Editing Great Purge (section)

==Number of people executed==
[[File:RIAN archive 910794 Memorial events in Bykovnya Graves reserve.jpg|thumb|Memorial events in [[Bykivnia graves]] reserve, [[Kyiv]], Ukraine]]
Official figures put the total number of documentable executions during the years 1937 and 1938 at 681,692,{{sfn|Thurston|1998|p=139}}<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Getty|first1=J. Arch|last2=Rittersporn|first2=Gábor|last3=Zemskov|first3=Viktor|title=Victims of the Soviet penal system in the pre-war years: a first approach on the basis of archival evidence|journal=[[American Historical Review]]|date=1993|volume=98|issue=4|page=1022|doi=10.2307/2166597|jstor=2166597|url=https://sovietinfo.tripod.com/GTY-Penal_System.pdf}}</ref> in addition to 116,000 deaths in the [[Gulag]],<ref name="EllmanComment">{{cite journal|last=Ellman|first=Michael|date=2002|title=Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments|url=http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/ELM-Repression_Statistics.pdf|journal=Europe-Asia Studies|volume=54|issue=7|pages=1151–1172|doi=10.1080/0966813022000017177|quote=The best estimate that can currently be made of the number of repression deaths in 1937–38 is the range 950,000–1.2 million, i.e. about a million. This is the estimate which should be used by historians, teachers and journalists concerned with twentieth century Russian—and world—history|s2cid=43510161}}</ref> and 2,000 unofficially killed in non-article 58 shootings;<ref name="EllmanComment"/> whereas the total estimate of deaths brought about by Soviet repression during the Great Purge ranges from 950,000 to 1.2 million, which includes executions, deaths in detention and those who died shortly after being released from the Gulag, as a result of their treatment therein.<ref name="EllmanComment"/> There were also [[Deportation of Koreans in the Soviet Union#Death tol|16,500 to 50,000 deaths in the deportation of Soviet Koreans]] which correspond to the purge.
According to [[Robert Conquest]], a practice of falsification for lowering the execution numbers was disguising executions with the sentence "[[10 years without the right of correspondence]]" which almost always meant execution. All of the bodies identified from the mass graves at [[Vinnytsia massacre|Vinnitsa]] and [[Kuropaty]] were of individuals who had received this sentence.<ref>Robert Conquest, ''The Great Terror: A Reassessment: 40th Anniversary Edition'', Oxford University Press, US, 2007. p. 287</ref> Despite this, the lower figure did roughly confirm Conquest's original 1968 estimate of 700,000 "legal" executions and in the preface to the 40th anniversary edition of ''The Great Terror'', Conquest claimed that he had been "correct on the vital matter—the numbers put to death: about one million".<ref>Robert Conquest, Preface, ''The Great Terror: A Reassessment: 40th Anniversary Edition'', Oxford University Press, US, 2007. p. xvi</ref>

According to [[J. Arch Getty]] and Oleg V. Naumov, "popular estimates of executions in the great purges vary from 500,000 to 7 million." However, according to them, "the archival evidence from the secret police rejects the astronomically high estimates often given for the number of terror victims" and "the data available at this point make it clear that the number shot in the two worst purge years [1937–38] was more likely in the hundreds of thousands than in the millions."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Getty|first1=J. Arch|last2=Naumov|first2=Oleg V.|date=2010|title=The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932–1939|location=|publisher=[[Yale University Press]]|pages=xiv, 243, 590–591|isbn=978-0300104073}}</ref> According to historian Corrina Kuhr, 700,000 people were executed during the Great Purge out of the 2.5 million who were arrested.<ref name="Kuhr">{{Cite journal|last=Kuhr|first=Corinna|date=1998|title=Children of 'Enemies of The People' as Victims of the Great Purges|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20171081|journal=Cahiers du Monde russe|volume=39|issue=1/2|pages=209–220|doi=10.3406/cmr.1998.2520|jstor=20171081|issn=1252-6576|quote=According to latest estimates 2,5 million people were arrested and 700,000 of them shot. These figures are based on reliable archival materials [...]}}</ref> Professor Nérard François-Xavier estimates the same number of people who were sentenced to death; however, he states that 1.3 million people were arrested.<ref name="Xavier">{{Cite web|last=François-Xavier|first=Nérard|date=27 February 2009|title=The Levashovo cemetery and the Great Terror in the Leningrad region|url=https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/en/document/levashovo-cemetery-and-great-terror-leningrad-region.html|website=[[Paris Institute of Political Studies]]|language=en|quote=The Yezhovshchina or Stalin's Great Terror [...] The precise end result of these operations is difficult to establish, but the total of the condemnations is estimated at roughly 1,300,000 of which 700,000 were sentenced to death, most of the others were sentenced to ten years in the camps (document translated in Werth, 2006: 143).}}</ref>

The Soviets themselves made their own estimates with [[Vyacheslav Molotov]] saying "The report written by that commission member...says that 1,370,000 arrests were made in the 1930s. That's too many. I responded that the figures should be thoroughly reviewed".<ref>Chuev, Feliks. ''Molotov Remembers''. Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1993, p. 285</ref>