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001 77104
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040 _aUtSlPG
041 7 _aen
_2iso639-1
050 4 _aDK
100 1 _aMelʹgunov, S. P.
_q(Sergeĭ Petrovich),
_d1879-1956
240 1 0 _aKrasnyĭ terror v Rossii. English
245 1 4 _aThe red terror in Russia
264 1 _aSalt Lake City, UT :
_bProject Gutenberg,
_c2025
300 _a1 online resource :
_bmultiple file formats
336 _atext
_btxt
_2rdacontent
337 _acomputer
_bc
_2rdamedia
338 _aonline resource
_bcr
_2rdacarrier
500 _aRelease date is 2025-10-21
508 _aPeter Becker, Karin Spence and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
520 _aThe red terror in Russia by S. P. Melʹgunov is a historical account written in the early 20th century. It examines how the Bolshevik state built and justified a machinery of repression—above all the Cheka—through hostages, mass executions, and ideological calls for “Red Terror.” Drawing on decrees, press appeals, eyewitness testimony, and case material from across Russia and Ukraine, the study argues that terror was a deliberate policy rather than a spontaneous outburst of popular rage. The opening of the book presents a translator’s note and a brief portrait of the author as a historian-activist persecuted by the Soviet regime, then moves to an introduction in which the narrator rejects individual terrorism after a café interlocutor asks why no one kills Bolshevik leaders—arguing that such acts would only trigger mass reprisals against hostages. Chapter I details how, following early attacks on Bolshevik officials, the state institutionalized hostage-taking and retaliatory shootings, vividly depicting nights of fear in Moscow’s Butyrka prison and similar reprisals across the provinces, including women and children among the victims; even Peter Kropotkin’s protest against hostage policy is cited. Chapter II challenges the official claim that terror was “forced” by enemies, tracing the swift restoration of the death penalty, summary orders to shoot, and press exhortations to “answer blood with blood,” culminating in Petrovsky’s directive to employ mass terror and the rise of a nationwide Cheka network that eclipsed the soviets. The beginning of Chapter III defines the Cheka as an organ for destroying enemies rather than judging them, quotes Latzis’s class-based test for guilt, and disputes official statistics by pointing to underreported massacres and crackdowns on strikes and revolts from Kiev and Odessa to Astrakhan and Turkestan. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
534 _pOriginally published:
_cLondon: J.M. Dent & sons, 1925
653 _aSoviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921 -- Personal narratives
653 _aMelʹgunov, S. P. (Sergeĭ Petrovich), 1879-1956
653 _aRussian S.F.S.R. Chrezvychaĭnaia komissiia po borʹbe s kontr-revoliutsieĭ i sabotazhem
653 _aSoviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921 -- Atrocities
700 1 _aHogarth, C. J.
_q(Charles James),
_d1869-1942
856 4 _uhttps://archive.org/details/redterrorinrussi0000unse
856 4 0 _uhttps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77104
999 _c117826
_d117826