Dzerzhinksy had devoted his life to the Bolshevik cause. Abraham Heckelmann, alias Arkadi Michailowitsch Harting.jpg 222 × 372; 82 KB From the beginning of their regime, the Bolsheviks relied on a strong secret, or political, police to buttress their rule. The decree forming the Cheka was broadly worded and contained few specific instructions about how it should operate. Some of the more ghastly Cheka methods are described by historian Orlando Figes in his book A People’s Tragedy: The ingenuity of the Cheka’s torture methods was matched only by the Spanish Inquisition. Cheka departments were organized not only in big cities and guberniya seats, but also in each uyezd, at any front-lines and military formations. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. For more information on usage, please refer to our Terms of Use. In 1918, the Cheka came into conflict with the Commissariat of Justice, which demanded to be notified before the arrest of suspects. Please read the rules before participating, as we remove all comments which break the rules. EUR Euro País Eurozona Región Europa Sub-Unidad 1 Euro = 100 céntimos Símbolo € El euro es la moneda oficial de 19 países de la Unión Europea (UE) (Alemania, Austria, Bélgica, Chipre, Estonia, Eslovenia, España, Finlandia, Francia, Grecia, Irlanda, Italia, Malta, Letonia, Lituania, Luxemburgo, Eslovaquia, Países Bajos y Portugal). Copyright: The content on this page may not be republished without our express permission. - 4 comments, over 1 year old. During its four year lifespan, the Cheka carried out arrests, interrogations, executions and campaigns entirely of its own accord. Before that there were the NKVD and OGPU, and before them came the Bolsheviks' Cheka. Some Cheka killings were carried out more for public effect than any political purpose. URL: https://alphahistory.com/russianrevolution/cheka/ In what ways were they different? On receiving the decree, Dzerzhinsky began recruiting Cheka agents. In Odessa, they chained their victims to planks and pushed them slowly into a furnace or a tank of boiling water. The Cheka is often described as the ‘Bolshevik secret police’. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. Lenin subsequently altered Soviet regulations so that the Cheka was required to notify the Commissariat of an arrest or execution after after it had happened, rather than before. Taking from torture methods rivalled only by Christianity’s Spanish Inquisition,* The Cheka was Lenin’s state police that were suppressing questions and challenges. The commenters here explore the goals of, methods used, and punishments inflicted by both organizations as well as the practices that were inherited by the NKVD. In 1918, CHEKA agents appeared in the audience of a Moscow circus and began shooting after one of its clowns, Bim Bom, made fun of the Bolsheviks and their leaders. Russian Revolution memory quiz – events 1907-1916, Russian Revolution memory quiz – events 1917, Russian Revolution memory quiz – events 1918-1924, Russian Revolution memory quiz – revolutionaries, Russian Revolution memory quiz – tsarists, Russian Revolution memory quiz: concepts (I), Russian Revolution memory quiz: concepts (II), Russian Revolution memory quiz: events 1906 to 1913, Russian Revolution memory quiz: events 1914 to 1916, Russian Revolution memory quiz: events to 1905. A favourite winter torture was to pour water on the naked victims until they became living ice statues. A historian’s view: All this was purposely done: to show Russians that the CHEKA was everywhere and dealt swiftly with those who betrayed or opposed the Bolshevik regime. La división se produjo en el Segundo Congreso del partido, celebrado entre Bruselas y Londres en 1903.Las tesis propuestas por Lenin fueron: [1] La lucha por la dictadura del proletariado como instrumento necesario de la revolución para avanzar hacia el socialismo. The Cheka routinely used extra-legal violence and torture. Answer Save. His ruthlessness and fanaticism came to rival that of Lenin. Dzerzhinsky was technically accountable to the Sovnarkom but only reported Cheka operations after they had taken place. For more information, visit our FAQ page or Terms of Use. When we discuss the Cold War, espionage is always a favorite topic. Lenin preferred to leave the Cheka’s operational details and methods to the man he chose to lead it: Felix Dzerzhinksy. ChK was founded in 1917 by the communists and was the direct precursor to the NKVD and eventually the KGB, while the Okhrana was the imperial version of the secret police. Dzerzhinsky’s incorruptible fanaticism and hard-heartedness earned him the epithets ‘Iron Felix’ and the ‘Iron Count’. The Tsaritsyn Cheka sawed its victims’ bones in half. The church’s governing council, the Holy Synod, was a de facto government d… Dzerzhinsky was loyal to the point of fanaticism and had been hardened by years of imprisonment. 