History of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Speculation, and Sabotage (Cheka) in unique archival materials — at the exhibition of the Presidential Library

From December 18, 2017, to February 25, 2018, ““The saving sword of the Revolution”: Chekist in life, cinema and literature” exhibition was opened in the Presidential Library. The exposition is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the first Soviet body of state security — the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Speculation, and Sabotage, also known as the Cheka.

The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Speculation, and Sabotage (Cheka) was formed under the Council of People’s Commissars on December 7 (20), 1917, by the initiative of V. I. Lenin. He also became one of the first victims, the case of whose assault the Cheka had been investigating in the summer of 1919. “When V. I. Lenin drove through Sokolniki near the Sokolniki Council building, the gangsters stopped his car and robbed V. I. Lenin, taking away his documents, the revolver that was with to him and the car itself and left, — as we can learn from the head’s of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department Trepalov report. — Looking down his way through stolen documents and finding out that the chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars has just been robbed, Koshelkov turned the car around to go back, to catch V. I. Lenin and to kill him. Fortunately, V. I. Lenin at this time already went into the building of the Sokolniki Council and was safe.” Then the Koshelkov’s gang, which had been operating with impunity since 1910, managed to avoid arrest again. But soon the Cheka figured out the criminals and eliminated during the detention.

The protocols of the commission meetings, the reports, photographs, instructions, propaganda posters and other archival materials tell about the work of the Cheka. Owing to multimedia equipment, the visitors of the exhibition can “look through” “The Cheka Weekly” periodical as well as to read the summaries of the secret department of the Cheka and see a detailed representation of the political, economic and military life of the country and learn about the problems that the Cheka had to face. So, for example, in the summer of 1919 from the Tsarskoye Selo were reported: “Very suspicious young women serving as interpreters at the radio station,” and in Yekaterinburg “there are some agents of the White Guard military control pretending to be the prostitutes and the cabmen. Street boys are used for communication.”

Part of the exposition, which presents photographs, documents, publications about and other interesting materials, is dedicated to one of the founders of the Cheka and its leader Felix Dzerzhinsky.

The Cheka’s pursuit through the years has become one of the main themes in the literature and cinema, which was also reflected in the exhibition of the Presidential Library. Art works and movie fragments will show visitors how the image of the real Chekist was created on movie screen and in fiction, learn more about the everyday life of the Cheka, especially because often screen plays and plots were based on the true stories.

The partners of the exhibition are the Central Archive of the Federal Security Service of Russia, the Archive of the Federal Security Service Directorate for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, the Scientific Library named after M. Gorky of St. Petersburg State University, the State Museum of Political History of Russia, FSUC “Russian State Academic Drama Theater named after A.  Pushkin (Alexandrinsky).

To visit the exposition, please, pre-register by phone (812) 334-25-14 or send an e-mail to: excursion@prlib.ru.