister of Justice I. G. Shcheglovitov, high-ranking officials of the gendarmerie and security departments. Those servants of the old regime who did not take part in counter-revolutionary actions also came under repression and execution. “There were cases when, in order to seize surplus grain, and sometimes non-surplus, requisition detachments used violence not only against the kulaks, but also against the middle peasants or subjected rebel Cossack villages, and sometimes villages, to artillery fire.”* * Shevotsukov P. A. Decree . op. P. 271.

In the fall of 1918, the hostage system was unjustifiably widely used. Moreover, it resulted not only in temporary isolation in concentration camps of population groups potentially dangerous to the Soviet regime, but, as R. Medvedev writes, also in “the physical destruction of some people for the misdeeds and crimes of other people.”* But such actions were not a system.

Condemning the Red Terror, some authors writing on this topic not only do not compare the White and Red Terror, but generally deny the existence of the former. Nevertheless, the comparison shows that the White Terror was more widespread and incredibly cruel. "For nine months (June 1918 - February 1919), the extraordinary commissions of the Soviet government shot 5,496 criminals on the territory of 23 provinces, including about 800 criminals. The White Guards, in seven months of 1918, killed 4 s in only 13 provinces more than times more people. In Siberia alone, in the spring of 1919, Kolchak’s men shot several tens of thousands of workers and peasants."* * Sokolov B.V. Decree. op. P. 422.

Already on November 6, 1918*, by resolution of the VI Congress of Soviets, the first all-Russian amnesty was announced. All hostages were released from imprisonment, except those whose temporary detention was necessary as a condition for the safety of comrades who had fallen into the hands of enemies. From now on, only the Cheka could take hostages. The Central Committee appointed a political audit of the Cheka by a commission from the Central Committee consisting of Kamenev, Stalin and Kursky, instructing it to “examine the activities of the emergency commissions without weakening their fight against counter-revolutionaries.”* * Ibid. P. 431.

At the same time, M. Ya. Latsis, a member of the Cheka commission, chairman of the Cheka of the Eastern Front, in the magazine “Red Terror” published in Kazan, spoke about the advisability of strict legal regulation of the activities of the Cheka. The article contained the following instructions to the local authorities of the Cheka: “Do not look for incriminating evidence in the case; whether he rebelled against the Soviets with weapons or in words. The first duty you must ask him is what class he belongs to, what origin he is, what education he has and what is his profession. These are the questions that should decide the fate of the accused."* After criticizing this article in Pravda, I. Yaroslavsky M. Ya. Latsis, responding to him, argued that “... at the moment of the most desperate class struggle, one cannot seek material evidence. When a class has completely rebelled against a class, then the most valuable information for the investigation is precisely the data on the (current) affiliation to the class about origins."* * Civil War in Russia. Crossroads of opinions. Decree. op. P. 220.

Regarding the spread of the Red Terror, Lenin, in a speech to employees of the Cheka in November 1918, noted: “When we took control of the country, we naturally had to make many mistakes and it is natural that the mistakes of the emergency commissions are most striking. individual mistakes of the Cheka, cry and rush with them. We say: we learn from mistakes. Their business requires decisiveness, speed, and most importantly - loyalty. When I look at the activities of the Cheka, and compare it with attacks, I say: These are philistine rumors that are worthless.”* It would not hurt to think about these Leninist words for the authors of those publications who are inclined to reduce all the activities of the Cheka to terror, mistakes, and arbitrariness. Such statements, as we see, are not new, and they are far from reality.

In general, the use of red terror was more conscious and logical than white terror. On this occasion, we recall the Tambov uprising, which was led by the former rural teacher, Social Revolutionary A. Antonov. The uprising began in mid-1920, when Antonov’s detachment, numbering 500 people, defeated the guard battalion sent against him. At the beginning of 1921, Antonov’s army already had 20 thousand people. At the end of 1921, Tukhachevsky, who had already distinguished himself in suppressing the Krondstadt uprising, was appointed commander of the troops of the Tambov province. On May 12, the day of his arrival in Tambov, Tukhachevsky issued extermination order No. 130. A popular summary of this order was published on May 17 by the Plenipotentiary Commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee for the fight against banditry in the Tambov province, entitled “Order to members of bandit gangs”: 1) Workers' and Peasants' the authorities decided to put an end to robbery and robbery in the Tambov province as soon as possible and restore peace and honest work in it; 2) The workers' and peasants' government has sufficient military forces in the Tambov province. All those who take up arms against Soviet power will be exterminated. You, members of gangs of bandits, have one of two options: either die like mad dogs, or surrender to the mercy of Soviet power; 3) According to the order of the Red Command No. 130 and the “Rules on the Taking of Hostages”, published by the Plenipotentiary Commission on May 12, the family of those who evaded appearing at the nearest headquarters of the Red Army to surrender their weapons are taken as hostages, and their property is seized.”* * Sokolov B V. Op. op., p. 420.

On June 11, an even more formidable order No. 171 appeared. It ordered citizens who refused to give their names to be shot on the spot without trial. The families of the rebels were expelled, and the senior worker in the family was shot. Hostages from villages where weapons were found were also shot. This Order was carried out “...severely and mercilessly.”* Cruelty and superiority of forces were on the side of the Red Army and decided the matter. The uprising began to wane. By the end of May, concentration camps for 15 thousand people were hastily created in Tambov, Borisoglebsk, Kirsanov and other cities of the province and a list of “bandits” was ordered for each village. By July 20, all large detachments of Antonovites were destroyed or “scattered.” During the operation to eliminate the Antonov gangs, Tukhachevsky used chemical weapons. The rebellious province was blocked and there was no supply of food there. And it is unlikely that under the conditions of the NEP, yesterday’s rebels would have wanted to return to the forests after the end of the harvest season. But it was necessary to teach the rebels an objective lesson so that not only they, but also their children and grandchildren would be discouraged from rebelling. This was why the shooting of hostages and gas attacks against those seeking refuge in the forests were necessary. Antonov himself died in a shootout in June 1922.

Thus, once again it must be noted that there was both white and red terror. Historically, it would be incorrect to speak only about the existence of the Red Terror, which was more natural and due to many reasons. The Bolsheviks acted as bearers of power in Russia, and, therefore, their measures were more legal than the actions of counter-revolutionaries.

“... six months later, as a result of the October Revolution, Lenin and the Bolsheviks came to power. The Russian Empire turned into the USSR. New leaders promised the exhausted country a bright and just future. However, violence became the main political tool of the new regime.
From a video shown at the Yeltsin Center.

The question of who unleashed terror in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century requires a definition of the concepts of “white terror”, “red terror” and “civil war”.

“Red terror” means revolutionary terror, and “white” terror means counter-revolutionary terror. At the same time, linking the “red terror,” like the “white terror,” with any one party is historically incorrect. The origins of the Red and White Terror go far beyond the revolutionary process of 1917.

The beginning of the “Red Terror” in Russia should be linked to the radical left wing of the Socialist Revolutionary Party (1902-1911); the beginning of the “White Terror” - with the emergence of monarchical organizations and their “Black Hundreds” (1905 - February 1917). The historical ignorance of the broad masses on this issue plays into the hands of those who carry out political orders to denigrate the personalities of Lenin, Dzerzhinsky, Stalin, and the USSR as a whole.

The beginning of the “Red Terror” in Russia (1902-1911)

“In order not to leave room for omissions, let us now make a reservation that, in our personal opinion, terror is currently an inappropriate means of struggle...”
Lenin V.I. Draft of our program, 1899 //PSS. T. 4. P. 223.

In the second half of the 80s - 90s of the 19th century, Blanquist populist terrorist groups became more active in Russia, seemingly defeated after the regicide on March 1, 1881. They began to prepare assassination attempts on the son of Alexander II - Emperor Alexander III. In connection with the assassination attempt in 1887, Lenin's elder brother Alexander Ulyanov was executed. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, populist groups joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party (AKP, Socialist Revolutionaries).

In 1902-1911, the Combat Organization of the Social Revolutionaries became “the most effective terrorist formation of the early 20th century.” Its leaders during this period were Grigory Gershuni, Yevno Azef, Boris Savinkov. It is with their activities that the beginning of the revolutionary “Red Terror” can be historically linked.

Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin consecrated revolutionary terror in detail in his speech on February 11, 1909 in the State Duma “Concerning the Azef Case.” The Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Empire linked terror with the revolutionary movement and the activities of socialist revolutionaries, not social democrats. //Complete collection of speeches in the State Duma and State Council/.

Over 10 years, the Social Revolutionaries committed 263 terrorist attacks, as a result of which 2 ministers, 33 governor-general, governor and vice-governor, 16 mayors, 7 admirals and generals, and 26 police agents were killed. The activities of the “Combat Organization” became an example for smaller terrorist groups of populist parties.

Here is the social class characteristics of the participants in the revolutionary terror. In 1903-1906, the “Combat Organization of the AKP” included 64 people: 13 hereditary nobles, 3 honorary citizens, 5 from families of clergy, 10 from merchant families, 27 were of bourgeois origin and 6 were of peasant origin. As a rule, all of them were united by the university student environment.

According to the national characteristics, among the members of the “Combat Organization” 43 terrorists were Russians, 19 Jews and two Poles.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin sharply dissociated himself from the Narodniks and Socialist Revolutionaries. He insisted on distinguishing between terror as a component of war and terror as a criminal offense in peacetime, without a declaration of war.

“In principle, we have never renounced and cannot renounce terror. This is one of the military actions that can be quite suitable and even necessary at a certain moment of the battle, under a certain state of the army and under certain conditions. But the essence of the matter is precisely that terror is being put forward at the present time not as one of the operations of the active army, closely connected and consistent with the entire system of struggle, but as an independent means of a single attack, independent of any army. ...That is why we resolutely declare such a means of struggle under the given circumstances to be untimely, inappropriate, ...disorganizing not the government, but the revolutionary forces...”
Lenin V.I. Where to start? 1901 // PSS. T. 5. P. 7

The beginning of the “White Terror” in Russia (1905 - February 1917).

Extreme right-wing organizations in Russia, operating in 1905-1917, acted under the slogans of monarchism, great-power chauvinism and anti-Semitism. The first Black Hundred organization was the Russian Assembly, created in 1900. The leaders of the Black Hundred movement - Alexander Dubrovin, Vladimir Purishkevich, Nikolai Markov (Markov the Second), encouraged the creation of small armed organizations that dispersed rallies, demonstrations, and carried out pogroms in Jewish neighborhoods. This is how the monarchists created the appearance of popular support for the monarchy. Sometimes the Fighting Squad was called "White Guard".

