Red Terror

The Red Terror (Russian: красный террор, romanized: krasnyy terror) was a campaign of political repression and mass executions in Soviet Russia and other Soviet republics, which was carried out by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War, 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. The policy 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.