For modern domestic media serving the ruling elite, the October Revolution was a putsch that was forcefully imposed on a passive society by a bunch of cynical conspirators who did not have any real support in the country.
This putsch, and the media do not call the October Revolution otherwise, crossed out the natural path of development of rich, hardworking pre-revolutionary Russia, which was on the right path to democracy.
Within the framework of these views, a myth developed about the civil war, in which the Bolshevik party, using “red” terror, defeated the bourgeois “white” parties. The victims of the Red Terror were 20 million citizens, including a million Cossacks, destroyed as a class, and 300 thousand Russian priests, killed for their faith.
The purpose of this myth was to demonstrate the final break of the current elite, almost entirely consisting of the Soviet nomenklatura, with the Soviet system that gave birth to it and a symbolic transition to the side of its irreconcilable enemies.
As always, in well-constructed, historical myths, this myth contains elements of truth, thickly mixed with malicious lies and unreliable information.
Indeed, the main opposing forces in the civil war were the “reds” and the “whites”.
Indeed, according to various sources, between 15 and 20 million people died in the civil war.
Indeed, the Bolsheviks announced the introduction of Red Terror.
To understand a myth, it is necessary to clarify the basic concepts used in it.
About the warring forces. The left Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists participated in the coalition with the Bolsheviks. In addition to the whites and reds, various nationalists and “greens” took part in the civil war. The White coalition was represented by a whole spectrum of parties of various orientations, from monarchists and Cadets, to Socialist Revolutionaries and Social Democrats. In the ranks of the Whites, from the end of 1918, the so-called “democratic revolution” declared the need to fight both against the Bolsheviks and against the generals’ dictatorship.
A civil war is always a tragedy, the collapse of statehood, a social catastrophe, unrest, the decomposition of society, accompanied by terror.
About terror. This term covers two fundamentally different phenomena. Terror is the name given to mass repressions officially applied by the government on the territory it controls.
Another meaning of the word terror is demonstrative murders or attempted murders of political opponents. The first type of terror is usually called state terror, and the second - individual terror.
Civil war is always accompanied by terror. First of all, state terror in territories controlled by the warring forces. However, the creators of myths try to classify “red” terror as “institutional” terror, and define “white” terror as “secondary, retaliatory and conditioned by the vicissitudes of the civil war.” But this position does not stand up to criticism. I will refer to a serious study of this issue: “A review of the legislative acts of white governments contradicts the judgments about the absence of an “institutional component” of white terror, about its supposedly exclusively “hysterical” form.”
(Tsvetkov V. Zh. White terror - crime or punishment? The evolution of judicial and legal norms of responsibility for state crimes in the legislation of white governments in 1917-1922)
Individual terror, as is known, was widely used by the Socialist Revolutionary Party. The Bolsheviks, and above all, V.I. Lenin denied the usefulness of individual terror in political struggle.
The excesses of an armed mob that kills officers, for example, for calling for the continuation of the imperialist war, can hardly be attributed to terror of the first or second type. It should be classified as a third type of terrorism, rooted in the depths of history, marked by the centuries-old hatred of peasants for landowners, distrust of the city, and of any form of government intervention. This anarchic, peasant terrorism was quite widespread during the Civil War, but it would be wrong to attribute it to the Bolsheviks. As M. Gorky wrote in the brochure “On the Russian Peasantry”:
“I explain the cruelty of the forms of the revolution by the exceptional cruelty of the Russian people. The tragedy of the Russian revolution is played out among “semi-savage people... When the leaders of the revolution - a group of the most active intelligentsia - are accused of “atrocities” - I consider this accusation as lies and slander, inevitable in the struggle of political parties , or - among honest people - as a conscientious delusion... A recent slave became the most unbridled despot as soon as he acquired the opportunity to be the ruler of his neighbor."
Banal banditry, of which millions of people became victims during the civil war, has much in common with anarchist terrorism, but unlike terrorism, the motivating force of banditry is self-interest. At the same time, not only criminals, but also sometimes representatives of armed formations of various colors, green and white, red and anarchists, took part in banditry.
The reasons for the widespread use of terror to the detriment of legal methods of resolving social and political conflicts in Russia are fully explained by Herzen’s statement: “The legal insecurity that has weighed heavily on the people from time immemorial was a kind of school for them. The flagrant injustice of one half of his laws taught him to hate the other; he submits to them as a force. Complete inequality before the court killed all respect for the rule of law. A Russian, no matter what his rank, circumvents and breaks the law wherever this can be done with impunity, and the government does exactly the same.”
The well-known denouncer of the Bolsheviks S.P. Melgunov in the book “Red Terror” writes: “Bloody statistics, in essence, cannot yet be counted, and it is unlikely that they will ever be counted.”
Dzerzhinsky’s note, submitted to the Council of People’s Commissars in February 1922, summarizing the work of the Cheka, states: “Under the assumption that the old hatred of the proletariat against the enslavers will result in a whole series of unsystematic bloody episodes, and the excited elements of popular anger will sweep away not only enemies, but also friends , not only hostile and harmful elements, but also strong and useful ones, I sought to systematize the punitive apparatus of the revolutionary government.” Essentially, he agrees with Lenin’s observations given in the description of myth 5 about the mood of the armed people. To prevent bloody excesses caused by the people’s hatred of politicians who do not want to listen to their aspirations, it is necessary to channel anger into a legal framework. The declaration of the “Red Terror” by the decree of the Council of People’s Commissars on September 5, 1918 was a step in this direction. The “Red” Terror set itself the task. combating counter-revolution, profiteering and ex officio crimes by isolating “class enemies” in concentration camps and by physically exterminating “all persons connected with White Guard organizations, conspiracies and rebellions.” The basis for declaring “red” terror was “white” terror. The murder of Socialist-Revolutionary Kanegiser Uritsky, the attempt on V.I. Lenin, the Socialist-Revolutionary Kaplan, the uprising in Yaroslavl raised by the Socialist-Revolutionary terrorist B. Savinkov.
How many people became victims of terror during the Civil War?
S.P. In 1918, Melgunov cites the number of people executed by the Bolsheviks as 5,004. Of these, 19 are priests. At the same time, he adds that this is only the data that he was able to document,
Latsis, referring to the publication of “execution” lists, for the first half of 1918, that is, before the murder of Uritsky and the assassination attempt on Lenin, names 22 executed (the execution was legalized on June 18, 1918), and for the second half of the year, after the announcement of the “red » Terror - 4,500 executed. In total, taking into account those executed in north-eastern Russia, data on which were not included in the initial figures, Latsis gives the figure 6185. As you can see, the discrepancy is not that big, and is quite explainable by different counting methodology. Consequently, Latsis’s data obtained from the registration of those repressed by the Cheka authorities can be trusted
Latsis claims that in 1919, according to the regulations of the CheK, 3,456 people were shot, i.e., in just two years, 9,641, of which 7,068 were counter-revolutionaries. Formally, the Red Terror was stopped on November 6, 1918.
Data on victims of the White Terror vary quite widely depending on the source. It is reported that in June 1918, supporters of the white movement in the territories they captured shot 824 people from among the Bolsheviks and sympathizers, in July 1918 - 4,141 people, in August 1918 - more than 6,000 people (Lantsov S. A. Terror and terrorists: Dictionary .. - St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg University Publishing House, 2004. - 187 p.)
