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On 15 August 1936, the '''Great Purge''' began in Moscow with the trial of 'the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre'.<ref>Isaac Deutscher, ''The Great Purges'', edited by Tamara Deutscher (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1984), p. 72.</ref>

The '''Great Purge''', also known as the '''Stalin show trials''', began in [[Moscow]] on 15 August 1936 with the trial of 'the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre'.<ref>Isaac Deutscher, ''The Great Purges'', edited by Tamara Deutscher (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1984), p. 72.</ref>

Throughout the decade of the 1930s the duel between [[CPSU]] General Secretary [[Josef Stalin]] and [[Leon Trotsky]] occupied the centre of the Soviet political scene. From various places of exile in Turkey, France and Norway, Trotsky ceaselessly attacked Stalin. The [[Bolshevik]] hierarchy - Trotskyists, Zinovievists, Bukharinists and Stalinists listened intently to every word of the founder of the [[Red Army]]. In Bolshevik eyes, Trotsky represented the sole alternative to Stalin and Stalinism; and so the whole Stalinist [[propaganda]] machine concentrated immense eftorts upon discrediting him.<ref>Deutscher, ''The Great Purges'', p. 69.</ref> Stalin carried the anti-Trotsky campaign into every sphere of thought and activity both within the borders of the [[Soviet Union]] and abroad, among the [[Comintern]] apparatus abroad. The campaign reached its climax in 1936-38 when the world was treated to the spectacle of the Moscow Trials, of which Trotsky, was 'tried' in absentia.

Throughout the decade of the 1930s the duel between [[CPSU]] General Secretary [[Josef Stalin]] and [[Leon Trotsky]] occupied the centre of the Soviet political scene. From various places of exile in Turkey, France and Norway, Trotsky ceaselessly attacked Stalin. The [[Bolshevik]] hierarchy - Trotskyists, Zinovievists, Bukharinists and Stalinists listened intently to every word of the founder of the [[Red Army]]. In Bolshevik eyes, Trotsky represented the sole alternative to Stalin and Stalinism; and so the whole Stalinist [[propaganda]] machine concentrated immense eftorts upon discrediting him.<ref>Deutscher, ''The Great Purges'', p. 69.</ref> Stalin carried the anti-Trotsky campaign into every sphere of thought and activity both within the borders of the [[Soviet Union]] and abroad, among the [[Comintern]] apparatus abroad. The campaign reached its climax in 1936-38 when the world was treated to the spectacle of the Moscow Trials, of which Trotsky, was 'tried' in absentia.