The activities of the Black Hundreds were supported by Nicholas II. He was an honorary member of the Union of the Russian People party, which was distinguished by extreme nationalism.

Armed squads of the Black Hundreds operated legally in Arkhangelsk, Astrakhan, Yekaterinoslav, Kyiv, Chisinau, Moscow, Odessa, St. Petersburg, Tiflis, Yaroslavl and other cities.

Child victims of the Jewish pogrom in Yekaterinoslav

Propaganda leaflet for the election campaign for the elections to the State Duma of the Russian Empire of the third convocation of a single bloc: the Union of the Russian People and the Union of October 17.

There were no general principles for the creation of fighting squads, since the official creation of armed detachments by “patriotic parties” was prohibited; each of the departments of the “Union of the Russian People” acted at its own discretion. In Odessa, the fighting squad, according to the principle of the Cossack army, was divided into six “hundreds”, each of which, in turn, had an independent name (for example, “The Evil Hundred”, etc.). The vigilantes were led by the “mandatory ataman”, “esauls”, and “foremen”. They all took patriotic pseudonyms: Ermak, Minin, Platov, etc. //Stepanov S.A. Black Hundred terror of 1905-1907.

Publication of the Odessa branch of the Union of Russian People.

The authorities considered armed groups of “patriots” their support and in some cases used them to maintain order on the streets and in striking enterprises. The Black Hundred squads suffered serious losses in fierce clashes with militant groups of Socialist Revolutionaries and Social Democrats at St. Petersburg enterprises during the First Russian Revolution. In 1907, 24 monarchists were killed in clashes //Stepanov S.A. Quote. op.

However, the Black Hundreds considered their main political opponents not socialists, but liberals. P. N. Milyukov was attacked by the Black Hundreds. On July 18, 1906, a member of the Central Committee of the Cadet Party, M. Ya. Herzenstein, was killed.

On March 14, 1907, a member of the “Union of the Russian People” Kazantsev organized the murder of cadet G. B. Yollos. Kazantsev gave the worker Fedorov a revolver and said that Yollos was betraying the revolutionaries. Having killed Yollos and then learned from newspapers about the falsity of the information given to him, Fedorov killed Kazantsev and fled abroad //Kazantsev / The fall of the tsarist regime. Interrogations and testimony. T. 7 / Index of names to volumes I-VII. / TO.

The hatred of the Black Hundreds towards them was determined by the fact that both of them were liberals, former deputies of the “rebellious” First State Duma and Jews.

After the February Revolution of 1917, Black Hundred organizations were banned.

The Black Hundreds went underground. During the Civil War, many prominent Black Hundred leaders joined the white movement, some to various nationalist organizations. The Bolshevik government saw Russian ethnic nationalism as a type of fascism. The remnants of the active members of the Black Hundred movement went into exile, and those who continued the struggle were destroyed.

Modern monarchists.

During perestroika and Gorbachev's glasnost, monarchist organizations returned to Russia, including the Union of the Russian People and the Black Hundreds. The restoration Congress of the Union of the Russian People took place in Moscow on November 21, 2005. The first chairman of the Union was the sculptor V. M. Klykov Websites of modern Black Hundred organizations: Official portal of the social-patriotic movement “Black Hundred”, Official regional portal of the OPD “Black Hundred” in St. Petersburg, Society “Union of the Russian People”, Newspaper “Orthodox” Rus", Publishing House "Russian Idea", Publishing House "Black Hundred".

Monarchists are active today in Crimea:

“The main thing is that we eradicate the “scoop” from ourselves and raise our children in the Russian, Orthodox, imperial spirit. And of course, our main work is propaganda. We remind Crimeans what their great-grandfathers were like, what values ​​our glorious ancestors held in high esteem. So that they can see what they have become. And they made the proper conclusions. To make it easier to carry out our tasks, like-minded people united into monarchical organizations that sympathize with this idea. There are several of these in Crimea - some Cossack associations, branches of the Union of the Russian People and the Russian Imperial Union-Order (RISO), as well as ours, the very first monarchical, officially legalized organization on the peninsula - the “Union of Zealots of the Memory of Emperor Nicholas II.”
Monarchists in Crimea.

Who and how unleashed terror in Soviet Russia.

V.I. Lenin noted in September 1917 that Soviet power has popular support, and the internal opposition has no chance of starting a Civil War in Russia.

“...The alliance of the Bolsheviks with the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks against the Cadets, against the bourgeoisie has not yet been tested. ...If there is an absolutely indisputable lesson of the revolution, absolutely proven by facts, it is only this: only an alliance of the Bolsheviks with the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, exclusively the immediate transfer of all power to the Soviets would make a civil war in Russia impossible. For against such an alliance, against the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, any civil war started by the bourgeoisie is unthinkable...”

Lenin V.I. Russian revolution and civil war. They are afraid of civil war / “Worker's Path”. No. 12, 29 (16) September 1917 / PSS. T. 34 pp. 221-222).

On November 1, 1917, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a resolution “On the terms of an agreement with other parties.” The program for the democratization of Russia and the creation of a “homogeneous socialist government”, a “government of the working people” was thwarted by the internal opposition, which was responsible for starting the Civil War.

But first, let us pay attention to Lenin’s state policy, which, ahead of its time, was fully consistent with today’s international law:

"Homogeneous Socialist Government"(will be recognized by N. S. Khrushchev at the 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956 and raised to the principle of international law - in relation to Yugoslavia and other countries of people's democracy);

Decree on peace. He declared the goal of the new government to be the immediate conclusion by all warring peoples and their governments of a just democratic peace without annexations and indemnities, and the renunciation of secret diplomacy. Today, the peaceful resolution of interstate conflicts and the inviolability of state borders are the basic norms of international law. Most of all, the Entente countries and the United States, which were already preparing the Versailles agreements on a new division of spheres of influence in a world where there was no place for Russia, neither with the Tsar nor with the Communists, were not interested in this agreement.

Decree on land. He abolished private ownership of land and transferred it to the disposal of working rural communities. State farms were formed on the lands of landowners, which were to become highly technical, exemplary large farm-factories for the production of agricultural products.

At the beginning of the 20th century, half of Russia's arable land fund was owned by 30 thousand landowner families (70 million dessiatines); the second half - 10.5 million peasant farms (75 million dessiatines).

However, even in the peasant village, the land was concentrated in the hands of a handful of kulaks. 15% of the rich owned 47% of the peasant land fund.

A poor medieval village, horseless and landless, was completely ruined during the First World War by constant mobilizations of men and expropriations of horses and dairy cattle for the needs of the war. The only effective way out of the economic crisis was the socialization of the land, transferring it to the peasants.

Lenin and Stalin talk with peasants in their office in the Kremlin. Artist I. E. Grabar. 1938. State Historical Museum.

In the future, the technical modernization of agriculture will require the creation of large farms equipped with tractors and combines, and cars. But in this situation, the socialization of the land was the right economic and political decision. The peasant majority of the country's population supported the new government and moved away from revolutionary activities, immersed themselves in work, until the Civil War was unleashed, and the White Guards began to return the land to the old owners - the kulaks and landowners. The peasants again found themselves without work, without land in most of the country, where Kolchak’s troops and other white armies ruled.

Under the auspices of Great Britain and France, after the collapse of the Russian Empire, a group of limitrophe (border) states was created along the European borders of Soviet Russia, formed from the outskirts of the former Tsarist Russia, mainly from the western provinces (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Finland).

In central Europe, from the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Czechoslovakia was created at Versailles, in the Balkans, from Serbia and Croatia, the Kingdom of Serbs and Croats (KSH, later Yugoslavia). Much work was carried out to separate Ukraine and Belarus and secede from Russia.

All these territories in the future will be used by Hitler as limitrophe states for Nazi propaganda and to create a “fifth column” in them. In the 90s, with the collapse of the USSR and the world system of socialism, the term “limitrophe” came to life again: the United States and NATO countries intensified their activities to create a belt of states with an anti-Russian orientation from the former Soviet republics and CMEA countries. Since the 1990s, the term has become widely used again in Western plans to dismember the Russian Federation.

Constitution of the RSFSR 1918

The Basic Law does not contain any legal provisions on the persecution of the church, priests, and religious citizens:

1. The church is separated from the state.

2. Within the Republic, it is prohibited to make any local laws or regulations that would restrict or restrict freedom of conscience, or establish any advantages or privileges on the basis of the religious affiliation of citizens.

3. Every citizen can profess any religion or none at all. All legal deprivations associated with the confession of any faith or non-profession of any faith are abolished.

Note. From all official acts, any indication of religious affiliation or non-religious affiliation of citizens is eliminated.

4. The actions of state and other public legal social institutions are not accompanied by any religious rites or ceremonies.

5. The free performance of religious rites is ensured insofar as they do not violate public order and are not accompanied by encroachments on the rights of citizens of the Soviet Republic.

Local authorities have the right to take all necessary measures to ensure public order and security in these cases.

6. No one can, citing their religious views, avoid fulfilling their civic duties.

Exceptions from this provision, subject to the condition of replacing one civil duty with another, are allowed in each individual case by decision of the people's court.

7. The religious oath or oath is canceled.

In necessary cases, only a solemn promise is given.

8. Civil status records are maintained exclusively by civil authorities: departments for registering marriages and births.

9. The school is separated from the church.

Teaching religious doctrines in all state and public, as well as private educational institutions where general education subjects are taught, is not permitted.

Citizens may teach and study religion privately.

10. All ecclesiastical and religious societies are subject to the general provisions on private societies and unions, and do not enjoy any benefits or subsidies either from the state or from its local autonomous and self-governing institutions.

11. Forced collection of fees and taxes in favor of church and religious societies, as well as measures of coercion or punishment on the part of these societies over their fellow members, are not permitted.

12. No church or religious societies have the right to own property. They do not have the rights of a legal entity.

13. All property of church and religious societies existing in Russia is declared national property.

Buildings and objects intended specifically for liturgical purposes are given, according to special regulations of local or central government authorities, for the free use of the respective religious societies.

Beginning of the confrontation

The Western trace in organizing provocations in the capital was quickly discovered. On December 6, 1917, Vladimir Dmitrievich Bonch-Bruevich, at a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, reported on the “combat groups” prepared to cause unrest in the capital:

Vladimir Dmitrievich Bonch-Bruevich (1873-1955).
Manager of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR (1917-1920)
Bolshevik. Doctor of Historical Sciences

When interviewing the detained individual military ranks, it turned out that they were drunk and a special institute was organized from them to incite their brothers to drink, for which they paid 15 rubles a day; ... Petrograd was flooded with a flurry of drunken destruction. ...The destruction began with small fruit stores, and they were followed by the warehouses of Koehler and Petrov, and a large ready-made clothing store. In one half hour we received 11 notices of pogroms and barely had time to send military units to the sites...”