For comparison, data on the statistics of executions of revolutionaries for two years in tsarist Russia, given by P.A. Sorokin in his testimony in the Conradi case of 1907 - 1139; 1908 - 1340;
During the civil war, mutual bitterness increased. Thus, a former Narodnaya Volya member, repeatedly arrested by both the tsarist secret police and the provisional government of V.L. Burtsev, wrote in his newspaper “Common Cause”: “It is necessary to respond to terror with terror... there must be revolutionaries ready for self-sacrifice in order to call Lenin and Trotsky, Steklov and Dzerzhinsky, Latsis and Lunacharsky, Kamenev and Kalinin, Krasin and Karakhan, Krestinsky and Zinoviev, etc."
If before August-September 1918 there were almost no mentions of local Chekas directing the murders, then from the summer of 1918 the flywheel of the “red” terror began to work at full speed. Indirectly, the scale of the Red Terror can be judged by calculating the number of punitive bodies of Soviet power, which by 1921 reached a maximum of 31 thousand people (at the end of February 1918, this number did not exceed 120 people).
In total, according to various archival sources, up to 50 thousand people died from the “red” terror.
According to V.V. Erlikhman, 300 thousand people died from “white” terror.
(Erlikhman V.V. “Population losses in the 20th century.” Directory - M.: Publishing House “Russian Panorama”, 2004.)
The bulk of human losses during the Civil War (from 15 to 20 million) were associated not with the “red” and “white” terror, but with hunger, typhus, and the Spanish flu. and the actions of the “greens” and other military formations. It is believed that about 2-3 million people died from the actions of the regular armies of the “white” and “red”.
Where do the figures repeated on TV come from about a million Cossacks executed or hundreds of thousands of Orthodox priests who died “for their faith”? The message about the Cossacks is based on a fake published in the 80s in a Canadian newspaper: “In Rostov, 300,000 Cossacks of the Don Army were captured, December 19, 1919. - In the Novocherkassk region, more than 200,000 Cossacks of the Don and Kuban troops are held captive. In the city of Shakhty and Kamensk, more than 500,000 Cossacks are held. Recently, about a million Cossacks surrendered. The prisoners are located as follows: in Gelendzhik - about 150,000 people, Krasnodar - about 500,000 people, Belorechenskaya - about 150,000 people, Maikop - about 200,000 people, Temryuk - about 50,000 people. I ask for sanctions."
Chairman of the V.Ch.K. Dzerzhinsky."
Lenin’s resolution in writing: “Shoot every single one. December 30, 1919.”
Neither the commission created by Denikin to document the victims of the “red” terror, nor Melgunov in his book “Red Terror” mentions anything about such massacres. Finally, there is no information about mass graves of Cossacks in the indicated areas, and no one has ever seen the original document. It should be noted that the population of most of these settlements is less than the stated numbers of prisoners.
The situation is similar with the 300 thousand Russian priests tortured for their faith. I quote: “We’ll probably have to wait until geniuses appear who will describe, like Tolstoy, the battle of Austerlitz, the death of three hundred thousand Russian priests who did not betray the faith. In the meantime, thank God, we have Solzhenitsyn, Shalamov... And, thank God, they are in school curricula! (Vice President of Lyubimov’s Media Union, Zelinskaya. Foma Magazine)
There is not a single document from which it follows that repressions against the clergy were carried out because of their faith. Priests were shot for participating in hostilities, for anti-Soviet agitation and calls in sermons to fight the authorities by armed means; there were numerous cases of murder for criminal reasons. Church historian D.V. Pospelovsky (member of the board of trustees of the St. Philaret Orthodox Christian Institute) wrote in 1994 that “during the period from January 1918 to January 1919, the following died: Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev, 18 archbishops and bishops, 102 parish priests, 154 deacons and 94 monastics of both sexes." The accuracy of the calculations is questionable, but it is clear that the historian did not find thousands of those executed. And where would 300 thousand priests come from, if in Russia in 1917 there were about 100 thousand clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the entire clergy with their families amounted to about 600 thousand people?
So why is Mrs. Zelinskaya lying? The question is rhetorical, but, involuntarily, casts a shadow of doubt on the veracity of the publications of honored writers from the school curriculum.
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, Kyiv, 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 Makeyevsky district in November 1918, a commandant close to General Krasnov 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.
Russia and the world. Bolsheviks and the world revolution
The Bolsheviks viewed the civil war solely as an international, and not a domestic, phenomenon. On the eve of the October revolution, Lenin wrote that the seizure of power by the proletariat in one country should only be the beginning of a whole series of wars in other countries, and the goal of these wars is “to finally defeat and expropriate the bourgeoisie throughout the world.” It was this position that dictated the Bolsheviks’ specific approaches to all issues of their policy, including foreign policy.
The political behavior of the Bolsheviks was based on an unquestionable confidence in the coming world revolution. Having invited Germany and its allies to negotiations in Brest, the Bolsheviks delayed the negotiations in every possible way, expecting a revolution in Germany from day to day. Lenin pointed out in his theses: “Mass strikes in Austria and Germany... From this fact follows the possibility for us to delay and drag out peace negotiations for a certain period yet.” G. Zinoviev later testified: “... at the time of the Brest-Litovsk Peace, Vladimir Ilyich believed that the question of the victory of the proletarian revolution in Europe was a matter of two or three months... In the Central Committee of the party, everyone spent hours counting the development of events in Germany and Austria. We believed that once we took power, then tomorrow we would untie the hands of the revolution in other countries.”
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918) greatly compromised the Bolsheviks, who gave the Baltic states, Finland, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus to the Germans and Transcaucasia to the Turks. The treaty provoked the Czechoslovaks into an armed uprising, and the Entente into intervention.
Whites and Entente
The Entente's intervention in Russian affairs had ambiguous consequences. Even during the First World War, the allies “showed interest” in bleeding Russia dry. Not wanting it to leave the war, they sided with the whites, but none of them, with the partial exception of France, was interested in the revival of a strong Russia as one of the decisive factors in international relations in the post-war era. Secret agreements were concluded on the division of spheres of influence in Russia. The interventionists plundered the country's natural resources, thereby discrediting the White movement. Foreign troops tried to avoid active actions against regular units of the Red Army. The scale of the “internal” war was many times greater than the scale of clashes with interventionists. There was no trust in the “allies” in the White movement; on the contrary, their behavior hurt the feelings of Russian patriots. Thus, Admiral A. Kolchak testified: “Vladivostok made an extremely difficult impression on me... It was our port, our city. Now anyone was in charge there. All the best houses, the best barracks, the best dams were occupied by the Czechs, the Japanese, the allied forces, and our situation was deeply humiliating, deeply sad. I felt that Vladivostok was no longer our Russian city... I could not treat this kindly... everything took on a deeply offensive and deeply difficult character for the Russians.”
In terms of propaganda, the Bolsheviks extracted everything possible from the fact of intervention, trying to disavow the patriotism of the white movement. They themselves appeared as patriots in the eyes of the population. At the same time, the Bolsheviks were not going to give up their strategic goals. The Second Program of the RCP(b), adopted in March 1919, recorded the following: “The era of the world, proletarian, communist revolution has begun.” They spoke about the inevitability, desirability and necessity of civil wars within individual countries and wars of proletarian states against capitalist states, united on the federal principles of the proletariat from the West.”
