Table Of ContentTHE RED TERROR IN RUSSIA
BY
SERGEY PETROVICH MELGOUNOV
A few of a party of nineteen ecclesiastics shot at Yuriev on January
1, 1918—amongst them Bishop Platon (1)—before their removal to
the anatomical theatre at Yuriev University.
[See p. 118.]
TO THE READER
ALTHOUGH, for good and sufficient reasons, the translator who has
carefully and conscientiously rendered the bulk of this work into
English desires to remain anonymous, certain passages in the work
have been translated by myself, and the sheets of the manuscript as a
whole entrusted to my hands for revision. Hence, if any
shortcomings in the rendering should be discerned (as doubtless they
will be), they may be ascribed to my fault alone.
For the rest, I would ask the reader to remember, when passages
in the present tense are met with, that most of this work was written
during the years 1928 and 1924.
C. J. HOGARTH.
PREFACE
SERGEY PETROVICH MELGOUNOV, author of this work, was born on
December 25, 1879. The son of the well-known historian of the
name, he is also a direct descendant of the Freemason who became
prominent during the reign of Catherine the Great.
Mr. Melgounov graduated in the Historical and Philological
Faculty of the University of Moscow, and then proceeded to devote
his principal study to the Sectarian movements of Russia, and to
write many articles on the subject which, collated into book form,
appeared under the title of The Social and Religious Movements of
Russia during the Nineteenth Century, and constitute a sequel to two
earlier volumes on Sectarian movements during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. As a young man he took to contributing to the
well-known journal the Posledniya Vedomosty (" The Latest News
"), and in its columns passionately opposed religious persecution,
and subsequently published the articles as a volume entitled Church
and State in Russia. The same researches into Sectarianism brought
him into contact and association with Tolstoy (whose views,
however, he did not share) and Tolstoy's daughter, the Countess
Alexandra Lvovna, with whom, at the time of the Bolshevists'
seizure of power, he was engaged in preparing for publication a new
edition of her father's works designed to include certain
compositions not yet published.
Another of Mr. Melgounov's works is a volume entitled
vii
viii THE RED TERROR
Men and Deeds during the Alexandrian Period, an attempt both to
summarise what has been accomplished in the study of that epoch
and to consider certain new points in connection with it. Also, it was
under Mr. Melgounov's editorship that a group of specialists pro-
duced, collectively, The Great Reform of February 19th, 1861 ; The
Patriotic War of, and Russian Society in, 1812; The Past and Present
Outlook of Freemasonry, and A History Reader of Modern Times—
the last a seven-volumed work designed to follow the Reader on
similar Unes, but dealing with the Middle Ages, which Sir Paul
Vinogradov has edited.
In 1913 Mr. Melgounov joined Mr. V. I. Semevsky, the noted
historian of the Russian peasantry as a class, in launching the
historical journal Golos Minouvshago (" Voice of the Past "), as a
journal for, primarily, study of the history of social movements; and
this journal, with certain unavoidable breaks, Mr. Melgounov carried
on, after Mr. Semevsky's death in 1916, up to the year 1928. Earlier,
in 1911, Mr. Melgounov had suggested, and taken a leading part in,
organising a publishing house under the style of " Zadrouga," as a
progressive and democratic enterprise intended to act rather as a co-
operative society of writers than as a purely commercial venture.
And, needless to say, the Bolshevists suppressed it almost at once.
Amongst its members were included the writer Korolenko and over
six hundred others, whilst its output amounted to several hundreds of
works, and it owned, in addition, two printing presses, all the
employees of which were members of the society concerned. When
the Revolution had come about " Zadrouga" also issued pamphlets
by the million, for the enlightenment of the peasantry and the
industrial workers. These pamphlets set forth, principally, the views
of the Narodnicheskoye Dvizheniyi, or
PREFACE
ix
" People's Movement," as views consonant with those held by Mr.
Melgounov himself, since from the first he had been a chief
organiser of the party known as " People's Socialists," a party
founded by Messrs. Miakotin and Peshekhonov, and basing its
ideology upon the common interests of individuals as individual
personalities rather than upon class warfare, upon attainment of
realities, as occasion should serve, rather than upon Utopian ideas,
upon evolution rather than upon political upheavals. And though,
during the hectic revolutionary period, when demagogy alone was
listened to, the party could attract few fresh adherents to its
standard, it had previously, through its untiring defence of the
interests of State and People, added to its truly democratic outlook,
drawn to itself all that was best in the Russian intelligentsia. As
vice-president of the party's central committee, Mr. Melgounov was
put forward as the party candidate for the Constituent Assembly,
and continued to edit the party's organs, The People's Word and The
Popular Socialist, and the organ of the co-operative societies, The
Rule of the People, even after the Bolshevists had illegally dispersed
that Assembly.