Suspicious persons distributed proclamations that looked like Bolshevik ones, with the headings: “Workers of all countries, unite!” and ending with: “Down with imperialism and its lackeys!”, “Long live the workers’ revolution and the world proletariat!” In terms of content, these were provocative leaflets containing Black Hundred ideas. The leaflets incited soldiers, sailors, and workers to destroy wine warehouses and disrupt the normal life of the capital in every possible way.

“The detainees turned out to be employees of the reactionary newspaper Novaya Rus.” Under threat of execution, they said that they had been sent by the organization and gave us their addresses. When we went to the first address, we came across 20 thousand copies of this appeal... We moved on and arrested many people. ... It is clear that we are dealing with a conspiracy of counter-revolution on an all-Russian scale, organized extremely widely with large amounts of money, with the goal of strangling ... the revolution.”
Golinkov D. L. The collapse of the anti-Soviet underground in the USSR (1917-1925). M.: Politizdat, 1975. T. 1. P. 23.

In the first years of Soviet power, the danger came not from the Bolsheviks, but from anarchist gangs supported by the allies, the British ambassador Robert Bruce Lockhart argued in his memoirs:

Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart
(1887-1970), British diplomat,
secret agent, journalist, writer.

“Terror did not yet exist; it could not even be said that the population was afraid of the Bolsheviks.” “Life in St. Petersburg in those weeks had a rather unique character. ... Newspapers of the Bolshevik opponents were still published, and the policies of the Soviets were subjected to the most severe attacks in them ... In this early era of Bolshevism, the danger to bodily integrity and life came not from the ruling party, but from anarchist gangs. ...The allies are also largely to blame for the civil war. ...With our policies we contributed to the intensification of terror and bloodshed. ... Alekseev, Denikin, Kornilov, Wrangel tried with all their might to overthrow the Bolsheviks. ... For this purpose they, without support from abroad, were too weak, because in their own country they found support only in the officers, who were already very weakened in themselves.”
Storm over Russia. Confession of an English diplomat. - pp. 227-234.

From January to September 1918, Lockhart was the head of the special British mission to the Soviet government, then he was arrested. In October 1918, he was expelled from Soviet Russia for participating in the “conspiracy of the three ambassadors.” Robert Bruce Jr., his son, wrote that his father collected about 8,400,000 rubles from Russian capitalists through an English company, which were used to finance subversive activities against Soviet Russia. // “The ace of spies”, London, 1967. R. 74). Quote by: Golinkov D.L. The truth about the enemies of the people. M.: Algorithm, 2006.

At the beginning of World War II, Lockhart was one of the heads of the political intelligence department of the British Foreign Office (1939-1940) and director of the Political Warfare Committee, which was in charge of propaganda and intelligence issues (1941-1945).

Menshevik D.Yu. Dalin wrote in exile in 1922:

“The Soviet system existed, but without terror, the civil war gave impetus to its development. ...The Bolsheviks did not immediately embark on the path of terror; for six months the opposition press continued to publish, not only socialist, but also openly bourgeois. The first case of capital punishment took place only in May 1918. Everyone who wanted to speak at the meetings, with almost no risk of getting into the Cheka.”

On December 7 (20), 1917, the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage (VChK) was created under the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR. The Cheka was headed by Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky. Dzerzhinsky considered devotion to revolutionary ideals, honesty, restraint and politeness to be the necessary qualities of security officers.

Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinky (1877-1926) Chairman of the Cheka under the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR

“The invasion of a private apartment by armed people and the deprivation of freedom of innocent people is an evil that must still be resorted to today in order for good and truth to triumph. But we must always remember that this is evil, that our task is to use evil to eradicate the need to resort to this means in the future.
Therefore, let all those who are entrusted with carrying out a search, depriving a person of freedom and keeping them in prison, treat people arrested and searched with care, let them be much more polite with them than even with a loved one, remembering that a person deprived of freedom cannot defend himself and that he is in our power. Everyone must remember that he is a representative of Soviet power - workers and peasants, and that his every shout, rudeness, immodesty, impoliteness is a stain that falls on this power.”
"1. Weapons are only drawn if danger threatens. 2. Treatment of those arrested and their families must be the most polite; no moralizing or shouting is acceptable. 3. Responsibility for the search and behavior falls on everyone in the squad. 4. Threats with a revolver or any weapon whatsoever are unacceptable.
Those guilty of violating this instruction are subject to arrest for up to three months, removal from the commission and deportation from Moscow.”Draft instructions of the Cheka on the conduct of searches and arrests // Historical archive. 1958. No. 1. P. 5–6.

Western services, based on Socialist-Revolutionary-Anarchist elements, posed a serious threat to Russia, fanning chaos and banditry in the country in opposition to the creative policies of the new government.

The former Minister of War of the Provisional Government and Kolchakite A.I. Verkhovsky joined the Red Army in 1919. //“At a difficult pass”.

According to the official version, he switched sides to the “Reds” in 1922. In his memoirs, Verkhovsky wrote that he was an activist in the “Union for the Revival of Russia,” which had a military organization that trained personnel for anti-Soviet armed protests, which was financed by the “allies.”

Alexander Ivanovich Verkhovsky (1886-1938)

“In March 1918, I was personally invited by the Union for the Revival of Russia to join the military headquarters of the Union. The military headquarters was an organization that had the goal of organizing an uprising against Soviet power... The military headquarters had connections with the allied missions in Petrograd. General Suvorov was in charge of relations with the allied missions... Representatives of the allied missions were interested in my assessment of the situation from the point of view of the possibility of restoring... the front against Germany. I had conversations about this with General Nissel, a representative of the French mission. The military headquarters, through the cashier of the headquarters, Suvorov, received funds from the allied missions.”

In May 1918 he was arrested, but was soon released. After that he served in the Red Army. // /

Vasily Ivanovich Ignatiev (1874-1959)

The testimony of A. I. Verkhovsky is fully consistent with the memoirs of another figure in the Union for the Revival of Russia, V. I. Ignatiev (1874-1959, died in Chile).

In the first part of his memoirs, “Some Facts and Results of Four Years of the Civil War (1917-1921),” published in Moscow in 1922, he confirms that the source of the organization’s funds was “exclusively allied.” Ignatiev received the first amount from foreign sources from General A.V. Gerua, to whom General M.N. Suvorov sent him. From a conversation with Gerua, he learned that the general was instructed to send officers to the Murmansk region at the disposal of the English General F. Poole, and that funds were allocated to him for this task. Ignatiev received a certain amount from Gerua, then received money from one agent of the French mission - 30 thousand rubles.

A spy group was operating in Petrograd, headed by sanitary doctor V.P. Kovalevsky. She also sent officers, mainly guards, to the English General Bullet in Arkhangelsk via Vologda. The group advocated the establishment of a military dictatorship in Russia and was supported by British funds. The representative of this group, English agent Captain G. E. Chaplin, worked in Arkhangelsk under the name Thomson.

On December 13, 1918, Kovalevsky was shot on charges of creating a military organization associated with the British mission. On January 5, 1918, the Union for the Defense of the Constituent Assembly was preparing a coup d'etat, which was prevented by the Cheka. The Constituent Assembly was dispersed. The English plan failed. Detailed information about the activities of the Socialist Revolutionaries in various committees “Saving the Motherland and Revolution”, “Defense of the Constituent Assembly” and others, disclosed by the Cheka, was given already in 1927 by Vera Vladimirova in her book “The Year of Service of the “Socialists” to the Capitalists. Essays on history, counter-revolution in 1918".

Today, in liberal literature, the prevention of the coup d'etat in early January 1918 and the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly is put forward as a justification for the undemocratic policies of the Bolsheviks, which led to the civil war. Dzerzhinsky was aware of the counter-revolutionary activities of the socialists, mainly the Socialist Revolutionaries; their connections with British services, about the flow of their funding from the Allies.

Venedikt Aleksandrovich Myakotin (1867, Gatchina - 1937, Prague)

Russian historian and politician V. A. Myakotin, one of the founders and leaders of the Union for the Revival of Russia, also published his memoirs in 1923 in Prague, “From the Recent Past. On the wrong side." According to his story, relations with the diplomatic representatives of the allies were carried out by members of the “Union for the Revival of Russia” specially authorized for this purpose. These connections were carried out through the French ambassador Noulens. Later, when the ambassadors left for Vologda, through the French consul Grenard. The French financed the “Union”, but Nulans directly stated that “the allies, in fact, do not need the assistance of Russian political organizations” and could well land their troops in Russia themselves. //Golinkov D. L. Secret operations of the Cheka

The civil war and "Red Terror" in Soviet Russia were provoked by British services, with the active support of British Prime Minister Lloyd George and US President Woodrow Wilson.

The US President personally supervised the work of agents to discredit Soviet power, and above all, the young government led by Lenin, both in the West and in Russia.

In October 1918, on the direct orders of Woodrow Wilson, Washington published "Sisson papers", allegedly proving that the Bolshevik leadership consisted of direct agents of Germany, controlled by directives of the German General Staff. The “documents” were allegedly purchased at the end of 1917 by the special envoy of the US President to Russia, Edgar Sisson, for $25,000.

The “documents” were fabricated by Polish journalist Ferdinand Ossendowski. They allowed the myth to spread throughout Europe about the leader of the Soviet state, Lenin, who allegedly “made a revolution with German money.”

Sisson's mission was "brilliant." He “obtained” 68 documents, some of which allegedly confirmed Lenin’s connection with the Germans and even the direct dependence of the Council of People’s Commissars on the Government of Kaiser Germany until the spring of 1918. More details about the forged documents can be found on the website of Academician Yu. K. Begunov.

Counterfeits continue to spread in modern Russia. Thus, in 2005, the documentary film “Secrets of Intelligence. Revolution in a suitcase."

Lenin:

“We are reproached for arresting people. Yes, we are arresting. ...We are reproached for using terror, but we do not use terror, such as was used by the French revolutionaries who guillotined unarmed people, and I hope we will not use it. And, I hope, we will not use it, since the power is behind us. When we arrested you, we said that we will let you go if you sign that you will not sabotage. And such a subscription is given.”

“Soviet terror” was a retaliatory, protective, and therefore fair measure against the armed campaign of the interventionists, against the actions of the White Guards, against the large-scale white terror planned by the aggressor states.

