Great Purge - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org

Matvei Bronstein: Theorical physicist. Pioneer of quantum gravity. Arrested, accused of fictional “terroristic” activity and shot in 1938

Lev Shubnikov: Experimental physicist. Accused on false charges. Executed

Adrian Piotrovsky: Russian dramaturge. Accused on false charges of treason. Executed.

Nikolai Bukharin: Leader of the Communist revolution. Member of the Politburo. Falsely accused of treason. Executed.

General Alexander Egorov: Marshal of the Soviet Union. Commander of the Red Army Southern Front. Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Arrested, accused on false charges, executed.

General Mikhail Tukhachevsky Supreme Marshal of the Soviet Union. Nicknamed the Red Napoleon. Arrested, accused on fake charges. Executed.

Grigory Zinoviev: Chairman of the Communist International Movement. Member of the Soviet Politburo. Accused of treason and executed.

Even the secret police themselves were not safe:

Genrikh Yagoda : Right-hand of Joseph Stalin. Head of the NKD Secret Police. He spied on everyone in Russia and jailed thousands of innocents. Yagoda was arrested and executed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genrikh_Yagoda

Nikolai Yezhov : Appointed head of the NKD Secret Police after the death of Yagoda. Arrested on fake charges, executed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Yezhov

Everybody was absolutely terrified during this period. At least 600 000 people were killed and over 100 000 people were deported to Gulags in Siberia.

Today, Russian schools no longer teach what Joseph Stalin did. Many young russians actually believe that Stalin was a great patriot.

This is part of an effort by Vladimir Putin to rehabilitate him:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/10/vladimir-putin-russia-rehabilitating-stalin-soviet-past

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/05/21/stalin-is-making-a-comeback-in-russia-heres-why-a89155

      • Sunforged@lemmy.ml
        29·
        23 天前

        I honestly have no issue there. My issue is the claim that such atrocities don’t happen in democratic institutions.

        • MushuChupacabra@lemmy.world
          18·
          22 天前

          I honestly have no issue there. My issue is the claim that such atrocities don’t happen in democratic institutions.

          I can’t recall any democratic countries, fragile or not, that can hold a candle to the atrocities committed by Joseph Stalin.

          Can you point out the equivalent that we should look at in this case of whataboutism? Since we’re talking about millions being killed by Joseph Stalin, what are the comparables?

          • sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            12·
            22 天前

            Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the archival revelations, some historians estimated that the numbers killed by Stalin’s regime were 20 million or higher.[5][6][7] After the Soviet Union dissolved, evidence from the Soviet archives was declassified and researchers were allowed to study it. This contained official records of 799,455 executions (1921–1953),[8][9][10][11][12] around 1.5 to 1.7 million deaths in the Gulag,[13][14][15] some 390,000[16] deaths during the dekulakization forced resettlement, and up to 400,000 deaths of persons deported during the 1940s,[17] with a total of about 3.3 million officially recorded victims in these categories.[18] According to historian Stephen Wheatcroft, approximately 1 million of these deaths were “purposive” while the rest happened through neglect and irresponsibility.[2] The deaths of at least 5.5 to 6.5 million[19] persons in the Soviet famine of 1932–1933 are sometimes included with the victims of the Stalin era.[2][20] - wikipedia

            So being generous we’ll go high and say 10 million

            According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 9 million people die annually from hunger and malnutrition, mostly in regions where capitalist-driven global inequality has made basic necessities unaffordable or inaccessible.

            So less in a year due to capitalism (ignoring wars and whatnot) than the total of Stalin. But also dealing with huge differences in populations involved. Both seem pretty shitty if you ask me.

            • MushuChupacabra@lemmy.world
              14·
              22 天前

              An estimated 30 local NKVD agents, guards and drivers were pressed into service to escort prisoners to the basement, confirm identification, then remove the bodies and hose down the blood after each execution. Although some of the executions were carried out by Senior Lieutenant of State Security Andrei Rubanov, Blokhin was the primary executioner and, true to his reputation, liked to work continuously and rapidly without interruption.[14] In keeping with NKVD policy and the overall “wet” nature of the operation, the executions were conducted at night, starting at dark and continuing until just prior to dawn. The bodies were continuously loaded onto covered flat-bed trucks through a back door in the execution chamber and trucked, twice a night, to the nearby village of Mednoye. Blokhin had arranged for a bulldozer and two NKVD drivers to dispose of bodies at an unfenced site. Each night, 24–25 trenches were dug, measuring 8 to 10 metres (26 to 33 ft) in length, to hold that night’s corpses, and each trench was covered over before dawn.[17]

