Great Purge Stalin Voroshilov Kaganovich Zhdanov Molotov

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 Soviet Union as a court for the higher military and political personnel of the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...

and Fleet. In addition it was an immediate supervisor of military tribunals and the supreme authority of military

appeal In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...

s. During 1926–1948 the Chairman of the Collegium was

Vasiliy Ulrikh Vasiliy Vasilievich Ulrikh (russian: Василий Васильевич Ульрих, 13 July 1889 – 7 May 1951) was a senior judge of the Soviet Union during most of the regime of Joseph Stalin. Ulrikh served as the presiding judge at man ...

. The role of the Military Collegium drastically changed after June 1934, when it was assigned the duty to consider cases that fell under Article 58, counter-revolutionary activity. During the

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 ...

of 1937–1938 the Military Collegium tried relatively prominent figures, usually based on the lists approved personally by

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

, the majority of Article 58 cases having been processed extrajudicially by NKVD troikas. In particular, the Military Collegium conducted the major Soviet

show trial A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so ...

s. The Collegium was also involved in a subsequent trial of

Polish General The following is a list of Polish generals, that is the people who held the rank of general, as well as those who acted as ''de facto'' generals by commanding a division or brigade. Note that until the Partitions of Poland of late 18th century t ...

Leopold Okulicki, the last commander of the Polish

Home Army The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) es ...

, and

Jan Stanisław Jankowski Jan Stanisław Jankowski (6 May 1882 – 13 March 1953; noms de guerre ''Doktor'', ''Jan'', ''Klonowski'', ''Sobolewski'', ''Soból'') was a Polish politician, an important figure in the Polish civil resistance during World War II and a ...

, Government Delegate for Poland.

Chairmen

* 1923–1926: Valentin Trifonov * 1926–1948:

* 1948–1957: Aleksandr Cheptsov * 1957–1964: V. V. Borisoglebskiy * 1964–1971: N.F. Chistyakov

References

Government of the Soviet Union Law enforcement in the Soviet Union Great Purge Trial of the Sixteen (Great Purge) Military of the Soviet Union 1924 establishments in the Soviet Union Defunct courts Courts and tribunals established in 1924 {{Soviet-stub

Chairmen

See also

References