The abandonment of the campaign by the Czechs counter balanced the accession of foreign anti-Soviet forces, and the Whites were not yet in a position to strike an effective blow. When the new year began neither side could show much gain over November, except that the Revolution had reached the Baltic by the establishment of a Soviet Government at Riga on Dec. 26.
Red Terror.—During these months of pressure the Bolsheviks had hardened. Troops were called up, grain and cattle requisi tioned, property confiscated. In the face of danger no compro mise was possible and the country was conscripted ruthlessly to war. In the summer of 1918, to external dangers was added a deadlier enemy in their midst. After his defeat at Yaroslav, Boris Savinkov revived against the Soviet the Social Revolutionary terrorist centre which he had formed years before to combat tsardom by assassination. On Aug. 3o, 1918, one of his agents, a girl named Kaplan, shot Lenin as he left a workers' meeting in Moscow. He did not die, but the Bolsheviks met Savinkov's terrorism with their own "Red Terror." The following day Uritsky, chief of the Petrograd Cheka, was shot dead by Social Revolutionaries. The word Che-ka was formed from the initials of the Russian words "Extraordinary Commission." The department was organized in Dec., 1917, to deal with sabotage and other "Counter-Revolutionary" manifesta tions. As internal difficulties increased its activities were extended to cover speculation, smuggling, and political and military coun ter-espionage. Its power grew, accordingly, to include summary arrest, judgment and execution. It was thus ready to conduct the Terror. In revenge for the wounding of Lenin 5oo of the most prominent figures of the old regime were shot that night in Moscow. The killing of Uritsky led to similar reprisals in Petrograd.
Latsis, a high official of the Cheka, defined the principles of the Red Terror, which could be summed up in two phrases: "Strike Quick!" and "Strike Hard!" A third, "Strike Secretly!" might have been added, for arrests were carried out at night, and families of prisoners were rarely given news of them until they were condemned or freed. The very name "Cheka" became a word of terror, and rumour fantastically exaggerated the number of its agents and its victims.
Militant Communism.—The effects of this tragic period are incalculable. On the one hand it stamped deep into the minds of western countries the belief that Russia had relapsed into Mongol savagery. On the other it confirmed the Soviet leaders in their hatred of the non-Bolshevik world.
Intervention gave impetus and coherence to the work of nationalization, which had been proceeding sporadically. In some cases factories had been nationalized in order to fight sabotage by their owners or managers, in others to "legalize" confiscation already accomplished by the workers. Under the pressure of war the important industries were given control boards, which were not at first radically different from the war-time mechanisms under similar names in England, France and Germany. The at tempt to fix prices in a period of acute currency inflation had produced the inevitable "flight" of commodities from the market. As the situation grew more difficult it became necessary to con trol not only industry and transport but the supply and distribu tion of food. From that stage the step to the control of all production and distribution was not a long one for a government of Marxian Socialists.
At first, in the early summer of 1918, restrictions were not so harsh as to prevent much private trade and speculation. It happened that the beginning of the Red Terror coincided with the period of greatest food shortage, before the harvest. The extraordinary powers given to the Cheka to suppress internal enemies were quickly directed against speculators seeking for profits.
From the outset an influential section of the Central Com mittee of the Bolshevik Party had been advocating a full Com munist programme rather than Lenin's more cautious policy. Circumstances were now on their side, and by Aug., 1918, the period of "Militant Communism" which lasted nearly three years may be said to have begun. Private buying and selling were prohibited by law and offenders were severely punished. Cash wages were no longer paid. Workers and other employees were given cards for food, clothing and other necessities, free lodging and free transport on trams and railways. All "non-working" ele ments of the population were disfranchised. The peasants were subjected to requisitions of all their crops save what was needed for their households. They obtained commodity cards in ex change, but the breakdown of distribution and the difficulties of transport in a country ravaged by war progressively diminished their return from their labour. Extreme Communists declared that money would soon be wholly abolished. This hope was perhaps a screen for the conventional motives for inflation and the unavoidable fall in the value of the currency.