Editing Great Purge (section)

==Wider purge==
{{External media|float=right|video1=[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CDo767vFWc& Soviet woman speech during the Great purge]|video2=[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIhDPL92SOY Nikita Khrushchev speech during Great purge]}}{{Verification section|date=February 2022}}
Russian [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]] historian [[Vadim Rogovin]] argued that Stalin had destroyed thousands of foreign communists capable of leading socialist change in their respective countries. He referenced 600 active [[Bulgarian Communist Party|Bulgarian]] communists that perished in his prison camps along with the thousands of German communists that were handed over from Stalin to the Gestapo after the signing of the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact|German-Soviet Pact]]. Rogovin also noted that sixteen members of the [[Central committee]] of the [[Communist Party of Germany]] became victims of Stalinist terror. Repressive measures were also enforced upon the [[Hungarian Communist Party|Hungarian]], [[League of Communists of Yugoslavia|Yugoslav]] and other [[Communist Party of Poland|Polish Communist]] parties.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rogovin |first1=Vadim Zakharovich |title=Was There an Alternative? Trotskyism: a Look Back Through the Years |date=2021 |publisher=Mehring Books |isbn=978-1-893638-97-6 |page=380 |language=en}}</ref>

According to historian [[Eric D. Weitz]], 60% of German exiles in the Soviet Union were liquidated during the Stalinist terror, and a higher proportion of the KPD Politburo membership had died in the Soviet Union than had died in Nazi Germany. Weitz also noted that hundreds of German citizens, the majority of whom were Communists, were handed over to the Gestapo from Stalin's administration.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Weitz |first1=Eric D. |title=Creating German Communism, 1890–1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State |year=2021 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-22812-9 |page=280 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JOgSEAAAQBAJ&dq=stalin+handed+over+german+communists+gestapo&pg=PA280 |language=en}}</ref> Many Jewish figures such as [[Alexander Weissberg-Cybulski]] and [[Fritz Houtermans]] were arrested in 1937 by the NKVD and turned over to the German Gestapo.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sheehan |first1=Helena |title=Marxism and the Philosophy of Science: A Critical History |date= 2018 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78663-426-9 |pages=416–417 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-udOEAAAQBAJ&q=helena+sheehan |language=en}}</ref> [[Joseph Berger-Barzilai]], co-founder of the [[Communist Party of Palestine]], spent twenty years in Stalin's prisons and concentrations camps after the purges in 1937.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deutscher |first1=Isaac |title=The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky |date=2015 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78168-721-5 |page=1443|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGznDwAAQBAJ&q=isaac+deutscher+trotsky+the+prophet |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Wasserstein |first1=Bernard |title=On the Eve: The Jews of Europe Before the Second World War |date=2012 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1-4165-9427-7 |page=395 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HJSQZJKHX_8C&dq=Joseph+Berger-Barzilai+purge&pg=PA395 |language=en}}</ref>

External purges were also conducted in [[Spain]], in which the NKVD oversaw purges of anti-Stalinist elements in the Spanish Republican forces including [[Trotskyist]] and [[anarchist]] factions.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sakwa |first1=Richard |title=Soviet Politics: In Perspective |year= 2012 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-90996-4 |page=43 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SQSiM2vPO54C&dq=spanish+civil+war+stalin+purged+nin&pg=PA43 |language=en}}</ref> Notable cases involved the execution of [[Andreu Nin]], Spanish [[POUM]] and former government minister, [[Jose Robles]], a left-wing academic and translator along with many members of the POUM faction.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Whitehead |first1=Jonathan |title=The End of the Spanish Civil War: Alicante 1939 |date= 2024 |publisher=Pen and Sword History |isbn=978-1-3990-6395-1 |page=81 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7aLsEAAAQBAJ&dq=andreu+nin+stalin+purges&pg=PA81 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Service |first1=Robert |title=Comrades!: A History of World Communism |date=2007 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-02530-1 |page=212 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Frgm5QodnFoC&dq=andreu+nin+stalin+purged&pg=PA211 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kocho-Williams |first1=Alastair |title=Russia's International Relations in the Twentieth Century |date= 2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-15747-9 |page=60 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vu2kOJbrCuMC&dq=spanish+civil+war+stalin+purged+nin&pg=PA61 |language=en}}</ref>

Out of six members of the original [[Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Politburo]] during the [[October Revolution]] who lived until the Great Purge, Stalin himself was the only one who remained in the Soviet Union, alive.{{sfn|Gellately|2007}} Four of the other five were executed; the fifth, [[Leon Trotsky]], had been forced into exile outside the Soviet Union in 1929, but was assassinated in Mexico by Soviet agent [[Ramón Mercader]] in 1940. Of the seven members elected to the Politburo between the October Revolution and Lenin's death in 1924, four were executed, one ([[Mikhail Tomsky|Tomsky]]) committed suicide, and two (Molotov and [[Mikhail Kalinin|Kalinin]]) lived.{{Citation needed|date=May 2021}}

