A Timeline of Human Rights
(Under Construction)
August
The Moscow show trials begin
Filed under: Courts, Tyranny, Europe
A travesty of justice, the trials, which ran through 1938, were used by Stalin to arrest and execute almost every important living Bolshevik from the Revolution.
Chief defendants in the first case were Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev, prominent former party leaders.
Many Western observers were convinced, at least at first, that the trials were fare. It was later shown that all public confessions were wrung out under extreme pressure and threats to the defendants and their families.