The mutiny of the Czechoslovak corps in support of the white movement in May 1918 had the goal of uniting the conspirators “to cut off the Siberian road, stop the supply of Siberian grain and starve the Soviet Republic”:

“The Ural bandit Dutov, the steppe colonel Ivanov, the Czechoslovaks, fugitive Russian officers, agents of Anglo-French imperialism, former landowners and Siberian kulaks united in one sacred alliance against the workers and peasants. If this union had won, rivers of people's blood would have been shed, and the power of the monarchy and the bourgeoisie would have been restored on Russian soil. ...In order...to wipe away bourgeois treason from the face of the earth and to ensure the Great Siberian Road from further...attacks, the Council of People's Commissars considers it necessary to take exceptional measures.”

Among them it was proposed:

“All Councils of Deputies are charged with vigilant supervision over the local bourgeoisie and harsh reprisals against conspirators... Conspiratorial officers, traitors, accomplices of Skoropadsky, Krasnov, Siberian Colonel Ivanov, must be mercilessly exterminated... Down with the traitor-rapists! Death to the enemies of the people!

One of the instigators of the uprising, Radola Gaida, commander of the Czechoslovak troops, with his guards

With the beginning of the Civil War and intervention, the “Red Terror” changed its character, and the Cheka began to use extrajudicial measures - execution on the spot. The Cheka became not only an agency for search and investigation, but also for direct reprisals against the most dangerous criminals. All previous revolutions enjoyed such a legal right to their defense: the English, American and French, during which the bourgeoisie asserted its power. And no one, neither England, nor the USA, nor France, now reproaches this.

On January 1, 1918, an attempt was made on Lenin. At about 19:30, the car in which Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova and the secretary of the Swiss Social Democratic Party Friedrich Platten were located was fired upon by terrorists on the Simeonovsky Bridge across the Fontanka.

The assassination attempt was never solved. In the same month, the Extraordinary Commission for the Protection of the City of Petrograd, headed by Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov, began to receive information about an impending new attempt on Lenin’s life, about surveillance of the apartments of senior officials, including Bonch-Bruevich.

In mid-January, the Cavalier of St. George Ya. N. Spiridonov came to Bonch-Bruevich and said that he had been instructed to track down and capture Lenin alive (or kill) and was promised 20 thousand rubles for this. It turned out that the terrorist acts were developed by members of the Petrograd Union of Knights of St. George. Lenin gave the order: “The matter must be stopped. Release. Send to the front."

On June 21, 1918, the revolutionary tribunal under the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, in a public open meeting, pronounced the first death sentence.

On August 30, 1918, at the Mikhelson plant, a new attempt was made on Lenin, committed, according to the official version, by the Socialist-Revolutionary Fanny Kaplan. The question of the organizers and participants in the assassination attempt, as well as the involvement of Fanny Kaplan, remains unclear to this day.

Lenin left for the plant without security, and there was no security at the plant itself. Immediately after the assassination attempt, the leader was unconscious; doctors discovered a dangerous wound in his neck under the jaw, blood had entered his lung. The second bullet hit him in the arm, and the third hit the woman who was talking to Lenin when the shooting began.

Moses Solomonovich Uritsky (1873-1918). Chairman of the Petrograd Cheka

On the morning of the same day, the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, Uritsky, who was opposed to executions in general, was killed in Petrograd.

On September 2, 1918, Yakov Sverdlov, in an appeal to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, declared the Red Terror as a response to the assassination attempt on Lenin on August 30 and the murder on the same day of the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, Uritsky (the decision was confirmed by a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of September 5, 1918, signed by the People's Commissar of Justice D.I. Kursky, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs G.I. Petrovsky and SNK Affairs Manager V.D. Bonch-Bruevich).

Below we will examine in detail that the methods of the Red and White Terror differed.

The Red Terror was declared as one of the types of war against combat units of enemies of the revolution and interventionists, against especially dangerous terrorists, spies, saboteurs, participants in sabotage preparations, propagandists, criminals, and concealers. White terror was more reminiscent of genocide, which is usually used by foreign occupiers to instill terror in the peaceful indigenous population in order to warn them against resistance.

Siberian old-timers still remember the horrors of the White Terror. The Kolchakites were distinguished by their special bestial cruelty. They burned villages, raped, tortured and buried the local civilian population alive.

One of the characteristic examples of Kolchak’s genocide is the activity of Surov’s punitive detachment, which was sent to suppress the peasant uprising in the village of Ksenyevka.

Severity

Surov Vladimir Aleksandrovich was born in 1892, graduated from a four-year city school.

In October 1913, Surov was enlisted in the second-class state militia. In 1915, he was called up for mobilization, ending up in the 9th Siberian Rifle Reserve Battalion, and enrolled in the Irkutsk School of Warrant Officers. On April 1, 1916, he was promoted to warrant officer in the army infantry and assigned to the 4th Siberian reserve rifle brigade.

In June 1918, Surov was an assistant to the commander of the detachment A. T. Aldmanovich, who was engaged in clearing the southern districts of the Tomsk province from the Red Guards. In 1919, Captain Surov led a punitive detachment in the Chulym region. Later he was promoted to lieutenant colonel.

On May 4, 1919, at 15:00, Surov, at the head of a detachment of punitive forces, set out from the Cathedral Square of Tomsk along the Irkutsk Highway. Under his command were 32 officers, 46 sabers (cavalry) and 291 infantry riflemen with three machine guns. The detachment consisted of three shock groups, a team of foot scouts, hussars, as well as mounted and foot militia.

Punitive detachment of Surov

The very next day at 16:00 the first battle took place near Surov - near the village of Novo-Arkhangelskoye. The punitive forces made arrests and confiscated weapons in the village, then broke into the village of Latatsky.

On May 7, the Serbians occupied the villages of Klyuevsky and Kaibinsky, and at 7 p.m., after a two-hour battle, the village of Malo-Zhirovo, they seized documents of the rebels, which discussed the restoration of Soviet power in the territory covered by the peasant uprising and the mobilization of men born in 1897 into the “people's army.” .

On May 9, 1919, the punitive forces occupied Voronino-Pashnya, as well as the villages of Tikhomirovsky and Troitsky, without a fight.

On May 10, the Severians occupied the village of Novo-Kuskovo, 35 people - organizers and members of the Novo-Kuskovo Council of Deputies were executed. The detachment of the commander of the partisan detachment, member of the Tomsk Council Ivan Sergeevich Tolkunov (pseudonym Goncharov) retreated to the village of Ksenyevsky and the village of Kazanskoye.

Following them, the 2nd strike group was sent (each strike group had approximately 100 people) with a team of foot scouts, the 3rd strike group went to the villages of Kaynary, Novo-Pokrovsky (Kulary), Ivano-Bogoslovsky and Boroksky.

The punitive forces burned the villages of Kulyary and Tatar.

The Surovtsy defeated Ksenyevka, They burned the partisans' houses and killed their families. A lot of people were flogged.

From May 11 to 14, the Surtsy occupied the village of Kazanskoye and moved to the village of Chelbakovsky, where, according to intelligence data, there were 450 fighters of the partisan detachment. There was a battle with the use of grenades, bayonet strikes, and hand-to-hand combat.

The Reds, taking advantage of the wind blowing towards the punishers, lit the dry grass and created a smoke screen, which made it possible to regroup on the flanks. Meanwhile, the Surovites brought up reinforcements and machine guns and, after a 3.5-hour battle, drove back the partisans, who suffered huge losses in killed and wounded.

A Red detachment of 80-100 people managed to cross to the other side of Chulym.

12 May total torture residents were subjected to Kazanka and Chelbak village . 22 people were executed for “belonging to the revolutionary committee”; their property and houses were burned.

Surov reported to the command: “A bullet factory was discovered in Ksenyevskoye, 12 participants were court-martialed. The peasant Pleshkov, a former member of the executive committee of the Council of Soldiers’ and Workers’ Deputies of Tomsk, was arrested and shot.”

On May 15, the 1st strike group of the Sursky detachment moved to the village of Filimonovsky, the village of Mitrofanovskoye, the Karakolsky yurts, the village of Mikhailovsky, the village of Novikovsky and back through the village of Antonovsky, the village of Mitrofanovskoye and the village of Filimonovsky.

Arrests were made persons involved in Bolshevism. Surovtsy established contact with another punitive detachment under the command of Captain Orlov, operating in neighboring volosts.

On May 16, Surov received news that a partisan detachment of Pyotr Lubkov, numbering three hundred people, was moving to the area of ​​the peasant uprising. In the village of Khaldeevo, Lubkovites attacked a transport with wounded White Guards from Surov’s detachment, and in the village of Vorono-Pashnya they fired at Orlov’s detachment.

On the night of May 17, Surov with two shock groups set out for the village of Tikhomirovsky, where the Lubkovites settled down to spend the night. The partisans were defeated in the battle, losing part of their convoy and prisoners.

Next, Surov crossed on the steamship "Ermak" to the opposite bank of Chulym to pursue the "small gangs". Having knocked down the rebel outposts, the Severians marched through 18 settlements for several days, including the villages of Sakhalinsky, Uzen, Makarovsky, Tsaritsynsky, Voznesensky, Lomovitsky, the village of Rozhdestvenskoye, the village of Sergeevo, the yurts of Burbina, Ezhi and others.

By the end of May 1919, the peasant uprising was suppressed. But the partisan detachment created by Goncharov during the days of the uprising continued to operate. Having united with Lubkov’s detachment, Goncharov’s detachment operated on the territory of the Tomsk and Mariinsky districts.

Pyotr Kuzmich Lubkov. Peasant of the village of Svyatoslavka, Malo-Peschanaya volost, Mariinsky district, Tomsk province. In May 1917, he returned from the front of the First World War as a Knight of St. George with the rank of senior non-commissioned officer. In October 1917, Svyatoslav peasants created a Council of Deputies in the village, which included Lubkov. In the spring of 1918, white punitive forces came to the village of Svyatoslavka and arrested Pyotr Lubkov and his brother Ignat, but they were able to escape and joined the partisan movement. In 1919, Lubkov joined the Red Army, participated in the battles for the liberation of Eastern Siberia, and worked in the Cheka. In September 1920, he rebelled against the surplus appropriation system and hid in the taiga. On June 23, 1921, it was liquidated as a result of a Cheka operation. http://svyatoslavka.ucoz.ru/in...

On June 24, Lubkov’s detachment attacked the Izhmorka station and the railway bridge over the Yaya River. The Czechoslovak detachment guarding them was defeated. The station's equipment was disabled, trophies were captured - rifles, cartridges, grenades, and many sets of uniforms. However, during the retreat, near the village of Chernaya Rechka the partisans were overtaken by the Whites.

