Stalin’s Show Trials The Dictator & His Prosecutor Trial of the Sixteen Trial of the Seventeen Trial of the Twenty-One Eric Gleeson & Simon Crowley Fathers of Communism Vyshinsky

Overview Of Stalin’s Rule Stalin’s reign can be summarised as a ‘reign of terror’. Stalin was controlled by his paranoia, seeing his comrades as enemies. This can be seen through his infamous Show Trials and Purges. Stalin was a very pragmatic ruler for that of a communist, he instilled capitalist ideas into the factories, like extra wages for good work and the Order of Lenin in exceptional cases. Stalin can also be noted as the sculptor of the USSR, his three 5-Year Plans transformed the USSR into the main rival of the economically-strong countries of the west.

Overview Of Stalin’s Rule Stalin’s ‘Cult Of Personality’ insured that he became the face of the new USSR. Stalin’s Purges destroyed the once great Red Army from the inside by ridding it of almost half of the officers, 35,000 men. Of the original 15-man Bolshevik government of 1917 only Stalin remained, showing that he really was a man riddled with paranoia. Stalin’s ‘successes’ were built on the horrific deaths of millions. Soviet accounts show the population dropped by ten percent but modern historians believe it could be as high as thirty percent.

Andrei Vyshinsky Died 22 November 1954 Born 10 December 1883 Vyshinsky was born in Odessa, Russia. He became a Menshevik in 1903 and took an active part in the 1905 Russian Revolution at Baku, for which he was convicted and imprisoned in the Bailov prison. Here he first met Stalin: a fellow inmate with whom he engaged in ideological disputes. Vyshinsky became Stalin’s right hand man and Prosecutor of the three Show Trials, not so much out of choice but due to his Menshevik background. Vyshinsky repeatedily suggested the death sentence for all of the defendants. Died 22 November 1954 Born 10 December 1883