Attacks on opponents of the government (Lenin)

• • Cheka used to close down constituent assembly in 1918.
  • Cheka place priests on spikes and turn them into ice statues in Oryol.
  • In Bryansk, opponents impaled and set on fire.
• Role of the Cheka

  • Cheka's role was to preserve communist rule in areas gained by Red Army; dispensed 'revolutionary justice'.
  • Use of Terror; grain requisitioning during War Communism; closed down opposition newspapers; shot socialist opponents; priests crucified; members of White Army were scalped and buried alive; Kronstadt Mutiny, Cheka agents with machine guns stood behind Red Army soldiers shot any men who retreated; ran concentration camps; stopped private trading under War Communism.
• Surveillance and Deportations under the NEP

  • GPU kept former Tsarist officers in the Red Army under surveillance.
  • Intellectuals; Lenin suspicious of intellectuals and experts who did not support government fully; deported professors and engineers suspected of anti-communism.
  • Censorship role; GPU could intercept postal messages; GPU scrutiny of intellectuals and students; GPU sent surveillance reports to Central Committee.
• Political Trials under Lenin

  • Lenin insecure about future of the revolution.
  • Feared economic compromise of NEP would cause political overthrow.
  • Political Trials; led by Dzerzhinsky; Trial of the Socialist Revolutionary leaders; accused of treason and sabotage; all defendants sentenced to death; most were only imprisoned and were only executed in the 1930s under Stalin.
• Religious, moral, and economic crimes

  • GPU policed the semi-capitalist marketplace established by NEP.
  • Imprisoned NEPmen who had grown too rich.
  • Harassing women who wore Western clothing.
  • Persecuting young people who danced to jazz music.
  • Persecuting Priests.
  • Acted against 'class enemies'.