The Moscow Trials were a series of show trials held in the Soviet Union at the instigation of Joseph Stalin between 1936 and 1938 against Trotskyists and members of Right Opposition of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. There were three Moscow Trials: the Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center (Zinoviev–Kamenev Trial, aka “Trial of the Sixteen,” 1936), the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center (Pyatakov–Radek Trial, 1937), and the Case of the Anti-Soviet “Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites” (Bukharin–Rykov Trial, aka “Trial of the Twenty-One,” 1938). The defendants of these were Old Bolshevik party leaders and top officials of the Soviet secret police. Most defendants were charged under Article 58 of the RSFSR Penal Code with conspiring with the Western powers to assassinate Stalin and other Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet Union, and restore capitalism.

The Moscow Trials led to the execution of many of the defendants. They are generally seen as part of Stalin’s Great Purge, an attempt to rid the party of current or prior oppositionists, especially but not exclusively Trotskyists, and any leading Bolshevik cadre from the time of the Russian Revolution or earlier, who might even potentially become a figurehead for the growing discontent in the Soviet populace resulting from Stalin’s mismanagement of the economy.^[1] Stalin’s hasty industrialization during the period of the First Five Year Plan and the brutality of the forced agricultural collectivization had led to an acute economic and political crisis in 1928-33, a part of the global problem known as the Great Depression, and to enormous suffering on the part of the Soviet workers and peasants. Stalin was acutely conscious of this fact and took steps to prevent it taking the form of an opposition inside the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to his increasingly totalitarian rule.^[1]

Background

Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, and Joseph Stalin formed a ruling triumvirate in early 1923^[2] after Vladimir Lenin had become incapacitated from a stroke. In the context of the series of defeats of communist revolutions abroad (crucially the German revolutions of 1919 but also later the Chinese Revolution of 1927) which left the Russian Revolution increasingly isolated in a backward country, the triumvirate was able to effect the marginalization of Leon Trotsky in an internal party political conflict over the issue of Stalin’s theory of Socialism in One Country. It was Trotsky who most clearly represented the wing of the CPSU leadership which claimed that the survival of the revolution depended on the spread of communism to the advanced European economies especially Germany. This was expressed in his theory of permanent revolution.^[3]

A few years later, Zinoviev and Kamenev joined the United Front in an alliance with Trotsky which favored Trotskyism and opposed Stalin specifically.^[4] Consequently, Stalin allied with Nikolai Bukharin and defeated Trotsky in a power struggle. Trotsky was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1929 and Kamenev and Zinoviev temporarily lost their membership in the Communist Party. Zinoviev and Kamenev, in 1932, were found to be complicit in the Ryutin Affair and again were temporarily expelled from the Communist Party. In December 1934, Sergei Kirov was assassinated and, subsequently 15 defendants were found guilty of direct, or indirect, involvement in the crime and were executed.^[5] Zinoviev and Kamenev were found to be morally complicit in Kirov’s murder and were sentenced to prison terms of ten and five years, respectively.^[6]

Both Kamenev and Zinoviev had been secretly tried in 1935 but it appears that Stalin decided that, with suitable confessions, their fate could be used for propaganda purposes. Genrikh Yagoda oversaw the interrogation proceedings.

Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center

Conspiracy and investigation

In December 1935, the original case surrounding Zinoviev began to widen into what was called the Trotsky-Zinoviev Center.^[7] Stalin allegedly received reports that correspondences from Trotsky were found among the possessions of one of those arrested in the widened probe.^[8] Consequently, Stalin stressed the importance of the investigation and ordered Nikolai Yezhov to take over the case and ascertain if Trotsky was involved.^[8] The central office of NKVD that was headed by Genrikh Yagoda was shocked when it was known that Yezhov (at that time a mere party functionary)^[a]^[9] has discovered the conspiracy,^[9] due to the fact that they (NKVD) had no relations to the case.^[9] This would have led to inevitable conclusion about unprofessionalism of the NKVD leaders who completely missed the existence of the conspiratorial Trotskyist center.^[9] In June 1936, Yagoda reiterated his belief to Stalin that there was no link between Trotsky and Zinoviev, but Stalin promptly rebuked him.^[10] Bewilderment was strengthened by the fact that both Zinoviev and Kamenev for a long time were under constant operational surveillance and after the murder of Kirov were held in custody.^[9] A key role in investigating played a chief of the Secret-political department of the NKVD Main Directory of State Security (a predecessor of KGB), State Security Commissar of the 2nd Class Georgiy Molchanov.^[9]

The basis of the scenario was laid in confession testimonies of three arrested: NKVD agent Valentin Olberg (ru:Ольберг, Валентин Павлович) who was teaching at the Gorky Pedagogic Institute and two former participants of the internal party opposition and Soviet statesmen Isaak Rejngold and Richard Pikel.^[9] Wherein Rejngold firmly believed that participating in the case fabrication about mythical conspiracy he executes the party’s task.^[9] In relation to their composition, the testimonies looked standard conspiratorial activity, murder of Kirov, preparation to assassination attempts against the leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, seizure of power in the Soviet Union with the aim of “restoration of capitalism”.^[9]

