Editing Leon Trotsky (section)

===== Red Terror =====
[[File:Russian civil war west.svg|thumb|European theatre of the Russian Civil War in 1918–1919]]
The [[Red Terror]] was enacted following [[assassination attempts on Vladimir Lenin|assassination attempts on Lenin]] and Trotsky, and the assassinations of Petrograd [[Cheka]] leader [[Moisei Uritsky]] and party editor [[V. Volodarsky]].<ref name="Leninism under Lenin">{{cite book |last1=Liebman |first1=Marcel |title=Leninism under Lenin |date=1975 |location=London |publisher= J. Cape |isbn=978-0-224-01072-6 |pages=313–314 |url=https://archive.org/details/leninismunderlen0000lieb_f2h6/page/313/mode/1up}}</ref> The French [[Reign of Terror]] is seen as an influence.<ref name=":1">Wilde, Robert. 2019 February 20. "[https://www.thoughtco.com/the-red-terror-1221808 The Red Terror]." ''ThoughtCo''. Retrieved 24 March 2021.</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Библиотека газеты "Революция". Клушин В.И. Малоизвестное о Троцком |url=http://www.revolucia.ru/otrozkom.htm |access-date=17 October 2022 |website=www.revolucia.ru}}</ref> The decision was also driven by early [[White Army]] massacres of "Red" prisoners in 1917, [[allied intervention in the Russian Civil War|Allied intervention]], and massacres of Reds during the [[Finnish Civil War]] (10,000–20,000 workers killed by [[Finnish Whites]])."<ref name="Leninism under Lenin"/> In ''[[Terrorism and Communism]]'', Trotsky argued the terror in Russia began with the [[White Terror (Russia)|White Terror]] under White Guard forces, to which the Bolsheviks responded with the Red Terror.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kline |first1=George L |title=In Defence of Terrorism in The Trotsky reappraisal. Brotherstone, Terence; Dukes, Paul,(eds) |date=1992 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-0-7486-0317-6 |page=158}}</ref>

[[Felix Dzerzhinsky]], director of the [[Cheka]] (predecessor to the KGB), was tasked with rooting out [[counter-revolutionary]] threats.<ref name=":2">{{Cite magazine|last=Bird|first=Danny|date=5 September 2018|title=How the 'Red Terror' Exposed the True Turmoil of Soviet Russia 100 Years Ago|url=https://time.com/5386789/red-terror-soviet-history/ |access-date=24 March 2021|magazine=Time}}</ref> From early 1918, Bolsheviks began eliminating opposition, including [[anarchist]]s.<ref name="Berkman">{{cite journal |last1=Berkman |first1=Alexander |author-link1=Alexander Berkman |last2=Goldman |first2=Emma |author-link2=Emma Goldman |date=January 1922 |title=Bolsheviks Shooting Anarchists |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-alexander-berkman-bolsheviks-shooting-anarchists |journal=Freedom |volume=36 |issue=391 |page=4 |doi= |access-date=9 May 2023}}</ref> On 11 August 1918, Lenin [[Lenin's Hanging Order|telegraphed orders]] "to introduce mass terror" in [[Nizhny Novgorod]] and to "crush" landowners resisting grain requisitioning.<ref name="litvinalkbterror">{{ill|Alter Litvin|ru|Литвин, Алтер Львович}} «Красный и Белый террор в России в 1917—1922 годах» {{ISBN|5-87849-164-8}}.</ref>

On 30 August, [[Fanny Kaplan]], a [[Socialist Revolutionary Party|Socialist Revolutionary]], unsuccessfully [[Assassination attempts on Vladimir Lenin|attempted to assassinate Lenin]].<ref name=":1"/><ref name=":2" /> In September, Trotsky rushed from the eastern front to Moscow; Stalin remained in [[Tsaritsyn]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kotkin |first1=Stephen |title=Stalin, Vol. I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928 |date=23 October 2014 |publisher=Penguin Books Limited |isbn=978-0-7181-9298-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sFx7AwAAQBAJ&dq=rykov+lenin+funeral+italy&pg=PT402 |language=en}}</ref> Kaplan cited growing Bolshevik authoritarianism. These events persuaded the government to heed Dzerzhinsky's calls for greater terror. The Red Terror officially began thereafter, between 17 and 30 August 1918.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /> Trotsky wrote:
{{Blockquote|The bourgeoisie today is a falling class... We are forced to tear it off, to chop it away. The Red Terror is a weapon utilized against a class, doomed to destruction, which does not wish to perish. If the White Terror can only retard the historical rise of the proletariat, the Red Terror hastens the destruction of the bourgeoisie.<ref>{{cite book|author=Leon Trotsky|title=Terrorism and Communism: A Reply to Karl Kautsky|year=1975|orig-year=1920|page=83}}</ref>}}