Red Cleansing
| Red Cleansing Rote Säuberung Črvjeno čisteňie Червоні чи́стки | |
|---|---|
 Vierz soldiers after the execution of Luepolan POWs in May 1949 | |
| Date | 1947–1951 |
| Target | Left-wing officials, collaborators, and civilians |
Attack type | Mass murder Politicide Genocide (disputed) |
| Deaths | 300,000–500,000 (independent estimates) |
| Perpetrators | Vierz Empire Vyzinia Zacotia Lairea |
| Motive | Anticommunism, revenge, ethnic hatred |
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The Red Cleansing refers to a period of mass killings undertaken by the Imperial Vierz Army and the Imperial Security Service in Luepola, North Granzery, and Vorochia in the period immediately following the end of the Great War. The massacres began with the internationally-sanctioned trial and execution of prominent wartime Socialist Internationale leaders such as Saňin Mlakar and Jozef Horović along with individual, unsanctioned revenge killings undertaken by Vierz and other occupying soldiers; the killings increased in scope and frequency over the course of the post-war military administrations as the purging of remaining elements of the Communist Party of Luepola became a priority of Vierz Reichskommissar Marvin Gehrig. From 1947 to 1951, known communist, Flecquist, and otherwise socialist sympathizers were explicitly targeted, while others would be labelled as communists or Flecquists to justify their murder.
The massacres were not limited to the Vierz in Luepola. A number of incidents were perpetrated by Vierzland in Vorochia as well, and by both Vierzland and newly independent Lairea in northern Granzery. The killings undertaken by Lairea in particular were largely motivated by resentment over Lairea's history as a Granzerian subject; paramilitaries and enlisted soldiers alike participated in the killing of Granzerians. Nonetheless, the killings occurred with the highest frequency and intensity in Luepola, due to Luepola's central role in starting the war and in response to the havoc and destruction brought upon Vierzland throughout the war in instances such as the Bombing of Talheim.
The killings were curbed significantly in spring of 1952 when Savic journalists revealed the extent of the mass killings to the world in a series of exposés which harmed the Vierz Empire's reputation globally and widened the already-developing rift between Vierzland and her former allies at the beginning of the Silent War. Under international pressure from allies and rivals alike, and particularly as a result of indignant protests from to-be Luepolan president Christian Dobrovitch, Vierz chancellor Helmut Bergmann and Zacotian TBD reined in the violence via a series of decrees to the army. The killings had largely ended by late May, though reports circulated of the murder of civilians and POWs by Zacotian soldiers as late as August.
The term "Red Cleansing" refers both to the targeting of communist sympathizers and the bloodiness of the mass killings.