Culture and life
On the basis of Lenin’s concept of two cultures (bourgeois and proletarian), the Proletkult movement began to develop, which completely denied all previous culture, all the experience of previous generations. Proletkultism was associated with the idea that under socialism everything should be new - not like the old. A mechanical criterion appeared: since something took place before 1917, it means it is hostile to socialism. The idea was propagated that the true history of mankind began only in October 1917, and before that there was only some prehistory. The class approach in assessing any phenomena of Russian history was absolutized, and the very concept of “Russian history” was declared reactionary-monarchical.
The desire to tear the Russian people away from the historical tradition associated with Orthodoxy, as well as the “militant materialism” of the Bolsheviks, became the reasons for the most severe pressure on the Russian Orthodox Church.
Religious processions were prohibited, and the ringing of bells in all churches was cancelled. Church funds were confiscated. This caused widespread clashes between the authorities and believers.
Relations between the authorities and the church became extremely strained when a campaign began to liquidate the relics of Russian saints, who for centuries had been considered intercessors and guardians of the Russian land. This campaign was an open mockery and outrage against the feelings of believers, and was in no way consistent with the provisions of the decree on the separation of church and state. During 1919, 58 relics were opened and desecrated. An explosion of indignation among the population was caused by the autopsy - similar to a pogrom - of the relics of Sergius of Radonezh - one of the most revered saints in the Russian Orthodox Church. The “action was supported” by a unit of military cadets.
During 1918-1920, Patriarch Tikhon was twice brought before the courts of the Revolutionary Tribunal. These trials were of a propaganda nature. In the fall of 1918, the patriarch refused to bless the white movement, forbade priests to support both whites and reds, condemning fratricide. However, the Soviet authorities considered this position to be “indulgence in white terror” and declared Tikhon “the head of the counter-revolutionaries.”
During the years 1918-1920, 673 monasteries were closed, their premises were allocated for warehouses, shelters, barracks, prisons and concentration camps. Severe sanctions from punitive authorities were applied to monks who showed dissatisfaction.
Parallel to the destruction of the church there was a total destruction of traditional folk morality. That which was beneficial to the proletarian party was declared moral. When introducing a new way of life, they often “cut to the quick,” regardless of the habitual views of people. The “Down with Shame” society arose and free love was promoted. Discussions were held everywhere about the withering away of the family, which the most radically minded “innovators” declared as a relic of capitalism. Church rituals were persecuted - weddings, baptism of newborns, etc. Instead, new, “revolutionary” rituals were invented. Instead of baptism, the so-called “October” was introduced, when a child was accepted into the Komsomol from the cradle and given a “revolutionary” name. Instead of names from the Orthodox calendar, Revolutions, Dictatorships, and Hegemons appeared. Names arose derived from whole expressions: Ledat (L. D. Trotsky), Vilen (V. I. Lenin), Vector (Great Communism triumphs), Trolesin (Trotsky, Lenin, Zinoviev), Yaslenik (I am with Lenin and Krupskaya) etc.
War was declared on the entire Russian historical tradition. Already in 1918, a massive renaming of streets took place in St. Petersburg, Moscow and other cities. Trotsk, Zinovievsk, Uritsk, Zagorsk, etc. appeared. During the life of the “leaders,” monuments began to be built for them.
The unsuccessful attempts of the Bolsheviks to create a new culture from scratch, to implement fantastic projects in the field of culture, somewhat sobered up their leaders and made them understand that “the stick was gone too far.” Lenin criticized the Proletkult movement and abandoned it. He expressed the formula: “We must master the entire wealth of world culture.” However, by world culture, Lenin meant, first of all, European and Western models; he called for learning from Germany, the USA, and England. There was no talk about Russia's own historical experience.
The Bolsheviks set the task of giving culture a secular, mass, non-elite character. According to their plans, this task carried a considerable propaganda and political load. Nevertheless, the decision made it possible to introduce the broad masses of the people to its beginnings of “book” culture, contributed to the creation of a system of cultural and educational work, and the emergence of a network of libraries, clubs, and reading rooms. Lectures, conversations were held, propaganda plays and concerts were staged. The issue of eliminating illiteracy among the population was raised.
The Soviet government introduced censorship, closed anti-Bolshevik newspapers, and all published literature was controlled in terms of content. Nevertheless, the excitement in literary life did not subside. Poetry circles of futurists, acmeists, symbolists, and imagists continued to exist. Proletkult had to conduct creative searches in competition with other literary movements. V. Mayakovsky, A. Blok, S. Yesenin, N. Klyuev and others continued their work. Many writers did not accept the post-October reality and emigrated, among them I. Bunin, A. Kuprin, Al. Tolstoy and others. At the same time, new names appear on the literary horizon - M. Sholokhov, K. Fedin, L. Leonov, L. Seifulina, Vs. Ivanov and others. Their books were written in the spirit of realism and at the same time loyal to the new government.
In painting, in the wake of innovative searches, various directions manifested themselves - avant-gardeism (K. Petrov-Vodkin), impressionism (K. Korovin), abstractionism (V. Kandinsky, K. Malevich).
The theater business was being restructured. Although ballet and operetta were banned, the theater did not die. Many theater directors and actors recognized Soviet power. The theater was an area that was particularly affected by proletkult trends: impressionism of scenery prevailed on the stage, and there was a craze for revolutionary symbols. Free interpretations of the classics were commonplace.
Literary and theatrical life was characterized by activity. This looked rather paradoxical against the backdrop of the general collapse, especially in cities where there was no normal supply of food and industrial goods (even real famine), there was no electricity, and therefore lighting, sewage systems were damaged everywhere, and trams did not run. During the years of the civil war, money depreciated 1,614 times. The need to somehow survive forced many to obtain food by dishonest means, and there was a decline in public morality. At the same time, cultural life did not fade, the spiritual tone in society was high, which reflected people’s confidence that the difficulties of the historical moment would one way or another be overcome.
The terror carried out during the Russian Civil War is usually divided into red and white. Let's touch on red first. (Read also the articles White Terror during the Russian Civil War and Red and White Terror - a comparison.) Those interested can recommend the book by S.P. Melgunov “Red Terror”, which was based on the materials of the Denikin commission to investigate Bolshevik atrocities.
Terror, which had been gradually spreading since the victory of Soviet power, was openly introduced into the system immediately after the establishment of one-party rule - in the summer of 1918, along with surplus appropriation, prohibition of trade relations, committees etc. And just as surplus appropriation was not a consequence of famine (on the contrary, it was its cause), so the Red Terror was by no means a response to the White Terror, but an integral part of the new order created Bolsheviks. He was not a means to any end, but was the end himself. In the monstrous dystopia of the Leninist state, terror was supposed to destroy those parts of the population that do not fit into the scheme outlined by the Leader and are recognized as harmful and superfluous.
It wasn't yet terror of Stalin's camps using slave labor. According to Lenin's original plan, all of Russia was supposed to become such a camp, giving free labor and receiving rations of bread in return. People unsuitable for such a scheme simply had to be exterminated. The right to make plans was granted only to the party elite, and it was the thinking part of the population that turned out to be superfluous. First of all, the intelligentsia and other layers of citizens accustomed to thinking for themselves, for example, the cadre workers of Tula or Izhevsk, the wealthy part of the peasantry (“ fists"). The “Red Terror” did not just destroy people en masse – it destroyed the best. He killed the people's soul in order to replace it with a party propaganda surrogate. Ideally, a permanent punitive apparatus should have “cut off” everything that rose in the slightest degree above the obedient gray mass.
