Ritual of Liquidation: The Case of the Moscow Trials

The famous Moscow trials of the mid-1930's have been a topic of continuing interest and speculation ever since to students of political affairs and to novelists. Ritual of Liquidation is the first systematic and exhaustive research study by social scientists into the available documentary materials on the trials of the top Bolshevik leaders who were purged and liquidated at that time. This analysis is important not only for its findings on the fascinating questions of "why they confessed," but even more for what it reveals about how dissent and conflict among the Soviet leadership is handled. Although the Moscow Trials were the last public "show trials," the authors have examined the sparser information available on later trials including a postscript on the recent secret trial and announced execution of Lavrenti Beria in 1953 after the death of Stalin.