Page "History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)" Paragraph 26

Several show trials were held in Moscow, to serve as examples for the trials that local courts were expected to carry out elsewhere in the country.

There were four key trials from 1936 to 1938, The Trial of the Sixteen was the first ( December 1936 ); then the Trial of the Seventeen ( January 1937 ); then the trial of Red Army generals, including Marshal Tukhachevsky ( June 1937 ); and finally the Trial of the Twenty One ( including Bukharin ) in March 1938.

See also: Moscow Trials.

During these, the defendants were typically accused of things such as sabotage, spying, counter-revolution, and conspiring with Germany and Japan to invade and partition the Soviet Union.

Most confessed to the charges.

The initial trials in 1935-1936 were carried out by the OGPU under Genrikh Yagoda.

The following year, he and his associates were removed from office and arrested.

They were later tried and executed in 1938-1939.

The secret police were renamed the NKVD and control given to Nikolai Yezhov, known as the " Bloody Dwarf ".