96 p. The most notorious aspect of the Soviet Union was its culture of secret policing that, through a series of state security agencies, carried out mass arrests, deportations, and executions. It was formed by Vladimir Lenin in a December 1917 decree and charged with identifying and dealing with potential counter-revolutionaries. Desciende, junto con la corona eslovaca, de la corona checoslovaca, que fue la moneda de Checoslovaquia hasta su disolución en 1993. Publisher: Alpha History A week later, the phrase “combating profiteering” was also added to the Cheka’s formal title. The existence and activities of the CHEKA were widely known and many of its operations were conducted openly and publicly. The name ‘Cheka’ was an abbreviated form of Chrezvychainaia Komissiia, the Russian for ‘Extraordinary Commission’. 5. [ 134 ] [ 143 ] En diciembre, los mencheviques se separaron de sus correligionarios georgianos , condenando su separatismo y su llamamiento a los Aliados. The Cheka became the embodiment of Dzerzhinsky’s ruthlessness. Its first leader was Felix Dzerzhinsky. Title: “The Cheka” He chose Bolsheviks he could trust for the difficult task of securing the revolution, men who were neither corruptible nor squeamish. [169] A finales de año, la represión se suavizó, pero el partido quedó en una situación de semilegalidad. This was sometimes done publicly, in order to provide a deterrent to those who might oppose the regime. It contains 179,175 words in 288 pages and was updated on January 31st 2021. As opposition to the Bolshevik regime grew through 1918, so did the size and power of the Cheka. The declared mission of the Okhrana was to defend (meaning of the word “okhrana”) the country from forces seeking to destroy it - they obviously failed that. It was to be the “sword and shield of the revolution”, defending the new regime against its enemies within. The Russian Orthodox Church was an integral part of tsarist autocracy. In doing so, driven by revolutionary fervour and unrestrained by law, by 1922 the Cheka had penetrated virtually every area of life in Soviet Russia. In Armavir, they crushed their skulls by tightening a leather strap with an iron bolt around their head. Ohio University, 2014. The Cheka was the first of numerous Soviet government apparatuses created to control the people – others being later organisations such as the OGPU and the KGB. However, before any of t… By the autumn of 1918, these units numbered 33 battalions and more than 20,000 men. How much of a stretch were the Cheka from the Okhrana? Concerned by the attempts by Russian workers to form trade unions, Okhrana units were formed in the industrial centres of St. Petersburg, Moscow and Warsaw. Many who were hired to head those departments were so-called "nestlings of Alexander Keren ". How much of a stretch were the Cheka from the Okhrana. He also organised Cheka paramilitary units. The origins of the KGB go all the way back to the reign of Tsar Nicholas II when, in 1881, the secret police force known as the Okhrana was developed. Source for information on Okhrana: The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable dictionary. According to Louise Bryant,  Dzerzhinsky adored Lenin and was “shy, aloof and deeply puritanical” – but he was also ruthless and dispassionate, hardened by years of abuse and persecution. La corona checa es el nombre de la moneda de la República Checa. Polémica en 1903. At first, the Cheka was small and its operations were limited. 7:33. The Cheka’s first head, the Pole Feliks Dzerzhinsky, had spent years in Tsarist prisons or exile, and had learned his tradecraft from the Okhrana. Some historians suggest that 200,000 or more are more realistic figures. “One feels he can neither understand nor forgive moral weaknesses in others, since he himself possesses that fanatical devotion which has made it possible for him to travel the hard, bitter road where his ideals lead”, Bryant wrote. The KGB was a big part of how the USSR conducted its internal and international affairs, but Russia's history with espionage didn't begin with the KGB. Alexander Solzhenitsyn writes that some Cheka victims were force-fed large amounts of salted fish – but were prevented from drinking water. Another example of this public gesturing was Lenin’s famous order to the Penza Cheka to hang at least 100 men, “and make sure that the hanging takes place in full view