China announces suspended death sentences for former defence ministers
BBC World →The announcement follows recent ousting of several top officials in China's military.
Officials Get Death in U.S.S.R.
MOSCOW.—The six-day trial of dishonest employees of the State Retail Trading Trust ended. The accused were found guilty of having sold goods above state prices, pocketing the difference, having sold goods to spectators intended for markets and pocketing hundreds of thousands of rubles. The court took a serious view of the crimes which endangered the reputation of the Soviet Trading institutions. The chief accused, Kriutchov, Nosokin, Smirnov, Shubin and Pankratov, were sentenced to death. Others were given various terms of imprisonment, ranging from five to ten years. Three were acquitted.
Original Newspaper Page
Enlarge → What Happened Next
Law of Spikelets
In the first half of the year after the announcement of the decree, (by January 1, 1933) 150,000 people were convicted on it in the RSFSR; 3.5% of them (782) were sentenced to death. The railroad transport courts and military tribunals also handed down death sentences... With the growing social tension due to famine, the number of those convicted in these cases in the RSFSR increased.
Wikipedia →Ryutin affair
In June 1932, Ryutin wrote a pamphlet entitled Appeal to All Members of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and a nearly 200-page document entitled Stalin and the Crisis of the Proletarian Dictatorship. In these documents, Ryutin called for an end to forced collectivization, a slowing down of the industrialization programme, the reinstatement of all previously expelled Party members, and a 'fresh start.' Four of the Platform's thirteen chapters examined the character of Stalin, whom Ryutin called 'the evil genius of the Party and the revolution.'
Wikipedia →Sergei Kirov
On the afternoon of Saturday, 1 December 1934, Kirov's assassin, Leonid Nikolayev, arrived at the Smolny Institute offices and made his way to the third floor unopposed, waiting in a hallway until Kirov and his bodyguard Borisov stepped into the corridor... Kirov turned a corner and passed out of sight. Shortly afterward, a shot rang out.
Wikipedia →