http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/king-commissar.htmlThe state prosecutor of the time was the universally loathed and feared Andrei Yanuarievich Vyshinsky. Vyshinsky plumbed new depths of cruelty in the late 1930s, when he willingly acted as Stalin's mouthpiece in the three notorious Moscow show trials. At these trials he had many of the "Old Bolsheviks"--those who had created the Revolution that he never took part in--put to death. False confessions to ridiculous charges were extracted from the defendants by sadistic interrogators. Independent defense counsel was unheard of. Confession was sufficient to convict.
