20 December
'They had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes.' Well, not for a while yet, but George Orwell's nightmarish vision from Animal Farm was on its way.
On 20 December 1917, barely six weeks after the Bolsheviks’ seizure of power in the Russian revolution, the All Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter Revolution, Speculation and Sabotage – the Cheka – was established by Lenin’s decree. The first in a series of Soviet state security organisations, within a year its leather-jacketed operatives had the right the arrest and execute people without external intervention. Its Troops for the Internal Defence of the Republic soon numbered 200,000. They put down rebellions and mutinies, pursued dissidents and deserters and ran the system of forced labour camps that became the Gulag.
By the end of 1920, there were 84 such camps housing some 50,000 prisoners, increasing to 315 by the end of the civil war. It is estimated that between 100,000 and 500,000 people were executed by the Cheka during the post-revolutionary ‘Red Terror’. And all this before Stalin developed the state security apparatus into his agency of total oppression.
Red Pepper by email
Get the latest articles and updates in your inbox
The Harland and Wolff workers want to make renewable energy. A Labour government would help them
In the 1970s, Lucas Aerospace workers had a plan to make socially useful products and went to minister for industry Tony Benn for help. Do the workers occupying their shipyard in Belfast have a similar ally in John McDonnell? By Hilary Wainwright
Lowkey: Soundtrack to the struggle
Ashish Ghadiali interviews British-Iraqi rapper Kareem Dennis, aka Lowkey, about viral videos, power in the community, the Grenfell fire and writing lyrics at the cutting edge of political debate
Hungary: Europe’s creeping fascism
Luke Cooper reports on his recent visit to Hungary, an EU member state where democratic freedoms are no longer taken for granted
The reactionary rebellion
Neo-fascism is on the rise across Europe. It may have taken on a different form but its essence is the same, writes Walter Baier
They shall not pass: feminists on the front line
Across the world, feminists are fighting the far right and fascism. We hear from activists in seven countries.