The Lubkovites retreated to Mikhailovka, and Goncharov’s detachment approached here. The Whites attacked the combined forces of the partisans from Gagarino. Goncharov led his men to attack the bridge over the river.

On June 25, in the village of Mikhailovka, a large detachment of punitive forces surrounded a handful of brave men, led by Goncharov, who had rushed forward. In an unequal battle, 20 partisans died here, including the commander of the partisan detachment, member of the Tomsk Council, Ivan Sergeevich Tolkunov-Goncharov. V. Zvorykin became the commander of the detachment. Lubkov was seriously wounded in the battle.

The historical memory of the white punitive forces and the red partisans has been preserved in the form of monuments in the settlements of the Asinovsky district of the Tomsk region.

“Mass grave of partisans, underground fighters and victims of white terror.” Station square in the city of Asino, Tomsk region. On the pedestal there is the inscription “Eternal glory to the partisans of the Civil War.” https://kozyukova.jimdo.com/r...

Mass grave of partisans, supporters of Soviet power, who provided assistance to the partisans. With. Kazanka of the Tomsk region.http://memorials.tomsk.ru/news…
Mass grave of partisans who died in 1919 in the village. Novokuskovo, Tomsk region.

Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs V.N. Pepelyaev, having learned about the actions of V.A. Surov and his detachment, telegraphed to the governor of the Tomsk province B.M. Mikhailovsky:

“I read your report with satisfaction... Please convey my gratitude to Captain Surov. Say hello and my gratitude to the police officers. Give generous benefits to those who suffered and distinguished themselves... I look forward to equally energetic actions in all directions.”

Surov with the remnants of Kolchak’s army retreated first to Transbaikalia, and then ended up in exile in China. In 1922, he volunteered for the Siberian Volunteer Squad, formed by General A. N. Pepelyaev. In 1924 he was arrested and shot.

From the decision of the trial of Surov:

“In early May 1919, Captain Surov received command of expeditionary punitive detachments, whose tasks included a merciless fight against the insurgent movement. From that time on, the dark days of harshness hung over the Tomsk province, especially over the Tomsk and Mariinsky districts. Surov’s cruelty and inhumanity knew no bounds: the strong and the weak, old men and women, women and children were subjected to torture, flogging, shooting and hanging.”

Interventionists

When talking about white terror, it is imperative to take into account: this is terror that was carried out as part of the intervention of foreign aggressors on the territory of young Soviet Russia.

On March 1, 1918, German troops overthrew Soviet power in Kyiv and moved towards Kharkov, Poltava, Yekaterinoslav, Nikolaev, Kherson and Odessa. The German occupiers created the government of General P.P. Skoropadsky and proclaimed him Hetman of Ukraine.

Skoropadsky's meeting with Hindenburg at the train station in the German city of Spa, September 1918.

On March 5, the Germans, under the command of Major General von der Goltz, invaded Finland, where they soon overthrew the Finnish Soviet government. On April 18, German troops invaded Crimea, and on April 30 they captured Sevastopol.

By mid-June, more than 15 thousand German troops with aviation and artillery were in Transcaucasia, including 10 thousand people in Poti and 5 thousand in Tiflis (Tbilisi). Turkish troops have been in Transcaucasia since mid-February.

On May 25, the Czechoslovak Corps, whose echelons were located between Penza and Vladivostok, advanced.

Entente landing in Arkhangelsk, August 1918

American intervention in Vladivostok. August 1918

Japanese occupation units in Vladivostok. 1918

Allied parade in Murmansk in honor of victory in the First World War. November 1918.

Unloading British tanks in Arkhangelsk

American interventionists guard the arrested "bolos" - that's what they called the Bolsheviks. Dvinskoy Bereznik, Vinogradovsky municipal district of the Arkhangelsk region.

A special form of intervention was Russian collaborationism under the guise of the white movement.

Kolchak with foreign allies

Don Ataman Pyotr Krasnov:

“The volunteer army is pure and infallible. But it’s me, the Don Ataman, who, with my dirty hands, takes German shells and cartridges, washes them in the waves of the quiet Don and hands them over clean to the Volunteer Army! The entire shame of this matter lies with me!”

General Krasnov during the Second World War (from March 30, 1944 - head of the Main Directorate of Cossack Troops (Hauptverwaltung der Kosakenheere) http://alternathistory.com/pop…

The real genocide of the inhabitants of the Far East was carried out by American interventionists.

So, for example, having captured the peasants I. Gonevchuk, S. Gorshkov, P. Oparin and Z. Murashko, the Americans buried alive them for connections with local partisans. And the wife of partisan E. Boychuk was dealt with as follows: pierced the body with bayonets and drowned in a garbage pit. The peasant Bochkarev was mutilated beyond recognition with bayonets and knives: “his nose, lips, ears were cut off, his jaw was knocked out, his face and eyes were stabbed with bayonets, his whole body was cut up.” At the station In Sviyagino, partisan N. Myasnikov was tortured in the same brutal way, who, according to an eyewitness, “first they cut off the ears, then the nose, arms, legs, cutting them into pieces alive».

Murdered Bolshevik

“In the spring of 1919, a punitive expedition of interventionists appeared in the village, carrying out reprisals against those who were suspected of sympathizing with the partisans,” testified A. Khortov, a resident of the village of Kharitonovka, Shkotovsky district. - Punishers arrested many peasants as hostages and demanded to hand over the partisans, threatening to shoot(...) The interventionist executioners also dealt savagely with the innocent peasant hostages. Among them was my elderly father, Philip Khortov. He was brought home bloodied. He was still alive for several days, and kept repeating: “Why were they tortured me, you damned beasts?!” The father died, leaving five orphans.

Caption under the photo: “Shooted Russian. At Post No. 1, on January 8, 1919, at 3 a.m., an enemy patrol of seven men attempted to approach the American post. The village of Vysoka Gora. Ust Padega. Vaga River Village of Visorka Gora, Ust Padenga, Vaga River Column, Russia. Jan. 8, 1919. (Official U.S. Army Signal Corps caption for photo 152821).

American soldiers appeared in our village several times and each time carried out arrests of residents, robberies, and murders. In the summer of 1919, American and Japanese punitive forces staged a public flogging with ramrods and whips peasant Pavel Kuzikov. An American non-commissioned officer stood nearby and, smiling, clicked his camera. Ivan Kravchuk and three other guys from Vladivostok were suspected of having connections with the partisans, they tortured me for several days. They knocked out their teeth, cut off their tongues».

“The interventionists surrounded Little Cape and opened fire on the village. Having learned that there were no partisans there, the Americans became bolder and burst into it, burned down the school. Brutally flog everyone whoever came their way. Peasant Cherevatov, like many others, had to be carried home, bloodied and unconscious. American infantrymen carried out brutal oppression in the villages of Knevichi, Krolevtsy and other settlements. In front of everyone, an American officer fired several bullets into the head wounded boy Vasily Shemyakin." //https://topwar.ru/14988-zverst…

US Army Colonel Morrow: " couldn't sleep without killing someone on this day (...) When our soldiers captured the Russians, they took them to the Andriyanovka station, where the wagons were unloaded, prisoners were brought to huge pits, where they were shot from machine guns».

Colonel Morrow's "most memorable" day was "when 1600 people were shot, delivered in 53 wagons."

In May 1918, a squadron of the Allied Entente forces entered Murmansk for intervention. The crew of the Olympia assigned people to the Anglo-French-American landing force that occupied the city. The Americans created a real Sonderkommando: they hunted the Bolsheviks.

The Japanese invaders were no less cruel than the American ones. In January 1919, the Japanese burned the village of Sokhatino, and in February the village of Ivanovka.

Reporter Yamauchi from the Japanese newspaper Urajio Nippo:

“The village of Ivanovka was surrounded. The 60-70 households that it consisted of were completely burned, and its inhabitants, including women and children (300 people in total) - captured. Some tried to take refuge in their homes. And then these houses were set on fire along with the people in them».

In the first days of April 1920 alone, the Japanese, suddenly violating the truce agreement, killed about 7 thousand people in Vladivostok, Spassk, Nikolsk-Ussuriysk and surrounding villages.

The interventionists mercilessly plundered all the occupied territories of Russia. They exported metal, coal, bread, machinery and equipment, engines and furs. Civilian ships and steam locomotives were stolen. From Ukraine alone, by October 1918, the Germans had exported 52 thousand tons of grain and fodder, 34 thousand tons of sugar, 45 million eggs, 53 thousand horses and 39 thousand heads of cattle.

In total, more than a million invaders visited Russia - 280 thousand Austro-German, 850 thousand British, American, French and Japanese. The Russian people, according to incomplete data, lost about 8 million killed, tortured in concentration camps, and died from wounds, hunger and epidemics. The country's material losses, according to experts, amounted to 50 billion gold rubles. //Based on materials from varjag_2007

Atrocities of the White Guards

Doctor of Historical Sciences Heinrich Ioffe in the magazine “Science and Life No. 12 for 2004” in an article about Denikin writes:

“In the territories liberated from the Reds there was a real revanchist Sabbath. The old masters returned and reigned arbitrariness, robberies, terrible Jewish pogroms…».

William Sydney Graves (1865-1940)

“There were terrible murders in Eastern Siberia, but they were not committed by the Bolsheviks, as was usually thought. I won't be wrong if I say that For every person killed by the Bolsheviks, 100 people were killed by anti-Bolshevik elements».

Czechoslovak punitive forces literally wiped out entire towns and villages from the face of the earth. In Yeniseisk alone, for example, more than 700 people were shot for sympathizing with the Bolsheviks - almost a tenth of those living there. When suppressing the uprising of prisoners at the Alexander Transit Prison in September 1919, the Czechs shot the prisoners at point-blank range with machine guns and cannons. The massacre lasted three days. About 600 people died at the hands of the executioners.

Concentration camps were set up for those who opposed the occupation or sympathized with the Bolsheviks.

On August 23, 1918, on the island of Mudyug near the Northern Dvina in the Arkhangelsk region, Entente interventionists created a concentration camp for Bolsheviks and sympathizers.

Because of this, Mudyug received the nickname “Island of Death”. On June 2, 1919, the British handed over the concentration camp to the White Guards. By this time, out of 1,242 prisoners, 23 had been shot, 310 died from disease and mistreatment, and more than 150 people became disabled.

After the departure of the Anglo-French interventionists, power in the North of Russia passed into the hands of the White Guard general Yevgeny Miller. He not only continued, but also intensified repression and terror, trying to stop the rapidly developing process of Bolshevization of the population. Their most inhumane embodiment was the convict prison in Yokanga, which one of the prisoners described as the most brutal, sophisticated method of exterminating people with a slow, painful death:

“The dead lay on bunks along with the living, and the living were no better than the dead: dirty, covered with scabs, in torn rags, decomposing alive, they presented a nightmarish picture.”

