The Cheka concentrates in its hands the entire work of intelligence, suppression [presechenie] and prevention of crimes, but the entire subsequent conduct of the investigation and the presentation of the case to the court is entrusted to the Investigatory Commission of the [Revolutionary] Tribunal.50
This restriction was abandoned a month later in the decree “The Socialist Fatherland in Danger!”51 The document did not spell out who would “shoot on the spot” counterrevolutionaries and other enemies of the new state, but there could be no doubt that this responsibility devolved on the Cheka. The next day the Cheka confirmed that this was indeed the case by warning the population that “counterrevolutionaries” would be “mercilessly liquidated on the spot.”52 That day, February 23, Dzerzhinskii advised provincial soviets by wire that in view of the prevalence of anti-regime “plots” they should proceed at once to set up their own Chekas, arrest “counterrevolutionaries,” and execute them wherever apprehended.53 The decree thus transformed the Cheka, formally and permanently, from an investigating agency into a full-fledged machine of terror. The transformation was made with Lenin’s concurrence.
In Moscow and Petrograd the Cheka was prevented from executing political offenders by agreements with the Left SRs. As long as the Left SRs worked in the Cheka—that is, until July 6, 1918—no formal political executions took place in either of those cities. The first victim of the February 22 decree was an ordinary criminal who under the alias “Prince Eboli” had impersonated a Chekist.54 In the provinces, however, the organs of the Cheka were not bound by such restrictions and routinely executed citizens for political offenses. The Menshevik Grigorii Aronson recalled, for example, that in the spring of 1918 the Vitebsk Cheka arrested and executed two workers charged with distributing posters of the Council of Workers’ Plenipotentiaries.* How many fell victim of such arbitrary executions will probably never be known.
Emulating the Corps of Gendarmes of the tsarist security system, the Cheka acquired an armed force. The first military unit to come under its control was a small Finnish detachment. Other units were added, and at the end of April 1918 the Cheka had a Boevoi Otriad (Combat Detachment) of six companies of infantry, fifty cavalrymen, eighty bicyclists, sixty machine gunners, forty artillerymen, and three armored cars.55 It was these detachments which in April 1918 carried out perhaps the only popular action ever undertaken by the Cheka, the disarming in Moscow of the “Black Guards,” bands of anarchists who had occupied residential buildings and terrorized the civilian population. Acquiring a rudimentary military force was only the first step in the expansion of the political police into a virtual state within the state. In June 1918, at a conference of Chekists, voices were heard demanding the creation of a regular Cheka armed force and entrusting the Cheka with the security of the railways as well as borders.56
Much of the efforts of the Cheka in the first months of its existence went to fighting ordinary commercial activities. Since the most routine retail trade transactions, such as selling a bag of flour, were now classified as “speculation,” and the Cheka’s mandate included fighting speculation, its agents spent much time chasing peasant “bagmen,” inspecting luggage of railway passengers, and raiding black markets. This preoccupation with “economic crimes” prevented it from keeping an eye on far more dangerous anti-government plots that were beginning to take shape in the spring of 1918. In the first half of 1918, its only success in this field was uncovering the Moscow headquarters of Savinkov’s organization. This, however, was due to a fortuitous accident and, in any event, did not enable the Cheka to penetrate the center of Savinkov’s Union for the Defense of the Fatherland and Freedom, with the result that the Iaroslavl uprising in July caught it completely by surprise. Even more astonishing was the Cheka’s ignorance of Left SR plans for a rebellion, given that the Left SR leaders had all but advertised their intentions. To make matters worse, the Left SR plot was hatched inside the Cheka headquarters and was supported by its armed detachments. This resounding fiasco forced Dzerzhinskii on July 8 to relinquish his office, which was temporarily entrusted to Peters. He was reinstated on August 22, just in time to suffer another humiliating embarrassment, the failure to forestall a nearly successful terrorist attempt on the life of Lenin.
No tsar, even at the height of radical terrorism, was as afraid for his life and as well protected as Lenin. The tsars traveled in Russia and abroad; they entertained and appeared frequently at public functions. Lenin cowered behind the brick walls of the Kremlin, guarded around the clock by Latvian Riflemen. When from time to time he went to the city, it was usually without prior notice. Between his move to Moscow in March 1918 and his death in January 1924, he revisited Petrograd, the scene of his revolutionary triumph, only twice, and he never traveled to see the country or mingle with the population. The farthest he ventured was to travel in his Rolls-Royce for occasional rests at Gorki, a village near Moscow, where an estate had been requisitioned for his use.
Trotsky showed greater daring, traveling incessantly to the front to talk to the commanders and inspect the troops. He frequently changed schedules and itineraries to throw off potential assassins.
No serious assassination attempts against the lives of Lenin and Trotsky took place before September 1918 because the Central Committee of the SR Party, the terrorist party par excellence, opposed active resistance to the Bolsheviks. Its unwillingness to resort to methods used against the tsars and their officials stemmed from two considerations. One was the belief of the SR leadership that time was on its side and that all it had to do was to sit tight and await the resurgence of democracy in Russia. The murder of the Bolshevik leaders was certain, in its view, to ensure the victory of the counterrevolution. The second consideration was fear of Bolshevik reprisals and pogroms.
Not all SRs shared this outlook. Some party members were prepared to take up arms against the Bolsheviks, with or without the approval of the Central Committee. One such group began to form in Moscow in the summer of 1918, under the very noses of the Cheka.
It was the custom of Bolshevik leaders, Lenin included, every Friday afternoon or evening to address workers and party members in various parts of Moscow. Lenin’s appearances were usually not announced beforehand. On Friday, August 30, he was scheduled to attend two rallies: one in the Basmannyi District, in the building of the Grain Commodity Exchange, another at the Mikhelson factory in the southern part of the city. Earlier that day news had arrived that the chief of the Petrograd Cheka, M. S. Uritskii, had been shot. The assassin was a Jewish youth, L. A. Kannegisser, a member of the moderate Popular Socialist Party. It later transpired that he had acted on his own, to avenge the execution of a friend. But this was not known at the time and fears arose that perhaps a terrorist campaign was underway. Worried family members urged Lenin to cancel his appearances, but he quite uncharacteristically chose to face danger and went to town in a car, driven by his trusted chauffeur, S. K. Gil. He first appeared at the Grain Commodity Exchange, from where he proceeded to Mikhelson’s. Although the audience half expected Lenin, there was no certainty he would appear until his car pulled into the courtyard. Lenin delivered his customary canned speech attacking Western “imperialists.” He concluded with the words: “We shall die or triumph!” As Gil later told the Cheka, while Lenin was speaking, a woman dressed in work clothes came up and asked whether Lenin was inside. He gave an evasive reply.