📅 On This Day in Military History

December 20

1 event across history

⚔️📍 Petrograd, Russia1917

Cheka Founded — Soviet Secret Police Established

The Bolsheviks established the Cheka (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission), the Soviet secret police, to suppress political opposition and enforce the new communist government's authority. Felix Dzerzhinsky was its first director.

The Cheka became the institutional ancestor of the KGB and established the Soviet pattern of political terror that would kill millions under Stalin.

Outcome

Soviet secret police established; Red Terror begins