Yokang Prison

Model of the Yokanga prison in the Murmansk Museum of Local Lore

By the time Iokanga was liberated from the whites, out of one and a half thousand prisoners, 576 people remained there, of whom 205 could no longer move.

A system of similar concentration camps was deployed by Admiral Kolchak in Siberia and the Far East. The Kolchak regime imprisoned 914,178 people who rejected the restoration of pre-revolutionary orders. Another 75 thousand people were in white Siberia. Kolchak drove more than 520 thousand prisoners into slave, almost unpaid labor in enterprises and agriculture.

Bodies of workers and peasants shot by Kolchak's men

When in the fall of 1918 the White Guards began to suffer defeat from the Red Army, barges and death trains with prisoners of prisons and concentration camps reached the Eastern Front, Siberia, and then the Far East.

When the death trains were in Primorye, they were visited by members of the American Red Cross. One of them, Bukeli, wrote in his diary:

Fracture

As stated above, Lenin was initially determined to release the enemies of the revolution on a signature with guarantees of non-participation in sabotage. This was due to the phenomenal success of the October Revolution, which in four months spread throughout Russia, thanks to the support of the Soviet power by the overwhelming majority of the common people. Lenin hoped that opponents would realize the irreversibility of the accomplished self-determination of the people and the change in the political system.

However, brutal white terror and intervention forced the Bolsheviks to change tactics.

Then many enemies of the revolution were released on parole. Among them were Pyotr Krasnov, Vladimir Marushevsky, Vasily Boldyrev, Vladimir Purishkevich, Alexey Nikitin, Kuzma Gvozdev, Semyon Maslov and others.

However, the counter-revolutionaries again launched an armed struggle, propaganda, sabotage, terrorist attacks, and entered into an alliance with the aggressors, which resulted in the death of several more million citizens for the country during the years of the Civil War and intervention. Then the Soviet leadership decided to change tactics, although we emphasize once again this measure was solely a response.

Red Terror

The Red Terror was aimed at those who purposefully acted against the authorities and was governed by certain principles: there had to be justification and public announcement of the reprisals.

Let us turn, following the main scientific principle, to historical documents:

If you carefully study the newspaper clippings of those years, we are always talking about enemy combat units: those who are waging a specific fight against the new state, participating in the white movement, or committing other counter-revolutionary crimes prohibited by law.

Let us also pay attention to the method of carrying out terror. This is, as a rule, a court-martial, that is, execution on the spot. Google, on the other hand, returns child victims and sadistic pictures when searching for “red terror.”

True, it is not clear on what basis photographs of dug up corpses and severed fingers on the bodies of old women are attributed to the Red Terror, that is, the actions of the security officers.

This may well be nothing more than evidence of the brutal chaos of those years. The old government collapsed in the country, and the new one still did not control everything. Forest bandits, nationalists, city gangs and looters were active. Millions of people returned from the war fronts demoralized. The emperor who declared war renounced his country, and the conspirators who accepted the renunciation treacherously destroyed the army right during the fighting outside their native lands.

As a result, Russia not only did not receive the Bosporus and Dardanelles promised by its allies, but also abandoned all the conquests of the soldiers of the First World War. Why did almost three million Russians die, and seven million were wounded or captured?

Many became marginalized, poverty and ruin reigned everywhere, and millions of uncontrolled weapons were walking around the country, the large-scale production of which was launched for the First World War.

Unlike Kolchak’s punishers, who burn villages, torture and kill local men, women, and children, the security officers look like real fighters for establishing order in the newly established state. We will not take on the role of judges here, but at least in the context of what is happening in the country, described in detail above, such a fight may seem justified.

Chekists-Red Guards of the railway junction of the station. Chrysostom 1919

Various cultural and educational societies sponsored by the Soros, MacArthur foundations, the US government and others have said a lot about the Red Terror.

Now let us give the floor to the official position of the Soviet government.

As we see, there is no talk of any “billions of victims of Bolshevism” that liberal human rights activists constantly talk about.

However, let us briefly look at how anti-Soviet fables are created, using one specific example.

There is such a site “Historical Memory”. Its focus can be judged from its description:

Many problems of modern Russian society that interest us are mentioned here: the supernatural interest in “victims of the regime”, and “reconciliation”, and the Yeltsin Center, and the Higher School of Economics.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin taught to see the interests of certain classes behind any activity:

“People have always been and will always be stupid victims of deception and self-deception in politics until they learn to look for the interests of certain classes behind any moral, religious, political, social phrases, statements, promises.”

//Lenin V.I. Three sources and three components of Marxism // Complete. collection op. – T. 23. – P. 47.

In this vein, the partners of the mentioned Internet portal are interesting.

Special thanks to oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov for his participation in the creation of the site.

Here is the typical content of this site:

There is a caption under the photo:

In August 1918, after the assassination attempt on Lenin and the murder of Uritsky, the Bolsheviks announced an action of retaliation in the country - the Red Terror. Rybinsk did not stand aside either. On September 4, 1918, in the newspaper “Izvestia of the Rybinsk Council of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Red Army Deputies” a menacing notice from the Rybinsk District Military Commissariat appeared: “Red bloody terror is declared to everyone who lives on capital, exploiting the labor of others!” The trial of traitors will be brief and merciless - within 24 hours there will be a verdict and execution!”

The Rybinsk district emergency commission drew up a “planned order” for executions. The mass executions continued for two days. Both single and mass executions were carried out. The families of Rybinsk merchants Polenovs, Durdins, Zherebtsovs, Sadovs and others were shot.

The mechanism for carrying out the Red Terror was as follows. The chairman of the Rybinsk district Cheka, P. Golyshkov, called his subordinates and gave the order to shoot specific individuals. A firing squad of 4-5 security officers was assembled. This group went to a specific address, a search was carried out and valuable property was confiscated. Then the owner of the house or several family members were taken out of the house under the pretext of sending them to the Cheka for interrogation. However, those arrested were not taken to the Cheka, but to a forest or barn and shot there. Some of the property of the murdered was divided among the members of the firing squad, and some was handed over to the Cheka. On the way from the place of execution to the Cheka, members of the firing squad entered the house of one of the security officers, where they drank to the point of severe alcoholic intoxication. The Red Army soldiers from the military registration and enlistment office, who also participated in the Red Terror campaign, acted in a similar way.

Here's what really happened.

Popenov was not on the execution lists examined by a local historian. Then the granddaughter of this merchant appeared, who explained literally the following:

The family of Leonty Lukich Popenov was indeed shot. But not the whole family, but those who were at home when the bandits arrived. The Popenovs' house was located on the left bank of the Volga (opposite Rybinsk). They were photographed near their home. By the way, it was preserved. There has been a clinic there since the 1930s.
So, the head of the family, who was in the city at that moment, as well as his two daughters, who were in Rybinsk (at classes), were lucky to avoid execution. In addition, she was lucky that her eldest daughter, who was in Kyiv in 1918, got married in January 1911. And one more son survived, because... he served in the army. The First World War and the Civil War ended for him in Serbia.
L.L. Popenov buried his wife and murdered children in the fence of the Church of the Iveron Mother of God, located not far from their home, also on the left bank of the Volga.
The execution of the family of L.L. Popenov took place for the purpose of a banal robbery.
L. L. Popenov himself lived to a ripe old age and died at the age of more than 90 years (in 1942), buried near Moscow.

In this situation, the Rybinsk security officers were credited with something that they did not do, and Popenov lived in Soviet Russia until a very old age, and no one executed him just because he was a merchant under the capitalist system.

This is how historical myths are created.

Instead of a conclusion

After the end of the Civil War, the Red Terror was curtailed.

Is it possible for the Soviet state to return to a new wave of terror? Lenin answered this question prophetically. The first People's Commissar of the USSR - to the last People's Commissar of the USSR I.V. Stalin:

“Terror was imposed on us by Entente terrorism, when world-powerful powers attacked us with their hordes, stopping at nothing. We could not have held out even for two days if these attempts by the officers and White Guards had not been responded to in a merciless manner, and this meant terror, but this was imposed on us by the terrorist methods of the Entente. And as soon as we won a decisive victory, even before the end of the war, immediately after the capture of Rostov, we abandoned the use of the death penalty...

And I think, hope and am confident that the All-Russian Central Executive Committee will unanimously confirm this measure of the Council of People's Commissars and resolve it in such a way that the use of the death penalty in Russia becomes impossible.

It goes without saying that any attempt by the Entente to resume the methods of war will force us to resume the previous terror. We know that we live in a time of predation, when kind words are not acted upon; This is what we had in mind, and as soon as the decisive struggle was over, we immediately began to abolish the measures that are applied indefinitely in all other powers.”

Report on the work of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars // Lenin V.I. PSS vol. 40. P. 101)

What remains for us is to study history well in order to clearly determine where good and evil are, and to preserve the values ​​of the victory of the Great October Revolution, which our ancestors achieved with such difficulty and with such losses.

Terror "Red" and "White"

What are the causes of the Red and White Terrors? IN AND. Lenin stated that the Red Terror during the Civil War in Russia was forced and became a response to the actions of the White Guards and interventionists.

According to the Russian emigration (S.P. Melgunov), for example, the Red Terror had an official theoretical justification and was systemic, governmental in nature, while the White Terror was characterized “as excesses based on unbridled power and revenge.”

For this reason, the Red Terror was superior to the White Terror in its scale and cruelty.

At the same time, a third point of view arose, according to which any terror is inhuman and should be abandoned as a method of struggle for power. The very comparison “one terror is worse (better) than another” is incorrect. No terror has the right to exist. The call of General L.G. is very similar to each other. Kornilov to the officers (January 1918) “do not take prisoners in battles with the Reds” and the confession of the security officer M.I. Latsis that similar orders regarding whites were resorted to in the Red Army.

The quest to understand the origins of the tragedy has given rise to several research explanations. R. Conquest, for example, wrote that in 1918-1820. The terror was carried out by fanatics, idealists - “people in whom one can find some features of a kind of perverted nobility.” Among them, according to the researcher, is Lenin.

I will give only some instructions written by V.I. Lenin. In a note to the Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic E.M. Sklyansky (August 1920) V.I. Lenin, assessing the plan born in the depths of this department, instructed:

In a secret letter to members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) dated March 19, 1922, V.I. Lenin proposed taking advantage of the famine in the Volga region and confiscating church valuables.

