Former tsarist officers had been purged in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
In the mid-1920s, Leon Trotsky was removed as Commissar of War, and his known supporters were expunged from the military. The trial was preceded by several purges of the Red Army. In September 1938, the People's Commissar for Defense, Kliment Voroshilov, reported that a total of 37,761 officers and commissars were dismissed from the army, 10,868 were arrested and 7,211 were condemned for anti-Soviet crimes. The trial triggered a massive subsequent purge of the Red Army. Only Ulrikh, Budyonny and Shaposhnikov would survive the purges that followed. The Tribunal was presided over by Vasili Ulrikh and included marshals Vasily Blyukher, Semyon Budyonny, Alexander Yegorov Army Commanders Yakov Alksnis, Boris Shaposhnikov, Ivan Panfilovich Belov, Pavel Dybenko, and Nikolai Kashirin and Corps Commander Yelisey Goryachev. Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky and the senior military officers Iona Yakir, Ieronim Uborevich, Robert Eideman, August Kork, Vitovt Putna, Boris Feldman, and Vitaly Primakov (as well as Yakov Gamarnik, who committed suicide before the investigations began) were accused of anti-Soviet conspiracy and sentenced to death they were executed on the night of June 11 to 12, 1937, immediately after the verdict delivered by a Special Session (специальное судебное присутствие) of the Supreme Court of the USSR.
It is traditionally considered one of the key trials of the Great Purge. Leaders come and go, but the people remain.The Case was a secret trial, unlike the Moscow Show Trials. The fierce supporter of Stalin has managed to gather some support and declared war on the Trotsky government, in an attempt to take back power and 'fulfill the vision of Comrade Stalin'. One of the few survivors who managed to escape was Ivan Konev. Tearing down the cult of personality he built up will take time, but the people know now at least that he was not immortal.
The former General Secretary was attacked in his home with an ice axe, and was swiftly executed along with several of his supporters. Today, Leon Trotsky reemerged as having returned from his exile, and with the support of several influential party members and NKVD officers, launched a coup overthrowing Stalin's rule. What is known is that what he feared eventually came to pass. The world may never know if Stalin's paranoia was targeting the right people, or whether he made more enemies trying to exterminate every Trotsykist in the Party. If you spot a mistake then you are welcome to fix it.
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