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1) The First Show trial:
a) Summer 1936 NKVD claimed to have discovered evidence that Trotsky had been in touch with a wide range of people in a plot to kill Stalin.
B) Kamenev and Zinoviev were brought from prison - after threats that Kamenev’s son would be shot and promises that their lives would be spared the two confessed to being involved in a conspiracy with Trotsky. They were found guilty and shot as were members of their family.
2) Only a few days after the execution Stalin ordered Yagoda the head of the NKVD to pick out 5,000 political opponents including Trotskyites, Old Bolsheviks and Zinovievites who were already in labour camps to be shot.
3) September 1936 Yagoda himself was removed on the grounds that he had been too lax in rooting out the enemies of Stalin he was replaced by Yezhov
4) The Army - Stalin claimed that there was a military plot against him - Stalin killed more Russian generals and commanders than world war two - 15 out of 16 generals were killed.
5) Ending the purges. They were supposed to be ended at the 18th congress in 1939. Stalin made Yezkhov scapegoat and had him shot, ‘that scoundrel Yehzkov! He finished off some of our finest people..’ Stalin kept his popularity.
6) The aftermath of the purges:
a) The power of the Bolsheviks were eliminated.
B) 60% of those who had been party members in 1934 had been expelled
C) At the end of 1940 Stalin was the only survivor of Lenin’s 1st
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