If a prisoner kept in the Lukianov jail was suddenly summoned to the “Cheka,” then there could be no doubt as to the reason for the haste. Officially, the inmate learned of his fate only when—usually at 1 a.m., the time of executions—the cell resounded with a shouted roster of those wanted “for questioning.” He was taken to the prison department, the chancery, where he signed in the appropriate place a registration card, usually without reading what was on it. Usually, after the doomed person had signed, it was added: so-and-so has been informed of his sentence. In fact, this was something of a lie because after the prisoners had left their cells they were not treated “tenderly” and told with relish what fate awaited them. Here the inmate was ordered to undress and then was led out for the sentence to be executed.… For executions there was set up a special garden by the house at 40 Institute Street … where the Provincial Cheka had moved … [T]he executioner—the commandant, or his deputy, sometimes one of his assistants, and occasionally a Cheka “amateur”—led the naked victim into this garden and ordered him to lie flat on the ground. Then with a shot in the nape of the neck he dispatched him. The executions were carried out with revolvers, usually Colts. Because the shot was fired at such close range, the skull of the victim usually burst into pieces. The next victim was brought in a like manner, laid by the side of the previous one, who was usually in a state of agony. When the number of victims became too large for the garden to hold, fresh victims were placed on top of the previous ones or else shot at the garden’s entrance … The victims usually went to the execution without resisting. What they went through cannot be imagined even approximately … Most of the victims usually requested a chance to say goodbye; and because there was no one else, they embraced and kissed their executioners.*
It is one of the striking features of the Red Terror that its victims almost never resisted or even attempted to flee: they bowed to it as to the inevitable. They seemed to have been under the illusion that by obeying and cooperating they would save their lives, apparently quite unable to realize—for the idea, indeed, defies reason—that they were being victimized not for what they did but for what they were, mere objects whose function it was to teach a lesson to the rest of the population. But there was at work here also a certain ethnic characteristic. Charles de Gaulle, serving in Poland during the Russo-Polish war of 1920, observed that the greater the danger, the more apathetic Slavs tend to become.98
As the Red Terror entered its second month, a revulsion made itself felt in middle-level Bolshevik ranks. It intensified during the winter of 1918–19, forcing the government to issue in February 1919 a set of regulations that restricted the Cheka’s powers. These restraints, however, remained largely on paper. In the summer of 1919, as the Red armies were falling back before Denikin’s offensive and the capture of Moscow seemed imminent, the frightened Bolshevik leadership restored to the Cheka the full freedom to terrorize the population.
Criticism of the Cheka inside the Communist apparatus was inspired less by humanitarian impulses than by annoyance at its independence and fear that unless it was brought under control it would soon threaten loyal Communists. The carte blanche that the Red Terror gave the Cheka endowed it with powers which, by implication, extended over the very leadership of the party. One can imagine the feelings of ordinary party members on hearing Chekists boast that if “they felt like it” they could arrest the Sovnarkom, even Lenin himself, because their only loyalty was to the Cheka.99
