Cheka

All-Russian Extraordinary Commission
Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия (Russian)
	Badge commemorating 5 years of the VChK–GPU
Agency overview
Formed	December 5, 1917
Preceding agencies	Okhrana; PVRK;
Dissolved	February 6, 1922
Superseding agency	GPU under NKVD RSFSR;
Type	State security
Headquarters	2 Gorokhovaya Street, Petrograd; Lubyanka Square, Moscow;
Agency executive	Felix Dzerzhinsky;
Parent agency	Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom)

The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (AREOC; Russian: Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, tr. Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, IPA: [fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə]), abbreviated as VChK (Russian: ВЧК, IPA: [vɛ tɕe ˈka]), and commonly known as Cheka (Russian: Чека, IPA: [tɕɪˈka]; from the initialism ЧК), was the first of a succession of Soviet secret-police organizations known for conducting the Red Terror. Established on December 5 (Old Style) 1917 by the Sovnarkom,^[1] it came under the leadership of Bolshevik revolutionary Felix Dzerzhinsky.^[2]^[3] By late 1918, hundreds of Cheka committees had sprung up in the Russian SFSR at all levels.

Ostensibly set up to protect the revolution from reactionary forces, i.e., "class enemies" such as the bourgeoisie and members of the clergy, it soon became the repression tool against all political opponents of the communist regime. At the direction of Vladimir Lenin, the Cheka performed mass arrests, imprisonments, torture, and executions without trial.

In 1921, the Troops for the Internal Defense of the Republic (a branch of the Cheka) numbered at least 200,000. They policed labor camps, ran the Gulag system, conducted requisitions of food, and put down rebellions and riots by workers and peasants and mutinies in the Red Army.

The organization was dissolved in 1922 and succeeded by the State Political Directorate or GPU.

^ Steinberg, Mark D. (2001). Voices of Revolution, 1917. London and New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 265–266. ISBN 978-0-300-09016-1.
^ The Impact of Stalin's Leadership in the USSR, 1924–1941. Nelson Thornes. 2008. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-7487-8267-3.
^ Moorehead, Alan (1958). The Russian Revolution. New York: Harper & Brothers. pp. 260. ISBN 978-0881843316.

[1] Steinberg, Mark D. (2001). Voices of Revolution, 1917. London and New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 265–266. ISBN 978-0-300-09016-1.

[Stalinsleadership-2] The Impact of Stalin's Leadership in the USSR, 1924–1941. Nelson Thornes. 2008. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-7487-8267-3.

[3] Moorehead, Alan (1958). The Russian Revolution. New York: Harper & Brothers. pp. 260. ISBN 978-0881843316.

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