大象传媒

Gunshots ring out in a dramatic black and white Soviet feature film while Martin Sixsmith stands at the spot where Fanny Kaplan tried to kill Lenin in August 1918. It unleashed the 'Red Terror' in which 100's maybe 1000's of so-called class enemies were executed for no other crime than their social origin.

In the name of Lenin's future Utopia, an estimated half a million people were eliminated in 3 years. Famine, conflict, typhus and economic devastation were bringing the country close to collapse and shortly before he himself starved to death, the philosopher Vasily Razanov wrote presciently: "With a clank, a squeal and a groan, an iron curtain has descended over Russian history". With his regime tottering, Lenin was quick to abandon his promises of freedom, justice and self-determination, replacing them with what came to be known as War Communism - harsh, enslaving and repressive. Forced labour was systematically imposed on the population; industry nationalized, private enterprise banned; food rationed and Russian society transformed into an increasingly militarized dictatorship.

The Bolsheviks rallied the masses - no longer seen as agents of the revolution but as an expendable resource to be exploited in the great experiment of building socialism - to their cause by giving them the licence to plunder and murder the castigated richer peasants or kulaks who had kept the rural economy going. Agriculture regressed, cities starved & a 70,000 strong Peasant Army emerged, (reminiscent of the great historical revolts of Razin and Pugachev) prepared to fight for freedom and the right to the land. It took 100,000 troops to massacre the rebels with poison gas as they hid in the forests. But things were getting to the point where terror alone could not solve the problem.

Historical Consultant: Professor Geoffrey Hosking

Producers: Adam Fowler & Anna Scott-Brown
A Ladbroke Production for 大象传媒 Radio 4.