In July 1936, Zinoviev and Kamenev were brought to Moscow from an unspecified prison.^[10] They were interrogated and denied being part of any Trotsky-led conspiracy.^[11] Yezhov appealed to Zinoviev’s and Kamenev’s devotion to the Soviet Union as old Bolsheviks and advised them that Trotsky was fomenting anti-Soviet sentiment amongst the proletariat in the world. Throughout spring and summer of 1936 the investigators were requesting from the arrested “to lay down arms in front the party” exerting a continuous pressure on them.^[9] Furthermore, this loss of support, in the event of a war with Germany or Japan, could have disastrous ramifications for the Soviet Union.^[12] To Kamenev specifically, Yezhov showed him evidence that his son was subject to an investigation that could result in his son’s execution.^[13] According to one witness, at the beginning of the summer the central heating was turned on in Zinoviev’s and Kamenev’s cells. This was very unpleasant for both prisoners but particularly Zinoviev who was asthmatic and couldn’t tolerate the artificially increased temperatures.^[9] Finally the exhausted prisoners agreed to a deal with Stalin who promised them, on the behalf of Politburo, their lives in exchange for participation in the anti-Trotskyist spectacle.^[9] Kamenev and Zinoviev agreed to confess on condition that they receive a direct guarantee from the entire Politburo that their lives and those of their families and followers would be spared. When they were taken to the supposed Politburo meeting, they were met by only Stalin and Kliment Voroshilov.^[13] Stalin explained that they were the “commission” authorized by the Politburo, and Stalin agreed to their conditions in order to gain their desired confessions.^[14] After that the future defendants were given some medical treatment and food.^[9]

The Trial (aka Trial of the Sixteen)

The trial was held from August 19 to August 24, 1936 in the small October Hall of the House of the Unions (chosen instead of the larger Hall of Columns, used for earlier trials)^[15] and there were 16 defendants.^[16]

The main charge was forming a terror organization with the purpose of killing Joseph Stalin and other members of the Soviet government. They were tried by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, with Vasili Ulrikh presiding. The Prosecutor General was Andrei Vyshinsky, a former member of the Mensheviks who in 1917 had signed an order to arrest Lenin.^[17]

Defendant Ivan Nikitich Smirnov was blamed by his co-defendants for being the leader of the Center which planned Kirov’s assassination. He, however, had been in prison since January 1933 and refused to confess.^[18]

Another defendant, the Old Bolshevik Eduard Holtzman, was accused at the Trial of the 16 of conspiring with Trotsky in Copenhagen at the Hotel Bristol in 1932, where Trotsky was giving a public lecture. A week after the trial it was revealed by a Danish Social Democratic newspaper that the hotel had been demolished in 1917.^[19]

All the defendants were sentenced to death and were subsequently shot in the cellars of Lubyanka Prison in Moscow.^{[citation needed]}

The full list of defendants is as follows:

Grigory Zinoviev
Lev Kamenev
Grigory Yevdokimov
Ivan Bakayev
Sergei Mrachkovsky, a hero of the Russian Civil War in Siberia and the Russian Far East
Vagarshak Arutyunovich Ter-Vaganyan, leader of the Armenian Communist Party
Ivan Nikitich Smirnov, People’s Commissar for communications
Yefim Dreitzer
Isak Reingold
Richard Pickel
Eduard Holtzman
Fritz David
Valentin Olberg
Konon Berman-Yurin
Moissei Lurye
Nathan Lurye

Parallel anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center

Prosecutor General Vyshinskiy (centre), reading the indictment, in 1937

The second trial occurred between January 23 and January 30, 1937.^[20]

This second trial involved 17 lesser figures including Karl Radek, Yuri Pyatakov and Grigory Sokolnikov. Alexander Beloborodov was also arrested and intended to be tried along with Radek, but did not make the confession required of him, and so he was not produced in court. Thirteen of the defendants were eventually executed by shooting. The rest received sentences in labour camps.^[21]^[22] Radek was spared as he implicated others, including Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, and Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, setting the stage for the Trial of Military and Trial of the Twenty One.

Radek provided the pretext for the purge on a massive scale with his testimony that there was a “third organization separate from the cadres which had passed through [Trotsky’s] school”^[23] as well as “semi-Trotskyites, quarter-Trotskyites, one-eighth-Trotskyites, people who helped us, not knowing of the terrorist organization but sympathizing with us, people who from liberalism, from a Fronde against the Party, gave us this help.”^[24]

By the third organization, he meant the last remaining former opposition group called Rightists led by Bukharin, whom he implicated by saying: “I feel guilty of one thing more: even after admitting my guilt and exposing the organisation, I stubbornly refused to give evidence about Bukharin. I knew that Bukharin’s situation was just as hopeless as my own, because our guilt, if not juridically, then in essence, was the same. But we are close friends, and intellectual friendship is stronger than other friendships. I knew that Bukharin was in the same state of upheaval as myself. That is why I did not want to deliver him bound hand and foot to the People’s Commissariat of Home Affairs. Just as in relation to our other cadres, I wanted Bukharin himself to lay down his arms.”^[23]

At the time, many Western observers who attended the trials said that they were fair and that the guilt of the accused had been established. They based this assessment on the confessions of the accused, which were freely given in open court, without any apparent evidence that they had been extracted by torture or drugging. Joseph E. Davies, the U.S. ambassador, wrote in Mission to Moscow:

In view of the character of the accused, their long terms of service, their recognized distinction in their profession, their long-continued loyalty to the Communist cause, it is scarcely credible that their brother officers … should have acquiesced in their execution, unless they were convinced that these men had been guilty of some offense.^[*] It is generally accepted by members of the Diplomatic Corps that the accused must have been guilty of an offense which in the Soviet Union would merit the death penalty.

^* The Bukharin trial six months later developed evidence which, if true, more than justified this action. Undoubtedly those facts were all full known to the military court at this time.^[25]

Trial of the Generals and the Tukhachevsky Affair

The Tukhachevsky Affair was a secret trial before a military tribunal of a group of Red Army generals, including Mikhail Tukhachevsky, in June 1937.

