# Cheka The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage (ВЧК) — the original Bolshevik secret police, established by [[Vladimir Lenin]] in December 1917, weeks after the [[Russian Revolution]]. Under Felix Dzerzhinsky, the Cheka pioneered the model of revolutionary state terror: extrajudicial executions, hostage-taking, concentration camps, and systematic suppression of political opposition that would define Soviet governance for decades. The Cheka is the institutional ancestor of every subsequent Russian security service — OGPU → [[NKVD]] → MGB → [[KGB]] → [[FSB]] — and its founding principle that the security apparatus operates above the law, answering directly to the ruling party rather than to any judicial authority, persists in Russian intelligence culture to the present day. The [[Global Intelligence Hub]] tracks this lineage. ## See Also - [[Vladimir Lenin]] — founder and political patron - [[Russian Revolution]] — the event that created the Cheka - [[NKVD]] — successor organization under Stalin - [[KGB]] — the Cold War descendant - [[FSB]] — the current Russian successor