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The Cheka (ЧК - чрезвычайная комиссия) was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917 by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky. After 1922, the Cheka underwent a chain of reorganisations.

Traditionally, it has been called "the first Soviet secret police"; there was, however, nothing particularly secret in its functions, being akin to those of its immediate predecessor, the Revolutionary Tribunal.

Name

The full designation of the agency ran Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия по борьбе с контрреволюцией и саботажем (The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage), but was commonly abbreviated to ЧК (Cheka) or ВЧК (Vecheka). In 1918 its name was slightly altered, becoming Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия по борьбе с контрреволюцией, спекуляцией и преступлениям по должности, or All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Profiteering and Official Corruption.

A member of Cheka was called a chekist. Chekists of the post-October Revolution years wore leather jackets creating a fashion followed by Western communists; they are pictured in several films in this apparel. Despite name and organisational changes over time, Soviet secret policemen were commonly referred to as "Chekists" throughout the entire Soviet period and the term is still found in use in Russia today (for example, President Vladimir Putin has been referred to in the Russian media as a 'chekist').

History

The Cheka was created immediately after the October Revolution, during the first days of Bolshevik government. Its immediate precursor was the "commission for the struggle with counter-revolution", established on November 21/December 4, 1917, by the Milrevkom (the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet) on the proposal of F. E. Dzerzhinsky. Its members were the Bolsheviks Skrypnik, Flerovski, Blagonravov, Galkin, and Trifonov.

The Vecheka was established on December 7/December 20, 1917, by a decision of the Sovnarkom. It was subordinated to the Sovnarkom and its functions were, "to liquidate counter-revolution and sabotage, to hand over couner-revolutionaries and saboteurs to the revolutionary tribunals, and to apply such measures of repression as 'confiscation, deprivation of ration cards, publication of lists of enemies of the people etc.'". The original members of the Vecheka were Peters, Ksenofontov, Averin, Ordzhonikidze, Peterson, Evseev, and Trifonov, but the next day Averin, Ordzhonikidze, and Trifonov were replaced by Fomin, Shchukin, Ilyin, and Chernov. A circular published on December 15/December 28, 1917, gave the address of Vecheka's first headquarters as "Petrograd, Gorokhovaya 2, 4th floor".

Originally, the members of the Vecheka were exclusively Bolshevik; however, in January 1918, left SRs also joined the organisation

The agency quickly initiated mass arrests, imprisonments, and executions of "enemies of the people". In this, the Cheka targeted "class enemies" such as the bourgeoisie, members of the clergy, and political opponents of the new regime. The Cheka played a role in the suppression of the Kronstadt Rebellion in 1921 and orchestrated the campaign of repression that came to be known as "Red Terror". It is estimated that between 50 000 and 250 000 people were executed by the Cheka during the the Civil war.

The Cheka is reported to have practiced torture which rivaled that of the Spanish Inquisition. Victims were skinned, scalped, "crowned" with barbed wire, impaled, crucified, stoned to death, tied to planks and pushed slowly into furnaces or tanks of boiling water, and rolled around in internally nail-studded barrels. Some of the atrocities were truly inventive. Chekists poured water on naked prisoners in the winter-bound streets until they became living ice statues. The Chinese Cheka stationed in Kiev amused itself by attaching an iron tube to the torso of a bound victim and inserting a rat into the other end which was then closed off with wire netting. The tube was then held over a flame until the rat began gnawing through the victim's guts in an effort to escape.

Women and children were also victims of Cheka terror. Women would sometimes be tortured and raped before being shot. Children between the ages of 8 and 16 were imprisoned and occasionally executed.

In 1922, the Cheka was transformed into the State Political Administration or GPU, a section of the NKVD of the Russian SFSR.

While there is no doubt that the Cheka were responsible for a number of hideous acts, most "verified sources" are from emigre literature, often ex-aristocrats.

The Cheka in popular culture

• The cheka were popular staples in Soviet film and literature. This was partly due to a romanticization of the organisation in the post-Stalin period, and also because they provided a useful action/detection template. Films featuring the Cheka include Osterns Miles of Fire, Nikita Mikhalkov's At Home among Strangers, and also Dead Season starring Donatas Banionis and the 1992 Soviet Union film Chekist.

• In Spain, during the Spanish Civil War, the detention and torture centers operated by the Communists were named checas after the Soviet organization.

• In George Orwell's Animal Farm, The Dogs are Napoleon's (Stalin's) secret police and bodyguards (inspired by Cheka, NKVD, OGPU, MVD).

See also

• Russian Revolution of 1917
• Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria
• Mensheviks
• Bolsheviks

Notes

1. Carr (1958), p. 1.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., p. 2.
4. Ibid., p. 3.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Schapiro (1984).
8. Andrew and Mitrokhin (1999).
9. Melg(o)unov (1925).
10. Leggett (1986).

Sources

• Andrew, Christopher M., and Vasili Mitrokhin. (1999) The Sword and the Shield : The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0465003125.
• Carr, E. H. (1958) The Origin and Status of the Cheka. Soviet Studies, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 1–11.
• Schapiro, Leonard B. (1984) The Russian Revolutions of 1917 : The Origins of Modern Communism. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0465071546.
• Figes, Orlando (1997) A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924. Penguin Books. ISBN 0670859168.
• Melgounov, Sergey Petrovich (1925) The Red Terror in Russia. London & Toronto: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd.
• Leggett, George (1986) The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0198228627

External links

• The Cheka - Spartacus Schoolnet collection of primary source extracts relating to the Cheka

• Articles lacking sources from December 2006
• 1917 establishments
• Russian loanwords
• Soviet repressions
• Cheka