It featured the same type of frame-up of the defendants and it is traditionally considered one of the key trials of the Great Purge. Mikhail Tukhachevsky and the senior military officers Iona Yakir, Ieronim Uborevich, Robert Eideman, August Kork, Vitovt Putna, Boris Feldman, and Vitaly Primakov were accused of anti-Communist conspiracy and sentenced to death; they were executed on the night of June 11/12, immediately after the verdict delivered by a Special Session of the Supreme Court of the USSR. This trial triggered a massive purge of the Red Army.

Trial of the Twenty-One

The third show trial, in March 1938, known as The Trial of the Twenty-One, tied together all the loose threads from earlier trials. It included 21 defendants alleged to belong to the so-called “Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites”:

Nikolai Bukharin – Marxist theoretician, former head of Communist International and member of Politburo
Alexei Rykov – former premier and member of Politburo
Nikolai Krestinsky – former member of Politburo and ambassador to Germany
Christian Rakovsky – former ambassador to Great Britain and France
Genrikh Yagoda – former head of NKVD
Arkady Rosengolts – former People’s Commissar for Foreign Trade
Vladimir Ivanov – former People’s Commissar for Timber Industry
Mikhail Alexandrovich Chernov – former People’s Commissar for Agriculture
Grigori Grinko – former People’s Commissar for Finance
Isaac Zelensky – former Secretary of Central Committee
Sergei Bessonov
Akmal Ikramov – Uzbek leader
Fayzulla Khodzhayev – Uzbek leader
Vasily Sharangovich – former first secretary in Belorussia
Prokopy Zubarev
Pavel Bulanov – NKVD officer
Lev Levin – Kremlin doctor
Dmitry Pletnyov – Kremlin doctor
Ignaty Kazakov – Kremlin doctor
Venyamin Maximov-Dikovsky
Pyotr Kryuchkov

The fact that Yagoda was one of the accused showed the speed at which the purges were consuming its own. Meant to be the culmination of previous trials, it now alleged that Bukharin and others had conspired to assassinate Lenin and Stalin numerous times after 1918 and had murdered Soviet writer Maxim Gorky by poison in 1936. The group also stood accused of espionage. Bukharin and others were claimed to have plotted the overthrow and territorial partition of the Soviet Union in collusion with agents of the German and Japanese governments, among other preposterous charges.

Even sympathetic observers who had stomached the earlier trials found it hard to swallow the new charges as they became ever more absurd, and the purge had now expanded to include virtually every living Old Bolshevik leader except Stalin.

The preparation for this trial was delayed in its early stages due to the reluctance of some party members to denounce their comrades. It was at this time that Stalin personally intervened to speed up the process and replaced Yagoda with Yezhov. Stalin also observed some of the trial in person from a hidden chamber in the courtroom. On the first day of the trial, Krestinsky caused a sensation when he repudiated his written confession and pleaded not guilty to all the charges. However, he changed his plea the next day after “special measures”, which dislocated his left shoulder among other things.^[26]

Anastas Mikoyan and Vyacheslav Molotov later claimed that Bukharin was never tortured, but it is now known that his interrogators were given the order, “beating permitted,” and were under great pressure to extract confessions out of the “star” defendant. Bukharin held out for three months, but threats to his young wife and infant son, combined with “methods of physical influence” wore him down. But when he read his confession, amended and corrected personally by Stalin, he withdrew his whole confession. The examination started all over again, with a double team of interrogators.^[27]

Bukharin’s confession in particular became the subject of much debate among Western observers, inspiring Koestler’s novel Darkness at Noon and a philosophical essay by Maurice Merleau-Ponty in Humanism and Terror among others. His confessions were somewhat different from others in that, while he pleaded guilty to general charges, he denied knowledge of any specific crimes. Some astute observers noted that he would allow only what was in his written confession and refused to go any further. The fact that he was allowed to write in prison (he wrote four book-length manuscripts including an autobiographical novel, How It All Began, a philosophical treatise, and a collection of poems – all of which were found in Stalin’s archive and published in the 1990s) suggests that some kind of deal was reached as a condition for his confession. He also wrote a series of emotional letters to Stalin, protesting his innocence and professing his love for Stalin, which contrasts with his critical opinion of Stalin and his policies as expressed to others and with his conduct in the trial.

There are several possible interpretations of Bukharin’s motivation (besides coercion) in the trial. Koestler and others viewed it as a true believer’s last service to the Party (while preserving a modicum of personal honor), whereas Bukharin’s biographers Stephen Cohen and Robert Tucker saw traces of Aesopian language, with which Bukharin sought to turn the tables and conduct a trial of Stalinism (while still keeping his part of the bargain to save his family). Bukharin himself speaks of his “peculiar duality of mind” in his last plea, which led to “semi-paralysis of the will” and Hegelian “unhappy consciousness“.

The result was a curious mix of fulsome confessions and subtle criticisms of the trial. After disproving several charges against him (one observer noted that he proceeded to demolish, or rather showed he could very easily demolish, the whole case^[28]), Bukharin said that “the confession of the accused is not essential. The confession of the accused is a medieval principle of jurisprudence”, his point being that the trial was solely based on coerced confessions. He finished his last plea with “the monstrousness of my crime is immeasurable, especially in the new stage of the struggle of the U.S.S.R. May this trial be the last severe lesson, and may the great might of the U.S.S.R. become clear to all.”^[29]

Romain Rolland and others wrote to Stalin seeking clemency for Bukharin, but all the leading defendants were executed except Rakovsky and two others (they were killed in prison in 1941). Despite the promise to spare his family, Bukharin’s wife, Anna Larina, was sent to a labor camp, but she survived.

