Red Terror

E12463

The Red Terror was a brutal campaign of mass arrests, executions, and political repression carried out by the Bolshevik regime and its secret police (the Cheka) during the early years of Soviet power.


Statements (72)
Predicate Object
instanceOf mass violence event
political repression campaign
state terrorism
alsoKnownAs Krasny terror
appliesToJurisdiction Soviet Russia
country Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
Soviet Russia
describedBySource Decree on Red Terror
Soviet government decrees
endTime 1922
estimatedNumberOfDeaths 10000–100000
followedBy White Terror (Russia)
ongoing Soviet political repression
genre political violence
state repression
hasCause Bolshevik consolidation of power
assassination of Moisei Uritsky
attempted assassination of Vladimir Lenin
class struggle ideology
fear of counterrevolution
hasCharacteristic class-based persecution
legal exceptionalism
mass arrests
summary executions
use of secret police
hasEffect consolidation of Bolshevik rule
establishment of a culture of fear
precedent for later Stalinist purges
suppression of political pluralism in Soviet Russia
historicalPeriod early Soviet era
post-October Revolution period
ideology Bolshevism
Marxism–Leninism
dictatorship of the proletariat
implementedBy Cheka
local revolutionary tribunals
languageOfName Russian
location Crimea
Kiev
Moscow
Petrograd
Russia
Ukraine
former Russian Empire
mainSubject concentration camps
forced labor
hostage-taking
mass executions
political repression
summary trials
nativeLabel Красный террор
numberOfVictims tens of thousands
opposedBy Mensheviks
Socialist Revolutionaries
White movement
various anti-Bolshevik forces
partOf Russian Civil War
early Soviet political system
perpetrator All-Russian Extraordinary Commission
Bolsheviks
Cheka
Felix Dzerzhinsky
Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)
significantEvent Russian Civil War
startTime 1918-09-05
target bourgeoisie
clergy
former Tsarist officials
hostages from upper and middle classes
political opponents
suspected counterrevolutionaries
usedBy Soviet government


Please wait…