The so-called “Great Purge” (or “Great Terror”) is considered to have lasted from 1934 to 1939. Although earlier purges had occurred in the Civil War and post-Civil War eras and in the earlier years of Stalinisation, the “Great Purge”, beginning in 1934, was of a much vaster order. The starting point was the reaction to the1934 assassination of Segei Kirov, the Leningrad Party leader (itself a mysterious event). Victor Serge’s novel, The Case of Comrade Tulayev, offers a fascinating imaginative treatment of this and developments therefrom.

The pre-existing system of repression, established under the CHEKA (the Soviet secret police, in its first Bolshevik incarnation) for the Red Terro

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Published 15 September 2005

Citation: Cornwell, Neil. "Soviet Literature - The Purges". The Literary Encyclopedia. 15 September 2005.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1593, accessed 9 February 2010.]