White Guard poster depicting the Red Terror
A very powerful repressive system was created during the Civil War: Cheka, people's courts, tribunals of several types, army special departments. Plus the rights of repression granted to commanders and commissars, party and Soviet commissioners, food detachments and barrier detachments, local authorities. The basis of this entire complex apparatus was the Cheka. They led a centralized politics terror.
The extent of the repressions can be judged from indirect data, since detailed data are still unavailable. Executioner Theorist Latsis in the book “Two Years of Struggle on the Internal Front” he cited the figure of 8,389 people executed. with many caveats.
Firstly, this number refers only to 1918 - the first half of 1919, i.e. does not take into account the summer of 1919, when many people were exterminated “in response” to Denikin’s offensive and Yudenich when, when the whites approached, hostages and prisoners were shot, drowned in barges, burned or exploded along with prisons (for example, in Kursk). The years 1920-1921, the years of the main reprisals against the defeated White Guards, members of their families and “accomplices,” are also not taken into account.
Secondly, the figures given refer only to the Cheka “in extrajudicial execution”; it does not include the actions of tribunals and other repressive bodies.
Thirdly, the number of those killed was given only for the 20 central provinces of Russia - not including the front-line provinces, Ukraine, Don, Siberia, etc., where the security officers had the most significant “amount of work.”
And fourthly, Latsis emphasized that these data are “far from complete.” Indeed, they look understated. In Petrograd alone, in only one campaign after assassination attempts on Lenin 900 people were shot.
The Red Terror was carried out according to the instructions of the government - either in massive waves throughout the state, or selectively, in certain regions - for example, during the " decossackization».
Decoration. Painting by D. Shmarin
Another feature is the reinforcement of the era’s terror with class theory. “Bourgeois” or “kulak” was declared a subhuman, a kind of inferior creature. Therefore, its destruction was not considered murder. As in Nazi Germany - the destruction of “racially inferior” peoples. From a “class” point of view, torture was considered acceptable. The question of their applicability was openly discussed in the press and was resolved positively. The range of them already in the Civil War was very diverse - torture by insomnia, light - car headlights in the face, a salty “diet” without water, hunger, cold, beatings, flogging, burning with a cigarette. Several sources talk about cabinets in which one could only stand upright (an option was to sit crouched) - and sometimes several people were squeezed into a “single” cabinet. Savinkov and Solzhenitsyn mention a “cork chamber,” hermetically sealed and heated, where the prisoner suffered from lack of air and blood came out of the pores of the body. Moral torture was also used: placement of men and women in a common cell with a single bucket, mockery, humiliation and mockery. Kneeling for many hours was practiced for arrested women from cultural backgrounds. Option - in the nude. And one of the Kyiv security officers, on the contrary, drove the “bourgeois women” into tetanus by interrogating them in the presence of naked girls groveling before him - not prostitutes, but the same “bourgeois women” whom he had broken before.
The writer N. Teffi recognized the commissar, who terrified the entire district of Unechi, as a quiet and downtrodden dishwasher who had always volunteered to help the cook cut chickens. “No one asked - she went willingly and never let her pass.” The portraits of security officers - sadists, cocaine addicts, half-mad alcoholics - are also not accidental. Just such people took positions according to their inclinations. And for massacres they tried to attract the Chinese or Latvians, since ordinary Red Army soldiers, despite being given vodka and permission to profit from the clothes and shoes of the victims, often could not stand it and ran away.
If torture remained at the level of “amateur” and experimentation, then the executions of the Civil War era were brought to a unified methodology. Already in 1919–1920. they were carried out in the same way in Odessa, Kyiv, and Siberia. The victims were stripped naked, laid face down on the floor and shot in the back of the head. Such uniformity suggests centralized guidelines, with the goal of maximum “savings” and “convenience.” One cartridge per person, a guarantee against unwanted incidents at the last moment, again - less writhing, does not cause inconvenience when falling. Only in mass cases did the form of murder differ - barges with pierced bottoms, rifle volleys or machine guns. However, even in 1919 before surrender of Kyiv, when in one fell swoop they threw many prisoners under the volleys of the Chinese, even in the prevailing rush, they did not forget to punctually undress those under execution. And during the period massacres in Crimea, when they drove crowds under machine guns every night, the doomed were forced to undress while still in prison, so as not to have to drive vehicles to get their things. And in winter, in the wind and frost, columns of naked men and women were driven to execution.
At the building of the Kharkov Cheka after the liberation of the city by the Whites. Summer 1919
This order fit perfectly into the projects of the new society and was justified by the same Bolshevik dystopia, which completely lost moral and ethical “remnants” and left only the principles of naked rationalism to the new state. Therefore, the system that destroys unnecessary people was obliged to scrupulously preserve everything that could be useful, not disdaining dirty linen. The clothes and shoes of those executed were collected and entered into the “asset” of the Cheka. A curious document accidentally ended up in the Complete Works of Lenin, vol. 51, p. 19:
“An invoice to Vladimir Ilyich from the economic department of the IBSC for the goods sold and released to you...”
Listed: boots - 1 pair, suit, suspenders, belt.
Total for 1 thousand 417 rubles. 75 kopecks."
One inevitably wonders who owned the Lenin coats and caps that were later exhibited in museums? Did they have time to cool down after the previous owner, when the leader pulled them on himself?
Based on materials from the book “White Guard” by V. Shambarov
the officially announced policy of the Soviet state to combat counter-revolution, profiteering and crime in office in September-November 1918, which provided for a set of extremely cruel repressive measures outside the judicial system. In a broader sense, the Red Terror refers to the entire repressive policy of the Bolsheviks during the Civil War of 1917-1922. According to the definition of the Chairman of the Cheka F.E. Dzerzhinsky, the main component of the Red Terror is “the intimidation, arrests and destruction of the enemies of the revolution on the basis of their class affiliation or their role in past pre-revolutionary periods” (Interview with an employee of Ukrrost, May 9, 1920).
The issue of unleashing terror against the “enemies of the revolution”, forcing civil servants to perform their duties (fighting sabotage), suppressing political opponents, etc. came on the agenda immediately after the Bolsheviks seized power. Unable to use other methods, the new government immediately switched to a punitive policy, simultaneously warning its opponents that it would intensify it if resistance did not stop. December 2, 1917 L.D. Trotsky publicly stated: “There is nothing immoral in the fact that the proletariat finishes off a declining class. It's his right. You are indignant... at the soft terror that we are directing against our class opponents, but know that in no more than a month this terror will take on more formidable forms, modeled on the terror of the great revolutionaries of France. Not a fortress, but a guillotine will be for our enemies.”
