Council of People’s Commissars, Resolution on Red Terror. September 5, 1918
Original Source: Sobranie uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii rabochego i krestian’skogo pravitel’stva, 1918, p. 789.
The Council of People’s Commissars, having heard the report of the Chairman of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-revolution, Speculation and Crime about the activities of this Commission, finds: that in the present situation the safeguarding of the rear by means of terror is necessary; that it is necessary to send a greater number of responsible party comrades to the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-revolution, Speculation and Crime in order to strengthen its work and to introduce into it a more systematic character; that it is necessary to safeguard the Soviet Republic from class enemies by isolating them in concentration camps; that all persons associated with White Guard organizations, plots and rebellions are liable to be shot; that it is necessary to publish the names of all those shot and the reasons for shooting them.
People’s Commissar of Justice Kurskii
Source: William Henry Chamberlin, The Russian Revolution, 1917-1921 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1935), Vol. II, pp. 475-76.