Cheka

Cheka, short for the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage (VChK), was the first Soviet state security organization. It was established in December 1917 by decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars to suppress counter-revolution and sabotage during the Russian Civil War. The organization was led by Felix Dzerzhinsky and operated under the authority of the Sovnarkom (Council of People's Commissars) and the broader Bolshevik state apparatus.

The Cheka combined political policing, intelligence gathering, and investigative functions. Its powers included arrest, detention, interrogation, confiscation of property, and, on orders from its leadership, execution without formal trial. It conducted surveillance, counterintelligence, and special operations against perceived opponents of the regime, both inside and outside Russia. Its activities contributed to the period known as the Red Terror, a high-profile campaign of repression aimed at consolidating Bolshevik control during wartime and after.

Structure and scope varied by region, but the Cheka maintained centralized leadership, regional branches, and specialized units responsible for counter-revolution, sabotage, and foreign intelligence. Its methods and scope fostered a precedent for secret-police practices in the Soviet system and had a lasting impact on the state’s approach to political control.

In 1922–1923 the Cheka was dissolved and transformed into successor security agencies, most notably the GPU (State Political Directorate), marking the beginning of a lineage of Soviet security organizations that would evolve into later structures such as the OGPU, NKVD, and KGB.