Aftermath

Communist Party leaders in most Western countries denounced criticism of the trials as capitalist attempts to subvert Communism.^[30]

A number of American communists and progressive “fellow travellers” outside of the Soviet Union signed a Statement of American Progressives on the Moscow Trials. These included Langston Hughes^[31] and Stuart Davis,^[32] who would later express regrets.

Some contemporary observers who thought the trials were inherently fair cite the statements of Molotov, who while conceding that some of the confessions contain unlikely statements, said there may have been several reasons or motives for this – one being that the handful who made doubtful confessions were trying to undermine the Soviet Union and its government by making dubious statements in their confessions to cast doubts on their trial. Molotov postulated that a defendant might invent a story that he collaborated with foreign agents and party members to undermine the government so that those members would falsely come under suspicion, while the false foreign collaboration charge would be believed as well. Thus, the Soviet government was in his view the victim of false confessions. Nonetheless, he said the evidence of mostly out-of-power Communist officials conspiring to make a power grab during a moment of weakness in the upcoming war truly existed.^{[citation needed]} This defense collapsed after the release of Khrushchev’s Secret Speech to the Twentieth Congress.

In Britain, the lawyer and Labour MP Denis Nowell Pritt, for example, wrote: “Once again the more faint-hearted socialists are beset with doubts and anxieties,” but “once again we can feel confident that when the smoke has rolled away from the battlefield of controversy it will be realized that the charge was true, the confessions correct and the prosecution fairly conducted”, while socialist thinker Beatrice Webb “was pleased that Stalin had ‘cut out the dead wood'”.^[33] Communist Party leader Harry Pollitt, in the Daily Worker of March 12, 1936, told the world that “the trials in Moscow represent a new triumph in the history of progress”. The article was ironically illustrated by a photograph of Stalin with Yezhov, himself shortly to vanish and his photographs airbrushed from history by NKVD archivists.^[34]

In the United States, left-wing advocates such as Corliss Lamont and Lillian Hellman also denounced criticism of the Moscow trials, signing An Open Letter To American Liberals in support of the trials for the March 1937 issue of Soviet Russia Today.^[35] In the political atmosphere of the 1930s, the accusation that there was a conspiracy to destroy the Soviet Union was not incredible, and few outside observers were aware of the events inside the Communist Party that had led to the purge and the trials.

However, the Moscow trials were generally viewed negatively by most Western observers including many liberals. The New York Times noted the absurdity in an editorial on March 1, 1938: “It is as if twenty years after Yorktown somebody in power at Washington found it necessary for the safety of the State to send to the scaffold Thomas Jefferson, Madison, John Adams, Hamilton, Jay and most of their associates. The charge against them would be that they conspired to hand over the United States to George III.”^[36]

For Bertram Wolfe, the outcome of the Bukharin trial marked his break with Stalinism.^[37]

In May 1937, the Commission of Inquiry into the Charges Made against Leon Trotsky in the Moscow Trials, commonly known as the Dewey Commission, was set up in the United States by supporters of Trotsky, to establish the truth about the trials. The commission was headed by the noted American philosopher and educator John Dewey, who led a delegation to Mexico, where Trotsky lived, to interview him and hold hearings from April 10 to April 17, 1937. The hearings were conducted to investigate the allegations against Trotsky who publicly stated in advance of them that if the commission found him guilty as charged he would hand himself over to the Soviet authorities. They brought to light evidence which established that some of the specific charges made at the trials could not be true.

The Dewey Commission published its findings in the form of a 422-page book titled Not Guilty. Its conclusions asserted the innocence of all those condemned in the Moscow Trials. In its summary the commission wrote: “Independent of extrinsic evidence, the Commission finds:

That the conduct of the Moscow Trials was such as to convince any unprejudiced person that no attempt was made to ascertain the truth.
That while confessions are necessarily entitled to the most serious consideration, the confessions themselves contain such inherent improbabilities as to convince the Commission that they do not represent the truth, irrespective of any means used to obtain them.”
That Trotsky never instructed any of the accused or witnesses in the Moscow trials to enter into agreements with foreign powers against the Soviet Union [and] that Trotsky never recommended, plotted, or attempted the restoration of capitalism in the USSR.

The commission concluded: “We therefore find the Moscow Trials to be frame-ups.”

For example, in Moscow, Pyatakov had testified that he had flown to Oslo in December 1935 to “receive terrorist instructions” from Trotsky. The Dewey Commission established that no such flight had taken place.

In Britain, the trials were also subject to criticism. A group called the British Provisional Committee for the Defence of Leon Trotsky was set up. In 1936, the Committee published an open letter in the Manchester Guardian calling for an international inquiry into the Trials. The letter was signed by several notable figures, including H. N. Brailsford, Harry Wicks, Conrad Noel, Frank Horrabin and Eleanor Rathbone.^[38]^[39] The Committee also supported the Dewey Commission. Emrys Hughes, the British MP, also attacked the Moscow Trials as unjust in his newspaper Forward.^[38]

Legacy

All of the surviving members of the Lenin-era party leadership except Stalin and Trotsky, were tried. By the end of the final trial Stalin had arrested and executed almost every important living Bolshevik from the Revolution. Of 1,966 delegates to the party congress in 1934, 1,108 were arrested. Of 139 members of the Central Committee, 98 were arrested. Three out of five Soviet marshals (Alexander Ilyich Yegorov, Vasily Blyukher, Tukhachevsky) and several thousands of the Red Army officers were arrested or shot. The key defendant, Leon Trotsky, was living in exile abroad, but he still did not survive Stalin’s desire to have him dead and was assassinated by a Soviet agent in Mexico in 1940.

