this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2025
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and a whole bunch of the old bolsheviks
I don't actually think Stalin disliked them as much on a personal level as he did Trotsky. His sidelining of Kamanev and Zinoviev was a power play and a consolidation of power but until the Ryutin affair it doesn't seem like he wanted to do much more than marginalize them as political rivals
well that's all right then
The great purge was in many ways a tragedy and a great crime, both for the loss of life involved but also for the loss of talent within the soviet political and bureaucratic sphere. That said I have a hard time crying many tears for the old bolsheviks who were so willing to go along with power plays, purges and clique/factionalism bullshit but then ended up on the wrong end of it themselves.