Quantifying Counter-Revolution: Legal Statistics and Revolutionary Justice during Russia's Civil War, 1917-1922

This essay uses the numerous statistics produced by revolutionary tribunals to explore the nature of counter-revolution after the October Revolution, how it changed and developed across the Civil War, and the importance of revolutionary justice, as represented by tribunals, in facilitating the Bolsheviks' victory. Statistics are unreliable sources and the state faced many problems in gathering data, but these figures permit us to explore key areas and trends, and demonstrate the ability of revolutionary justice to react in more nuanced ways to the counter-revolutionary threat than repressive organs such as the Cheka.