A series of documents discovered in the Central Committee archives in 1992 by [[Vladimir Bukovsky]] demonstrate that there were limits for arrests and executions as for all other activities in the planned economy.{{CN|date=May 2023}}

The victims were convicted [[Trial in absentia|in absentia]] and in camera by extrajudicial organs—the [[NKVD troika]]s sentenced indigenous "enemies" under [[NKVD Order No. 00447]] and the two-man dvoiki (NKVD Commissar [[Nikolai Yezhov]] and Main State Prosecutor [[Andrey Vyshinsky]], or their deputies) those arrested along national lines.{{Citation needed|date=May 2021}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Freeze |first=Gregory |title=Russia: A History |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-0199560417 |location=United States |pages=364–372 |language=English}}</ref>

The victims were executed at night, either in prisons, in the cellars of NKVD headquarters, or in a secluded area, usually a forest. The NKVD officers shot prisoners in the head using pistols.<ref name="sciencespo.fr">{{Cite web|url=http://nkvd-mass-secret-operation-n-00447-august-1937-november-1938.html/|title=The NKVD Mass Secret Operation n°00447 (August 1937 – November 1938) &#124; Sciences Po Mass Violence and Resistance – Research Network|date=19 January 2016|website=nkvd-mass-secret-operation-n-00447-august-1937-november-1938.html}}{{Dead link|date=May 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://kurapaty-1937-1941-nkvd-mass-killings-soviet-belarus.html/|title=Kurapaty (1937–1941): NKVD Mass Killings in Soviet Belarus &#124; Sciences Po Mass Violence and Resistance – Research Network|date=29 April 2019|website=kurapaty-1937-1941-nkvd-mass-killings-soviet-belarus.html}}{{Dead link|date=May 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Other methods of dispatching victims were used on an experimental basis. In Moscow, the use of [[Soviet gas van|gas van]]s to kill the victims during their transportation to the [[Butovo firing range]] has been documented.<ref>This information was published first in 1990 in a ''[[Komsomolskaya Pravda]]'' article (October 28, 1990, p. 2). Later, it was cited by several sources, including:

[[Yevgenia Albats|Albats, Yevgenia]]. 1995. ''KGB: The State Within a State''. p. 101;

[[Robert Gellately|Gellately, Robert]]. 2007. ''Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe''. Knopf. {{ISBN|1400040051}}. p. 460;

[[Catherine Merridale|Merridale, Catherine]]. 2002. ''Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Twentieth-Century Russia''. Penguin Books. {{ISBN|0142000639}}. p. 200;

[[Timothy Colton|Colton, Timothy J.]] 1998. ''Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis''. [[Harvard University Press]]. {{ISBN|978-0674587496}}. [https://books.google.com/books?id=lXM2H6tWHskC&pg=PA286&dq=gas+chamber+butovo p. 286]; and

[[Alexandr Solzhenitsyn]]. ''[[Two Hundred Years Together]]''.</ref>

===Intelligentsia===
{{See also|Executed Renaissance|UPTI Affair|Sharashka|Korets–Landau leaflet}}
[[Image:NKVD Mandelstam.jpg|thumb|right|1938 NKVD arrest photo of the poet [[Osip Mandelstam]], who died in a labor camp]]
[[Image:Babel NKWD.png|right|thumb|The NKVD photo of writer [[Isaac Babel]] made after his arrest]]
[[Image:MeyerholdMug.jpg|thumb|right|Theatre director [[Vsevolod Meyerhold]] at the time of his arrest]]
[[Image:Vavilov in prison.jpg|thumb|right|Botanist [[Nikolai Vavilov]]'s photo, taken at the time of his arrest]]
[[Image:Aino Forsten.jpg|alt=|thumb|upright=0.8|[[Aino Forsten]]; (1885–1937) Finnish educator and [[Social Democratic Party of Finland|Social Democratic]] politician,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.eduskunta.fi/FI/kansanedustajat/Sivut/910364.aspx|title=Aino Forsten|publisher=Parliament of Finland|language=fi|accessdate=21 June 2016}}</ref> later arrested and executed]]
[[File:1930-MushketovD.jpg|thumb|180px|Paleontologist and geologist [[Dmitrii Mushketov]], executed in 1938.]]
[[Image:Khadija Gaibova.jpg|thumb|155px|Pianist [[Khadija Gayibova]], executed in 1938]]
[[File:VSOshchepkov1912.jpg|thumb|180px|[[Vasili Oshchepkov]], who popularized [[judo]] in the USSR and co-invented [[Sambo (martial art)|sambo]]. He was accused of being a Japanese spy, and [[Extrajudicial killing|extrajudicially executed]] in the [[Butyrka]] in 1938.]]

