A Dread Tribunal

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 88, 5 July 1927, Page 15

A Dread Tribunal

i ! j THE ATROCIOUS ACTS OF I THE RUSSIAN CHEKA j | ECLIPSE ANYTHING | I KNOWN IN HISTORY. | 1 A

The political institution known as the Cheka, which sent the 20 Russians to their doom, was formed after the Revolution, under the official title of the “Extraordinary Commission.” The leaders included members of the Social Revolution with advanced views, and seized with a violent hatred of anything or anyone in any way remotely conncted with the old regime. It was organised by Felix Dzerzhinsky, and became the bloodthirsty instrument of the Reign of Terror. In Tsarist days, the secret police organisation, known as the Okhrana, had itself maintained a mil<jl reign of terror against all with advanced views who might be considered even averse to the existing regime. But the acts of its successor, the Cheka, under Dzerzhinsky, eclipsed anything known in the history of civilisation.

The Inquisition under Torquemada, and even the refined cruelties of the Turkish system, were but the pale forerunners of the Cheka. In the renfinement and extent of its operations for destroying the lives, or corrupting the consciences of thousands of unfortunates who came under its malign sway, the Cheka has no parallel in history. NERVE TESTS

The method of treatment for each victrri was the same. After “nerve tests” there began a series of systematic efforts by starvation, by cajolery, by terror, by diabolical enticements to break down the victim’s morale. If these failed torture was employed. The final “examination” was invariably held by the Chief Inquisitor himself, Dzerzhinsky, in a large room curtained in red.' He is described as a matter-of-fact fanatic, who took a ghoullish pleasure in signing death sentences.

Subsequently the name of Cheka was changed to G.P.U., the initials of a government department, as a cloak for its atrocities. Under the Cheka no man is safe, Fear stalks the land. Spies swarm everywhere, the leaders spy on each other, and the G.P.U. spies on everybody. There is no personal safety. Anyone may be arrested. Execution is by bullet, not against a wall from a firing squad, but in a cellar from a revolver held by a homicidal maniac retained for the purpose.

But the operations of the Cheka are coming to an. end for want of victims.

Nearly everybody considered “dangerous” has long since been murdered during the past ten years. The Cheka has done its work well.

Dzerzhinsky himself met a violent end in Moscow last year.