Russian Revolution: Terror in the Civil War

[emmskib25]

Hey everyone!!

I have a debate in class and the topic is: The Red Terror proved Bukharin's saying "You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs," and I am on the affirmative side, essentially justifying the use of terror by the Red Army during the civil war. I'm having some trouble with coming up with good points for this debate, so any points would be very useful!!

Thank you 

[SamBro]

I'm probably way too late for your debate, but the primary justification used by the Bolsheviks for the Red Terror, was simply that it was a response to White Terror.
In addition to this, it was necessary for the survival of the regime, which the Bolsheviks believed justified any means used to maintain it, as it would result in the Utopia that is pure communism. This never eventuated, as the war forced them to compromise the very values they were trying to save, but the intention stands - kill the few to save the many.
Those would have been my primary talking points.

[patriciarose]

ahaha yes i think they may have graduated by now? but since it's here: the big thing is survival. almost 100% of the things the bolsheviks did post-oct'17 were to consolidate power. and since that's what everyone else (read: the whites) was doing as well, it's hard to condemn one and support the other for essentially very similar actions. aside from everything in the above post, provocation isn't a bad argument? kaplan tried to assassinate lenin in like august 1918 and the red terror escalated a lot after that because they felt they needed to actively instill fear. (:

[justimagine]

Another Argument you could use is that they needed to 're-educate' the masses into communist thinking. By doing so, they were awaking Marx's 'class consciousness' within the people. In addition, you need the entire country to follow communist thinking or else communism won't work. Lenin also beleived that the people asked for this (during the provisional government when the bolsheviks, mensheviks, oktoberists ect. agreed on Lenin's revolution). So when he carried out the violence and terror, he was doing it for the people's own good.