The red terror in Russia

Metadata

Gutenberg ID

77104

Title

The red terror in Russia

Language

en

Book source

Project Gutenberg

Description max 80 words

Sergey Petrovich Melgunov's harrowing account exposes the systematic brutality of the Bolshevik regime in Russia. Through eyewitness testimony and documented atrocities, the text details mass executions, sadistic torture methods, and the deliberate starvation of prisoners. This powerful narrative serves as a stark indictment of the Red Terror, revealing a state apparatus driven by vengeance and sadism rather than justice.

Summary up to 500 words

In 'The Red Terror in Russia,' Sergey Petrovich Melgunov presents a harrowing, first-hand chronicle of the systematic violence inflicted by the Bolshevik Che-Ka upon White Army officers, clergy, intellectuals, and civilians between 1918 and 1923. The narrative begins with the execution of ecclesiastics in Yuriev and expands to describe the 'camps of death' in the north, where prisoners were sent to perish from exposure or drowned on barges. Melgunov details the 're-registration' process, a bureaucratic euphemism for mass murder, where loyalists were bundled into trucks and shipped to execution sites without trial. The text offers graphic descriptions of torture practices unique to various Che-Ka stations. In Kiev, victims were buried alive, brained with crowbars, or subjected to live rats forced through their bodies. In Kharkov, under the command of the sadistic Saenko, prisoners were scalped and flayed. Other regions employed crucifixion, boiling in water, and freezing in ice baths. Melgunov cites specific incidents, such as the drowning of 600 prisoners near Kronstadt and the mass shooting of Galician garrisons. Beyond physical torture, the book highlights the psychological terror of the regime, including the locking of living prisoners with corpses and the arbitrary execution of families based on the presence of a relative in the Volunteer Army. Melgunov challenges the notion that these atrocities were isolated incidents, presenting them as institutionalized policies aimed at the complete annihilation of the 'enemy.' The work concludes with a grim tally of the dead, emphasizing that the Red Terror replaced civil war with a policy of preventive intimidation and total extermination, leaving a legacy of blood that the author argues will never be fully expunged from Russian history.

LLM editorial rating

4.2/5

Download URL

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77104.epub.noimages

Local file path

data/epubs/pg77104.epub

Removed after upload

Downloaded at

2026-07-02 15:03 UTC

Categories

• Biography
• History
• Politics