This action, in his opinion, “must be carried out with merciless determination, certainly stopping at nothing and in the shortest possible time. The more representatives of the reactionary clergy and the reactionary bourgeoisie we manage to shoot on this occasion, the better. It is now necessary to teach this public a lesson so that for several decades they will not dare to think about any resistance.”

Stalin perceived Lenin's recognition of state terror as a highly governmental matter, power based on force and not on law.

It is difficult to name the first acts of red and white terror. They are usually associated with the beginning of the civil war in the country. Terror was carried out by everyone: officers - participants in the ice campaign of General Kornilov; security officers who received the right of extrajudicial execution; revolutionary courts and tribunals.

It is characteristic that the Cheka’s right to extrajudicial killings, composed by L.D. Trotsky, signed by V.I. Lenin; the tribunals were given unlimited rights by the People's Commissar of Justice; The resolution on the Red Terror was endorsed by the People's Commissars of Justice, Internal Affairs and the head of the Council of People's Commissars (D. Kursky, G. Petrovsky, V. Bonch-Bruevich).

The leadership of the Soviet Republic officially recognized the creation of a non-legal state, where arbitrariness became the norm and terror was the most important tool for maintaining power. Lawlessness was beneficial to the warring parties, as it allowed any actions by reference to the enemy.

The commanders of all the armies appear to have never been subject to any control. We are talking about the general savagery of society. The reality of the civil war shows that the differences between good and evil have faded. Human life has become devalued. The refusal to see the enemy as a human being encouraged violence on an unprecedented scale. Settling scores with real and imagined enemies has become the essence of politics. The civil war meant the extreme bitterness of society and especially its new ruling class.

Murder of M.S. Uritsky and the assassination attempt on Lenin on August 30, 1918 provoked an unusually brutal response. In retaliation for the murder of Uritsky, up to 900 innocent hostages were shot in Petrograd.

A significantly larger number of victims is associated with the assassination attempt on Lenin. In the first days of September 1918, 6,185 people were shot, 14,829 were sent to prison, 6,407 were sent to concentration camps, and 4,068 people became hostages. Thus, attempts on the lives of Bolshevik leaders contributed to the rampant mass terror in the country. war white army

At the same time as the Reds, white terror was rampant in the country. And if the Red Terror is considered to be the implementation of state policy, then it should probably be taken into account that whites in 1918-1919. also occupied vast territories and declared themselves as sovereign governments and state entities.

The forms and methods of terror were different. But they were also used by adherents of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch in Samara, the Provisional Regional Government in the Urals), and especially by the white movement.

The coming to power of the founders in the Volga region in the summer of 1918 was characterized by reprisals against many Soviet workers. Some of the first departments created by Komuch were state security, military courts, trains and “death barges”. On September 3, 1918, they brutally suppressed the workers' uprising in Kazan.

The political regimes established in 1918 in Russia are quite comparable, primarily in their predominantly violent methods of resolving issues of organizing power.

Red terror.

One of the most difficult and destructive manifestations of the civil war was terror, the sources of which were both the cruelty of the lower classes and the directed initiative of the leadership of the warring parties. This initiative was especially evident among the Bolsheviks. The Red Terror newspaper of November 1, 1918 frankly admitted: “We are not waging war against individuals. We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class. During the investigation, do not look for materials and evidence that the accused acted in deed or word against the Soviets. The first question you should ask him is what class he belongs to, what origin, upbringing or profession he is. These questions should determine the fate of the accused. This is the meaning and essence of the Red Terror.”

The Bolsheviks rigidly and assertively implemented their theoretical ideas in practice. In addition to a variety of sanctions against direct participants in the anti-Bolshevik movements, they widely used the hostage system. For example, after the murder of M. Uritsky, 900 hostages were shot in Petrograd, and in response to the murder (in Berlin!) of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the Tsaritsyn Council ordered the execution of all hostages under arrest. After the assassination attempt on Lenin, several thousand people were executed in different cities. The anarchist terrorist attack on Leontievsky Lane in Moscow (September 1919) resulted in the execution of a large number of those arrested, the vast majority of whom had nothing to do with the anarchists. The number of similar examples is large.

Executions were associated not only with hostage taking. In St. Petersburg, Odessa, Sevastopol, Kiev, mass executions of officers took place in 1918; after the workers' strike in Astrakhan in 1919 - only according to official data - over 4 thousand people were shot. “Ruthless mass terror” was declared against the Cossacks.

Repression affected both entire sections of the population and individuals. On the night of July 16-17, 1918 in Yekaterinburg, Nicholas II and his family were shot in the basement of the Ipatiev House. Even earlier, on the night of June 12-13, on the outskirts of Perm, the last of the Romanovs who bore the title of emperor, Mikhail, was shot.

Repressive actions were initiated by the central and local bodies of the Bolshevik government, but no less often they were manifestations of the cruelty of ordinary participants in the war. “A special commission to investigate the “atrocities of the Bolsheviks,” which worked in 1919 under the leadership of Baron P. Wrangel, identified numerous cases of cruel, bordering on sadism, treatment of the population and prisoners by the Red Army. On the Don, in the Kuban, in the Crimea, the commission received materials testifying to the mutilation and murder of the wounded in hospitals, to the arrests and executions of everyone who was pointed out as opponents of the Bolshevik government - often together with their families. All executions, as a rule, were accompanied by requisitions of property. White Terror Cruelty was also inherent in whites. Orders to bring prisoners from among those who voluntarily joined the Red Army to court martial were signed by Admiral Kolchak. Reprisals against the villages that rebelled against Kolchak’s followers were carried out in 1919 by General Maikovsky. Several concentration camps were created in Siberia for Bolshevik sympathizers. In the Makeevsky district in November 1918, a commandant from General Krasnov’s close circle published an order with the words “... all arrested workers should be hanged on the main street and not removed for three days.” At the same time, the whites did not have organizations like the Cheka, revolutionary tribunals and revolutionary military councils. The top leadership of the White movement did not make calls for terror, hostages, or executions. At first, the whites, despite all the inhumanity of the civil strife, tried to adhere to legal norms. But the defeats of the Whites at the fronts “opened an abyss of despair before them” - they could not count on the mercy of the Bolsheviks. Doom pushed whites to commit crimes. The Ataman regime brought a lot of suffering to the civilian population of Siberia. Robberies, pogroms and brutal executions accompanied Grigoriev's uprising in Ukraine. “The white movement was started almost by saints, and it ended almost by robbers,” one of the “white” ideologists, Vladimir Shulgin, bitterly admitted.

Many figures of Russian culture spoke out against the senseless cruelty of the civil war - V. Korolenko, I. Bunin, M. Voloshin and others. “Russian cruelty” was branded by M. Gorky. The total losses in the civil war, which was fratricidal in nature, amounted to about 10% of the country's population (more than 13 million people).

Having shot the royal family - a symbol of the Divine principle in the earthly world, the people renounced God and lost what was sacred in their souls. Like foam, all the dark sides of human life surfaced: cruelty, aggression, cowardice, selfishness, sexual promiscuity. Values ​​that had existed for centuries - the institution of family, the culture and traditions of the peoples of multinational Russia, deep faith in God - all this was practically destroyed literally in the decade that followed the revolutions of 1917.

What an expert on the civil war says:

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

Interview with the famous historian of the Civil War, Doctor of Historical Sciences Sergei Vladimirovich Volkov. The interview is conducted by the coordinator of the People's Council movement Artyom Perevoshchikov.

A.P.: Sergei 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 members of the intelligentsia began much earlier, and often took place with the participation of Soviet authorities. Can we say that they had nothing to do with the “Red Terror”, and it really only began on September 5?

S.V.: In fact, the policy of exterminating groups dangerous to the Bolsheviks began even before they took power. In accordance with Lenin’s instructions (based on the experience of 1905), priority attention was naturally paid to the physical and moral destruction of the officers: “We must not preach passivity, not simply “waiting” for the army to “pass over” - no, we must call all the bells are about the need for a bold offensive and attack with weapons in hand, about the need to exterminate the commanders.”

As a result of the Bolshevik agitation at the front, several hundred officers were killed and no less committed suicide (there are more than 800 registered cases alone). Officers became the main targets of the Red Terror immediately after the October coup. In the winter of 1917-1918 and spring of 1918, many of them died on the way from the disintegrated front on trains and at railway stations, where a real “hunt” for them was practiced: such reprisals then occurred every day. At the same time, there was a mass extermination of officers in a number of localities: Sevastopol - 128 people. December 16-17, 1917 and more than 800 January 23-24, 1918, other cities of Crimea - about 1,000 in January 1918, Odessa - more than 400 in January 1918, Kiev - 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 bulk of the reprisals against the “class enemy” were carried out by local military revolutionary committees, the command of individual red detachments and groups simply propagated in the appropriate spirit “ conscious fighters,” who, guided by a “revolutionary sense of justice,” carried out arrests and executions.

According to the information from the Bolshevik newspapers themselves, it is not difficult to verify that group executions were carried out along the Cheka line long before the official announcement of the “Red Terror” and even before the first execution of the officers of the Life Guards, announced later. 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 “Execution of seven students” it is clear that they were caught in the apartment while drawing up a proclamation to the population, after which they were taken away by employees Cheka to one of the vacant lots, where they were shot, and the names of two were not even established). In the summer, executions were carried out in hundreds (for example, in the Kazan organization, the Yaroslavl case and many others), i.e. when, according to later statements, only 22 people were allegedly shot. According to random and very incomplete data published in Soviet newspapers alone, 884 people were shot during this time.

More than two months before the official proclamation of terror, Lenin (in a letter to Zinoviev dated June 26, 1918) wrote that “we must encourage the energy and mass character of terror against counter-revolutionaries, and especially in St. Petersburg, whose example is decisive.”

That is, mass terror even before the fall was a 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 the goal of 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 “terrorism” is interpreted quite broadly and usually refers to a variety of actions, it is necessary, first of all, to specify what is meant in this case.

Etymologically, the term "terror" refers to actions aimed at intimidating an enemy into behaving in a certain way. Such actions as murders of officials, terrorist acts (explosions, etc.), shootings of hostages can therefore be considered as its manifestations. However, not all repressions, even those of a mass nature, can be considered terror: what is important is the motivation, the way the repressive party voices their direction.

“It was a time called by one of the eyewitnesses “a wild orgy of red terror.” It was alarming and scary at night to hear, and sometimes to be present, as dozens of people were taken to be shot. Cars arrived and took away their victims, and the prison did not sleep and trembled with every car horn. If they enter the cell and demand someone “with things” into the “room of souls” - that means to be shot. And there they will tie them together in pairs with wire. If you only knew what a horror it was!”

