Moscow. On the same day as Sergei Kirov’s assassination, Stalin dictated and signed the decree marking the beginning of the purges: “All courts are ordered to expedite trials against enemies of the Soviet state, and the accused are to be deprived of all rights: defense, appeal, and pardon. Death sentences are ordered to be carried out immediately after the verdict is read.” At the 20th Congress, twenty years later, Khrushchev would define it as socialist illegality.
