Red Terror
| Part of the Russian Civil War | |
Propaganda poster in Petrograd, 1918: "Death to the bourgeoisie and its lapdogs – Long live the Red Terror!!" | |
| Native name | Красный террор (post-1918 orthography) Красный терроръ (pre-1918 orthography) |
|---|---|
| Date | August 1918 – February 1922 |
| Location | Soviet Russia |
| Motive | Political repression |
| Target | Anti-Bolshevik groups, clergy, rival socialists, counter-revolutionaries, peasants, and dissidents |
| Organized by | Cheka |
| Deaths | Mainstream estimates range between 50,000 and 600,000 (see below) |
The Red Terror (Russian: красный террор, romanized: krasnyy terror) was a campaign of political repression and executions in Soviet Russia which was carried out by the Bolsheviks, chiefly through the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police force. It officially started in early September 1918 and it lasted until 1922, though violence committed by Bolshevik soldiers, sailors, and Red Guards had been ongoing since late 1917.
Decreed after assassination attempts on Vladimir Lenin along with the successful assassinations of Petrograd Cheka leader Moisei Uritsky and party editor V. Volodarsky in alleged retaliation for Bolshevik mass repressions, the Red Terror was modeled on the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution, and the Paris Commune sought to eliminate political dissent, opposition, and any other threat to Bolshevik power.
More broadly, the term can be applied to Bolshevik political repression throughout the Russian Civil War (1917–1922). Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky justified the repressive measures as a necessary response to the White Terror initiated in 1917.