Purpose
The stated purpose of the Red Terror was to eliminate counter-revolutionaries who belonged to former "ruling classes". Martin Latsis, chief of the Ukrainian Cheka, explained in the newspaper Red Terror:
Do not look in the file of incriminating evidence to see whether or not the accused rose up against the Soviets with arms or words. Ask him instead to which class he belongs, what is his background, his education, his profession. These are the questions that will determine the fate of the accused. That is the meaning and essence of the Red Terror.
Vladimir Lenin, writing in Pravda, criticised Latsis for this comment, saying that he had gone to "absurd lengths" and that "He wanted to say that Red terror meant the forcible suppression of exploiters who attempted to restore their rule".
Grigory Zinoviev declared in mid-September 1918: "To overcome of our enemies we must have our own socialist militarism. We must carry along with us 90 million out of the 100 million of Soviet Russia's population. As for the rest, we have nothing to say to them. They must be annihilated."
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Famous quotes containing the word purpose:
“...Often the accurate answer to a usage question begins, “It depends.” And what it depends on most often is where you are, who you are, who your listeners or readers are, and what your purpose in speaking or writing is.”
—Kenneth G. Wilson (b. 1923)
“For the purpose of knowledge, one must know how to use that inner current that draws us to a thing, and then the one that, after a time, draws us away from it.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“If God bestowed immortality on every man then when he made him, and he made many to whom he never purposed to give his saving grace, what did his Lordship think that God gave any man immortality with purpose only to make him capable of immortal torments? It is a hard saying, and I think cannot piously be believed. I am sure it can never be proved by the canonical Scripture.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)