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.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original definition at https://www.worldhistory.org/Cheka/.
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