The Moscow Trials were a series of show trials held in the Soviet Union at the instigation of Joseph Stalin between 1936 and 1938. The defendants included most of the surviving Old Bolsheviks; as well as the former leadership of the Soviet secret police.

The Moscow Trials led to the execution of many of the defendants; including most of the surviving Old Bolsheviks; and the trials are generally seen as part of Stalin's Great Purge which was an attempt to rid the party of current or prior party oppositionists; especially but not exclusively Trotskyists; and indeed any leading Bolshevik cadre from the period of the 1917 revolution or earlier; who might even potentially become a figurehead for the growing discontent in the Soviet populace resulting from Stalin's incompetent mismanagement of the economy. Pictures From History