Changes

Nearly all the leaders of the [[October Revolution]], all members of [[Lenin]]'s [[Politburo]], most commanders of the [[Red Army]], [[technocrat]]s and writers were denounced as [[terrorist]]s, murderers, and economic wreckers (saboteurs), as agents of forein powers and traitors, and executed.<ref>Deutscher, ''The Great Purges'', p. 6.</ref> [[Andrey Vyshinsky]] was the Prosecutor General.

Nearly all the leaders of the [[October Revolution]], all members of [[Lenin]]'s [[Politburo]], most commanders of the [[Red Army]], [[technocrat]]s and writers were denounced as [[terrorist]]s, murderers, and economic wreckers (saboteurs), as agents of forein powers and traitors, and executed.<ref>Deutscher, ''The Great Purges'', p. 6.</ref> [[Andrey Vyshinsky]] was the Prosecutor General.

During the Terror 3 million people were arrested on various [[politically incorrect]] and made-up charges, while 750,000 were executed. Due to the interrogation techniques of the NKVD (later, KGB), which often were torturous, most of those arrested confessed and were sent to work camps, called the [[Gulag]] for 10 years and sometimes even 25. Here, prisoners were forced to labor in mines, to log forests, or to do construction. Few lived through their sentences.  

During the Terror 3 million people were arrested on various [[politically incorrect]] and made-up charges, while 750,000 were executed. Due to the interrogation techniques of the NKVD (later, KGB), which often were torturous, most of those arrested confessed and were sent to work camps, called the [[Gulag]] for 10 years and sometimes even 25. Here, prisoners were forced to labor in mines, to log forests, or to do construction. Few lived through their sentences. Others were tried ''in abstentia'', such as Trotsky or [[Juliet Poyntz]] in America and assassination hit squads were dispatched globally to execute them.

Stalin eviscerated the high command of the [[Red Army]], killing 90% of the senior leadership. This would have disastrous consequences for the USSR in 1941 when Germany invaded the country. Those responsible for the apparatus of state oppression were not spared, either: of the NKVD's 809 high officials, only 43 lived through the purges. According to KGB defector [[Alexander Orlov]], more than 3,000 NKVD officers were shot in 1937 alone.<ref>Alexander Orlov, ''The Secret History of Stalin's Crimes'', (New York: Random House, 1952), p. 216.</ref>

Stalin eviscerated the high command of the [[Red Army]], killing 90% of the senior leadership. This would have disastrous consequences for the USSR in 1941 when Germany invaded the country. Those responsible for the apparatus of state oppression were not spared, either: of the NKVD's 809 high officials, only 43 lived through the purges. According to KGB defector [[Alexander Orlov]], more than 3,000 NKVD officers were shot in 1937 alone.<ref>Alexander Orlov, ''The Secret History of Stalin's Crimes'', (New York: Random House, 1952), p. 216.</ref>

==See also==

==See also==

*[[Whittaker Chambers]]

*[[Whittaker Chambers]]

*[[Genrikh Yagoda]]

*[[Genrikh Yagoda]]

*[[Lazar Kaganovich]]

*[[Lazar Kaganovich]]