However, in 1918 the situation only became more complicated and constantly escalated; resistance to the Bolsheviks grew everywhere. Decree “The Socialist Fatherland is in Danger!” of February 21, 1918, stipulated that “enemy agents, speculators, thugs, hooligans, counter-revolutionary agitators, German spies are shot at the scene of the crime.” At the same time, the conflict between the Bolsheviks and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries deepened, with the latter traditionally paying great attention to terror and terrorist acts. The conflict ended in July with riots in Moscow, Yaroslavl and Simbirsk. Even before this, the Central Executive Committee established the Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal, which, with its first resolution on June 13, 1918, restored the death penalty. At the V All-Russian Congress of Soviets, held at the beginning of July 6, 1918, L.D. Trotsky called on the delegates to adopt a resolution: “All agents of foreign imperialism who will call for an offensive and resist the Soviet authorities with weapons in their hands will be shot on the spot.” The congress, however, limited itself to a resolution that the agitators would be “punished according to the laws of war.” At the same congress, speaking with a report on the activities of the Central Executive Committee, its chairman, Bolshevik Ya.M. Sverdlov, defending the restoration of the death penalty, pointed out that earlier (in 1917-1918) the death penalty was widely used, but without its official introduction, stated: “We can by no means point to the weakening of terror against all enemies of Soviet power, not at all to a weakening, but, on the contrary, to the most dramatic intensification of mass terror against the enemies of Soviet power... The widest circles of working Russia... will react with full approval to such measures as beheading, the shooting of counter-revolutionary generals and other counter-revolutionaries.” After the end of the congress (June 26, 1918), V.I. Lenin wrote to the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Communes of the Northern Region G.E. Zinoviev: “We must encourage the energy and mass character of terror against counter-revolutionaries.”
On the need for mass terror in person V.I. Lenin insisted constantly. For example, on August 8, 1918, he wrote to G.F. Nizhny Novgorod. Fedorov: “A White Guard uprising is clearly being prepared in Nizhny. We must exert all our efforts, form a troika of dictators (you, Markin, etc.), immediately impose mass terror, shoot and take away hundreds of prostitutes who solder soldiers, former officers, etc.” The next day, he repeated his thought in a telegram to the Penza Provincial Executive Committee: “It is necessary to carry out merciless mass terror against the kulaks, priests and White Guards; those who are dubious will be locked up in a concentration camp outside the city.”
Official Red Terror
The immediate reason for the official announcement of the Red Terror in Soviet Russia was the events of August 30, 1918. On this day, the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka M.S. Uritsky was killed by a member of the neo-populist Party of People's Socialists L.I. Kannegiser, and Moscow V.I. Lenin was wounded by a revolver shot, according to the official version, by a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party F.E. Kaplan. In the evening of the same day Ya.M. Sverdlov wrote the Appeal of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to all Soviets, which said: “The working class will respond to attempts directed against its leaders by even greater consolidation of its forces, will respond with merciless mass terror against all enemies of the Revolution.” On September 2, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a Resolution on Red Terror, which repeated the same positions: “The workers and peasants will respond to the white terror of the enemies of the workers’ and peasants’ power with massive red terror against the bourgeoisie and its agents.”
The official document in accordance with which the Red Terror was declared in Soviet Russia was the Resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR dated September 5, 1918, which read:
“The Council of People's Commissars, having heard the report of the Chairman of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Profiteering and Ex-officio Crime 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 for the fight against counter-revolution, profiteering and crime in office and to 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 for applying this measure to them” (Code of Legislation. No. 19. Department 1. Art. 710, 09/05/18). The resolution was signed by People's Commissar of Justice D.I. Kursky, People's Commissar for Internal Affairs G.I. Petrovsky and SNK business manager V.D. Bonch-Bruevich.
In development of the decisions of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, a whole series of instructions and regulatory instructions were issued by the All-Russian Cheka on their specific implementation. One of the instructions stated that execution should be used from former gendarmerie and police officers, up to active members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party of the center and the right and “to/revolutionary parties (cadets, Octobrists, etc.).” Including all suspicious former officers “according to the search data and not having specific occupations,” all members of “former patriotic and Black Hundred organizations,” etc. were subject to imprisonment in a concentration camp.
In the Weekly of the Cheka published on November 1, 1918, one of its leaders M.I. Latsis described the system of red terror as follows: “We are no longer fighting against individuals, we are destroying the bourgeoisie as a class... 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.”
After the adoption of the resolution, a wave of mass shootings swept across the country. In early September, 512 people were shot in Petrograd - former officials, officers, professors, etc. (in total, about 800 people were executed in Petrograd as part of the official Red Terror).
The most important component of the Red Terror was the factor of intimidation, not punishment, which was served incl. executions of hostages, who often had nothing to do with the events for which they were shot. So, for example, in response to the execution by the commander of the 11th Red Army on October 21, 1918 in Pyatigorsk I.L. Sorokin, a group of leaders of the Central Executive Committee of the North Caucasus Soviet Republic and the regional committee of the RCP (b), in early November 106 hostages were shot there, incl. generals and senior officials of the Russian Empire.
Formally, the provision on the Red Terror was in effect for two months and its regime was terminated by adoption at the suggestion of L.B. Kamenev by the resolution of the VI All-Russian Congress of Soviets of November 6, 1918 “On amnesty”. The term “red terror” was not mentioned in the resolution itself, but the release of some of the hostages and prisoners itself was contrary to the spirit of the Council of People’s Commissars Resolution “On Red Terror.”
Mass terror
The suppression of counter-revolution, “class enemies”, political opponents - such as imprisonment in concentration camps, hostages, executions both judicially and extrajudicially, in Soviet Russia began earlier and ended later than the official operation of the Red Terror regime and actually operated throughout the entire period of the Civil War. war. Moreover, initially the bodies of Soviet justice were focused not on imposing punishment for acts in accordance with the law, but on mass terror. Thus, the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Tribunal of the RSFSR in 1918-1919. K.H. Danishevsky wrote: “Military tribunals are not and should not be guided by any legal norms. These are punitive bodies created in the process of intense revolutionary struggle.”
The leadership of the repressions and punitive policies of the Bolshevik government was carried out by the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Profiteering and Crime by Office (VChK), incl. and September-October 1918. Already in December 1917, the Cheka, in order to fight counter-revolution, received the right to make arrests and confiscations, evict criminal elements, deprive food cards, publish lists of enemies of the people, etc.
The leaders of the Soviet state themselves were aware that the amnesty of November 1918 in no way meant the end of the Red Terror. So, on May 17, 1922, V.I. Lenin wrote to the People's Commissar of Justice D.I. Kursky that “The Court should not eliminate terror; to promise this would be self-deception or deception, but to justify and legitimize it...”
The number of victims of the Red Terror is unknown. Thus, a commission operating in the Armed Forces of the South of Russia determined the number of deaths from the Red Terror at more than 1.7 million people. At the same time, M.I. Latsis in his book (1920) indicated the number of victims in 1918 and for 7 months of 1919 - 8389 people shot (as well as more than 13 thousand taken hostage, about 87 thousand arrested, more than 9 thousand imprisoned in concentration camps and 34 thousand - to prison); Latsis later indicated that in 1918, according to the decision of the Cheka, 6,300 people were shot, and in 1919 - 3,456. Modern researcher O.B. Mozokhin, citing documents from the Cheka, indicates the figure “no more than 50 thousand people.” However, most often the question is what the researchers mean by the term “victims” and what period is attributed to the Red Terror.
We invite you to get acquainted with the book by Alexander Eliseev “ The solution to 1937. “Crime of the century” or saving the country?" In the annotation to this publication we read: “For more than half a century we have been told that 1937 was the blackest, bloodiest and most shameful year in Soviet history. That in the “terrible ’37” “millions of innocents” fell victims to the “criminal regime.” That during the political repressions “the best of the best” were “exterminated”, “the intelligentsia was knocked out” and “the army was beheaded”. That the main culprit and initiator of the Great Terror is I.V. Stalin.
This bookrefutes all these myths , leaving no stone unturned from Khrushev’s lies, revealing the true meaning of “Stalinist repressions” solving the main mystery of the 20th century ».
Look for this book on our website. Another book by Alexander Eliseev “ 1937. Stalin against the “globalists” conspiracy” look on our website.
