Methods
Atrocities
Beyond body counts: documented methods of the Cheka, the Holodomor, the Gulag, and later industrial killing.
- The Cheka used sadistic, often blasphemous tortures against clergy and “class enemies” from 1918.
- Primary compilation: Sergei Melgunov, The Red Terror in Russia (1924), drawing on the Denikin Commission, eyewitnesses, and the contemporary press.
- Alexander Yakovlev’s Soviet-archive work records ritual mockeries such as molten-lead “communion.”
- Later Stalin-era crimes include Nazino “Cannibal Island” (1933) and NKVD gas wagons (1937–38).
- Thousands of Orthodox priests, bishops, and believers were executed; churches closed or destroyed.
After 1917 the Bolsheviks waged a militant atheist campaign: churches closed or desecrated, clergy executed by the thousand, local Cheka organs given a free hand. Most shootings were ordinary. The methods below are the documented extras — ritual mockery and sadism used to terrorize. They are not a claim that every organ used every method. They are a claim that these methods were recorded, in named places, by named compilers, while a party that denied God and denied the person was learning to govern.
Russia · 1918 onward
Molten-lead “communion”
Accounts compiled by Alexander Yakovlev from Soviet archives describe priests forced to ingest molten lead as a mockery of the Eucharist, alongside crucifixions, boiling in tar, and other tortures. Thousands of priests were among the victims of the anti-religious campaign.
Alexander Yakovlev, Soviet archival compilations
Russia · 1918 onward
Crucifixion of clergy
Cheka units crucified priests and Christians in documented cases — nailing victims to crosses as a mockery of Christ — in the same militant-atheist campaign that also used ordinary gunshot executions.
Melgunov (1924) and subsequent historical summaries
Latvia · 1941
Barbed-wire “crown of thorns”
Named case: Catholic priest Vladislavs Litaunieks, executed in 1941, tortured with a barbed-wire crown, crosses carved on the body, and nails under the fingernails. Part of a wider clergy-killing campaign in occupied territory.
Documented case of Vladislavs Litaunieks, 1941
Russia · 1918–1922
Boiling in tar; impaling
Melgunov and later compilers list boiling in tar and impaling among methods used on clergy together with crucifixion, scalping, and shooting. They appear as a cluster in the Red Terror record, not as a single rumor.
Melgunov, The Red Terror in Russia (1924)
Simferopol · 1918–1938
Crushed-glass enemas
Melgunov records Cheka agents in Simferopol using enemas with crushed glass. The method sits inside the broader persecution of Christians and “class enemies” — executions of priests and believers, closing of churches.
Melgunov (1924)
Voronezh · 1918–1938
Nail-studded barrels
The Voronezh Cheka rolled naked victims in barrels studded internally with nails. Recorded as a local organ’s practice during the same terror.
Melgunov (1924)
Oryol · 1918–1938
Frozen into “ice statues”
Agents poured water on naked prisoners bound in winter streets until they froze. Clergy and ordinary Christians were among those targeted for execution and torture.
Melgunov (1924)
Ekaterinodar · 1918–1938
Neck stretched and beaten
Two men stretched a victim on the floor by head and shoulders while a third beat the neck with a handgun butt. The neck bloated; blood ran from nose and mouth.
Melgunov (1924)
Perm · 1918
Eyes gouged, then buried alive
A priest had eyes and cheeks cut out, was paraded through the streets, then buried alive. One named episode in a campaign that killed thousands of Orthodox clergy.
Melgunov (1924) and related compilations
Russia · 1918–1922
Tongues cut out; scalping; burying alive
A cluster of methods used on prisoners, with clergy heavily represented. Most executions in the Red Terror were by gunshot. These are the documented extras.
Melgunov (1924)
Russia · 1918–1938
Red-hot rods and metal-tipped hoses
Iron rods and rubber hoses with metal tips, along with hot frying pans. Melgunov drew on eyewitness reports of Cheka interrogations.
Melgunov (1924)
Russia · 1918–1922
Intestine nailed to a pole
A victim’s abdomen opened, the small intestine nailed to a tree or telegraph pole, the person driven around so the gut unwound. Recorded against prisoners including clergy and other “class enemies.”
Civil War / Red Terror compilations; Melgunov
Russia · 1918–1938
Beheading by hand
Priests hacked with swords; an abbot scalped then beheaded; necks twisted until the head came off. Hands-on killing alongside the more common bullet.
Melgunov (1924)
Nazino Island, Ob River · 1933
Nazino “Cannibal Island”
Thousands of urban “undesirables” dumped on an island with almost no food, tools, or shelter. Starvation produced cannibalism. About 4,000 dead. A Stalin-era deportation that left a paper trail.
Soviet archival investigations; later historical literature
USSR, including Butovo · 1937–1938
NKVD gas wagons (dushegubka)
Trucks modified to pipe exhaust into the cargo space, asphyxiating prisoners on the way to killing grounds such as Butovo near Moscow. Named officer: Isay Berg. A bureaucratic solution to the volume of the Great Terror.
NKVD / Great Terror research; Berg