Shyshko Oleksandr

Political terror in Odesa province in February-April 1920

Section: State terror of the soviet era

Abstract: The aim of the research. The purpose of the study is to analyze the activities of the Odesa Provincial Extraordinary Commission as a punitive body of the communist government in the first months of its existence in the Odesa province in 1920. To identify the causes and consequences of the punitive policy of the authorities, which was aimed at suppressing even the least resistance and imposing the postulates of the social revolution in its Bolshevik understanding. Methods and methodology. On the basis of the problem-chronological method, the study examined the use of punitive measures by communist authorities, which included executions, imprisonment in a concentration camp, confiscation of property, forced mobilization, mass arrests during raids. Conclusions. One of the consequences of the establishment of the Bolshevik government in the Odesa in February 1920 was the resumption of the activities of the punitive bodies, in particular, the Odesa Emergency Investigative Commission. For almost a month, this body did not accept any decision on death penalty and only arrested unreliable persons. The situation changed in early March, when a group of emergency officers headed by S. Redens arrived in Odesa and when the name of this body was changed to the Odesa provincial emergency commission (OPEC). During March-April, the OPEC Board, under the chairmanship of S. Redens, decided to execute 113 people, 110 people were imprisoned at a concentration camp, 29 were transferred to the Revolutionary Tribunal, 182 were released from custody. During this period, the OPEC board most often punished for counter-revolutionary activities, which consisted of counterintelligence service, betrayal and beating of communists, manufacture and sale of counterfeit banknotes and criminal offenses. In general, political terror was aimed at suppressing the manifestations of open or covert resistance to the policies of the communist regime by representatives of various population strata.

Keywords: terror, execution list, OPEC, collegium, concentration camp, revolutionary tribunals, revolutionary committee.

  Full-text PDF    https://doi.org/10.15407/vuchk2017.02.119     Citation

• Shyshko Oleksandr (Odesa I. I. Mechnikov National University, Odesa, shyshko2011@ukr.net) ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9933-8794

Cite:
Shyshko Oleksandr (2017). Political terror in Odesa province in February-April 1920. From archives of VUChK–GPU–NKVD–KGB, ( 2 (48)) 119-155. (In Ukrainian). doi: https://doi.org/10.15407/vuchk2017.02.119

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