of the people”. We use cookies on our websites for a number of purposes, including analytics and performance, functionality and advertising. During the reign of Aleksandr II (1855– 1881), approximately 4,000 people were detained and interrogated for political crimes. Official government figures suggest that just over 12,000 people were killed by Chekists in 1918-20. The Cheka is sometimes referred to as the Bolshevik ‘secret police’, though most Russians were well aware of its existence and activities. The first secret police, called the Cheka, was established in December 1917 as a temporary institution to be abolished once Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks had consolidated their power. The Cheka was the Bolshevik security force or secret police. Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky (Polish: Feliks Dzierżyński [ˈfɛliɡz dʑɛrˈʐɨj̃skʲi]; Russian: Фе́ликс Эдму́ндович Дзержи́нский; 11 September [O.S. Michael Kort. Chekists operated as investigators, arresting authorities, interrogators, prosecutors, judges, juries and executioners. By early March 1918, there were only 120 Chekists (Cheka agents). By 1919, the Cheka employed more than 100,000 people and was one of the largest and best-funded agencies of the Soviet state. Dzerzhinksy spent more than a decade in prisons and labour camps before his release during the 1917 amnesty. I think a good way to distinguish the two is by the scope of powers. In the lead up to the October Revolution, he became one of Lenin’s most trusted lieutenants. In reality, not all of its operations were secretive or concealed. Okhrana files opened after the February Revolution in 1917, he at first refused to believe it. While the Cheka’s methods drew on those used by the Okhrana, its size and willingness to use extra-legal killing both surpassed the activities of the Tsarist security police. The Okhrana were eventually replaced after the October Revolution by the much larger and more efficient Cheka in December 1917 and the GRU in October-November 1918 under the … The Portal for Public History. El partido no se prohibió oficialmente, pero la Cheka impedía su funcionamiento. Increases in anti-Bolshevik activity, the onset of the Civil War, the failed Left SR uprising of July 1918 and the assassination attempt on Lenin the following month saw the ranks of the Cheka grow exponentially. 7 Early KGB Operations The Bolsheviks were greatly impressed by what they discovered from tsarist files about Okhrana penetration of their prerevolutionary organisation. Felix Dzerzhinsky was the first head of the feared Cheka, the first name given to post-revolutionary Russia’s secret police force.Dzerzhinsky was born on September 11 th 1877 and died on July 20 th 1926. It hunted down speculators and hoarders, sometimes cordoning off entire neighbourhoods during its massive operations. Media in category "Okhrana" The following 18 files are in this category, out of 18 total. In its first two years, the Cheka executed 900 people suspected of trading on the black market. In its first two years, the Cheka executed 900 people suspected of trading on the black market. The Cheka, established on 20 December 1917, was in many ways a reincarnation of the Tsarist security service, the Okhrana, making use of its methods and in some cases its personnel, as well. You might be interested in some previous threads comparing the Cheka and the Okhrana: Was the USSR's method of keeping order (especially under Stalin) similar to the old tsarist way? After the revolution in 1917, and during the first days of the Bolshevik government, Vladimir Lenin transformed the remnants of the Okhrana into an organization called the Cheka in order to consolidate his power. 30 August] 1877 – 20 July 1926), nicknamed "Iron Felix", was a Bolshevik revolutionary and official. 1. The Cheka was headed by Feliz Dzerzhinsky, a Bolshevik of Polish extraction. The ChK (or Extraordinary Commission for Fighting Counter-Revolution and Sabotage) was a revolutionary body, and providing security for a well-established regime was not its purpose. This infuriated Dzerzhinsky, who queried how it was possible for him to “crush counter-revolution with legal niceties”. For all the power Dzerzhinsky wielded in the Cheka, he actually joined the Bolshevik Party quite late in his life. It's so much fun to talk about, with the spies and the gadgets and the insane plans and subterfuge. Was the USSR's method of keeping order (especially under Stalin) similar to the old tsarist way? More significantly, the Cheka operated outside the rule of law. Each local Cheka had its own speciality. Like most significant aspects of