Great Purge Stalin Voroshilov Kaganovich Zhdanov Molotov

Stalin's shooting lists (russian: Ста́линские расстре́льные спи́ски) were the lists of extrajudicially accused persons submitted to the

Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union ( Russian: Военная коллегия Верховного суда СССР, ''Voennaya kollegiya Verkhovnogo suda SSSR'') was created in 1924 by the Supreme Court of the Sovi ...

, after the endorsement by

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...

and other members of the

Politburo A politburo () or political bureau is the executive committee for communist parties. It is present in most former and existing communist states. Names The term "politburo" in English comes from the Russian ''Politbyuro'' (), itself a contractio ...

, for issuing a verdict, typically

execution by shooting Execution by shooting is a method of capital punishment in which a person is shot to death by one or more firearms. It is the most common method of execution worldwide, used in about 70 countries, with execution by firing squad being one particula ...

, either by an individual or a

firing squad Execution by firing squad, in the past sometimes called fusillading (from the French ''fusil'', rifle), is a method of capital punishment, particularly common in the military and in times of war. Some reasons for its use are that firearms are us ...

.Stalin’s secret kill lists.
The Moscow News, 1 April 2013. Official records put the total number of documented executions between 1937 and 1938 during the Soviet

Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secreta ...

at 681,692. Of these, around 44,000 had their sentences personally approved by Stalin or his closest aides, with Stalin's initials appearing on 357 of the lists. The lists are currently held at the

Archive of the President of the Russian Federation The Archive of the President of the Russian Federation (russian: Архив Президента Российской Федерации) is a Russian state archive established in 1991 and managed by the Presidential Administration of Russia. It r ...

. They were published in March 2013.

References

{{reflist Political repression in the Soviet Union Great Purge

See also

References