The Show Trials

Question 1

Who was involved in the Trial of Sixteen and when did it take place

Answer 1

Trial of Sixteen=1936

Trial of Kamenev and Zinoviev and 14 others

Question 2

What was the method used by Stalin in the Trial of Sixteen (1936)

Answer 2

300 political prisoners were ruthlessly interrogated and subjected to inordinate pressure in order to gain info vs Zinoviev and Kamenev that could be used in court against the defendants.

Question 3

What role did the NKVD play in the Trial of Sixteen (1936)

Answer 3

In July 1936 Yezhov told Gregory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev that their children would be charged with being part of the conspiracy and would face execution if found guilty.

Question 4

What was the role of Stalin in the Trial of Sixteen (1936)

Answer 4

Kamenev told Stalin that they would agree to co-operate on the condition that one of the old-line Bols who were considered the opposition and charged at the trial would be executed, that their families would not be persecuted, and that in the future none of the former members of the opposition would be subjected to the death penalty. Stalin replied: “That goes without saying.”

Question 5

Outcome of the Show Trial

Answer 5

The following day Soviet newspapers carried the announcement that all 16 defendants had been put to death. This included the NKVD agents who had provided false confessions. Joseph Stalin couldn’t afford for any witnesses to the conspiracy to remain alive.

Question 6

When was the Trial of Seventeen and who did it involve

Answer 6

The Trial of Seventeen=1937

Charges to Piatakov, Radek, Sokolnikov and 13 other leading members of Communist party.

Question 7

What was the charge in the Trial of Seventeen 1937

Answer 7

Jan 1937 Piatakov, Radek, Sokolnikov and 13 other leading members of Communist party were put on trial. They were accused of working with Leon Trotsky in an attempt to overthrow the Soviet gov with the objective of restoring capitalism.

Question 8

Method of the Trial of Seventeen 1937

Answer 8

Compiled evidence sufficient to convince the most sceptical that these men, in conjunction with Trotsky and with the Fascist powers

Question 9

What was the NKVD’s role in the Trial of Seventeen 1937

Answer 9

Collation of evidence, implementation of the “conveyor belt system” possibly working to get Radek and Sokolnikov to give evidence vs 13 others.

Question 10

Role of Stalin in Trial of Seventeen 1937

Answer 10

First product of Yezhov’s “conveyor belt scene”- Stalin wanted quicker faster implementation of the terror. Continual torture, sleep deprivation and questioning. Evidence is clearly forged.

Question 11

What was the outcome of the Trial of Seventeen 1937

Answer 11

Piatakov and 13 of the accused were found guilty and sentenced to death. Radek and Sokolnikov were sentenced to ten years.

Question 12

When was the military purge

Answer 12

1937

Question 13

Who was charged and what for in the 1937 Military Purge

Answer 13

On 11 June 1937, Tukhachevsky, 2 Marshals of the Soviet Union, 11 War Commisars, appeared in court on the charges of treason for having conspired with Germany

Question 14

What method was used to sentence the defendants in the military purge

Answer 14

In Jan 1937, a Soviet journalist heard stories that senior members of the German Army were having secret talks with General Milhaud Tukachevsky. The idea was reinforced by a diplomat from the Soviet embassy in Paris who sent a telegram to Moscow saying he had learned plans “by German circles to promote a coup de’etat in the Soviet Union” using “persons from the command staff of the Red Army”

Question 15

What was the role of the NKVD in the Military Purge

Answer 15

The Story had been created by Nikolai Skoblin, a NKVD agent. Skoblin has long worked as a double agent with both the Soviet and the German secret agencies, and there seems no doubt that he was one of the links by which information was passed between the SD and the NKVD.

Question 16

What role did Stalin play in the Military Purge

Answer 16

Major. V. Dapishev of the Soviet General Staff has claimed that the plot “originated with Stalin” as he wanted purge the leadership of the armed forces.

Question 17

What was the outcome of the Military Purge

Answer 17

11 June 1937, Tukachevsky and 7 other Soviet generals appeared in court on the charges of treason for having conspired with Germany. All were executed. Any officer, no matter how remotely connected to Tukachevsky and the 7 seven deposed generals in the past or present, was rounded up and executed. 34,000 soldiers were purged from the army linked to the deposed officer core

Question 18

When was the Trial of Twenty One

Answer 18

1938

Question 19

What was the charge for the Trial of Twenty One 1938

Answer 19

Bukharin, Rykov, Yagoda, Nikolai, Krestinsky, Rakosvsky. Another leading figure in the government. Tomsky committed suicide before the trail.

Question 20

What was the method of the Trial of Twenty One 1938

Answer 20

All charged with attempting to assassinate Stalin and the other members of the Politburo, ‘ro restore capitalism m, to wreck the country’s military and economic power, and to poison or kill any other masses of Russian workers’

Question 21

What was the Role of NKVD in the Trail of Twenty One

Answer 21

Fabricated evidence to support the charge that the defendants wanted “to restore capitalism, to wreck the country’s military and economic power, and to poison or kill in any other way masses of Russian workers.”

Question 22

What was the role of Stalin in the Trail of Twenty One 1938

Answer 22

Used this as a way to rid himself of his old right wing rivals from the power struggle.

Question 23

What was the outcome of the Trial of Twenty One

Answer 23

Were all found guilty and were either executed or died in labour camps.

Question 24

What was the Stalin Constitution of 1936

Answer 24

1. Set out the Soviet gov and rights of the citizens.
2. Gov was decided on an election of local Soviets, which elected higher bodies such as Supreme Soviets, which in turn, elected the Council of Ministers.
3. The constitution guaranteed “universal, equal and direct suffrage by secret ballot.
   4.It created new legislative bodies at the all-union, republican, and by local levels.
4. The new Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the supreme soviets of the union republics, and various local soviets were all to be directed elected.
5. Paradoxically, the gov let loose a barrage of publicity informing citizens about the candidates for the Supreme Soviet elections in Dec 1937.
6. Despite the fact that each district ballot had only been chosen in advance by Party and government officials.
7. The constitution also guaranteed Soviet citizens equal rights irrespective of gender, nationality, or race; freedom of religious worship (but not religious propaganda); freedom of assembly (collectively
   express, promote, pursue, and defend their collective or shared ideas, freedom of the press.
8. These extensive guarantees remained only on paper ,however, as the Soviet gov trampled on the civil rights of its citizens through censorship, persecution because of religion and nationality, and widespread illegal arrests and executions.