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Abstract
After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks established revolutionary tribunals to judge ‘counter-revolutionary’ and ‘political’ crimes. Amid conflicting reports from contemporaries on the effectiveness of these new courts, this essay examines their development over the first year of their existence. It argues that whilst tribunals were initially too inefficient for the regime, forcing greater central control over them, they played an important role in defining what constituted counter-revolution. In doing so, they promoted the regime's ideology, imparted an image of legality to the regime's actions, and helped the Bolsheviks to exert their control over a fragmented and diverse political landscape.
Notes
I would like to thank the British Academy for funding the archival research in this piece, and Sarah Badcock, Jerry Surh and two anonymous referees for their valuable comments. I am also very grateful to the participants in the ‘Villains and Victims’ conference in Nottingham in April 2010, who provided numerous useful comments, ideas for further research and general encouragement.
1 Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (hereafter GARF), fond A-353, opis' 1, delo 1, listy 13–15.
2 It is also notable that at least a dozen journals devoted to legal issues appeared between 1917 and the late 1920s.
3 GARF, f. R-1074, op. 1, d. 10, l. 20.
4 GARF, f. R-1074, op. 1, d. 10. ll. 20–23. This official transcript does not always match other accounts of the trial (see Lindenmeyr Citation2001, pp. 515–20). Its key points are replicated in Izvestiya, 12 December 1917.
5 A survey conducted in 1918 of 50 chairmen and members from 29 tribunals indicated that around 90% were party members (Kozhevnikov Citation1957, p. 40).
6 The accusation also appeared in a sceptical article on the trial in Novaya zhizn', 12 December 1917.
7 GARF, f. R-336, op. 1, d. 277, ll. 1–2ob. The accusations and some of the defendants' testimonies have been published (Tobolin Citation1928). A recent survey of the trial is available in Ivanov (Citation2011, pp. 342–70).
8Pravda, 7 November 1917; 8 November 1917.
9 GARF, f. R-336, op. 1, d. 277, ll. 2ob–3ob.
10Izvestiya, 4 January 1918; 5 January 1918; 7 January 1918; 12 January 1918. A similar, but more neutral account is in Novaya zhizn', 5 January 1918. Purishkevich's notes for his speech are in Rozental' (Citation1996). Another defendant wrote sensationalist memoirs discussing the trial (Vinberg Citation1918).
11 GARF, f. R-336, op. 1, d. 277, ll. 6–6ob.
12Izvestiya, 4 January 1918.
13 GARF, f. R-336. Some cases have more than one file.
14 GARF, f. R-336, op. 1, d. 1–20.
15 GARF, f. R-336, op. 1, d. 249, l. 18; d. 334, l. 4.
16 GARF, f. R-336, op. 1, d. 21–34a.
17 Some 12% of files concerned arrests for unspecified crimes or appeals.
18 GARF, f. R-336, op. 1, d. 277, ll. 20–20ob, 27.
19 GARF, f. R-336, op. 1, d. 277, l. 95.
20 GARF, f. R-336, op. 1, d. 277, ll. 68–68ob (Vinberg), 86–87ob (Dushkin); Izvestiya, 4 January 1918.
21 GARF, f. R-336, op. 1, d. 277, ll. 112, 117–17ob, 122–24, 131–32.
22 GARF, f. R-336, op. 1, d. 277, l. 108; Izvestiya, 4 January 1918; 12 January 1918.
23 GARF, f. R-543, op. 1, d. 7, ll. 2, 5, 23–31.
24 GARF, f. R-543, op. 1, d. 23, l. 4; Izvestiya, 29 June 1918.
25 The ‘official’ version is in Izvestiya, 6 April 1918; and 17 April 1918. I have also seen Menshevik accounts in Vpered!, 6 April 1918; 14 April 1918; and 26 April 1918. Versions based on more comprehensive surveys of the Menshevik press are Brovkin (Citation1987, pp. 110–17) and Aronson (Citation1939). The following account is based on all these sources.
26 A copy of the tribunal's verdict is in GARF, f. R-1235, op. 93, d. 200, ll. 13–13ob.
27 GARF, f. R-1235, op. 93, d. 200, ll. 12, 14–15.
28 Every issue of Vpered! from mid to late April carried articles and readers' letters defending the freedom of speech, and trenchant accounts of Bolshevik attacks on the newspaper itself.
29 GARF, f. R-337, op. 1, d. 6, ll. 1–3.
30 GARF, f. R-337, op. 1, d. 7.
31 Also Pravda, 28 January 1918.
32 See Izvestiya, 19 March 1918; 21 March 1918; 22 March 1918; 5 April 1918.
33 GARF, f. R-337, op. 1, d. 23, l. 3.
34 GARF, f. R-337, op. 1, d. 19, l. 4; d. 20, ll. 6–6ob.
35 GARF, f. R-1235, op. 93, d. 200, ll. 21–21ob.
36Vpered!, 21 April 1918. For more details on the trial, see Brovkin (Citation1987, pp. 118–22).
37Izvestiya, 3 May 1918.
38 GARF, f. R-336, op. 1, d. 73, l. 1ob; d. 75, l. 1.
39 GARF, f. R-336, op. 1, d. 334, ll. 9, 11.
40Izvestiya, 16 June 1918. The charges are elaborated in Trotskii's deposition to the investigation on 4 June (1926, pp. 317–22).
41 GARF, f. R-1235, op. 93, d. 215, l. 2.
42 One provincial tribunal had proclaimed the death sentence on 5 January 1918, claiming not to know that they were forbidden to use it at this time (Khachaturov Citation1978, pp. 96–97). Other cases surely existed as local tribunals often dispensed sentences that differed from those permitted officially (RSFSR Citation1918a, pp. 3–4, 21; RSFSR Citation1918b, pp. 38, 69).
43 Martov argued that Trotskii had acted as a prosecutor, not a witness, and that the tribunal was ‘a joke of a court’ in ‘Doloi smertnuyu kazn’!', published in 1918. This was reprinted in Martov (Citation2000, pp. 376–77). Another Menshevik, V. Stroev, used the same title for an article urging popular protests against the ‘bloody senselessness’; Novaya zhizn', 23 June 1918.
44Izvestiya, 21 June 1918; 22 June 1918.
45Izvestiya, 23 June 1918.
46 GARF, f. R-1074, op. 1, d. 6, ll. 1–2, 11, 16a–19ob. His trial was covered in Pravda, 17 March 1918.
47 The accusations are summarised in Izvestiya, 3 May 1918. In an unprecedented step, an extensive description of events then appears in Izvestiya, 4 May 1918; and 10 May 1918.
48Izvestiya, 10 May 1918; 12 May 1918; 14 May 1918; 17 May 1918; 18 May 1918; 19 May 1918; 21 May 1918. See also Novaya zhizn', 10 May 1918; 11 May 1918; 16 May 1918; 18 May 1918.