The Russian Revolution is often presented as an attempt to
impose socialism by the coercive means of dictatorship and
terror. In order to do this, historical facts are used very
selectively, and the actions of the Bolsheviks are described
with little or no reference to their historical context. BBC2
TV’s “Lenin’s Secret Files”, broadcast last December in the
“Timewatch” series, was a good example of the method. It
described the Red Terror with only a cursory mention of the
desperate circumstances of civil war and foreign intervention.
The programme made no mention of the initial leniency of the
Bolshevik regime towards its opponents. After the 1917
insurrections in Petrograd and Moscow captured White Guards were
released in return for a (soon broken) promise not to take up
arms against the revolution in the future. Captured members of
the Provisional Government were also released and one of the
Bolsheviks’ first decrees was to abolish capital punishment.
Although introduced during the civil war, this measure