Stalin’s Show Trials
The Dictator & His Prosecutor
Trial of the Sixteen
Trial of the Seventeen
Trial of the Twenty-One
Fathers of Communism
Eric Gleeson
&
Simon Crowley
Vyshinsky
Overview Of Stalin’s
Rule

Stalin’s reign can be summarised as a ‘reign of terror’.

Stalin was controlled by his paranoia, seeing his comrades as enemies.

This can be seen through his infamous
Show Trials and Purges.

Stalin was a very pragmatic ruler for that of a
communist, he instilled capitalist ideas into the
factories, like extra wages for good work and the
Order of Lenin in exceptional cases.

Stalin can also be noted as the sculptor of the
USSR, his three 5-Year Plans transformed
the USSR into the main rival
of the economically-strong countries of the west.
Overview Of
Stalin’s Rule

Stalin’s ‘Cult Of Personality’ insured that he became the face of the new
USSR.

Stalin’s Purges destroyed the once great Red Army from the inside by
ridding it of almost half of the officers, 35,000 men.

Of the original 15-man Bolshevik government of 1917 only Stalin
remained, showing that he really was a man riddled with paranoia.

Stalin’s ‘successes’ were built on the horrific deaths of millions.
Soviet accounts show the population dropped
by ten percent but modern historians believe it could
be as high as thirty percent.
Andrei Vyshinsky

Born 10
December 1883

Vyshinsky was born in Odessa, Russia. He
became a Menshevik in 1903 and took an
active part in the 1905 Russian
Revolution at Baku, for which he was
convicted and imprisoned in
the Bailov prison. Here he first met Stalin: a
fellow inmate with whom he engaged in
ideological disputes.
Vyshinsky became Stalin’s right hand man
and Prosecutor of the three Show Trials,
not so much out of choice but due to his
Menshevik background. Vyshinsky
repeatedily suggested the death sentence
for all of the defendants.
Died 22
November 1954