Those who perished during the Great Purge include:
{{unordered list
| Theoretical [[physicist]] [[Matvei Bronstein]] and pioneer of [[quantum gravity]]<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1007/s10714-011-1285-4 |title=Republication of: Quantum theory of weak gravitational fields |journal=General Relativity and Gravitation |volume=44 |pages=267–283 |year=2011 |last1=Bronstein |first1=Matvei|issue=1 |bibcode=2012GReGr..44..267B |s2cid=122107821 }}</ref> was arrested, accused of fictional "terroristic" activity and shot in 1938.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bergmann |first1=Peter G. |last2=Sabbata |first2=V. de |title=Advances in the Interplay Between Quantum and Gravity Physics |date= 2012 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-94-010-0347-6 |page=440 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=62NsCQAAQBAJ&dq=Matvei+Bronstein&pg=PA440 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Rovelli |first1=Carlo |last2=Vidotto |first2=Francesca |title=Covariant Loop Quantum Gravity: An Elementary Introduction to Quantum Gravity and Spinfoam Theory |date=2015 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-06962-6 |pages=6–7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4VjeBAAAQBAJ&dq=Matvei+Bronstein&pg=PA7 |language=en}}</ref>
|[[Nikolai Vavilov]] was a prominent Russian [[geneticist]] and [[Botany|botanist]] that made several contributions to [[agricultural science]] such as the law of homologous series in variation and [[Vavilov center|centres of origins of cultivated plants]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Magill |first1=Frank N. |title=The 20th Century O–Z: Dictionary of World Biography |date=2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-59369-7 |pages=3801–3805 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xqvpudh8dasC&dq=Nikolai+Vavilov+botanist+contributions&pg=PA3801 |language=en}}</ref> He was removed from his formal positions in 1935 and perished in prison in 1943  following his conflicts with [[Trofim Lysenko]]. The controversy would also contribute to a wider decline in [[Genetics|genetic]] research in the Soviet Union.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Magill |first1=Frank N. |title=The 20th Century O–Z: Dictionary of World Biography |date= 2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-59369-7 |pages=3801–3805 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xqvpudh8dasC&dq=Nikolai+Vavilov+botanist+contributions&pg=PA3801 |language=en}}</ref>
| Experimental physicist [[Lev Shubnikov]] considered the "Soviet founding father of Soviet low-temperature physics"<ref name="j24093868">{{Cite journal |last1=Sharma |first1=Hari Prasad |last2=Sen |first2=Subir K. |date=2006 |title=Shubnikov: A case of non-recognition in superconductivity research |jstor=24093868 |journal=Current Science |volume=91 |issue=11 |pages=1576–1578 |issn=0011-3891}}</ref> He was known for the discovery of the [[Shubnikov–de Haas effect]] and [[Type-II superconductor|type-II superconductivity]].<ref name="j24093868" /> He also one of the first to discover [[antiferromagnetism]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kharchenko |first=N. F. |date=2005-08-01 |title=On seven decades of antiferromagnetism |url=https://pubs.aip.org/ltp/article/31/8/633/458580/On-seven-decades-of-antiferromagnetism |journal=Low Temperature Physics |language=en |volume=31 |issue=8 |pages=633–634 |doi=10.1063/1.2008126 |bibcode=2005LTP....31..633K |issn=1063-777X}}</ref> Shubnikov was executed in 1937.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Shifman |first1=Misha |title=Physics In A Mad World |date=2015 |publisher=World Scientific |isbn=978-981-4619-31-8 |page=19 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uFsGCwAAQBAJ&dq=lev+shubnikov+1937&pg=PA19 |language=en}}</ref>
| Soviet economist [[Nikolai Kondratiev]] was a proponent for the [[New Economic Policy]] and developed the business cycle theory known as [[Kondratiev waves]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Betz |first1=Frederick |title=Managing Technological Innovation: Competitive Advantage from Change |date=2011 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-0-470-54782-3 |page=31 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9WfrBgAAQBAJ&dq=nikolai+kondratiev+1938&pg=PA31 |language=en}}</ref> Kondratiev was executed in 1938.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Guo |first1=Rongxing |title=An Economic Inquiry into the Nonlinear Behaviors of Nations: Dynamic Developments and the Origins of Civilizations |year= 2017 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-319-48772-4 |page=164 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Nz8UDgAAQBAJ&dq=nikolai+kondratiev+executed+1938&pg=PA164 |language=en}}</ref>
| [[Valerian Obolensky]], was a Soviet economist, chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the National Economy<ref>{{cite book |last1=Krausz |first1=Tamás |title=Reconstructing Lenin: An Intellectual Biography |date= 2015 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-1-58367-449-9 |page=417 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z23IBgAAQBAJ&dq=valerin+obolensky+executed&pg=PA417 |language=en}}</ref> and Professor of the Agricultural Academy<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rosmer |first1=Alfred |title=Lenin's Moscow |date=1971 |publisher=(Cottons Gardens, E2 8DN), Pluto Press Limited |isbn=978-0-902818-11-8 |page=239 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B9poAAAAMAAJ&q=valerin+obolensky+professor |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Agriculture |first1=United States Department of |title=The Official Record of the United States Department of Agriculture |date=1925 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |page=3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iv5MAAAAYAAJ&dq=valerin+obolensky+professor&pg=RA25-PA3 |language=en}}</ref> in Moscow but was eventually executed on fabricated charges in 1938.
