purge trials

purge trials

Soviet trials of critics of Joseph Stalin. After the assassination of Sergey Kirov, prominent Bolsheviks were accused of conspiracy to remove Stalin from power. In three widely publicized show trials (1936–38), which presented confessions obtained under torture or fabricated by the secret police, the accused were found guilty and executed or sent to prison. Numerous closed, unpublicized trials of Soviet military leaders were also held and resulted in a massive purge throughout the armed forces. The trials eliminated such potential rivals and critics of Stalin as Nikolay Bukharin, Lev Kamenev, Aleksey Rykov, Mikhayl Tukhachevsky, Genrikh Yagoda, and Grigory Zinovyev but earned worldwide condemnation.