Introduction ..................... 5
Chapter 1. Conservative Bolshevism.................. 13
Chapter 2. The riddle of the “tyrant” .................................... 53
Chapter 3. Red princes.................................... 74
Chapter 4. The state and the reformer...... 108
Chapter 5. Grandfathers of Soviet perestroika........... 140
Chapter 6. Militarists against the party.................... 178
Chapter 7. “Demon of the Revolution” in defense of the West. 197
Chapter 8. The leader’s legal opponent.................................... 244
Chapter 9. Under the gun - Stalin........................ 268
Chapter 10. Bloody denouement.................................... 320
Chapter 11. The winner and the loser.................. 357
Conclusion .......... 376
Literature ........... 378
From the very first years of Soviet power, Stalin acted as a consistent pragmatist, putting the country's geopolitical interests are above abstract and utopian ideas .
2.0. Introduction
2.0.1. During the Civil War, the world behind the scenes in Russia exterminated the population of the Russian Empire with both white and red terror
A. The goal of the “red” terror was “social construction”
The question posed in the title of this modest work will certainly cause bewilderment or even anger among many. Who is this? It has long been known - Stalin and his henchmen. Why fool people's heads by asking rhetorical questions?
It is curious that even those who are inclined to positively assess Stalin’s role in our history, for the most part attribute the organization of mass repressions to him. They say that repressions were needed to cleanse the country. From whom? Well, there are many options here. From spies, Trotskyists, executioners of the Red Terror, bureaucrats, hidden enemies of Soviet power. In general, what needs to be emphasized is that everything depends on political beliefs.
Everyone, almost everyone, agrees on the same thing. Stalin was the organizer of mass repressions. It would seem that such unanimity should be convincing. However, let's not rush. You never know how many popular ideas there were, and then it turned out that they were no more valuable than a soap bubble. Let's try to look at the problem of the "Great Terror" differently than most.
First, let's find out where mass political terror came from. It appeared in the era of revolutions. A sharp turn in social development has always given rise to powerful resistance from broad social strata.The revolution was resisted not only by representatives of the overthrown elite, but also masses, more precisely, part of them. A suppression of the masses accordingly required mass terror .
A classic example of mass revolutionary terror can be considered Jacobin terror of 1793-1794, which claimed about a million lives in France. This was the price of the Great French Revolution. However, political terrorism, to one degree or another, was also inherent in other bourgeois revolutions - English, American, Spanish, Italian. It's interesting that it was also inherent in the first Russian revolution, which broke out in 1905. I mean terror of the Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists . It is usually called individual, but it has taken on the character of a mass + . And this is not surprising, because the Social Revolutionaries had at their disposal a massive party of the radical left.
[ + In Russia, the terror of these Socialist Revolutionaries, anarchists and Jewish crazy nationalists was financed by the American Jew billionaire Schiff. See about this.]
According to the most conservative estimates, 12 thousand people died during the years of Socialist-Revolutionary-Anarchist terror. Duma monarchist deputies once brought into the meeting room glued sheets of paper on which the names of terrorist victims were written. So, they were able to unfold a strip of these papers across the entire width of the hall. Before the revolution, the multi-volume “Book of Russian Sorrow” was published. It contains data on victims of terrorism. Among them, only a very few belonged to the elite of Russian society. The majority were minor officials, lower ranks of the police, priests, artisans. Many people were injured completely by accident when they found themselves close to the bombers. For example, on April 12, 1906, during the explosion of P.A.’s dacha. Stolypin killed 25 people who came to receive the prime minister. Stolypin's three-year-old son and his fourteen-year-old daughter were injured.
All this was a dress rehearsal for the much more terrible “Red Terror” that unfolded in Russia a few months after the Great October Socialist Revolution. He showed that mass terrorism is inherent not only in bourgeois, but also in socialist revolutions. During the Civil War, security officers removed entire social strata of the nation - the clergy, nobility and bourgeoisie. The goal of terrorism was not simply to retain political power, but also social construction . Leading theorist of the Bolshevik Party N.I. Bukharin wrote the following about this: “Proletarian coercion in all its forms, from executions to labor conscription, is, paradoxical as it may sound, a method for developing communist humanity from the human material of the capitalist era.”
B. The goal of the “white” terror was the destruction of the red plague
Meanwhile We must not forget about the white terror, which was smaller in scale than the red one, however, it was still widespread . And here you don’t even need to refer to Soviet historians, who can be accused of bias. It is enough to quote the whites themselves. Yes, at least A.I. Denikin, who wrote in “Essays on Russian Troubles”: “There is no peace of mind - every day there is a picture of theft, robbery, violence throughout the territory of the armed forces. The Russian people have fallen so low from top to bottom that I don’t know when they will be able to rise out of the mud... I would not like to offend many righteous people who languished morally in the difficult atmosphere of counterintelligence agencies, but I must say that these bodies, covering the territory of the South with a dense network, were sometimes hotbeds of provocation and organized robbery . The counterintelligence services of Kyiv, Kharkov, Odessa, and Rostov (Don) became especially famous in this regard.” And here is what the Minister of War of the Kolchak government A.P. writes. Budberg: “The degenerates who arrived from the detachments boast that during punitive expeditions they they handed over the Bolsheviks to the Chinese to be killed, having previously cut the tendons under the knees of the prisoners (“so that they don’t run away”); they also boast that they buried the Bolsheviks alive, with the bottom of the pit lined with entrails released from the buried (“to make it lie softer”). Budberg is well complemented by V.N. Shulgin, who was a staunch anti-communist and an active participant in the White movement. « In one house they hung a commissar by the hands , – says Shulgin, – They made a fire under it and slowly roasted... a man. And all around was a drunken gang of monarchists... howling “God save the Tsar” ...
[ + It is clear that these were not monarchists, but Satanists. A monarchist is an Orthodox person who professes his life. He cannot savagely torture a person and at the same time sing a prayer to God: “God save the Tsar!”]
In this regard, the memories of A.S. are very valuable. Suvorin, who was entirely on the side of the whites: “The first battle of the army, organized and given its current name [Volunteer], was the attack on Tukov in mid-January. When releasing the officer battalion from Novocherkassk, Kornilov admonished him with the words: “Don’t take these scoundrels prisoner for me! The more terror, the more victory they will have!»
Governor of the Yenisei and part of the Irkutsk province, General S.N. Rozanov, Kolchak’s special commissioner, ordered:
"1. When occupying villages previously captured by robbers, demand the surrender of their leaders and leaders; if this does not happen, and there is reliable information about the presence of such, - shoot the tenth.
2. Villages whose population will be met by government troops with weapons, burn; the adult male population should be shot without exception; property, horses, carts, bread, and so on are taken away in favor of the treasury.
Note. Everything selected must be carried out by order to the detachment...
...6. Taking hostages from among the population in the event of actions by fellow villagers directed against government troops, shoot hostages mercilessly».
But what was the order of the commandant of the Makeevsky district, subordinate to Ataman P.N. Krasnov: « I forbid arresting workers, but order them to be shot or hanged; I order all arrested workers to be hanged on the main street and not removed for three days.” According to historians, who can be accused of “bias,” terror was still widespread.