The Revolution of October 1917 failed to deter Mr. Melgounov
from remaining on in Russia, as he desired to combat the Bolshevist
tyranny, and stood prepared to suffer for his outspokenness under
the new regime even as he had suffered under the old. Eight times he
was arrested ; twenty-three times did he have his house and
documents searched. More than once, however, he was released—
thanks to the mediation of such old-established non-Bolshevist
revolutionaries as Madame Vera Figner and Prince Kropotkin. In
1920 he and many other literati and public men of Moscow were
arrested and tried on a charge of having participated in
THE RED TERROR
X
the activities of the association known as Vozrozhdeniye or "
Regeneration," a political group which, drawn from all democratic
parties without distinction, had for its ideal a united National front
against the Bolshevists ; and, though sentenced to death, he
afterwards had his sentence commuted to ten years imprisonment,
and, after serving a year of that sentence (mostly under the system
termed " solitary confinement"), was released on the intercession of
the Academy of Sciences, but re-arrested in the autumn of 1922, to
serve as a witness in the trial of Social Revolutionaries of the Right,
and then sentenced to be deported to Perm Province. Lastly, after
being allowed to leave Russia on condition that he never returned to
his native country, he was, a year later, deprived, in his absence, of
civil rights, and had his archives and library confiscated and handed
over to the Socialist Academy—this last move on the Bolshevists'
part being due to his articles denunciatory of the Red Terror, which
he strenuously opposed from the standpoint of ethical rectitude, and
as a lifelong protagonist of the deathless principles of justice and
freedom.
THE TRANSLATOR.
To save space and labour, the translator has everywhere used the
shortened expression " Che-Ka " in place of the full English title
"Extraordinary Commission.'' The expression Che-Ka is formed of
the names of the two initial letters of the Russian title,
Chrezvychainaya Komissia. Originally there was only one Che-Ka,
the "All-Russian Extraordinary Commission," or Vserossiis-Kaya
Chrezvychainaya Komissia; but subsequently local and
occupational branches came into existence.
CONTENTS
To THE READER................................................................... v
PREFACE . . . . . . vii
INTRODUCTION ..... 1
CHAPTER
I. HOSTAGES . . . . . . 8
II. " THE TERROR WAS FORCED UPON US " . 22
III. BLOOD STATISTICS ..... 39
IV. THE CIVIL WAR........................................................... 112
V. " CLASS TERRORISM " . . .126
VI. CHE-KA TYRANNY......................................................... 145
VII. EXILE AND IMPRISONMENT . . . 227
VIII. " THE PRIDE AND THE JOY OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY" .....245
BIBLIOGRAPHY ..... 267
xi
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
A FEW OF A PARTY OF NINETEEN ECCLESIASTICS SHOT AT YURIEV
ON JANUARY 1, 1918—AMONGST THEM BISHOP PLATON—BEFORE
THEIR REMOVAL TO THE ANATOMICAL THEATRE AT YURIEV
UNIVERSITY
Frontispiece
Facing page
MALE AND FEMALE EXECUTIONERS AND TORTURERS
ACTIVE IN EUPATORIA DURING 1918 . . . 73
VARIOUS EXECUTIONERS AND TORTURERS ACTIVE IN
EUPATORIA DURING THE CRIMEAN TERROR . 76
MALE AND FEMALE TORTURERS OF EUPATORIA . 89
EXHUMING BOLSHEVISTS' VICTIMS FROM
CLAY PITS AT KOURSK . . . . . . 92
EXHUMING BOLSHEVISTS' VICTIMS AT ODESSA . . 163
AN INSCRIPTION WRITTEN BY A PRISONER ON A CELL
WALL IN KIEV.......................................................................165
SAENKO, COMMANDANT OF THE CHE-KA OF KHARKOV, A
NOTORIOUS TORTURER AND EXECUTIONER . 167
INSCRIPTIONS WRITTEN BY PRISONERS ON A
CELL WALL IN KIEV . . . . . . . 174
xiii
xiv THE RED TERROR
A TORTURE CHAMBER AT KIEV, WITH " DEATH TO THE BOURGEOISIE
" SCRAWLED ACROSS A WALL . .176
A CORNER OF A COACH-HOUSE ON THE PREMISES OF ONE OF THE
KIEVAN CHE-KAS WHERE PRISONERS WERE SHOT. THE
FLOOR IS LITTERED WITH CHIPS OF SKULL BONE, CLOTS OF BRAIN,
ETC. . . 178
KHARKOV VICTIMS...............................................................185
HUMAN " GLOVES," FLAYINGS OF HUMAN HANDS, FOUND IN A
TORTURE CHAMBER AT KHARKOV AFTER THE BOLSHEVISTS'
DEPARTURE . . .188
FUCHS, A " PUBLIC PROSECUTOR " FOR THE CHE-KA
OF KHARKOV........................................................................228
CORPSES. CHE-KA OF ZHITOMIR, 1919 . . 241
