Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
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Just a Misunderstanding ...!
On the afternoon of June 3, 1919, the "Sownarkom" met in the Kremlin in Moscow for its daily meeting.
"Sownarkom" is one of the Bolsheviks' popular acronyms for the actual name of the body "Совет Народных Комиссаров СССР" / pronounced: "Soviet Narodnych Komissarow", in English "Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union", which represents the government of the new state ...:
While the participants are working their way through the agenda of the meeting, the chairman of the "Sownarkom", Wladimir Iljitsch Lenin, suddenly thinks of something!
He scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, folds it and pushes it over to Feliks Edmundowitsch Dschershinskij, who is second from the left in the photo above.
Dschershinskij is certainly the most feared member of the "Sovnarkom", because he is head of the "Extraordinary All-Russian Commission for Combating Counterrevolution, Speculation and Sabotage," which, in Russian "Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия по борьбе с контрреволюцией, спекуляцией и саботажем" In other words: "Vserossijskaja tschreswytschainaja komissija po borbe s kontrrewoljuziej, spekuljaziej i sabotaschem" means and is also abbreviated with an acronym: "Tsheka".
Dzerzhinsky unfolds the note and reads:
"How many politicians do we have in Moscow right now?"
"Political" naturally means "political prisoners"!
That was a wide range of people at the time:
"Counter-revolutionaries", which included monarchists, that is, former officers and officials of the Tsar, as well as workers who, for example, belonged to the Social Revolutionaries and advocated a Soviet republic but without Bolsheviks;
"Past persons" (they were officially called that!) who belonged to the earlier nobility, the class of landowners, the rich merchants, etc.;
"Anti-Soviet elements", that is, wealthy farmers (kulaks), members of parties that have since been banned, etc. but also sliders, speculators, black market traders, etc.
"Spies", which includes all people who have had contact with foreigners.
A large group of people - and consequently the "Iron Feliks" writes on the slip of paper under Lenin's question: "At present about 1,500", folds it again and gives it back.
Lenin skimmed the answer, drew a cross under the "1,500" on the piece of paper and pushed it back to the Tsheka boss.
On the same night the "approximately 1,500" political prisoners are arrested on the orders of Felix Dschershinskij ...
... are shot by Tsheka thugs without exception!
They all died of a misunderstanding - for what Dzershinsky, who had only met Lenin after the October Revolution, did not know:
Lenin had the habit of ticking a cross under absolutely every document he had read, in order to keep track of the amount of papers that passed through his hands every day ...
Lenin will not have taken the little misfortune of his "Iron Feliks" badly!
He has vouched for his position on such matters several times: "Better to shoot a hundred innocent people than let one guilty live."
On the afternoon of June 3, 1919, the "Sownarkom" met in the Kremlin in Moscow for its daily meeting.
"Sownarkom" is one of the Bolsheviks' popular acronyms for the actual name of the body "Совет Народных Комиссаров СССР" / pronounced: "Soviet Narodnych Komissarow", in English "Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union", which represents the government of the new state ...:
While the participants are working their way through the agenda of the meeting, the chairman of the "Sownarkom", Wladimir Iljitsch Lenin, suddenly thinks of something!
He scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, folds it and pushes it over to Feliks Edmundowitsch Dschershinskij, who is second from the left in the photo above.
Dschershinskij is certainly the most feared member of the "Sovnarkom", because he is head of the "Extraordinary All-Russian Commission for Combating Counterrevolution, Speculation and Sabotage," which, in Russian "Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия по борьбе с контрреволюцией, спекуляцией и саботажем" In other words: "Vserossijskaja tschreswytschainaja komissija po borbe s kontrrewoljuziej, spekuljaziej i sabotaschem" means and is also abbreviated with an acronym: "Tsheka".
Dzerzhinsky unfolds the note and reads:
"How many politicians do we have in Moscow right now?"
"Political" naturally means "political prisoners"!
That was a wide range of people at the time:
"Counter-revolutionaries", which included monarchists, that is, former officers and officials of the Tsar, as well as workers who, for example, belonged to the Social Revolutionaries and advocated a Soviet republic but without Bolsheviks;
"Past persons" (they were officially called that!) who belonged to the earlier nobility, the class of landowners, the rich merchants, etc.;
"Anti-Soviet elements", that is, wealthy farmers (kulaks), members of parties that have since been banned, etc. but also sliders, speculators, black market traders, etc.
"Spies", which includes all people who have had contact with foreigners.
A large group of people - and consequently the "Iron Feliks" writes on the slip of paper under Lenin's question: "At present about 1,500", folds it again and gives it back.
Lenin skimmed the answer, drew a cross under the "1,500" on the piece of paper and pushed it back to the Tsheka boss.
On the same night the "approximately 1,500" political prisoners are arrested on the orders of Felix Dschershinskij ...
... are shot by Tsheka thugs without exception!
They all died of a misunderstanding - for what Dzershinsky, who had only met Lenin after the October Revolution, did not know:
Lenin had the habit of ticking a cross under absolutely every document he had read, in order to keep track of the amount of papers that passed through his hands every day ...
Lenin will not have taken the little misfortune of his "Iron Feliks" badly!
He has vouched for his position on such matters several times: "Better to shoot a hundred innocent people than let one guilty live."
