The Cheka

The History of the Soviet Agency That Eventually Became the KGB

By: Charles River Editors

Narrated by: Steve Knupp

The KGB is one of the most famous abbreviations of the 20th century, and it has become synonymous with the shadowy and often violent actions of the Soviet Union’s secret police and internal security agencies. In fact, it is often used to refer to the Soviet state security agencies throughout its history, from the inception of the inception of the Cheka (Extraordinary Commission) in 1917 to the official elimination of the KGB in 1992. Whether it’s associated with the Russian Civil War’s excesses, Stalin’s purges, and even Vladimir Putin, the KGB has long been viewed as the West’s biggest bogeyman during the second half of the 20th century.

However, the KGB did not appear out of thin air. Naturally, the earliest Soviet leaders utilized intelligence agencies that collected information both abroad and within the Soviet Union, targeting foreign opponents and domestic opponents alike. Lenin did not imagine the scale of the opposition he would have to face after the revolution, and he quickly came to the conclusion that "a special system of organized violence" must be created to implement the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Thus, from nearly the beginning of the Bolshevik takeover of Russia, Lenin and his successors established and relied on a particularly ruthless agency: the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, later abbreviated to the Extraordinary Commission. Known colloquially as the Cheka (Extraordinary Commission), it soon became as feared by non-socialists as the Tsar’s secret police had ever been. The main means approved by the Council of People's Commissars on December 20, 1917, which the Cheka had to use to fight the counter-revolution, were "seizure of property, resettlement, deprivation of cards, publication of lists of enemies of the people, etc". Nevertheless, the main weapon of the Cheka for the next 35 years would be terror, and it blazed the path for its more famous successor.

©2024 Charles River Editors (P)2024 Charles River Editors

Not worth the hour or two

Hardly about the Cheka at all. The second half of the first chapter is about the Cheka. The first half is about the revolution in general and the rest of the book is just about Soviet intelligence including long after the Cheka was gone. It belabors points you're already familiar with but routinely fails to detail topics or people relevant to the actual subject and not generally known.