The Eighteenth Party Congress meets as the purges recede

A closed proceeding convicted Mikhail Tukhachevsky and other senior officers of treason; they were executed the next day. The military purge removed experienced commanders on the eve of war and spread...

The order targeted former kulaks, alleged criminals, and other designated “anti-Soviet elements,” assigning regional arrest and punishment limits. Quotas and secret procedures helped produce mass...

Order 00485 initiated mass arrests targeting people accused of Polish espionage. The operation was part of the Great Terror’s national operations, which punished people collectively on the basis of...

Nikolai Bukharin and other defendants were convicted after a public trial marked by coerced confessions and sweeping conspiracy claims. The purges devastated the party, state institutions, military...

A joint decree ended the main mass operations and condemned “excesses,” while leaving the repressive system intact. Stalin’s government blamed abuses on subordinates even though the campaigns had been...

The public non-aggression treaty included secret protocols dividing spheres of influence in Eastern Europe. It gave both governments room to pursue expansion and exposed smaller states to decisions...

After Germany invaded Poland, Soviet forces crossed the eastern border under the pact’s secret arrangements. Polish territory was divided between two occupying powers; residents faced arrests,...

Soviet forces crossed the Finnish border after failed negotiations over security near Leningrad. The war exposed the costs of Stalin’s coercive diplomacy and the Red Army’s weaknesses after the...

The Soviet Politburo approved a proposal to execute thousands of Polish officers and prisoners held by the NKVD. The killings at Katyn and other sites were part of a broader effort to eliminate Polish...

The treaty ended the Winter War and transferred Finnish territory, including the Karelian Isthmus, to the Soviet Union. Soviet security demands gained territory but at high military and diplomatic...