While Khrushchev’s Secret Speech denounced Stalin’s personality cult and purges as early as 1956, rehabilitation of Old Bolsheviks proceeded at a slow pace. Nikolai Bukharin and 19 other co-defendants were officially completely rehabilitated in February 1988. Yagoda, who was deeply involved in the great purge as the head of NKVD, was not included. In May 1988, rehabilitation of Zinoviev, Kamenev, Radek, and co-defendants was announced.

After the death of Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev repudiated the trials in a speech to the Twentieth Congress of the Russian Communist Party:

The commission has become acquainted with a large quantity of materials in the NKVD archives and with other documents and has established many facts pertaining to the fabrication of cases against Communists, to glaring abuses of Socialist legality which resulted in the death of innocent people. It became apparent that many party, Government and economic activists who were branded in 1937–38 as ‘enemies,’ were actually never enemies, spies, wreckers, etc., but were always honest Communists … They were only so stigmatized and often, no longer able to bear barbaric tortures, they charged themselves (at the order of the investigative judges – falsifiers) with all kinds of grave and unlikely crimes.^[40]

It is now known that the confessions were given only after great psychological pressure and torture had been applied to the defendants. From the accounts of former GPU officer Alexander Orlov and others the methods used to extract the confessions are known: repeated beatings, torture, making prisoners stand or go without sleep for days on end, and threats to arrest and execute the prisoners’ families. For example, Kamenev’s teenage son was arrested and charged with terrorism. After months of such interrogation, the defendants were driven to despair and exhaustion.^[41]

In January 1989, the official newspaper Pravda reported that 25,000 persons had been posthumously rehabilitated.

The trials in literature

Koestler, Arthur (1980). Darkness at Noon. London: The Folio Society.
Orwell, George. Animal Farm
Serge, Victor. The Case of Comrade Tulayev
Grieg, Nordahl. Ung må verden endnu være / The world must still be young
Maclean, Fitzroy – Eastern Approaches

Notes

^ Yezhov headed the Central Control Commission of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

References…

Bibliography

Primary sources

The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre Head before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. Moscow, August 19-24, 1936. Moscow 1936.
Report of Court Proceedings in the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyite Centre. Heard before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R., Moscow, January 23-30, 1937. Moscow 1937.
Report of Court Proceedings in the Case of the Anti-Soviet “Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites”. Heard before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the U. S. S. R, Moscow, March 2- 13, 1938. Moscow 1938.
Khrushchev, Nikita, Speech to the Twentieth Communist Party Congress (1956) (On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences)
Sedov, Lev (1938). The Red Book on the Moscow Trial: Documents. New York: New Park Publications. ISBN 0-86151-015-1

Secondary sources

Conquest, Robert (1990). The Great Terror: A Reassessment. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505580-2.
Leno, Matthew L. (2010). The Kirov Murder and Soviet History. New Haven: Yale University Press ISBN 978-0-300-11236-8.
Orlov, Alexander (1953). The Secret History of Stalin’s Crimes. Random House, Inc.
Redman, Joseph, The British Stalinists and the Moscow Trials. Labour Review Vol. 3 No. 2, March–April 1958
Rogovin, Vadim Z. (1998). 1937: Stalin’s Year of Terror. Oak Park, MI: Mehring Books, Inc. ISBN 0-929087-77-1.
Snyder, Timothy (2010). Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-00239-9.
Tucker, Robert C. (1973). Stalin as Revolutionary, 1879–1929: A Study in History and Personality. New York: Norton. ISBN 0-393-05487-X.
Wolfe, Bertram David (1990). Breaking with Communism: The Intellectual Odyssey of Bertram D. Wolfe. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press. ISBN 0-8179-8881-5.

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[9] Yezhov headed the Central Control Commission of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

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Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
2000	142267(1)	142456	142434	142751	142388	142591	142278	142514	142518	142622	142962	143248
2001	143800	143701	143924	143569	143318	143357	143654	143284	143989	144086	144240	144305
2002	143883	144653	144481	144725	144938	144808	144803	145009	145552	145314	145041	145066
2003	145937(1)	146100	146022	146474	146500	147056	146485	146445	146530	146716	147000	146729
2004	146842(1)	146709	146944	146850	147065	147460	147692	147564	147415	147793	148162	148059
2005	148029(1)	148364	148391	148926	149261	149238	149432	149779	149954	150001	150065	150030
2006	150214(1)	150641	150813	150881	151069	151354	151377	151716	151662	152041	152406	152732
2007	153144(1)	152983	153051	152435	152670	153041	153054	152749	153414	153183	153835	153918
2008	154063(1)	153653	153908	153769	154303	154313	154469	154641	154570	154876	154639	154655
2009	154210(1)	154538	154133	154509	154747	154716	154502	154307	153827	153784	153878	153111
2010	153484(1)	153694	153954	154622	154091	153616	153691	154086	153975	153635	154125	153650
2011	153263(1)	153214	153376	153543	153479	153346	153288	153760	154131	153961	154128	153995
2012	154381(1)	154671	154749	154545	154866	155083	154948	154763	155160	155554	155338	155628
2013	155763(1)	155312	155005	155394	155536	155749	155599	155605	155687	154673	155265	155182
2014	155352(1)	155483	156028	155369	155684	155707	156007	156130	156040	156417	156494	156332
2015	157030(1)	156644	156643	157060	157651	157062	156997	157172	156733	157167	157463	158035
2016	158342(1)	158653	159103	158981	158787	158973	159123	159579	159817	159734	159551	159710
2017	159647(1)	159767	160066	160309	160060	160232	160339	160690	161212	160378	160510	160538
2018	161068(1)	161783	161684	161742	161874	162269	162173	161768	162078	162605	162662	163111
2019	163142(1)	163047	162935	162546	162782	163133	163373	163894	164051	164401	164347	164556
1 : Data affected by changes in population controls.

