The XXth Century Political History of Russia: lecture materials. Gennady Bordyugov
offices it could even exercise control over the activity of local judicial bodies and subordinate local committees of the ruling party.
In their letters people asked Lenin avowedly and harshly: «Why has the dictatorship of the proletariat in local offices turned into a criminal dictatorship of lower class criminals?» «How come, that even on this great day, the day of the anniversary of the Great October Revolution, working people do not have any real rights and possibilities but have to fear the Cheka agents and their searches?»
The «extreme emergency» regime did not manage to strengthen the communist government. On the contrary it weakened it and generated a situation of anarchy. Neither the upper class, nor the lower class could control the activity of the other. A weak system of power was rapidly losing its social foundation. All classes of the society tired of the anarchy engulfing the country. Peasants and ordinary citizens had only one dream: order. The destiny of the Bolsheviks depended on the transformation of the «extreme emergency» regime into a strictly organized form of dictatorship.
Beginning in September 1918, one could record the reining in of some manifestations of the «extreme emergency» regime, first and foremost the use of mass terror as a form of governing. The emergency measures and agencies were also brought within bounds of the law and strict regulatory activity. Only with this strategy could they manage to win over the majority of the population and form a firm rear echelon.
The decrees of the IV All-Russian Extraordinary Congress of Soviets in November 1918 proclaimed amnesty. Local extraordinary committees lost the right to seize hostages, and consequently only the central office of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission was authorized to do so. A considerable number of hostages who had been seized before were freed. The committees of the poor (the kombeds) were eliminated. «Revolutionary law» came into force. All these decisions manifested the readiness of the Bolsheviks for a long-term war, as well as comprehension that they could not make war in the conditions of disorder and instability that marked the «extreme emergency» regime. In justifying the necessity of the aforementioned decrees, and primarily of the one concerning amnesty, the authorities wanted to demonstrate that they were sufficiently strong, and that they were ready to reconcile with all their enemies who would agree to submit to Soviet power.
On February 17, 1919, with reference to the decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, the VTsIK declared the transfer of the right of adjudication from the extraordinary commissions to revolutionary tribunals. But this did not mean that these measures put an end to the manifestations of the «extreme emergency» regime. The Cheka kept its full powers in the regions where Soviet power had proclaimed martial law, and in 1919 such regions prevailed. Revolutionary tribunals were not, and could not be, a model of justice. Extraordinary commissions issued their judgments at the end of a trial, and revolutionary tribunals examined the cases on the basis of these judgments. Moreover, members of extraordinary committees were required to be members of the revolutionary tribunals. Standing orders on the revolutionary tribunals, which were adopted by VTsIK on April 12, 1919, prescribed that they were to be governed only by the conditions of the case and revolutionary conscience while judging.
Revolutionary tribunals were formed in the Military Revolutionary Councils at the fronts, and in the armies and corps as well; they were called Military Revolutionary Tribunals. Not only military men and prisoners of war were under their jurisdiction, but all criminals who had committed crimes within the zone of military operations as well. The sentences were enforced immediately. Death sentences were executed after two days; their enforcement could be stopped by the corresponding Military Revolutionary Council.
All extraordinary committees underwent organizational changes. This was, perhaps, the main sign of a return to the regime of regular emergency measures. Indicative in this context were the warnings by Petr Kropotkin, the anarchist theorist, in his letter to Lenin dated September 17, 1918, that the extraordinary bodies were on the eve of a serious trial. Like all other theorists of the revolution, Kropotkin appealed to the experience of the French Revolution. He tried to show how the terrorists of the Committee of General Security (the National Guard) became its grave-diggers in 1794. His studies of the literature made Kropotkin conclude that along with the Committee of General Rescue and particularly with the Paris Commune founded in 1793, «along with this revolutionary force, which was already partly constructive, another type appeared that was a police force, presented by Committee of General Security and its police departments. At first, this police force that had achieved momentum during the Reign of Terror, demolished the Sections (agencies of the People’s Revolution that appeared in large cities – G. B.), then the Commune and finally the Committee of General Security itself,» he wrote to Lenin.
Kropotkin did not conceal from Lenin the reason why he needed to examine this period of history: «Your comrades/terrorists are about to do the same in the Soviet Republic.» The Russian people have a great reserve of creative potential. Hardly had these forces begun to rebuild life on a new foundation from the complete ruin brought on by the war and revolution, when «the police, with their duties imposed on them by the Terror, commenced their corrosive and pernicious activity». They paralyzed any kind of construction and appointed completely inadequate people. Police cannot be a «builder» of a new life. But nevertheless it was the police who were becoming the supreme power in all small towns and villages. «Where will such a situation lead Russia?» asked Kropotkin. «I believe it will provoke the fiercest reaction.» The first signal of understanding this danger was «The decree on the All-Russian and local extraordinary committees» adopted by VTsIK in October 28, 1918. The document stipulated the controlled status of the local Chekas and their subordination to the Soviets and executive committees. In January 1919, Political Bureaus replaced local extraordinary committees in the districts. They were headed by the chiefs of the local police departments. Beginning February 17, 1919, in accordance with the decree of VTsIK, the All-Russian Extraordinary Committee had the right to administer punishment only in regions under martial law.
However, regulation of the activity of all extraordinary committees as well as of revolutionary tribunals had an ambiguous character and in reality its effect was minimal. Their activity was directly subordinate to Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party through Dzerzhinsky’s office; to be more precise, it was subordinated to Lenin personally.
All of these contradictions in reforming the structure of the extraordinary bodies caused new surges of the «extreme emergency regime» throughout the Civil War. It would be enough to mention how they tried to solve the food problem of February and April of 1919, the summer punitive expedition of 1919 to Ukraine, the Crimean events in late 1920, and the events in Tambov guberniya in 1920–1921.
The dissolution of the Ukrainian Rada at the end of 1918 and the foundation of the Ukrainian State in place of the Ukrainian People’s Republic signaled the dictatorial tendency of numerous newly organized state formations which were out of Bolshevik control. «The law on the interim state structure of the Ukrainian government» vested hetman Skoropadski with dictatorial authority.
The situation in the North of Russia was almost the same. At the end of 1918, in Archangelsk, Soviet power was overthrown and a «socialist» supreme government of the North region was formed. The city was opened to the troops of interventionist countries. However, after a failed military coup undertaken by the «Rightists», contradictions between «democratic» authorities and the occupation administration finally led to the formation in early October of a new «neosocialist» Provisional government. Socio-political powers were reorganized toward the «Rightists» and a regime of «hard power.»
In August, political organizations such as «The Unity of Renaissance» and «The National Center» – masterminds of the «White cause» – formed a consolidated platform, the meaning of which was articulated in the following statement: «In the process of state formation and until the moment the state structure is completed, authority […] must be vested in an authorized, strong, and independent supreme body capable of acting. Its structure will consist of a directorate of three: a Commander-in-Chief of counterrevolutionary armies and two representatives of socialist and non-socialist movements».
When in September the destiny of the Committee of Russian Constituent Assembly members was called in question due to the activity of the Red Army, state power started to concentrate in Omsk. The Council of Ministers was deprived of its decision-making function,