              Blokhin and his team worked without pause for 10 hours each night, with Blokhin himself executing an average of one prisoner every three minutes.[2] At the end of the night, he provided vodka to all his men.[18] On 27 April 1940, Blokhin secretly received the Order of the Red Banner and a modest monthly pay premium as a reward from Stalin for his “skill and organization in the effective carrying out of special tasks”.[19][20] His tally of 7,000 shot in 28 days remains the most organised and protracted mass murder by a single individual on record, and caused him being named the Guinness World Record holder for “Most Prolific Executioner” in 2010.[2][3]

              Ya, totally equivalent.

              Sit the fuck down.

              • sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyzEnglish
                7·
                22 天前

                What the fuck are you on about? I guess it’s easy for a smooth brain moron to hype up gross mass murder as somehow way worse than prolonged systematic suffering and death. You’re a fucking lost cause.

                • MushuChupacabra@lemmy.world
                  5·
                  22 天前

                  Prolonged systematic suffering and death, huh? If you hate that sort of thing, you’re really gonna hate that Joseph Stalin guy.

                  But here’s some more gruesome details about Stalin’s favorite executioner:

                  Blokhin initially decided on an ambitious quota of 300 executions per night, and engineered an efficient system in which the prisoners were individually led to a small antechamber — which had been painted red and was known as the “Leninist room” — for a brief and cursory positive identification, before being handcuffed and led into the execution room next door. The room was specially designed with padded walls for soundproofing, a sloping concrete floor with a drain and hose, and a log wall for the prisoners to stand against. Blokhin would stand waiting behind the door in his executioner garb: a leather butcher’s apron, leather hat, and shoulder-length leather gloves. Then, without a hearing, the reading of a sentence or any other formalities, each prisoner was brought in and restrained by guards while Blokhin shot him once in the base of the skull with a German Walther Model 2 .25 ACP pistol.[13][14][15] He had brought a briefcase full of his own Walther pistols, since he did not trust the reliability of the standard-issue Soviet TT-30 for the frequent, heavy use he intended. The use of a German pocket pistol, which was commonly carried by German police and intelligence agents, also provided plausible deniability of the executions if the bodies were discovered later.[16]

                  I bolded the part where Blokhin is literally dressed like Leatherface from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

                  Like I said, sit the fuck down.

                  • sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyzEnglish
                    8·
                    22 天前

                    Yep, bad dude. Bad, bad dude. His boss was too. You didn’t, and won’t, get any argument on that from me. But you come across as one of those people who talk about systematic racism and knee jerk react by saying,“I’M NOT RACIST”. All I said was capitalism causes a fuckload of pain, suffering, and death as well. You were of the opinion that capitalism is somehow immune to evil or something. And I’m not sure why you keep saying sit down. The only time I type on here is when I’m at my desktop, and I don’t have a standing desk. You need to try to come up with something more appropriate. Or you know, just shut the fuck up with your capitalist boot licking, grow up, take some classes, and realize humans really suck when they get any type of power, whatever political clothes they wear.

            • _cryptagion [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              3·
              22 天前

              So being generous we’ll go high and say 10 million

              Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the archival revelations, some historians estimated that the numbers killed by Stalin’s regime were 20 million or higher.

              or maybe you can “be generous” and go with the figure you quoted.

              • sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyzEnglish
                3·
                21 天前

                OK, let’s be “generous” and agree to that figure. Or twice that. It doesn’t change a thing I said, and nobody will ever find me defending Stalin, unless their lenses are crazy colored.

            • brainwashed@feddit.org
              3·
              22 天前

              How many global soviel block deaths of malnourishments did you tally up for old boy Stalin? Do we calculate relative or absolute numbers? Do the deaths of malnutrishion of nominally socialists states today also count as being capitalisms fault?

        • _cryptagion [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          6·
          22 天前

          My issue is the claim that such atrocities don’t happen in democratic institutions.

          well, if ML users could read, you would know that OP made no such claims.