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
2000	136559(1)	136598	136701	137270	136630	136940	136531	136662	136893	137088	137322	137614
2001	137778	137612	137783	137299	137092	136873	137071	136241	136846	136392	136238	136047
2002	135701	136438	136177	136126	136539	136415	136413	136705	137302	137008	136521	136426
2003	137417(1)	137482	137434	137633	137544	137790	137474	137549	137609	137984	138424	138411
2004	138472(1)	138542	138453	138680	138852	139174	139556	139573	139487	139732	140231	140125
2005	140245(1)	140385	140654	141254	141609	141714	142026	142434	142401	142548	142499	142752
2006	143150(1)	143457	143741	143761	144089	144353	144202	144625	144815	145314	145534	145970
2007	146028(1)	146057	146320	145586	145903	146063	145905	145682	146244	145946	146595	146273
2008	146378(1)	146156	146086	146132	145908	145737	145532	145203	145076	144802	144100	143369
2009	142152(1)	141640	140707	140656	140248	140009	139901	139492	138818	138432	138659	138013
2010	138438(1)	138581	138751	139297	139241	139141	139179	139438	139396	139119	139044	139301
2011	139250(1)	139394	139639	139586	139624	139384	139524	139942	140183	140368	140826	140902
2012	141584(1)	141858	142036	141899	142206	142391	142292	142291	143044	143431	143333	143330
2013	143292(1)	143362	143316	143635	143882	143999	144264	144326	144418	143537	144479	144778
2014	145150(1)	145134	145648	145667	145825	146247	146399	146530	146778	147427	147404	147615
2015	148145(1)	148045	148128	148511	148817	148816	148830	149181	148826	149246	149463	150128
2016	150621(1)	150908	151157	151006	151119	151187	151465	151770	151850	151907	152063	152216
2017	152129(1)	152368	152978	153224	153001	153299	153471	153593	154371	153779	153813	153977
2018	154486(1)	155142	155191	155324	155665	155750	155993	155601	156032	156482	156628	156825
2019	156627(1)	156866	156741	156696	156844	157148	157346	157895	158298	158544	158536	158803
1 : Data affected by changes in population controls.

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
2009	80529	80374	80953	80762	80705	80938	81367	81780	82495	82766	82865	83813
2010	83349	83304	83206	82707	83409	84075	84199	84014	84347	84895	84590	85240
2011	85441	85637	85623	85603	85834	86144	86383	86111	85940	86308	86312	86589
2012	87888	87765	87855	88239	88100	88073	88405	88803	88613	88429	88836	88722
2013	88900	89516	89990	89780	89827	89803	90156	90355	90481	91708	91302	91563
2014	91563	91603	91230	92070	91938	92107	92016	92099	92406	92240	92350	92695
2015	92694	93256	93437	93205	92804	93601	93880	93924	94592	94374	94284	93901
2016	94055	93924	93665	93988	94388	94424	94497	94275	94274	94587	94989	95031
2017	94435	94479	94348	94279	94707	94725	94812	94667	94350	95388	95439	95571
2018	95712	95151	95414	95529	95579	95373	95670	96297	96212	95909	96045	95777
2019	95097	95345	95602	96147	96079	95905	95852	95538	95587	95444	95673	95625

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
2000	4.0	4.1	4.0	3.8	4.0	4.0	4.0	4.1	3.9	3.9	3.9	3.9
2001	4.2	4.2	4.3	4.4	4.3	4.5	4.6	4.9	5.0	5.3	5.5	5.7
2002	5.7	5.7	5.7	5.9	5.8	5.8	5.8	5.7	5.7	5.7	5.9	6.0
2003	5.8	5.9	5.9	6.0	6.1	6.3	6.2	6.1	6.1	6.0	5.8	5.7
2004	5.7	5.6	5.8	5.6	5.6	5.6	5.5	5.4	5.4	5.5	5.4	5.4
2005	5.3	5.4	5.2	5.2	5.1	5.0	5.0	4.9	5.0	5.0	5.0	4.9
2006	4.7	4.8	4.7	4.7	4.6	4.6	4.7	4.7	4.5	4.4	4.5	4.4
2007	4.6	4.5	4.4	4.5	4.4	4.6	4.7	4.6	4.7	4.7	4.7	5.0
2008	5.0	4.9	5.1	5.0	5.4	5.6	5.8	6.1	6.1	6.5	6.8	7.3
2009	7.8	8.3	8.7	9.0	9.4	9.5	9.5	9.6	9.8	10.0	9.9	9.9
2010	9.8	9.8	9.9	9.9	9.6	9.4	9.4	9.5	9.5	9.4	9.8	9.3
2011	9.1	9.0	9.0	9.1	9.0	9.1	9.0	9.0	9.0	8.8	8.6	8.5
2012	8.3	8.3	8.2	8.2	8.2	8.2	8.2	8.1	7.8	7.8	7.7	7.9
2013	8.0	7.7	7.5	7.6	7.5	7.5	7.3	7.2	7.2	7.2	6.9	6.7
2014	6.6	6.7	6.7	6.2	6.3	6.1	6.2	6.1	5.9	5.7	5.8	5.6
2015	5.7	5.5	5.4	5.4	5.6	5.3	5.2	5.1	5.0	5.0	5.1	5.0
2016	4.9	4.9	5.0	5.0	4.8	4.9	4.8	4.9	5.0	4.9	4.7	4.7
2017	4.7	4.6	4.4	4.4	4.4	4.3	4.3	4.4	4.2	4.1	4.2	4.1
2018	4.1	4.1	4.0	4.0	3.8	4.0	3.8	3.8	3.7	3.8	3.7	3.9
2019	4.0	3.8	3.8	3.6	3.6	3.7	3.7	3.7	3.5	3.6	3.5	3.5

