The Red Terror: How Lenin's Decree Became a State Policy of Mass Killing

In September 1918, after an assassination attempt on Vladimir Lenin and the murder of Petrograd Cheka chief Mikhail Uritsky, the Bolshevik government issued a decree that transformed revolutionary violence into a systematic policy of mass repression. This episode explores the origins, implementation, and legacy of the Red Terror — the campaign of arrests, hostage-taking, and executions carried out by the Cheka under leaders like Felix Dzerzhinsky and Mikhail Latsis. We examine key figures such as the Socialist Revolutionary Fanny Kaplan, whose bullet nearly killed Lenin; the execution of 512 hostages in Petrograd within days; the role of class hatred in targeting 'bourgeois' and 'counter-revolutionary' elements; and the internal Bolshevik debates between Nikolai Bukharin's push for terror and Lev Kamenev's more cautious approach. We also travel to Ivanovo-Voznesensk, the site of mass shootings, and discuss how the Red Terror laid the groundwork for later Stalinist purges. This is Episode 169 of The Russian Revolution series.

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