Tsarist Russia. In the thirty-year period from 1876 to 1905, 486 people were sentenced to death, or 17 people per year, throughout Russia, including those convicted of common crimes. From 1906 to 1908, during the years of the first revolution, death sentences soared to 2,200 people (45 per month!), only to then decline dramatically due to popular discontent. In the subsequent Soviet period, from October 1918 to October 1919, 16,000 people were executed (well over a thousand per month!!!).
