Moscow trials

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The Moscow trials were a series of show trials held by the Soviet Union between 1936 and 1938 at the instigation of Joseph Stalin. They were nominally directed against Trotskyists and members of the Right Opposition of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. There were three Moscow trials: the first, in August 1936, was the Case of the Trotskyite–Zinovievite Terrorist Center; the second, in January 1937, was the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center; the third and last trial, in March 1938, was the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites". The Old Bolsheviks, veteran revolutionaries who had been prominent in the party since before or during the October Revolution, and top officials of the Soviet secret police were the most well-known defendants at each trial. International observers, including some who were initially open to believing the confessions of the defendants, became steadily more disillusioned as the absurdity of the trials escalated with each round of...

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