[The following is in relation to a phase of the Russian Revolution that is commonly known as the Red Terror.]
The fact that the Cheka selected its victims mainly from these groups – politically harmless and in some ways even supportive – confirms that the purpose of the Red Terror was not so much to destroy a specific opposition as to create an atmosphere of general intimidation, for which purpose the attitudes and activities of the terror’s victims were a secondary consideration. In a sense the more irrational the terror, the more effective it was, because it made the very process of rational calculation irrelevant, reducing people to the status of a cowed herd.
As Krylenko put it: “We must execute not only the guilty. Execution of the innocent will impress the masses even more.”
Source:
Pipes, Richard. "The Red Terror." The Russian Revolution. New York: Knopf, 1990. 822. Print.
Original Source Listed:
Steinberg, In the Workshop, 227.
Further Reading:
Никола́й Васи́льевич Крыле́нко (Nikolai Vasilyevich Krylenko)
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