Moscow trials
series of three trials held in the Soviet Union at the instigation of Joseph Stalin between 1936 and 1938 against so-called Trotskyists and members of Right Opposition of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Moscow trials were a series of show trials held by the Soviet Union between 1936 and 1938 at the instigation of Joseph Stalin. They were nominally directed against "Trotskyists" and members of the "Right Opposition" of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
The "Case of the Trotskyite–Zinovievite Terrorist Center" (or Zinoviev–Kamenev Trial, also known as the 'Trial of the Sixteen', August 1936);
The "Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center" (or Pyatakov–Radek Trial, also known as the 'Trial of the Seventeen', January 1937); and
The "Case of the Anti-Soviet 'Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites'" (or the Bukharin–Rykov Trial, also known as the 'Trial of the Twenty-One', March 1938).
The defendants were Old Bolshevik Party leaders and top officials of the Soviet secret police. Most were charged under Article 58 of the RSFSR Penal Code with conspiring with imperialist powers to assassinate Stalin and other Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet Union, and restore capitalism. Several prominent figures (such as Andrei Bubnov, Alexander Beloborodov and Nikolai Yezhov) were sentenced to death during the Stalin era outside these trials.
The Moscow trials led to the execution of many of the defendants. The trials are generally seen as part of Stalin's Great Purge, a campaign to rid the party of current or prior opposition, including Trotskyists and leading Bolshevik cadre members from the time of the Russian Revolution or earlier, who might even potentially become a figurehead for the growing discontent in the Soviet populace resulting from Stalin's mismanagement of the economy. Stalin's rapid industrialization during the period of the first five-year plan and the brutality of the forced agricultural collectivization had led to an acute economic and political crisis in 1928–1933, which led to the worsened conditions of Soviet workers and peasants. Stalin was acutely conscious of this fact and took steps to prevent it taking the form of an opposition inside the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to his increasingly authoritarian rule.
The public source identifies “Moscow trials” as series of three trials held in the Soviet Union at the instigation of Joseph Stalin between 1936 and 1938 against so-called Trotskyists and members of Right Opposition of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Moscow, trials and series.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q117320. The Library of Congress control number is sh85087446. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1936, 1938, 1937 and 1928.
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