| [[Isaak Rubin]], Soviet economist and ranked among the most influential contributors to the classical Marxist tradition. He is noted for his seminal work, ''[[Essays on Marx's Theory of Value]]''. Rubin was arrested and executed in 1937.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Faccarello |first1=Gilbert |last2=Izumo |first2=Masashi |title=The Reception of David Ricardo in Continental Europe and Japan |year= 2014 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-81995-0 |pages=203–204 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a6HIAgAAQBAJ&dq=Isaak+Rubin+1937&pg=PA203 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Steinhoff |first1=James |title=Automation and Autonomy: Labour, Capital and Machines in the Artificial Intelligence Industry |date=2021 |publisher=Springer Nature |isbn=978-3-030-71689-9 |page=55 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a1w0EAAAQBAJ&dq=Isaak+Rubin+executed+1937&pg=PA55 |language=en}}</ref>
| [[Evgeny Pashukanis]], Soviet Lithuanian legal scholar noted for his formative work, ''The General Theory of Law and Marxism'', was arrested and died during Stalin's purges.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Head |first1=Michael |title=Evgeny Pashukanis: A Critical Reappraisal |date=12 September 2007 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-30788-2 |page=167 |url=https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Evgeny_Pashukanis/tueNAgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=evgeny+pashukanis+purges&pg=PA167&printsec=frontcover |language=en}}</ref> 
| [[Vladimir Milyutin]], Russian economist, politician and statistician, supporter of a socialist coalition government in 1917 and [[worker's control]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mccauley |first1=Martin |title=The Soviet Union 1917–1991 |date=2014 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-90179-2 |page=21 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7cbKAgAAQBAJ&dq=milyutin+coalition+government&pg=PA21 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Davis |first1=Jonathan |title=Historical Dictionary of the Russian Revolution |date= 2020 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-5381-3981-3 |pages=200–201 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pkjWDwAAQBAJ&dq=Vladimir+Milyutin+%C2%A0economist&pg=PA200 |language=en}}</ref> Perished under Stalin's purges in 1937.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Serge |first1=Victor |title=Notebooks: 1936–1947 |date= 2019 |publisher=New York Review of Books |isbn=978-1-68137-271-6 |page=626 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YcBWDwAAQBAJ&dq=vladimir+milyutin+prison+1937&pg=PA626 |language=en}}</ref>
| Astronomer [[Boris Numerov]], founder of the Computing Institute in 1919 and was noted for his expertise in applied celestial mechanics before the Second World War. He was executed in 1941.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lankford |first1=John |title=History of Astronomy: An Encyclopedia |date= 2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-50834-9 |page=365 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9jyExgmZxBoC&dq=Boris+Numerov+astronomer&pg=PA365 |language=en}}</ref>
| Soviet engineer and inventor [[Ivan Kleymyonov]] who among the key founders of Soviet [[rocket]]ry, chief of the [[Gas Dynamics Laboratory]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Chertok |first1=Boris Evseevich |title=Rockets and People |date=2005 |publisher=NASA |isbn=978-0-16-073239-3 |pages=164–165 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2IUgAQAAIAAJ&dq=Ivan+Kleymyonov+founder&pg=PA165 |language=en}}</ref> Kleymyonov was executed in 1938.
| Soviet [[astrophysicist]] and [[astronomer]], [[Boris Gerasimovich]] who was director of the [[Pulkovo Observatory]]. Gerasimovich was arrested along with 13 other astronomers and was personally executed in 1938.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Pondrom |first1=Lee G. |title=Soviet Atomic Project, The: How The Soviet Union Obtained The Atomic Bomb |date= 2018 |publisher=World Scientific |isbn=978-981-323-557-1 |edition=109 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vlZoDwAAQBAJ&dq=boris+gerasimovich&pg=PA109 |language=en}}</ref>
| Soviet engineer and chairman of the [[Supreme Council of the National Economy]], [[Pyotr Bogdanov]], who oversaw Soviet construction projects and nationalization of the chemical industry. Bogdanov was executed in 1939.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stone |first1=David R. |title=Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union, 1926–1933 |date=2000 |publisher=University Press of Kansas |isbn=978-0-7006-1037-2 |page=72 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=snTfAAAAMAAJ&dq=Pyotr+Bogdanov+executed&pg=PA72 |language=en}}</ref>
| Soviet military theorist and general, [[Alexander Svechin]], was a leading thinker in the field during the 1920s and noted for his seminal work, ''Strategy'', before he was purged in 1938.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Evangelista |first1=Matthew |title=Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War |date= 2018 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-1-5017-2400-8 |page=191 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zpRlDwAAQBAJ&dq=alexander+svechin+purge+1938&pg=PA191 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Svečin |first1=Aleksandr A. |title=Strategy |date=1992 |publisher=East View Publications |isbn=978-1-879944-33-6 |pages=1–30 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rHk2AAAACAAJ |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.aei.org/articles/positional-warfare-in-alexander-svechins-strategy/|title=Positional Warfare in Alexander Svechin's Strategy}}</ref>
| Poet [[Aleksei Gastev]], director of [[Central Institute of Labour]] and pioneering theorist of [[scientific management]] of labour in the Soviet Union.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bailes |first1=Kendall E. |title=Alexei Gastev and the Soviet Controversy over Taylorism, 1918–24 |journal=Soviet Studies |date=1977 |volume=29 |issue=3 |pages=373–394 |doi=10.1080/09668137708411134 |jstor=150306 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/150306 |issn=0038-5859}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Graham |first1=Loren R. |title=The Soviet Academy of Sciences and the Communist Party, 1927–1932 |date= 2015 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-7551-1 |page=47 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rxLWCgAAQBAJ&dq=Aleksei+Gastev+purge&pg=PA47 |language=en}}</ref> His son, [[Yuri Gastev]] became a prominent Soviet [[cybernetician]], emigre and eventual political dissident.<ref>{{cite web |title=Yuri Gastev, Russian dissident and human rights activist; at 65 – The Boston Globe (Boston, MA) {{!}} HighBeam Research |url=https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8249429.html |date=18 September 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170918201638/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8249429.html |archive-date=18 September 2017 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kuijper |first1=Hans |title=Comprehending the Complexity of Countries: The Way Ahead |date=2022 |publisher=Springer Nature |isbn=978-981-16-4709-3 |page=164 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2-FZEAAAQBAJ&dq=Yuri+Gastev+cybernetician&pg=PA164 |language=en}}</ref>