the new regime, the Cheka began with a decree from Vladimir Lenin and the Sovnarkom, dated December 19th 1917. Compra la música de Sito & Cheka en vinilo, CD u otros formatos en el mercado online de Discogs. Answers must be in-depth and comprehensive, or they will be removed. I think you've confused the Cheka (ChK - чрезвыча́йная коми́ссия) with Okhrana. Written records of these methods were not kept so they are anecdotally based and possibly prone to exaggeration or falsification. The Cheka became a model for 20th century secret police agencies in totalitarian states, including the Gestapo (Nazi Germany), the Stasi (East Germany) and the KGB (Soviet Russia). Dzerzhinsky neither denied nor retreated from the Cheka’s brutal role, declaring that “we stand for organised terror, terror being absolutely indispensable in the current revolutionary conditions”. Between 1918 and 1920, the Cheka ballooned from a couple of hundred investigators to a bureaucratic and paramilitary behemoth containing more than 100,000 agents. The Cheka was not accountable to judges or courts and there was no legal oversight of its operations. The Cheka’s directive was to “persecute and break up all acts of counter-revolution and sabotage all over Russia, no matter what their origin”, to “bring before the Revolutionary Tribunal all counter-revolutionaries and saboteurs and to work out a plan for fighting them”, and to “make preliminary investigation only, enough to break up [counter-revolutionary acts]”. Similarly the Cheka used by Lenin, created in 1917, was also used to eliminate political opponents. La selección de fútbol de la República Checa (en checo, Česká fotbalová reprezentace) es el equipo representativo del país en las competiciones oficiales.Controlada por la Asociación de Fútbol de la República Checa, es miembro de la UEFA.. A comienzos del siglo XX, Bohemia (parte de la actual República Checa) tenía su propio seleccionado. He was a most unlikely radical – yet by the mid-1890s, Dzerzhinsky was involved in Marxist political groups in the Baltic. He eventually joined Lenin’s Bolshevik faction in 1906. In the Fundamental Laws of 1906, Russians were told to obey the tsar, “not only out of fear but also for the sake of conscience”, as he had been “ordained by God”. The Cheka, or secret police, was established in 1917 during the Civil War in Russia.An acronym for All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, it … “Its original mandate was to root out the regime’s enemies: the counter-revolutionaries and saboteurs, enemy agents and speculators. Date accessed: March 14, 2021 It acted of its own accord, investigated and arrested whoever it chose and answered to no one. While the Cheka’s methods drew on those used by the Okhrana, its size and willingness to use extra-legal killing both surpassed the activities of the Tsarist security police. CHEKA agents also developed inventive but ghastly means of torture and psychological torment. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast, More posts from the AskHistorians community. In 1880 the Russian Police Department established a special section that dealt with internal security. The Russian tsar claimed to rule by ‘divine right’, that is, his power and authority were derived from God rather than the people. Though Cheka agents had no standard uniform, many wore long leather coats and could be easily identified. 1 … Initially very small with just a couple of hundred agents, the Cheka grew rapidly during the turmoil and growing opposition of 1918. The “Cheka” cannot be compared with the Okhrana, since both belonged to two very different historical periods. They used these to extract information or occasionally to create a public deterrent. The formation of the tsarist Okhrana in 1880 was a vital component in continuing the Tsarist regime in the height of its decline in popularity from 1912. According to historian Edward Peters, some of the torture methods employed by the CHEKA included beating, burning, branding and scalping. From that point, the Cheka was never restricted by the rule of law or any obligation to due process or the rights of suspects. While some say it was due to been to soft on Bolsheviks and other terrorists, the real reason that they took upon themselves to eliminate all free-thinking in Russian Empire, and to do that they needed far-Left as justification. It seems with Lenin and the Bolsheviks setting up the Cheka, they had the same aim as the Okhrana; to root out any opposition. In Kiev, they affixed a cage with rats to the victim’s torso and heated it so that the enraged rats ate their way through the victim’s guts in an effort to