Editing Cheka (section)

=== Scholarly estimates ===
There is no consensus among the Western historians on the number of deaths from the [[Red Terror]]. One source gives estimates of 28,000 executions per year from December 1917 to February 1922.{{sfnp|Ryan|2012|p=2}} Estimates for the number of people shot during the initial period of the Red Terror are at least 10,000.{{sfnp|Ryan|2012|p=114}} Estimates for the whole period go for a low of 50,000<ref name="anatomy">Stone, Bailey (2013). ''The Anatomy of Revolution Revisited: A Comparative Analysis of England, France, and Russia''. Cambridge University Press. p. 335.</ref> to highs of 140,000<ref name="anatomy"/><ref>Pipes, Richard (2011). ''The Russian Revolution''. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 838.</ref> and 200,000 executed.{{sfnp|Lowe|2002|p=151}} Most estimations for the number of executions in total put the number at about 100,000.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lincoln |first=W. Bruce |author-link=W. Bruce Lincoln |year=1989 |title=Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War |publisher=Simon & Schuster |page=384 |isbn=0671631667 |quote=... the best estimates set the probable number of executions at about a hundred thousand.}}</ref>

According to Vadim Erlikhman's investigation, the number of the Red Terror's victims is at least 1,200,000 people.<ref>{{Ill|Vadim Erlikhman|ru|Эрлихман, Вадим Викторович}}  ''Потери народонаселения в XX веке.: Справочник'' <abbr>М.</abbr>: Издательский дом «Русская панорама», 2004.  {{ISBN|5931651071}}</ref> According to [[Robert Conquest]], a total of 140,000 people were shot in 1917–1922.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Great Terror: A Reassessment, 40th Anniversary Edition|last=Conquest|first=Robert|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2007|pages=in Preface, p. xvi: "Exact numbers may never be known with complete certainty, but the total of deaths caused by the whole range of Soviet regime's terrors can hardly be lower than some fifteen million."}}</ref> Candidate of Historical Sciences Nikolay Zayats states that the number of people shot by the Cheka in 1918–1922 is about 37,300 people, shot in 1918–1921 by the verdicts of the tribunals – 14,200, i.e. about 50,000–55,000 people in total, although executions and atrocities were not limited to the Cheka, having been organized by the [[Red Army]] as well.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://scepsis.net/library/id_3807.html|title=К вопросу о масштабах красного террора в годы Гражданской войны // Николай Заяц|website=scepsis.net|accessdate=December 7, 2024}}</ref>

According to anti-Bolshevik [[Socialist Revolutionary Party|Socialist Revolutionary]] [[Sergei Melgunov]] (1879–1956), at the end of 1919, the Special Investigation Commission to investigate the atrocities of the Bolsheviks estimated the number of deaths at 1,766,188 people in 1918–1919 only.<ref>Часть IV. На гражданской войнe. // ''[[Sergei Melgunov]]'' [http://lib.ru/POLITOLOG/MELGUNOW/terror.txt «Красный террор» в России 1918–1923.] – 2-ое изд., доп. – Берлин, 1924</ref>