Talk:Moscow trials

POV
There is a strong bias in the presentation of this material which favours Trotskyist and later Bukharinite narratives and serves only to establish a faux-martyrology for these sectarian network. The term "show trial" should not be used in the introduction at all because it gives the impression that their conclusions were unjust. By all means, mention that Trotskyists, capitalists, fascists, revisionists, etc, have cast doubt on their legitimacy, but lets use more nuanced language in the first sentence. Claíomh Solais (talk) 00:32, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The vast majority of books and articles regard them as show trials whose charges were basically nonsense. The fact you have to cast such a wide net of authors ("Trotskyists, capitalists, fascists, revisionists" and even included an "etc" at the end) shows this. It's like complaining of "bias" in the 9/11 article because it doesn't give equal weight to the argument that the Twin Towers were destroyed by remote explosives rather than airliners hijacked by terrorists. It's also worth adding that the term "show trial" does not necessarily mean the defendants of a trial are without guilt, just that it is not a proper trial (a good example of this is the People's Revolutionary Tribunal set up in Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge were overthrown, in which the defendants—Pol Pot and Ieng Sary—were denied a fair hearing despite scarcely anyone doubting that they would be found guilty in a "normal" court.) Of course, it should come as no surprise if the defendants in most show trials are innocent of the charges against them. --Ismail (talk) 21:28, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
 * yes the vast majority of books IN ENGLISH regard them as illegitimate show trials, and those books have almost invariably terrible methodology. these books were written by propagandists like Robert Conquests as part of the cold war, and with new evidence from the soviet archives have been completely debunked. On that note, the american ambassador to the soviet union, John E. Davis, who was himself a jurist, and was present at the moscow trials, said he believed them to be entirely proper and legitimate. Read J. Arch Getty. O-caudata (talk) 11:23, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Where is your evidence that the consensus on the Moscow Trials is different in German, French, Russian, and other languages? I've read Getty, he refers to them as show trials. As for "John E. Davis" (you mean Joseph E. Davies), his view was far from universal among those who were present at the Trials (e.g. the British ambassador privately wrote to his government that the proceedings were a "travesty of justice"), as noted in Robert C. Tucker's Stalin in Power. --Ismail (talk) 02:42, 8 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Well said. This entire article is Trotskyist revisionism. Trotsky was, as he admitted, plotting to overthrow the Soviet Union. These trials were hearings where they determined that - shocker - these people who followed Trotsky were plotting to overthrow the Soviet Union. Calling them "show trials" is entirely misleading. Asaturn (talk) 18:27, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
 * First, Trotsky argued that a workers' revolution was required to overthrow what he considered a "Thermidorean bureaucracy" that imperiled the future of the Soviet state. This is quite different from the claims of the Trials that (among other things) Trotsky established connections with foreign intelligence services and agreed with them to partition the USSR, that he organized individual acts of terrorism against leaders of the country, that he sought to carry out industrial sabotage, and that he formed a bloc with figures like Zinoviev and Bukharin. Second, it makes sense to call them "show trials" as the proceedings were little more than defendants confessing to incredible charges with no real attempt to question their narratives (plus multiple indications that can be cited that their testimony was coerced out of them by torture or other psychological pressure.) --Ismail (talk) 19:47, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
 * " the proceedings were little more than defendants confessing to incredible charges with no real attempt to question their narratives (plus multiple indications that can be cited that their testimony was coerced out of them by torture or other psychological pressure.)"
 * what indications? O-caudata (talk) 11:28, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
 * There's a bunch of examples here (with sources provided): http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2019/08/again-about-stalinist-deniers-yes.html (obviously I'm not suggesting a blog post be inserted into the article, I link to it here in answer to your query.) --Ismail (talk) 02:42, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Should the background section be revised?
As one note pointed out, it goes way too far back in time, to Kamenev and Zinoviev's Troika. There is a lot of not needed content. I may remove it and let it begin with Ryutin's conspiracy, following with the expulsion of Zinoviev and Kamenev from the party.Seekallknowledge (talk) 22:16, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Denote three trials differently
This is a massive and detailed page / entry on a complex historical subject.

There are problems with terminology and explanation: what used to be called "the Great Purge" (subtitle of Conquest's 1968 classic) is now known to be a set of events, stretching from August 1936 to November 1938 that are linked but in key respects distinct.

There are the three Moscow Show Trials, the subject here.

Then from August 1937 to November 1938 the Soviet Union was engulfed by 12 operations launched by the NKVD with Stalin's full knowledge and acquiescence. These took a total of 700,000 lives and had several distinguishihng features, e.g. regular demands from the regional Party and NKVD bosses for increased quotas to arrest and kill more people.

Some brave person needs to go through the interlinked Wikipedia pages, see what's out of date (or very out of date), and edit and abridge accordingly.

I do not intend to undetake such a task: I'm merely stating that need here, so more people are aware of the problem!

My suggestion at this point is simpler. There were various names for the three trials. Shouldn't the bizarre, original names of each trial be placed in inverted commas? Otherwise it might seem that the successive authors and editors of this page agree with the paranoid conspirology of contemporary Soviet leaders.

I've attempted to make this change. These are my reasons.

Rustat99 (talk) 07:07, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Draft:Lev Sheinin
Perhaps of interest!Rubiks2022 (talk) 11:46, 5 September 2022 (UTC)