The Great Purge in the former USSR — Union of Soviet Socialist Republics — was carried out from 1936 to 1938 on orders of the Communist Party chairman and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. The main victims of the Moscow show trials were Communist officials and upper echelons of the country’s Red Army, some of whom confessed to crimes they had not committed. The purge terrorized the entire Soviet civil service and other leading members of the society, such as intellectuals, writers, academicians, artists, and scientists.
According to declassified Soviet archives, during 1937 and 1938, the state police detained 1,548,366 persons, of whom 681,692 were shot: an average of 1,000 executions a day. Some historians believe that the actual executions were two to three times higher.
What do different witch hunts often have in common?
A. Witch hunts rely on creative thinking and technology.
B. Important progress is made despite the loss of life.
C. Guilty people are convicted alongside innocent people.
D. People are unjustifiably persecuted and/or killed.
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C. Guilty people are convicted alongside innocent people.
D. People are unjustifiably persecuted and/or killed.
Both C and D capture the essence of what many witch hunts, including the Great Purge and the Salem witch trials, often have in common. They involve the wrongful persecution of individuals, where innocent people may be harmed alongside any potential guilty parties.
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