Nikolai Krylenko

Common card · No. 344547

Nikolai Vasilyevich Krylenko (Russian: Никола́й Васи́льевич Крыле́нко, IPA: [krɨˈlʲenkə]; 2 May 1885 – 29 July 1938) was an Old Bolshevik and Soviet politician, military commander, and jurist. Krylenko served in a variety of posts in the Soviet legal system, rising to become People's Commissar for Justice and Prosecutor General of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. He was executed during the Great Purge. Krylenko was an exponent of socialist legality and the theory that political considerations, rather than criminal guilt or innocence, should guide the application of punishment. Although participating in the show trials and political repression of the late 1920s and early 1930s, and in the initial phase of the Great Purge, Krylenko was removed from his post as Commissar of Justice and arrested in January 1938. Following interrogation and torture by the NKVD, Krylenko confessed to extensive involvement in wrecking and anti-Soviet agitation. After a trial of 20 minutes, he was...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Unknown authorUnknown author, CC BY-SA 3.0