The Show Trials Essay

Throughout history, foreign and domestic policies generally have “similar ideological aims and ambitions.” The same is true of the Soviet Union’s Show Trials as on both levels these judicial procedures expressed the perceived danger that the the Soviet Union saw in emigrant fascist regimes. In 1934, Stalin orchestrated the Great Purge in a four year long endeavor to eliminate opposition within the communist party and to consolidated his power. To historians researching this period, the Show trials are a trademark of Stalin’s Purges. In the Show Trials, high ranking government and military officials were forced to publically confessed to conspiring against the Soviet Union. Stalin capitalized on the global attention which the first Show Trial

Unlike foreign audiences who received varying interpretations of the trials, Russian citizens received only news written within the government itself. From this lone telling of the events, children and adults of all ages were resolute in their belief that the men found guilty in the trial were indeed guilty. The presentation and content of the trials attracted the interest of the people and was succeeded in convincing Russians that their Government was in the right in their mission to end “their own political blindness and political heedlessness.” The verdicts of the trials were shocking for many Russians but rather than questioning the legitimacy of the trials themselves, citizens of the Soviet Union began to contemplate and eventually to accept the existence of more conspiracies against their country. Not only were Russians given the opportunity to report fellow citizens that they suspected to be involved in anti-communist activity, it was considered their duty. Those who were accused were sometimes put on trial for their alleged crimes,while others were found guilty without receiving a trial and without evidence. From 1937 to 1938, approximately 5 million people were arrested for crimes such as treason or espionage, and an estimated 800,000 of those accused were executed and more still were

In addition to the unlawful trials themselves, those accused of crimes against the state were often sent to concentration camps the conditions of which were quite similar to that of Nazi’s constentration camps. Thus in practicality, the Show Trials were very similar to Hitler’s trials in the following decade and is an indication of the similarities between the two countries which some historians consider to be the building blocks of a relationship between Soviet Russia and Nazi