True terror (in the sense of “intimidation”) is not equivalent to the concept of “mass repression”; it implies instilling total fear not in real fighters against the regime (they already know about the consequences and are ready for them), but in entire social, religious or ethnic communities. In one case, the government demonstrates its intention to exterminate its political opponents, in the second - to exterminate in general all representatives of a particular community, except those who will serve it faithfully. This is the difference between “ordinary” repression and terrorism.

Specifics of the Bolshevik policy of 1917-1922. consisted of an attitude according to which people were subject to destruction by the very fact of belonging to certain social strata, except for those representatives who “proved by deed” their devotion to Soviet power. It is this feature, which (since it became possible to talk about it) was obscured in every possible way by representatives of Soviet-communist propaganda and their followers, who sought to “dissolve” these specific social aspirations of the Bolsheviks in the general mass of “cruelties” of the Civil War and, completely mixing different things, they liked to talk about “red and white terror.”

Civil wars, like any “irregular” wars, are, indeed, usually characterized by a relatively more brutal nature. Things like executions of prisoners, extrajudicial executions of political opponents, taking hostages, etc. to a greater or lesser extent are characteristic of all parties involved. And in the Russian Civil War, whites, naturally, also happened to do this, especially to individuals taking revenge for slaughtered families, etc. But the essence of the matter is that the red attitude implied, as far as possible, the complete elimination of “harmful” classes and population groups, and the white one meant the elimination of the bearers of such an attitude.

The fundamental difference between these positions follows from the equally fundamental difference in the goals of the struggle: “world revolution” versus “United and Indivisible Russia,” the idea of ​​class struggle versus the idea of ​​national unity in the fight against an external enemy. If the first necessarily presupposes and requires the extermination of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people (of a wide variety of beliefs), then the second only requires the liquidation of the functionaries of the specific 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” (a manufacturer who dreams of killing his workers is quite difficult to imagine; and 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 also from the point of view of its “class” interests there is simply no reason).

A.P.: Modern apologists of Bolshevism like to claim that the “Red Terror” was a response to the “White Terror” and is comparable in number of victims. How true are their statements?

S.V.: Well, the “answer” was, to put it mildly, strange. The official reason for declaring the “Red Terror” was, as we know, the murder of Uritsky and the assassination attempt on Lenin - both actions carried out by the Socialist Revolutionaries. “In response,” several thousand people were shot over the course of several days, who had not the slightest connection either with the Social Revolutionaries or with 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 tsarist dignitaries and officers (at one time the main target of the Socialist-Revolutionaries), then such an “answer” hardly needs comment.

It is generally inappropriate to talk about “red and white terror”, because We are talking about phenomena of a completely different order. But this combination has become a favorite in certain circles, since with this approach the murder of a couple of Bolshevik bosses and the execution of several thousand unrelated people turn out to be equivalent phenomena.

Let’s say, the Bolsheviks are organizing a meat grinder in Kyiv before the fall of the city - thousands of corpses, the mass of which they didn’t even have time to bury. The whites come, arrest and shoot 6 people convicted of participating in this “action” - and here you go (and better with reference to some “progressive writer” like Korolenko): “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 it thus turns out to be the cause of the red one (if they had not resisted, they would not have had to shoot). A gang of international criminals, captivated by the crazy idea of ​​a “world revolution”, seizes power in Petrograd, and the next day those who did not agree to be considered “the authorities” are declared criminals - bandits and terrorists. This is the logic...

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

S.V.: In fact, it was carried out from 1917 to 1922, i.e. from the beginning of the coup to the end of the Civil War (officially from the autumn of 1918 to January 1920). If we proceed from the social meaning of 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 early 30s (when this task was completed).

Total number of victims of the Red Terror 1917-1922. quite difficult to determine. It consisted not only of those shot by the Cheka, as well as according to the verdicts of revolutionary tribunals and military courts (of which there is a rough idea from various documents and personal records), but also from victims of massacres in areas occupied by the Red troops, 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 20-30s, the Bolsheviks (to the chagrin of their later apologists) were not at all embarrassed by either the “Red Terror” itself or its “mass character”, but, on the contrary, as is easy to conclude from their presses were proud of the scale of achievements in the spirit of “that real, nationwide terror that truly renews the country, with which the Great French Revolution made itself famous” (this is exactly how Lenin saw terror long before 1917), and left behind very eloquent documents.

For the period 1917-1922. perhaps we can highlight four “spikes” of terror in terms of 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 late 1920 - early 1921. (mass executions after the evacuation of the white armies in Crimea and Arkhangelsk province).

At the same time, the autumn of 1918 hardly ranks first in terms of the number of victims; simply due to the circumstances, it was the best covered. In the newspapers of that time you can find information about dozens of people shot at the crest of the September-October terror in almost all district cities, and about hundreds in regional ones. In a number of cities (Usman, Kashin, Shlisselburg, Balashov, Rybinsk, Serdobsk, Cheboksary) the “sub-shooting” contingent was completely exhausted. In Petrograd, with the announcement of the “Red Terror” on September 2, 1918, according to official reports, 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 local councils 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, 10-15 were executed every day in Petrovsky Park.

From the beginning of 1919, central newspapers began to publish fewer reports about executions, since the district 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, not all those 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 100-150 years with a list of 19, etc.). In the first three months of 1919, according to newspaper estimates, 13,850 people were shot.

“The massacre went on for months. The deadly clicking of a machine gun could be 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 “Red Terror in Russia” by Sergei Melgunov

In 1919, the terror, somewhat weakened in central Russia due to a significant depletion of the supply of victims and the need to preserve the lives of some officers for use in the Red Army, spread to the territory of Ukraine occupied by the Bolsheviks. “Routine” executions began immediately after the occupation of the corresponding cities, but a mass campaign, similar to the autumn of 1918, began in the summer, when white troops went on the offensive and began to clear Ukraine of the Bolsheviks: the latter were in a hurry to exterminate in the areas they still held all potentially hostile elements (indeed, 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 Kiev 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 identified. In Ekaterinoslav, before the Whites occupied it, more than 5 thousand people died, in Kremenchug - up to 2,500. In Kharkov, before the Whites arrived, 40-50 people were shot daily, over 1,000 in total. In Chernigov, before the Whites occupied it, over 1,500 were shot people, in Volchansk - 64. In Odessa, in three months from April 1919, 2,200 people were shot, lists of several dozen executed 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 of the death penalty (formally from January 15 to May 25, 1920, but which, of course, no one actually abolished - Izvestia reported that 521 people were executed from January to May) a campaign was held in prisons. a wave of executions, more than 300 people died in Moscow alone, 400 in Petrograd, 52 in Saratov, etc. From May to September 1920, according to official data, military revolutionary tribunals alone executed 3,887 people. Executions carried out after the end of hostilities were especially widespread, especially at the end of 1920 - beginning of 1921. in Crimea, where about 50 thousand people were killed. and in the Arkhangelsk province (where, in addition to the captured ranks of General Miller’s Northern Army, those arrested during the mass campaign in the summer of 1920 in the Kuban, the ranks of the Ural Army who surrendered at the beginning of 1920, and other “counter-revolutionaries” were transported).

This short film tells about the activities of one of the “furies of the red terror,” Rosalia Zalkind, who was responsible for carrying out mass executions of residents of the peninsula and captured officers of the Russian army by P. N. Wrangel in Crimea:

The total number of victims of the “Red Terror” over these five years is estimated at approximately 2 million people (according to various estimates 1.7 – 1.8 million), and I believe that it is close to reality. Of course, there are more significant figures, but I think that they also include victims of this kind, such as death from hunger and disease of family members of those executed who were left without a means of subsistence, etc.

A.P.: Is it possible to talk about the “Red Terror” as a genocide of the Russian people, since it was primarily the most educated and active layers of society that came under attack?

S.V.: We can say that the “Red Terror” was a large-scale campaign of repression by the Bolsheviks, built along social lines 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 was swinging towards 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 incriminating evidence in the case about whether he rebelled against the Council with weapons or words. The first thing you must ask him is to what class he belongs, what is his origin, what is his education and what is his profession. These are the questions that 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 “social aliens”, the second (members of non-Bolshevik parties, peasants who did not want to give up their property, in general all sorts of “dissenters”) - as "competitors". I don’t know to what extent we can talk about “genocide” (this word has become too fashionable and is not always used in its strict meaning - extermination on a national basis), but the fact that monstrous damage was inflicted on Russia’s genetic fund, which has not been compensated to this day, seems to me beyond doubt.

A.P.: Our revolutionaries loved to appeal to the French Revolution. Did the Russian revolutionary terror repeat the French one or were there significant differences?

S.V.: 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, country-renewing”) terror that they were inspired by. Therefore, of course, there were similar features, as there are in all truly massive repressions. 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, nobles made up only 8-9% of all victims of revolutionary terror. So in Russia, since the policies of the Bolsheviks caused discontent among the broadest strata of society, primarily the peasantry, then, although in percentage terms (relative to their own numbers) the educated strata suffered the greatest losses, in absolute terms most of the victims of terror were the workers and peasants - the absolute majority were killed after the suppression of hundreds of different uprisings (in Izhevsk alone, 7,983 family members of the rebel workers were killed). Among approximately 1.7-1.8 million of all those executed during these years, people belonging to the educated strata accounted for only approximately 22% (about 440 thousand people).

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

From the editor

But when it comes to eliminating the former elite, the Bolsheviks far surpassed their teachers. The eradication of the Russian service class and the cultural stratum in general in the revolutionary and subsequent years was radical in nature, many times exceeding the indicators of the French Revolution of the late 18th century (in 1789-1799, 3% of all nobles died from repression there, two to three tens of thousands of people emigrated ). In Russia, firstly, a much higher percentage of the old cultural layer was physically destroyed (in addition to those shot and killed, an even larger number died from hunger and disease caused by the events), and secondly, the emigration of representatives of this layer was on an incomparably wider scale, calculated no less than 0.5 million people, not counting those remaining in the territories that were not part of the USSR. Russia lost more than half of its elite, and the absolute majority of the rest were socially “lowered” (it is characteristic that if in France, even 15-20 years after the revolution, over 30% of officials were those who had previously served in the royal administration, then in Russia only 12 years later after the revolution there were less than 10% of them).

Such a difference, however, naturally followed from the essence of the French and Russian revolutions: if the French revolution was carried out under national and patriotic slogans, and the word “patriot” there was equivalent to the word “revolutionary”, then the Bolshevik revolution - under slogans openly hostile to Russian statehood as such - the name of the International and the world revolution, and the word “patriot” was then equivalent to the word “counter-revolutionary”.