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[[Image:Vyshinksy molotov and stalin.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Andrei Vyshinsky with Vyacheslav Molotov and Josef Stalin at the Yalta Conference.]]

[[Image:Vyshinksy molotov and stalin.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Andrei Vyshinsky with Vyacheslav Molotov and Josef Stalin at the Yalta Conference.]]

'''Andrei Vyshinsky''', (also '''Vishinsky, Vyshinskii,  VYShINSKIJ''') was Procurator (Prosecutor) General of the USSR from 1935-1939 during the [[Great Purge]]; Deputy Chairman of the Soviet People’s Commissariat, in 1939-1940; Commissar for Foreign Affairs, 1940-1949 who congratulated [[Alger Hiss]] on behalf of the [[GRU]]; Minister for Foreign Affairs, 1949-1953; and Soviet Union’s permanent representative to the United Nations, 1953-1954.

'''Andrei Vyshinsky''', (also '''Vishinsky, Vyshinskii,  VYShINSKIJ''') was Procurator (Prosecutor) General of the USSR from 1935-1939 during the [[Great Purge]]; Deputy Chairman of the Soviet People’s Commissariat, in 1939-1940; Chief of Soviet diplomatic relations with Mexico and Peru, 1940; Commissar for Foreign Affairs, 1940-1949 who congratulated [[Alger Hiss]] on behalf of the [[GRU]]; Minister for Foreign Affairs, 1949-1953; and Soviet Union’s permanent representative to the United Nations, 1953-1954.

Vyshinsky’s role in crafting the Soviet legal and judicial system in the early 1920s paved the way for [[Josef Stalin]], who "could never get his fill of blood," to legally turn Russia into a human slaughterhouse. Vyshinsky’s efforts were essential to establishing the legal framework necessary to wrongly convict the millions of people needed to populate the largest and most inhumane prison system ever created - the Gulag Archipelago - that was established after Stalin became ruler of the Soviet Union in 1929. He wrote a book, ''The Theory of Legal Evidence in Soviet Law'' in which he states  that "confession is a queen over all sorts of evidence," which was reflected in his method of prosecuting the Moscow “show trials.” Those trials clearly demonstrated that Vyshinsky and Stalin did not intend for a confession to reveal the truth of a person’s guilt, but to involve the confessor in the process of obscuring their innocence. After a former colleague complained that the "presumption of guilt” caused a compression of procedural protections for an accused person, Vyshinsky wrote, 'There is nothing to substantiate Professor Strogovich’s emphatic assertion that "in the Soviet criminal trial the burden of proof .. is never transferred to the defendant and his counsel."  

Vyshinsky’s role in crafting the Soviet legal and judicial system in the early 1920s paved the way for [[Josef Stalin]], who "could never get his fill of blood," to legally turn Russia into a human slaughterhouse. Vyshinsky’s efforts were essential to establishing the legal framework necessary to wrongly convict the millions of people needed to populate the largest and most inhumane prison system ever created - the Gulag Archipelago - that was established after Stalin became ruler of the Soviet Union in 1929. He wrote a book, ''The Theory of Legal Evidence in Soviet Law'' in which he states  that "confession is a queen over all sorts of evidence," which was reflected in his method of prosecuting the Moscow “show trials.” Those trials clearly demonstrated that Vyshinsky and Stalin did not intend for a confession to reveal the truth of a person’s guilt, but to involve the confessor in the process of obscuring their innocence. After a former colleague complained that the "presumption of guilt” caused a compression of procedural protections for an accused person, Vyshinsky wrote, 'There is nothing to substantiate Professor Strogovich’s emphatic assertion that "in the Soviet criminal trial the burden of proof .. is never transferred to the defendant and his counsel."