| Jewish German [[mathematician]] [[Fritz Noether]] had fled persecution from [[Nazi Germany]] in 1934. He was also the sibling of prominent mathematician [[Emmy Noether]] who made various contributions to [[abstract algebra]]. He had contributed to the [[Herglotz–Noether theorem]] in [[special relativity]]. [[Albert Einstein]] had futilely pleaded for his case prior to his eventual execution due to accusations of working as a German spy.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Tent |first1=Katrin |title=Groups and Analysis: The Legacy of Hermann Weyl |date= 2008 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-71788-5 |page=318 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dT2D5r-BMAsC&dq=fritz+noether+einstein+litvinov&pg=PA318 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Ben-Menahem |first1=Ari |title=Historical Encyclopedia of Natural and Mathematical Sciences |date= 2009 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-3-540-68831-0 |page=3460 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9tUrarQYhKMC&dq=fritz+noether+executed&pg=PA3460 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Zimmerman |first1=David K. |title=Ensnared between Hitler and Stalin: Refugee Scientists in the USSR |date= 2022 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |isbn=978-1-4875-4366-2 |pages=1–376 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I46jEAAAQBAJ&dq=fritz+noether+albert+einstein&pg=PT27 |language=en}}</ref>
| Poet [[Osip Mandelstam]] was arrested for reciting his famous anti-Stalin poem [[Stalin Epigram]] to his circle of friends in 1934. After intervention by Nikolai Bukharin and [[Boris Pasternak]] (Stalin jotted down in Bukharin's letter with feigned{{According to whom|date=February 2022}} indignation: "Who gave them the right to arrest Mandelstam?"), Stalin instructed NKVD to "isolate but preserve" him, and Mandelstam was "merely" exiled to [[Cherdyn, Perm Krai|Cherdyn]] for three years, but this proved to be a temporary reprieve. In May 1938, he was arrested again for "counter-revolutionary activities".<ref name="poemhunter">{{Cite web|title= Biography of Osip Emilevich Mandelstam|url=https://www.poemhunter.com/osip-emilevich-mandelstam/biography/|access-date=2023-02-23|website=Poem Hunter|language=en-us}}</ref> On 2 August 1938, Mandelstam was sentenced to five years in correction camps and died on 27 December 1938 at a transit camp near Vladivostok.<ref>Caxtonian, [http://www.ideals.uiuc.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/1095/martinCaxtonian.pdf?sequence=2 ''Collecting Mandelstam'']{{Dead link|date=May 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, November 2006</ref> Pasternak himself was nearly purged, but Stalin is said to have crossed Pasternak's name off the list, saying "Don't touch this cloud dweller."<ref>Robert C. Tucker, "Stalin in Power", p. 445</ref>
| Writer [[Isaac Babel]] was arrested in May 1939, and according to his confession paper (which contained a blood stain) he "confessed" to being a member of a Trotskyist organization and being recruited by French writer [[André Malraux]] to spy for France. In the final interrogation, he retracted his confession and wrote letters to the prosecutor's office stating that he had implicated innocent people, but to no avail. Babel was tried before an NKVD troika and convicted of simultaneously spying for the French, Austrians, and for Leon Trotsky, as well as "membership in a terrorist organization". On 27 January 1940, he was shot in [[Butyrka prison]].<ref name="ReferenceB">The Independent, "The History of Hell", 8 January 1995</ref>
| [[Nikolai Sukhanov]], chronicler of the Russian Revolution of 1917, agrarian economist, revolutionary intellectual and editor of the opposition paper.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Getzler |first1=I. |title=Nikolai Sukhanov: Chronicler of the Russian Revolution |date=2001 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-4039-3277-8 |pages=1–30 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bQOIDAAAQBAJ |language=en}}</ref> Initially, arrested during the [[1931 Menshevik Trial|Menshevik Trials]] in 1931, arrested again in 1937 for alleged espionage before he was ultimately executed in 1940.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Serge |first1=Victor |title=Notebooks: 1936–1947 |date=2019 |publisher=New York Review of Books |isbn=978-1-68137-271-6 |page=643 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YcBWDwAAQBAJ&dq=Nikolai+Sukhanov+1936+spying&pg=PA643 |language=en}}</ref>
| Writer [[Boris Pilnyak]] was arrested on 28 October 1937 for counter-revolutionary activities, spying and terrorism. One report alleged that "he held secret meetings with [[André Gide|[André] Gide]], and supplied him with information about the situation in the USSR. There is no doubt that Gide used this information in his book attacking the USSR." Pilnyak was tried on 21 April 1938. In the proceeding that lasted 15 minutes, he was condemned to death and executed shortly afterward.<ref name="ReferenceB"/>
| Theatre director [[Vsevolod Meyerhold]] was arrested in 1939 and shot in February 1940 for "spying" for Japanese and British intelligence. His wife, the actress [[Zinaida Reich|Zinaida Raikh]], was murdered in her apartment.<ref>Kern, Gary. ''A Death in Washington: Walter G. Krivitsky and the Stalin Terror''. Enigma Books, 2003. {{ISBN|1929631146}} p. 111</ref> In a letter to Molotov dated 13 January 1940, Meyerhold wrote:

<blockquote>The investigators began to use force on me, a sick 65-year-old man. I was made to lie face down and beaten on the soles of my feet and my spine with a rubber strap ... For the next few days, when those parts of my legs were covered with extensive internal hemorrhaging, they again beat the red-blue-and-yellow bruises with the strap and the pain was so intense that it felt as if boiling water was being poured on these sensitive areas. I howled and wept from the pain. I incriminated myself in the hope that by telling them lies I could end the ordeal. When I lay down on the cot and fell asleep, after 18 hours of interrogation, in order to go back in an hour's time for more, I was woken up by my own groaning and because I was jerking about like a patient in the last stages of typhoid fever.<ref name="ReferenceB"/></blockquote>
| Georgian poet [[Titsian Tabidze]] was arrested on 10 October 1937 on a charge of treason and was tortured in prison. In a bitter humor, he named only the 18th-century Georgian poet [[Besiki]] as his accomplice in anti-Soviet activities.<ref name="auto">{{Cite web|author=Tarkhan-Mouravi, George|title=70 years of Soviet Georgia|url=http://rolfgross.dreamhosters.com/Texts/KandA-Web/Giahistory.htm|access-date=2023-02-23|date=19 January 1997|website=rolfgross.dreamhosters.com}}</ref> He was executed on 16 December 1937.
| Tabidze's lifelong friend and fellow poet, [[Paolo Iashvili]], having earlier been forced to denounce several of his associates as the [[enemy of the people|enemies of the people]], shot himself with a hunting gun in the building of the Writers' Union.<ref>Suny, Ronald Grigor (1994), ''The Making of the Georgian Nation'' (2nd ed.), p. 272. [[Indiana University Press]], {{ISBN|0253209153}}</ref> He witnessed and was even forced to participate in public trials that ousted many of his associates from the Writers' Union, effectively condemning them to death. When [[Lavrentiy Beria]], chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus under Stalin and subsequently head of the NKVD, further pressured Iashvili with the alternatives of denouncing Tabidze or being arrested and tortured by the NKVD, Iashvili killed himself.<ref name="auto"/>
| In early 1937, poet Pavel Nikolayevich Vasiliev is said to have defended Nikolai Bukharin as "a man of the highest nobility and the conscience of peasant Russia" at the time of his denunciation at the Pyatakov Trial (Second Moscow Trial) and damned other writers then signing the routine condemnations as "pornographic scrawls on the margins of Russian literature". He was promptly shot on 16 July 1937.{{sfn|Conquest|2008|p=301}}
| [[Jan Sten]], philosopher and deputy head of the Marx-Engels Institute, was Stalin's private tutor when Stalin was trying hard to study Hegel's [[dialectic]]. (Stalin received lessons twice a week from 1925 to 1928, but he found it difficult to master even some of the basic ideas. Stalin developed enduring hostility toward German idealistic philosophy, which he called "the aristocratic reaction to the French Revolution".) Sten eventually became a member of an underground opposition group, and this group later joined the [[Bloc of Soviet Oppositions]] which was led by Leon Trotsky.<ref name=":2"/> In 1937, Sten was seized on the direct order of Stalin, who declared him one of the chiefs of "[[Mensheviks|Menshevi]]zing idealists". On 19 June 1937, Sten was put to death in [[Lefortovo prison]].<ref>Roy Medvedev, "Let history judge", p. 438</ref>
| [[David Riazanov]], Soviet historian and founder of the [[Marx-Engels Institute]]. He had been an old associate of [[Leon Trotsky]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deutscher |first1=Isaac |title=The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky |date= 2015 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78168-721-5 |page=1206|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGznDwAAQBAJ&q=isaac+deutscher+trotsky+the+prophet |language=en}}</ref> Arrested and put to death in 1938.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Tolz |first1=Vera |title=Russian Academicians and the Revolution: Combining Professionalism and Politics |date= 1997 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-349-25840-6 |page=48 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dL6uCwAAQBAJ&dq=David+Riazanov+great+purge&pg=PA48 |language=en}}</ref>
| Poet [[Nikolai Klyuev]] was arrested in 1933 for contradicting Soviet ideology. He was shot in October 1937.
| Russian linguist [[Nikolai Nikolayevich Durnovo|Nikolai Durnovo]], born into the [[House of Durnovo|Durnovo noble family]], was executed on 27 October 1937. He created a classification of Russian dialects that served as a base for modern scientific linguistic nomenclature.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://nasb.gov.by/eng/members/pamyati-uchenogo/durnovo.php|title=In memory of the scientist : Durnovo, Nikolai Nikolayevich|website=National academy of Science of Belarus}}</ref>
| [[Mari people|Mari]] poet and playwright [[Sergei Chavain]] was executed in [[Yoshkar-Ola]] on 11 November 1937. The [[State Prizes of the Soviet Republics|State prize]] of [[Mari El]] is named after Chavain.
| Ukrainian theater and movie director [[Les Kurbas]], considered by many to be the most important Ukrainian theater director of the 20th century, was shot on 3 November 1937.
| Russian writer and explorer [[Maximilian Kravkov]] was arrested on a charge of his alleged participation in the "Japanese-SR Terrorist Subversive Espionage Organization". He was executed on 12 October 1937.
| Russian [[Esperanto]] writer and translator [[Nikolai Vladimirovich Nekrasov|Nikolai Nekrasov]] was arrested in 1938, and accused of being "an organizer and leader of a fascist, espionage, terrorist organization of Esperantists". He was executed on 4 October 1938. Another Esperanto writer [[Vladimir Varankin]] was executed on 3 October 1938.
| Playwright and avant-garde poet [[Nikolay Oleynikov]] was arrested and executed for "subversive writing" on 24 November 1937.
| [[Yakuts|Yakut]] writer [[Platon Oyunsky]], seen as one of the founders of modern Yakut literature, died in prison in 1939.
| Russian dramaturge [[Adrian Piotrovsky]], responsible for creating the synopsis for Sergei Prokofiev's ballet ''[[Romeo and Juliet (Prokofiev)|Romeo and Juliet]]'', was executed on 21 November 1937.
| [[Boris Shumyatsky]], ''de facto'' executive producer for the Soviet film monopoly from 1930 to 1937, was executed as a "traitor" in 1938, following a purge of the [[Soviet film industry]].
| Sinologist [[Julian Shchutsky]] was convicted as a "Japanese spy" and executed on 2 February 1938.
| Russian linguist [[Nikolai Aleksandrovich Nevsky|Nikolai Nevsky]], an expert on East Asian languages, was arrested by the NKVD on the charge of being a "Japanese spy". On 27 November 1937 he was executed, along with his Japanese wife Isoko Mantani-Nevsky.
| Ukrainian drama writer [[Mykola Kulish]] was executed on 3 November 1937. He is considered to be one of the lead figures of [[Executed Renaissance]].
|After [[sunspot]] development research was judged un-Marxist, 27 astronomers disappeared between 1936 and 1938. The Meteorological Office was violently purged as early as 1933 for failing to predict weather harmful to the crops.{{sfn|Conquest|2008|p=295}}
}}
{{Multiple image|direction=vertical|align=right|image1=ChoibalsanNUM.jpg|image2=Sheng Shi-tsai.jpg|width=180|caption2= Statue of [[Khorloogiin Choibalsan]] in front of the [[National University of Mongolia]], and portrait of [[Sheng Shicai]], who both organized large-scale murderous purges in [[Mongolian People's Republic|Mongolia]] and [[Xinjiang]].
}}

