What even was the Red Terror and why did it happen?
What even was the Red Terror and why did it happen?
So I heard that somebody shot Lenin and failed (thank god) and what happened was the Red Terror happened and many died as a result. Can I get some more details about this?
Not true.
Red Terror was response by the revolutionary government to the white terror, that is violent counterrevolution terror used by the enemies in the civil war. If you read about the October Revolution, it was pretty much bloodless at first (for example read "Ten Days Which Shook the World") but Kerensky government and parts of the military responded with starting the civil war and wide campaing of murders, sabotage and terror aimed at the revolutionaries.
Assasination attempt on Lenin was maybe the most flashy episode, but it didn't changed anything, the assassin was Fanni Kaplan, an SR, and SR's were part of the white terror from the beginning (Kerensky himself was SR), though they had many factions and some were counterrevolutionary from the beginning while some remained allied with th bolsheviks for a time.
Naturally today you will not hear anything about white terror happening and especially about SR's, mensheviks and anarchists participation in it, but red terror is blown into ridiculous proportions, like the amount of supposed "Lenin's victims" ever growing with each turn of the fascist rumour mill.
You especially won't hear about it from anarchists. They just go on and on about how M-Ls betrayed them and conveniently leave out that those anarchists literally allied with invading imperialists.
Also, terror has sadly been unavoidable as an instrument of war. That's always been true for any conflict. Liberals exceptionalizing the red terror also conveniently never mention the atrocities and errors committed by all sides from their own revolutions and civil wars.