Cheka founding collegium member and theorist of class-based Red Terror
“We are annihilating the bourgeoisie as a class. The first question we must ask is: what class does the accused belong to, what is his origin, upbringing and profession? These must determine his fate.” — Red Terror journal, 1 November 1918
The son of a Latvian farmhand, he joined the SDLK in 1905 and worked as an underground propagandist. In October 1917 he served on the Petrograd Military-Revolutionary Committee, and in May 1918 entered the Cheka collegium, heading its counter-revolutionary department. His November 1918 Red Terror article, “We are annihilating the bourgeoisie as a class”, gave the Red Terror an explicit class rationale. He chaired the All-Ukrainian Cheka during the Civil War, then shifted to economic and educational posts in the 1920s. Arrested in late 1937, he was shot in 1938 and rehabilitated in 1956.
Career Timeline
- 1905Joins SDLK; underground work as a 'Forest Brother'
- 1908–1915Qualifies as village teacher; attends Shanyavsky People's University
- 1917.10Petrograd Military-Revolutionary Committee; October uprising
- 1918.5–7Cheka collegium, head of counter-rev. department; acting chairman
- 1918.7–11Chairman, Cheka and Military Tribunal, 5th Army, Eastern Front
- 1919–1921Chairman, All-Ukrainian Cheka (VuChK)
- 1922–1932Economic administration: Glavsol, Solesindikat, NK Zemledeliya
- 1932–1937Director, Plekhanov Institute of National Economy, Moscow
Related historical events
- 1905–1907The Revolution of 1905joined Latvian SD party
- 1917.10–1918.01The October Revolutionmember of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee and October uprising participant
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionCheka leadership, chairman of the Ukrainian ChekaIn October 1918 he formulated the class principle of the Red Terror, instructing Chekists to decide a prisoner's fate by class origin rather than evidence of any act.
- 1937–1938The Great Purgearrested in 1937, executed in 1938
Theory of Class-Based Red Terror
On 1 November 1918, Lācis launched the Cheka organ Krasny Terror (Red Terror) in Kazan, opening with his article "We are annihilating the bourgeoisie as a class." He declared: "We were too generous — we sought hard evidence against individual bourgeois persons when the guilty party was not the individual but the entire class. We no longer fight against separate individuals. We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class." The article instructed interrogators that the suspect's class origin, upbringing, education and profession alone must determine their fate. It was the most naked theoretical formulation of the Cheka's class-based Red Terror and provoked immediate nationwide controversy. Lenin publicly condemned Lācis's logic as "absurd," and on 25 December 1918 Pravda carried a rebuttal by Yemelyan Yaroslavsky, who satirised that under such a doctrine, Karl Marx himself, bourgeois origin, higher education, lawyer by profession, would be shot on the spot. Lācis later claimed the phrasing was merely "a careless expression," but his 1921 book The Extraordinary Commissions in the Struggle Against Counter-Revolution systematised his vision: the Cheka was "not an investigative body or a court" but "a combat organ of the Communist Party," entitled to execute without trial, isolate class enemies in concentration camps, and surveil every sphere of social life.