Lenin’s secret service
By Lisa Harmeling
On 12 March 1917, Tsarism exclaimed its last breath. In the end, the Empire, which was still allowed to extinguish three hundred candles at the celebration of the Romanov dynasty in 1913, collapsed like a house of cards without foundations. The aftermath of the fall of Nicholas II would reverberate throughout Russia and Europe, and the ancièn regime will have to give way, as with the French Revolution in the 18th century, to a new regime that will shock the world from the beginning to the end of the 20th century.
The story of Russia is dominated by oppressive regimes, wars and revolutions. The related victims are dreamers, poets, day labourers, servants and all those who were unjustly branded as “enemies”. It is important to look back to the early days of Lenin’s regime (1870-1924), as the patterns of that era are visible in Putin’s contemporary Russia. The similarities are explicitly illustrated by the use of an all-powerful body that has long dominated the state administrative and political landscape. Both then and now, the secret service is crucial in keeping their leaders in the saddle. Under the early years of Lenin’s rule, his secret service would become the blueprint for the later KGB (Committee for State Security) and today’s FSB (Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation). The Cheka (extraordinary commission to combat counterrevolution, speculation and sabotage) was established on 20 December 1917 and would spread doom until its disbandment in 1922.
War and Revolutions
World War I was a war of attrition that the Russian empire was no match for. Catastrophic losses at the front and lack of food in cities sunk morale to its lowest point. A strong fatalistic mood descended on the population and elites. Britain’s consul Bruce Lockhart (1887-1970), for instance, said: “The impending disaster was already in everyone’s mind and on everyone’s lips.” British ambassador George Buchanan (1854-1924) was still trying to warn Tsar Nicholas II of the danger of a coming revolution. If the Tsar received him sitting down, all would be well, he told Bruce Lockhart before he left in the direction of the Alexander Palace. When Buchanan arrived on 30 December, he was received standing.
The storm broke loose on 8 March 1917 – in the old calendar, the February Revolution began on 23 February, hence the name – the starting point of the February Revolution. Ziniada Gippius (1886-1945) was a writer and poet and wrote on Sunday, February 25: “it does not calm down, on the contrary, it is as if the unrest is getting worse. Very slowly but surely … But let me not forget that everything is different now.” The last hours of Tsarism were ticking away slowly but surely. Measures were taken to disperse the protesting crowd. However it was to no avail; on the contrary, the crowd grew louder. Once the last loyal military chiefs had sided with the masses, the Empire where the sun never set became a thing of the past.
A provisional government was created that sought to establish a more liberal regime and rectify past discontents. However, the provisional regime was weak, which was due to the fact that during its existence it showed much more zeal in destroying the legacy of the past than in building something to replace it. Another problem was also the inability to end the war or restore the economy, which meant that Lenin and other revolutionaries gained popularity with slogans such as “Peace, Land and Bread” at the expense of the provisional government. Although the provisional government saw the storm approaching, it could not turn the tide. Lenin took advantage of the situation and in October 1917 thought it was high time for a coup d’état, disguised as revolution: the October Revolution.
The secret service and revolutionary violence
Lenin and the Bolsheviks – that is what Lenin’s supporters at the Social Democratic Workers’ Party were called – wanted to drive the revolution forward at any cost, through revolutionary violence if necessary. Lenin needed a strike force to realise and preserve his communist salvation state, so it is not surprising that a state police force called the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC) was created. The MRC and militias occupied strategic cities and infrastructure. Meanwhile, ministers of the provisional government had been arrested or fled and the opposition walked away from talks with the Bolshevik party in protest against the coup. As a result, within a few months the Bolsheviks were free to unilaterally create new state bodies and pass motions in parliament. Rights and freedoms were eroded by decree and anyone who did not comply with the new laws was seen as a counter-revolutionary.
On 4 December 1917, Lenin complained to fellow Bolshevik and later head of the secret service Feliks Dzerzhinsky (1877-1926) about the problem of sabotage by the bourgeoisie. The MRC was replaced by the Bolshevik secret service, the Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counterrevolution, Speculation and Sabotage, also known as the Cheka. When the Cheka was established in December 1917, the Bolsheviks saw enemies and threats everywhere. The ruling class and political opponents were the first to suffer and were tracked down and exterminated through the new body. The situation worsened for the population after the failed assassination attempt on Lenin on 30 August 1918. A few hours after the attack, the party decided to strike back by decree against all perceived enemies of the revolution. From then on, the Red Terror erupted and no one was safe from the ruthless Cheka. It is noteworthy, however, that the groups for which Lenin fought back in October could now also be classified as enemies of the state. The Cheka was given unlimited power and, as a body, only had to answer to the party leadership.
The state within the state
Within three years, the Cheka (a body that had less than 40 members in 1917) became the main state organ of Lenin’s regime. Cheka’s many powers – besides tracking down enemies, prosecuting them criminally and executing them – led to rivalries within the Bolshevik party. The ministries of justice and interior fought against the Cheka to retain their power and influence, as those agencies were vehemently opposed to the Cheka’s encroachment on their legitimate functions. Other Bolsheviks also did not like the fact that one body had amassed so much power. A member of the Bolshevik party was of the opinion that the terror could not be called terror, he said it was a crime from beginning to end. For many, the ferocity of the terror could not be justified. In contrast, Lenin sided with the Cheka; he did not want to neutralise his ultimate weapon during the Red Terror. Anyone who opposed the Cheka was, according to Lenin, an enemy of the revolution and the proletariat. It was a not-so-subtle hint to the opponents of the Cheka, within the Bolshevik party that criticising the Cheka was tantamount to treason. Lenin gave the Cheka carte blanche to do as it pleased, making it disregard laws and allowing it to seize even more power. The Cheka’s vehemence and determination to cling to authority and power shows that within the existing state apparatus, a new and almost sovereign state was created. The Cheka only had to answer to Lenin. Within the all-powerful state, the Cheka functioned as investigator, prosecutor, judge and executioner.
Patterns
President Putin is a product of his time in the KGB, the successor to the Cheka. Putin – like his predecessors Lenin and Stalin – considers it necessary to keep a firm grip on the purse strings. For Lenin, Stalin, and Putin alike, the secret service was a popular means of consolidating their power. The new Kremlin Tsar also rules the population and elites with an iron fist.
Photo: Pavel Neznanov via Unsplash