escape. Within two years it had more than 100,000 employees. Some who survived were brainwashed to follow orders from the government and them simultaneously, which reflects the Milgram experiment in context (blind obedience toward authority). It surrounded villages and short peasants resisting the forced requisitions of grain, often leaving the peasants who remained alive without enough to eat. This Russian Revolution site contains articles, sources and perspectives on events in Russia between 1891 and 1927. The Cheka was formed in the wake of the October 1917 revolution, as a small agency to investigate and deal with threats to the new regime. In Kharkov, they went in for the ‘glove trick’ – burning the victim’s hands in boiling water until the blistered skin could be peeled off: this left the victims with raw and bleeding hands and their torturers with ‘human gloves’. - 6 comments, over 2 years old. How were the Cheka and the Okhrana different from each other? It was active in assuring the food supply, in maintaining transport, in policing the Red Army and Navy, in monitoring the schools, and in ensuring that industries continued to function and deliver essential material to the state. The decree ordered the formation of the “All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage”. In Voronezh, they rolled their naked victims in nail-studded barrels. Start studying Cheka vs. Okhrana. In what ways were they different? Another 600 bureaucrats were executed for “economic crimes”, mostly taking bribes. Despite some terminological confusion, the commenters here contrast the scale of operations and powers available to both organizations as well as provide a variety of sources for followup reading. Given a virtual blank cheque, Dzerzhinsky ordered the recruitment of thousands of new agents. The Cheka (sometimes called VeCheka) was the much-feared Bolshevik security agency, formed to identify and eradicate counter-revolutionary activity. Date published: August 10, 2019 With this free rein, Cheka agents were able to persecute, detain, torture and summarily execute thousands of suspected spies, tsarists, counter-revolutionaries, kulaks, black marketeers and other ‘enemies of the state’. This unit eventually became known as the Okhrana. CZK Corona checa País Chequia Región Europa Sub-Unidad 1 Corona = 100 haléřů Símbolo Kc. Because of the very long formal titles that these organisations had, many … 2 comments Citation information The callous and savage methods reigned as The Cheka sifted through over 200,000 citizens’ bodies from 1918-1922. It seems with Lenin and the Bolsheviks setting up the Cheka, they had the same aim as the Okhrana; to root out any opposition. I mean it seems like a conflict of interest cos they would've been opposed to Lenin (as an Okhrana agent) and then to then go and work for him would seem strange but I wondered if it ever happened? 2. 3. Nothing is known on what resources they were created. Alternative Titles: Okhrana, Otdeleniye po Okhraneniyu Obshchestvennoy Bezopasnosti i Poryadka Okhranka , acronym from Russian Otdeleniye po Okhraneniyu Obshchestvennoy Bezopasnosti i Poryadka , English Department for Defense of Public Security and Order , (1881–1917), prerevolutionary Russian secret-police organization that was founded to combat political terrorism and left-wing revolutionary … Okhrana an organization set up in 1881 in Russia after the assassination of Alexander II to maintain State security and suppress revolutionary activities, replaced after the Revolution of 1917 by the Cheka. Authors: Jennifer Llewellyn, Michael McConnell, Steve Thompson Born in Poland in 1877, Dzerzhinsky’s family were wealthy landed gentry with claims to a noble title. It even suppressed strikes by factory workers, the presumed rulers of the ‘workers’ state’.” Cascarita eventos ganó por 3 a 0 a real envido .. I think torture on the Okhrana's part is similar to the Cheka and the NKVD (now known as the KGB) because they needlessly arrested innocent people and interrogated them until they die. Did any Okhrana agents ever become Cheka agents? This site is created and maintained by Alpha History. Despite its reputation for ruthlessness, the Okhrana and its parent organization, the MVD, were less effective and far less terrible than the Cheka or the NKVD. The Cheka was used by Vladimir Lenin to consolidate his power after the November 1917 Revolution. Press J to jump to the feed. Severity and efficiency were this force’s greatest weapons. 4. December 11, 2018. Explora las ediciones de Sito & Cheka en Discogs. Cheka agents operated on their own accord, carrying out arrests, detention and executions.