The existing assumption of facts I have going into this is that from a period between 1918 and 1922 an estimated 50,000 to 200,000 people were executed by the Bolsheviks. What isnt clear to me is was this just mopping up what was left of the Whites and couter-revolutionaries, or was any dissent against the Bolsheviks liable to put you in the line of fire? Was the high death count justified or not? Thoughts?
The headline image for the Red Terror page on Wikipedia is a large sign in Pertrograd that reads "Death to the bourgeois and their helpers. Long live the Red Terror." I think you're probably right about it being viewed as a force for good by the working class.