Established in December 1917, the Cheka - the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage - not only marked the beginning of the Soviet secret services, but also became for many an ominous personification of the Great Russian Revolution.A new book by the leading historian of terror Civil War, associate professor at the Institute of History of St. Petersburg State University, on the basis of a wide range of sources, covers in detail the Red Terror of the Cheka in 1918, debunking the established myths about the activities of the Chekists. What is the contribution of Lenin and Dzerzhinsky to the construction of the Cheka? What role did the assassination attempts on the first persons of Soviet Russia play in the start of terror, and what was the main reason for the introduction of the death penalty by the Bolsheviks? Was the Red Terror a response to the terror of the White movement and foreign interventionists, the harsh suppression of revolutions in Germany and Finland? How did the Cheka fight the counter-revolutionary underground, crime, opposition parties and movements? What was the personnel composition of the Chekists and did they all stand the test of power? Finally, what is the real scale of the repressions of the Cheka and what was the result of the policy of the RED TERROR?