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
2000	7.1	7.2	7.1	6.9	7.1	7.0	7.0	7.1	7.0	6.8	7.1	6.9
2001	7.3	7.4	7.3	7.4	7.5	7.9	7.8	8.1	8.7	9.3	9.4	9.6
2002	9.5	9.5	9.4	9.7	9.5	9.5	9.6	9.6	9.6	9.6	9.7	9.8
2003	10.0	10.2	10.0	10.2	10.1	10.3	10.3	10.1	10.4	10.2	10.0	9.8
2004	9.9	9.7	10.0	9.6	9.6	9.5	9.5	9.4	9.4	9.7	9.4	9.2
2005	9.3	9.3	9.1	8.9	8.9	9.0	8.8	8.9	9.0	8.7	8.7	8.6
2006	8.4	8.4	8.2	8.1	8.2	8.4	8.5	8.4	8.0	8.2	8.1	7.9
2007	8.4	8.2	8.0	8.2	8.2	8.3	8.4	8.4	8.4	8.4	8.4	8.8
2008	9.2	9.0	9.1	9.2	9.7	10.1	10.5	10.8	11.0	11.8	12.6	13.6
2009	14.2	15.2	15.8	15.9	16.5	16.5	16.4	16.7	16.7	17.1	17.1	17.1
2010	16.7	17.0	17.1	17.1	16.6	16.4	16.4	16.5	16.8	16.6	16.9	16.6
2011	16.2	16.0	15.9	16.1	15.8	16.1	15.9	16.1	16.4	15.8	15.5	15.2
2012	15.2	15.0	14.5	14.6	14.7	14.8	14.8	14.6	14.8	14.4	14.4	14.4
2013	14.6	14.4	13.8	14.0	13.8	14.2	13.8	13.6	13.5	13.6	13.1	13.1
2014	12.7	12.6	12.6	12.3	12.2	12.0	12.1	12.0	11.7	11.5	11.4	11.2
2015	11.3	11.0	10.8	10.9	10.9	10.4	10.3	10.2	10.0	9.8	10.0	9.9
2016	9.8	9.7	9.8	9.8	9.9	9.5	9.7	9.6	9.7	9.6	9.4	9.2
2017	9.3	9.1	8.8	8.6	8.5	8.5	8.5	8.5	8.3	8.0	8.0	8.1
2018	8.1	8.2	7.9	7.8	7.7	7.8	7.5	7.3	7.5	7.4	7.6	7.6
2019	8.0	7.2	7.3	7.3	7.1	7.2	7.0	7.2	6.9	6.9	6.9	6.7

Impeachment

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2020 State of the Union Address

Background

References

External links

“Too much Maths, too little History: The problem of Economics”

Next economic downturn scares billionaire hedge fund founder Ray Dalio – Davos 2019

Davos 2019 – Rethinking Global Financial Risk

Full interview with billionaire investor Ray Dalio | Managing Asia

Ray Dalio on US China Trade War

Ray Dalio’s hedge fund bets $1 billion that stocks will fall: WSJ

Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio Discusses the Impact of China’s Growth on the World Economy

Billionaire Ray Dalio on success, mediation, the markets and more

Why Ray Dalio Thinks The Stock Crash Of 1937 Matters In 2019/2020

Ray Dalio: Central banks will get so desperate they will give money away

How The Economic Machine Works by Ray Dalio

Will the Market Crash in 2020? | Phil Town

US budget deficit running 11.8% higher this year

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
2000	67.3	67.3	67.3	67.3	67.1	67.1	66.9	66.9	66.9	66.8	66.9	67.0
2001	67.2	67.1	67.2	66.9	66.7	66.7	66.8	66.5	66.8	66.7	66.7	66.7
2002	66.5	66.8	66.6	66.7	66.7	66.6	66.5	66.6	66.7	66.6	66.4	66.3
2003	66.4	66.4	66.3	66.4	66.4	66.5	66.2	66.1	66.1	66.1	66.1	65.9
2004	66.1	66.0	66.0	65.9	66.0	66.1	66.1	66.0	65.8	65.9	66.0	65.9
2005	65.8	65.9	65.9	66.1	66.1	66.1	66.1	66.2	66.1	66.1	66.0	66.0
2006	66.0	66.1	66.2	66.1	66.1	66.2	66.1	66.2	66.1	66.2	66.3	66.4
2007	66.4	66.3	66.2	65.9	66.0	66.0	66.0	65.8	66.0	65.8	66.0	66.0
2008	66.2	66.0	66.1	65.9	66.1	66.1	66.1	66.1	66.0	66.0	65.9	65.8
2009	65.7	65.8	65.6	65.7	65.7	65.7	65.5	65.4	65.1	65.0	65.0	64.6
2010	64.8	64.9	64.9	65.2	64.9	64.6	64.6	64.7	64.6	64.4	64.6	64.3
2011	64.2	64.1	64.2	64.2	64.1	64.0	64.0	64.1	64.2	64.1	64.1	64.0
2012	63.7	63.8	63.8	63.7	63.7	63.8	63.7	63.5	63.6	63.8	63.6	63.7
2013	63.7	63.4	63.3	63.4	63.4	63.4	63.3	63.3	63.2	62.8	63.0	62.9
2014	62.9	62.9	63.1	62.8	62.9	62.8	62.9	62.9	62.8	62.9	62.9	62.8
2015	62.9	62.7	62.6	62.8	62.9	62.7	62.6	62.6	62.4	62.5	62.5	62.7
2016	62.7	62.8	62.9	62.8	62.7	62.7	62.7	62.9	62.9	62.8	62.7	62.7
2017	62.8	62.8	62.9	63.0	62.8	62.8	62.8	62.9	63.1	62.7	62.7	62.7
2018	62.7	63.0	62.9	62.9	62.9	63.0	62.9	62.7	62.8	62.9	62.9	63.0
2019	63.2	63.1	63.0	62.8	62.9	63.0	63.0	63.2	63.2	63.3	63.2	63.2

