The Cheka (Vecheka) Secret Police was created by Vladimir Lenin's Soviet government in December 1917 to ruthlessly stamp out all opposition to the Bolshevik Revolution. During the Russian Civil War, the Cheka operated without restrictions of any kind, arresting, torturing, and executing without trial tens of thousands of citizens deemed enemies of the state. The Cheka, dissolved in 1922, was the first of many Soviet incarnations of a secret police force which involved itself in every aspect of public and private life in the USSR.
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20 Dec 1917The Soviet secret police force, Cheka (VChK) is established to preserve the Bolshevik Revolution but became an instrument of oppression, responsible for mass arrests, summary executions, and the management of labor and concentration camps. It was disbanded in February 1922.