===Western émigré victims===
Victims of the terror included American immigrants to the Soviet Union who had emigrated at the height of the [[Great Depression]] to find work. At the height of the Terror, American immigrants besieged the US embassy, begging for passports so they could leave the Soviet Union. They were turned away by embassy officials, only to be arrested on the pavement outside by lurking NKVD agents. Many{{quantify|date=April 2018}} were subsequently shot dead at [[Butovo firing range]].<ref>{{Cite news|date=2008-08-02|title=Nightmare in the workers paradise|author=Tim Tzouliadis|language=en-GB|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7537000/7537585.stm|access-date=2023-02-23}}</ref>{{better citation needed|reason=see [[Talk:Great Purge#Western émigré victims in great purge article provides uncited source.]]|date=January 2024}} In addition, 141 American Communists of Finnish origin were executed and buried at [[Sandarmokh]].<ref> [[John Earl Haynes]] and [[Harvey Klehr]]. "[http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page99.html American Communists and Radicals Executed by Soviet Political Police and Buried at Sandarmokh]" (appendix to ''In Denial: Historians, Communism and Espionage'').</ref> 127 [[Finnish Canadian]]s were also shot and buried there.{{sfn|Haynes|Klehr|2003|p=117}}

===Executions of Gulag inmates===
Political prisoners already serving a sentence in the Gulag camps were also executed in large numbers. NKVD Order no. 00447 also targeted "the most vicious and stubborn anti-Soviet elements in camps", they were all "to be put into the first category"—that is, shot. NKVD Order no. 00447 decreed 10,000 executions for this contingent, but at least three times more were shot in the course of the secret mass operation, the majority in March–April 1938.<ref name="sciencespo.fr"/>