“Democratic” socialists also made their contribution to the unleashing of terror, who hypocritically condemned the “atrocities of Bolshevism.” “The role of the right Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks in the formation of the White Terror can be clearly seen in the events that unfolded in the summer - autumn of 1918 in Izhevsk, where the most powerful thing in the entire Soviet history took place anti-Bolshevik workers' uprising, – writes D.O. Churakov. – ...The very beginning of the coup is associated with a bloody episode - a senseless massacre committed by a crowd over a mounted police patrol... After the first successes of the rebellion, a bloody massacre began. According to the testimony of the military leader of the rebel army, Colonel Fedichkin, the rebels, among whom were many workers, caught and shot the Bolsheviks within 12 hours. In the very first days of the uprising, a brutal reprisal took place against the chief of police Rogalev, one of the leaders of the maximalists T. Dityatin, Zhechev was taken out of the hospital and torn to pieces - and this is not the end of the list of victims of the uprising... Pictures of extrajudicial executions were observed in those days in all factory settlements and villages of the Kama region captured by the rebels. A real hunt was organized for the Bolsheviks and all supporters of Soviet power. As studies by modern Izhevsk historians P.N. show. Dmitrieva and K.I. Kulikov, very often it was not about spontaneous outbreaks of violence, but about well-thought-out, purposeful actions of the new rebel government. Arrests and detention were initially dealt with by a special commission to investigate the activities of the Bolsheviks, and then by counterintelligence created on its basis. Not only figures of the Bolshevik regime, but also members of their families were arrested. Thus, the father of the deputy chairman of the Botkin Council, Cazenov, was arrested, followed by his 18-year-old sister, who tried to give her brother a parcel. A few days later they were shot. The priest Dronin, who showed sympathy for the Bolsheviks, and many others were captured and shot. Over time, repressive measures spread to ever wider sections of the population of Izhevsk and the entire Kama region. Even the rebel authors themselves admit the colossal scale of the repressions they carried out. For example, one of them writes about hundreds of people arrested in makeshift detention houses. About 3 thousand people were kept on barges adapted as temporary prisons. These people were called “stock marketers.” Approximately the same number of those arrested were in Votkinsk, at least a thousand of them were in Sarapul." (“The role of right-wing socialists in the formation of the system of white terror”).
2.0.2. Any mass terror is caused by revolution
The “great proletarian cultural revolution” carried out by Mao Zedong in China also provided its own example of revolutionary terror. During it, tens of millions of Chinese died, victims of both the local state security and gangs of brutal youths called Red Guards and Zaofan Yi. Although the “red terror” began in the 30s, in the territories occupied by the Chinese Red Army. Moreover mass repressions were also carried out against communists. Thus, in the 1930s, Mao carried out a severe purge of the Red Army from the so-called “AB-tua-neys” – hidden agents of the Anti-Bolshevik League. « One of the first acts of the new power structures was an order to use “the most cruel tortures” in order to identify agents of “AB-tuan”, – writes Mao Zedong biographer F. Short. – The text of the order emphasized that those who “in their words appear to be the most devoted, straightforward and positive comrades” should also be interrogated. The number of those executed grew day by day, since each confession led to the arrest of new victims, and each victim did not remain silent during interrogations... The Red Army began to plunge into the abyss of purges. Its flames impartially devoured soldiers and commanders, and “committees to combat counter-revolutionary elements” were created in each unit. From the memoirs of Xiao Ke: “Sixty people were shot in my division... The division party committee decided to add the same number to them... In total, out of seven thousand personnel of the 4th Army, from one thousand three hundred to one thousand four hundred people were sent to execution.” ... It took just over a week for almost four and a half thousand soldiers and commanders of the First Front Army to admit to secret ties with the Kuomintang.” (“Mao”).
Revolutions on the “right” also demonstrated a penchant for terror.Having come to power on the wave of “national revolution", national -socialist Hitler persecuted hundreds of thousands of Germans. Only members of the German Communist Party were executed 33 thousand people. And I don’t think it’s worth mentioning what kind of terror Hitler organized in the territories he occupied. Of course, the scale of Hitler’s terror against the Germans is much smaller than the scale that the “communist” terror reached. But this is precisely due to the fact that Hitler’s revolution was less radical - in terms of internal politics. In the field of foreign policy, Hitler showed extreme revolutionary spirit, which led to grandiose terror against many nations.
It should be noted here that revolution is not always accompanied by mass terror. In the same Germany, the November revolution of 1918 managed to stay on the edge of the abyss. But there was still an edge. In 1919, in Bavaria, left-wing radicals created the Soviet Republic, which, following the example of its Russian sister, began to arrest and destroy “enemies of the revolution.” They put an end to this armed detachments of German patriots .
In any case, revolution is always fraught with terror . He can crawl out of this womb, or he can perish in the womb. And if not every revolution gives rise to mass terror, then Any mass terror is caused by revolution. And this concerns both “red” and “white” terror . One can argue for a long time about which of them started first and which was “just a response.” In any case, mass terror is caused by revolution.
[Jesus Christ teaches us: You will be hated by everyone because of My name, but not a hair of your head will perish; through your patience save your souls. (Luke 21:17-19). Yesterday (January 16/29) it was (since 1547) that the Russian People became the third. Therefore, the rivers of blood that flow in Russia, the state of this People, are a consequence of its retreat from its service to God and His Anointed - the Tsar, the guardian of the Throne of King David - the Ecumenical King.
As soon as God's Chosen People (whether Jewish, Greek, Russian (now)) tries to throw off the yoke, about which Jesus Christ says this: for My yoke is easy and My burden is light (Matthew 11:30), so the Lord God moves away from His People, and the servants of Satan attack him. And rivers of blood flow. But and no hair will be lost from your head , but only under one condition, if you remain faithful God and His Anointed - the King .
Todon’t step on the same rake a second time and not fall away from serving God as a third(and the last one!) God's Chosen People, our pious ancestors in 1613 , wanting to protect themselves and their descendants, i.e. you and me,gave to Godto faithfully and truly serve the legitimate Tsars from the Royal House of Romanov. With this Vow our ancestors wanted to warn us, to keep us from making mistakes , for which they paid with rivers of blood in the Time of Troubles . See about this in the chapter “On the Three Chosen Peoples of God.”
When talking about terror, we should remember this warning from Jesus Christ: Jesus also said to the disciples: it is impossible not to come to temptations, but woe to the one through whom they come ; It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and thrown into the sea, than for him to cause one of these little ones to stumble. (Luke 17:1-2). These words warn of inevitable retribution that will fall on the heads of the robbers of the flock of Christ! The heads of these robbers of Christ's flock will inevitably fly (and flew!) during both the Red and White Terror. And this is it heartbroken , about which Christ spoke!]
2.0.3. Stalin was the gravedigger of the "proletarian" revolution
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Now let's turn to the figure of Stalin. Researchers somehow are not inclined to exaggerate the revolutionary nature of this figure. On the contrary, many observers, both on the left and on the right, believe that Stalin was the gravedigger of the "proletarian" revolution. And there are very few who put him on the same level as the creators of October.
This paradox has fascinated me for a long time. Drawing parallels with the Great French Revolution, Stalin is often called a Thermidorian, and his policies - Thermidor. Trotsky especially loved to talk about Stalin's Thermidor. However, it was precisely the group of Thermidorians that put an end to the mass Jacobin terror of 1793-1794, which already threatened to devour the revolutionaries themselves. AND if Stalin is a Thermidorian, then what kind of organizer of terror is he?
