The Great Terror - or "Great Purge," as it used to be called in Soviet usage - left its mark on the perception of Stalinism, starting from the time of the Moscow show trials of 1936-1938. At the same time, the focus was only on the persecution of the old and new party-state elites of the Soviet state. This was quite understandable: it was the representatives of the elites who were accused not only at the Moscow trials, which were watched by the whole world, but also at other demonstration trials and political proceedings that were hardly noticed by the outside world that took place on the territory of the Soviet Union in 1936-1938.