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WWII’s French Serial Killer Doctor and Other Forgotten Monsters From History

Khalid Elhassan January 27, 2020 32 min

13. Securing Moscow For the Bolsheviks

1918 propaganda in St. Petersburg, declaring “Death to the Bourgeoisie and its Lapdogs – Long Live the Red Terror”. Imgur

As a founding member of the Executive Committee of the Moscow Soviet, Rosalia Zemlyachka was on the ground floor when the Bolsheviks hijacked the 1917 Russian Revolution. Indeed, she ended up playing a key role in securing Moscow for the Bolsheviks during the October Revolution. In the ensuing Russian Civil War, she split her time between Moscow and various Bolshevik field armies, where she bucked up the troops as an electrifying speaker and political agitator.

Lenin made her chief political commissar for the 8^th Army in Ukraine, then for that of the 13^th Army. Her most famous – or infamous mark – however, was made during the Red Terror – a period of extreme repression and mass killings carried out by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War. It began in 1918, after a failed attempt at assassinating Lenin. Zemlyachka was involved in the repression campaign from the start, advocating for the annihilation of class enemies, and taking part in the first batches of executions in Moscow.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.