===Mongolian Great Purge===
{{Main|Stalinist repressions in Mongolia}}

During the late 1930s, Stalin dispatched NKVD operatives to the [[Mongolian People's Republic]], established a Mongolian version of the NKVD troika, and proceeded to execute tens of thousands of people accused of having ties to "pro-Japanese spy rings".{{sfn|Kuromiya|2007|p=2}} Buddhist [[lama]]s made up the majority of victims, with 18,000 being killed in the terror. Other victims were nobility and political and academic figures, along with some ordinary workers and herders.<ref>Christopher Kaplonski, "[http://www.chriskaplonski.com/downloads/bullets.pdf Thirty thousand bullets]", in: ''Historical Injustice and Democratic Transition in Eastern Asia and Northern Europe'', London, 2002, pp. 155–168</ref> Mass graves containing hundreds of executed Buddhist monks and civilians have been discovered as recently as 2003.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2003-06-14|title=RTÉ News: Mass grave uncovered in Mongolia|website=[[RTÉ.ie]] |url=http://www.rte.ie/news/2003/0612/mongolia.html|access-date=2023-02-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030614090710/http://www.rte.ie/news/2003/0612/mongolia.html |archive-date=14 June 2003 }}</ref>

===Xinjiang Great Purge===
{{Main|Xinjiang War (1937)|Sheng Shicai}}

The pro-Soviet leader [[Sheng Shicai]] of [[Xinjiang]] province in China launched his own purge in 1937 to coincide with Stalin's Great Purge. The [[Xinjiang War (1937)]] broke out amid the purge.<ref>Allen S. Whiting and General Sheng Shicai. "Sinkiang: Pawn or Pivot?" Michigan State University Press, 1958</ref> Sheng received assistance from the NKVD. Sheng and the Soviets alleged a massive Trotskyist conspiracy and a "Fascist Trotskyite plot" to destroy the Soviet Union. The Soviet Consul General [[Garegin Apresov|Garegin Apresoff]], General [[Ma Hushan]], [[Ma Shaowu]], Mahmud Sijan, the official leader of the Xinjiang province Huang Han-chang and [[Hoja-Niyaz]] were among the 435 alleged conspirators in the plot. Xinjiang came under virtual Soviet control.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IAs9AAAAIAAJ&q=fascist+trotskyite+plotters|title=Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: a political history of Republican Sinkiang 1911–1949|author=Andrew D. W. Forbes|year=1986|publisher=CUP Archive|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0521255141|pages=151, 376|access-date=31 December 2010}}</ref>