Iz Iostorii Vchk 1917 - 1921 Sbornik Dokumentov [Approximate English Title: From History of the Predecessor of NKVD]

Moscow: Gosudarstvennoye Izdatel'stvo Politicheskoy LIteratury, 1958. Hardcover. xv, [3], 510, [2] pages, Illustrations. Some page discoloration. Rear board weak and strengthened with glue. This is a collection of Documents, various orders, decisions, letters, verdicts,etc. Name, location, and date in ink on t-p. Title page is in two colors. Stamp on title page. The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, abbreviated as VChK and commonly known as Cheka (from the initialism ChK), was the first of a succession of Soviet secret police organizations. Established on December 5 (Old Style) 1917 by the Sovnarkom, it came under the leadership of Felix Dzerzhinsky, a Polish aristocrat-turned- communist. By late 1918, hundreds of Cheka committees had sprung up in various cities at the oblast, guberniya, raion, uyezd, and volost levels. In 1921, the Troops for the Internal Defense of the Republic (a branch of the Cheka) numbered at least 200,000. These troops policed labor camps, ran the Gulag system, conducted requisitions of food, and subjected political opponents to secret arrest, detention, torture and summary execution. After 1922 Cheka groups underwent the first of a series of reorganizations; however Soviet citizens continued to refer to members of the various organs as Chekists. Condition: Fair.

Keywords: Russia, Soviet Union, Russian Revolution, Cheka, NKVD, Intelligence Services, Reference Works, Russian Civil War, Repression

[Book #75738]

Price: $250.00