On January 8, 1921, the chairman of the Cheka, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, signed the order “On the punitive policy of the Cheka bodies.”
Dzerzhinsky urged his subordinates to change their working methods:
“Of course, open uprisings must be suppressed mercilessly, gangs of bandits must simply be destroyed, but the fight against underground organizations of the Socialist Revolutionaries preparing uprisings or terrorist acts, catching political or economic spies requires subtle working methods, internal information, etc.
Old methods, mass arrests and repressions, quite understandable in a combat situation, with the changed position of the Cheka will only be grist for the counter-revolutionary mill, increasing the mass of dissatisfied people.
All suspicious people who may take part in active struggle, non-party officers or persons of the Right Socialist Revolutionary, Makhnovist or similar persuasion must be kept on record, found out, checked. This is a gigantic information work that should come to the fore, but it is impossible to fill pre-trial prisons with people arrested on suspicion.”
“Arrest the lousy security officers”
Why Lenin decided to abolish the Cheka
“ВЧК ОГПУ”
