Revolutionary tribunals and the origins of terror in early Soviet Russia*

Abstract

After the October Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks restructured Russia's legal system, assigning the central role in targeting their enemies to revolutionary tribunals. Within months, however, this 'revolutionary justice' was marginalized in favour of the secret police (Cheka) and a policy of terror. This article utilizes the archives of three tribunals, contemporary writings, newspapers and memoirs to examine the tribunals' investigations and trials, and their impact. It argues that the relative failure of tribunals paved the way for the terror that engulfed Russia by autumn 1918 and laid the foundations of the repressive Soviet state.

Resisting Multiple Narratives of Law in Transition Countries: Russia and Beyond

“…Notwithstanding his legal education, Lenin's disdain for law is well‐documented (Burbank 1995). One of his first acts after coming to power was to disband the existing court structure in favor of revolutionary tribunals in which ideological purity rather than law was used to assess claims (Rendle 2011). Although these tribunals were abandoned by 1922, the courts that followed in their wake were notoriously used as a conveyor belt to the GULAGs.…”

Understanding the History of Soviet Criminal Justice: The Contribution of Archives and Other Sources

“…Good examples include Mathew Rendle's study of revolutionary tribunals during the Civil War, bodies that handled a greater variety of cases than their mandate suggested, and Daniel Newman's account of the cassation review activities of the Moscow provincial court in the 1920s and early 1930s. 29 The latter dramatizes the role of this court in pursuing its own approach to cases and the ways that it tried to instruct the less knowledgeable judges on lower courts. Both of these studies provide revealing stories of cases heard at these courts, available only through archival sources.…”