The Red Terror was a campaign of political repression and executions in Soviet Russia and other Soviet republics, which was carried out by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War, chiefly through the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police force. It officially started in early September 1918 and it lasted until 1922, though violence committed by Bolshevik soldiers, sailors, and Red Guards had been ongoing since late 1917.