No matter how you feel about Stalin, it is obvious that he implemented a number of measures directed against nihilism , generated by the revolution. Restored rights to national patriotism . He contributed to the fact that art, especially architectural, would take classical forms. Along with his cult established the cult of Russian literature . Set a course for strengthening the family structure. “Rehabilitated” many historical figures of old Russia. Stopped the persecution of the Church .
And at the same time, it was he who launched mass terror? It turns out that overcoming nihilism leads precisely to mass terror and large-scale repression? It’s not clear... And if we assume that the outbreak of terror occurred against Stalin's will ?
But perhaps the opposite can be allowed? What if Stalin really was a faithful successor to the work of Lenin and Trotsky, as some would have us believe? Well, let's take a closer look at it.
References
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To realize “Who was our Russian Tsar Nicholas” (Holy Ruler of Pskovozersky Elder Nikolai Guryanov), we present the books of Roman Sergiev “ The atoning sacrifice of Saint Tsar Nicholas became the guarantee of the inevitable resurrection of Tsarist Russia" By clicking on one of the lines you will go to a more detailed table of contents, and from it you will find texts that will help you understand the greatest feat of the Holiness of Emperor NIKOLAI ALEXANDROVICH, who, in fulfillment of the Will of God, became like our Lord Jesus Christ in the redemptive feat! It was through the hands of His Anointed One - the Holy Redeemer NIKOLAI ALEXANROVICH - that the Lord saved the God-chosen Russian People from extermination by the servants of Satan and made IMMINENT resurrection of Tsarist Russia.
About the great redemptive feat of our Sovereign, raised and accomplished by Him in the image and likeness of the Redemptive Feat of Christ the Lord, see the news reports on our website. We also recommend visiting the website "NICHOLAS II REDEEMED THE TREASON OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE!" contains two sermons about the Christ-like redemptive feat of Tsar Nicholas, delivered after the liturgy on May 19, 2008, performed according to the full Imperial Order.
On our website you can see portraits of Emperor Nicholas II, painted during His lifetime. Look
On the need to pray for the coming Russian Tsar Victor and on how to do this in practice, see the work:.
Father Roman on Orthodox Radio of St. Petersburg on Sunday, July 20, spoke about the need to pray according to the Imperial rite and about the need to take out pieces at Proskomedia, and for the Tsar-Redeemer Nicholas II and for the coming Tsar from the Reigning House of Romanov through the female line. The conversation can be downloaded from the news message address: " The Royal Priest on the radio with the Royal theme". At the same address you can read and download conversations between Father Roman and Zhanna Vladimirovna Bichevskaya already on Moscow Radio in her author’s program “From Heart to Heart”. In addition, there you can download the Liturgy performed according to the 1901 Missal (all exclamations according to the Imperial Chinu, without abbreviations
Everyone revered the Spirit-Bearing One of blessed memory Pskovovozersky Elder Nikolai Guryanov can find on our website the rarest and most valuable books about the Elder, written by the person closest to him - the clerk of Strats, his cell attendant Schema nun Nikolai (Groyan): "a fiery prayer book of the Russian land for the whole world", " ", “ ” " "
After reading these books you will learn why the enemy of the human race is rising up against the Holy Crowned Royal Family with such force. On the Friend of Tsarev - the “Man of God” slandered by the enemies of God, the Tsar and Russia, the Holy New Martyr Gregory the New (Rasputin). Learn the Truth about the Holy Blessed Tsar John Tsar John Vasilyevich IV Grozny and get answers to many other burning questions about which the Lord announced through the mouth of His Pleasant - the “Pillar of the Russian Eldership” - the spiritual Elder Nikolai Guryanov
In light of the heated discussions that often arise today around the most ancient symbol of Russian National Culture - Gammamatic Cross (Yarga-Swastika) Our website presents an extensive selection of material on this issue: For information on the Russian Cross of the Resurrection of Russia, see.
You and I remember that the Lord God indicated to Emperor Constantine the Great that with the cross he would win. Let us pay attention to the fact that only with Christ and precisely with the Cross The Russian People will defeat all their enemies and finally throw off the hated Jewish yoke! But the Cross with which the Russian People will win is not simple, but, as usual, golden, but for the time being it is hidden from many Russian Patriots under the rubble of lies and slander. In news reports made from books Kuznetsov V.P. "The history of the development of the shape of the cross". M. 1997;Kutenkova P.I. "Yarga-swastika - a sign of Russian folk culture"SPb. 2008;Bagdasarov R. "The Mysticism of the Fiery Cross" M. 2005, tells about the place in the culture of the Russian People of the most blessed cross - the swastika. The swastika cross has one of the most perfect forms and contains in graphic form the entire mystical secret of God's Providence and the entire dogmatic completeness of Church teaching!
Moreover, if we remember that The Russian People are the third Chosen People of God(The Third Rome is Moscow, the Fourth will not happen; what the swastika is a graphic image And the whole mystical mystery of God's Providence, And the entire dogmatic completeness of Church teaching, then a completely unambiguous conclusion arises - Russian people under the sovereign hand already soon to come Victorious Tsar from the Royal House of Romanov ( They swore to the House of Romanov To God in 1613 to be faithful until the end of time ) will defeat all his enemies under the banners on which the swastika (gammatical cross) will flutter under the face of the Savior Not Made by Hands! In the State Emblem, the swastika will also be placed on a large crown, which symbolizes the power of the Anointed Tsar both in the earthly Church of Christ and in the Kingdom of God’s Chosen Russian People.
On our website you can download and read the wonderful work of the general and writer Pyotr Nikolaevich Krasnov, “ ”, which is an unfading wreath to the valiant soldiers and officers of the Russian Imperial Army, who laid down their lives for the Faith, the Tsar and the Fatherland. After reading this book, you will find out what the Russian The Imperial Army was stronger than all the armies in the world and you will understand who General Pyotr Nikolaevich Krasnov is. A warrior of the Russian Army, a Russian Patriot, an Orthodox Christian will deprive themselves of a lot if they do not find time to read this very blessed book.
A unique book in which a specialist investigator being an Orthodox person, obviously through the prayers of the holy Tsar-Redeemer Nicholas II and the New Martyr John, the Tsar’s faithful servant - cook I.M. Kharitonov, who died along with Tsar Nicholas II and His Family in the basement of the house of engineer Ipatiev, was able to show the ritual nature of the murder of the Anointed King by the servants of Satan.
The attempts of the Russian people to understand what happened to the Royal Family in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 17-18, 1918 have not stopped and will never stop. The truth is needed not only to restore historical reality, but also to understand the spiritual essence of the martyrdom of the Emperor and his Family. We do not know what they experienced - the Lord judged them to languish for more than a year under arrest, in prison, in complete obscurity, in an atmosphere of hatred and misunderstanding, with the burden of responsibility on their shoulders - for the fate of the Motherland and loved ones. But, having endured what was allowed, accepting everything from the hands of God, they acquired humility, meekness and love - the only thing that a person can bring to the Lord and, most importantly, what is pleasing to Him. The work of Pyotr Valentinovich Multatuli, a historian, great-grandson of one of the Tsar’s faithful servants, Ivan Mikhailovich Kharitonov, is unusual. This is not a scientific monograph, but detailed, scrupulous investigation of the Yekaterinburg crime. The author's goal is, if possible, to get closer to the spiritual understanding of what happened in the Ipatiev House. The work uses materials from the archives of Russia and France. Many documents are published for the first time
All news reports on the book by Pyotr Valentinovich Multatuli on our website can be found in the library
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