Employment status, sex, and age	2018	2019
Employment status, sex, and age	Dec.	Jan.	Feb.	Mar.	Apr.	May	June	July	Aug.	Sept.	Oct.	Nov.	Dec.
TOTAL
Civilian noninstitutional population(1)	258,888	258,239	258,392	258,537	258,693	258,861	259,037	259,225	259,432	259,638	259,845	260,020	260,181
Civilian labor force	163,111	163,142	163,047	162,935	162,546	162,782	163,133	163,373	163,894	164,051	164,401	164,347	164,556
Participation rate	63.0	63.2	63.1	63.0	62.8	62.9	63.0	63.0	63.2	63.2	63.3	63.2	63.2
Employed	156,825	156,627	156,866	156,741	156,696	156,844	157,148	157,346	157,895	158,298	158,544	158,536	158,803
Employment-population ratio	60.6	60.7	60.7	60.6	60.6	60.6	60.7	60.7	60.9	61.0	61.0	61.0	61.0
Unemployed	6,286	6,516	6,181	6,194	5,850	5,938	5,985	6,027	5,999	5,753	5,857	5,811	5,753
Unemployment rate	3.9	4.0	3.8	3.8	3.6	3.6	3.7	3.7	3.7	3.5	3.6	3.5	3.5

Men, 20 years and over
Civilian noninstitutional population(1)	116,739	116,436	116,513	116,586	116,665	116,752	116,843	116,939	117,040	117,140	117,242	117,331	117,413
Civilian labor force	83,483	83,586	83,588	83,566	83,421	83,569	83,568	83,771	83,852	83,841	83,911	84,057	84,008
Participation rate	71.5	71.8	71.7	71.7	71.5	71.6	71.5	71.6	71.6	71.6	71.6	71.6	71.5
Employed	80,496	80,474	80,677	80,570	80,609	80,761	80,780	80,975	81,046	81,146	81,196	81,377	81,390
Employment-population ratio	69.0	69.1	69.2	69.1	69.1	69.2	69.1	69.2	69.2	69.3	69.3	69.4	69.3
Unemployed	2,987	3,112	2,911	2,995	2,812	2,808	2,788	2,796	2,806	2,695	2,715	2,679	2,618
Unemployment rate	3.6	3.7	3.5	3.6	3.4	3.4	3.3	3.3	3.3	3.2	3.2	3.2	3.1

Women, 20 years and over
Civilian noninstitutional population(1)	125,393	125,099	125,177	125,252	125,332	125,419	125,509	125,604	125,705	125,806	125,907	125,998	126,082
Civilian labor force	73,673	73,643	73,667	73,508	73,440	73,439	73,655	73,585	74,116	74,313	74,542	74,291	74,584
Participation rate	58.8	58.9	58.8	58.7	58.6	58.6	58.7	58.6	59.0	59.1	59.2	59.0	59.2
Employed	71,123	71,004	71,169	71,056	71,136	71,038	71,209	71,120	71,665	71,990	72,130	71,881	72,200
Employment-population ratio	56.7	56.8	56.9	56.7	56.8	56.6	56.7	56.6	57.0	57.2	57.3	57.0	57.3
Unemployed	2,550	2,639	2,497	2,451	2,304	2,401	2,447	2,465	2,451	2,323	2,411	2,411	2,383
Unemployment rate	3.5	3.6	3.4	3.3	3.1	3.3	3.3	3.3	3.3	3.1	3.2	3.2	3.2

Both sexes, 16 to 19 years
Civilian noninstitutional population(1)	16,756	16,704	16,702	16,698	16,696	16,690	16,686	16,682	16,687	16,691	16,696	16,692	16,686
Civilian labor force	5,955	5,913	5,792	5,862	5,685	5,774	5,910	6,017	5,926	5,897	5,948	5,999	5,964
Participation rate	35.5	35.4	34.7	35.1	34.1	34.6	35.4	36.1	35.5	35.3	35.6	35.9	35.7
Employed	5,205	5,149	5,019	5,115	4,951	5,044	5,159	5,250	5,184	5,162	5,218	5,278	5,213
Employment-population ratio	31.1	30.8	30.1	30.6	29.7	30.2	30.9	31.5	31.1	30.9	31.3	31.6	31.2
Unemployed	750	765	773	747	734	730	751	767	742	735	730	721	752
Unemployment rate	12.6	12.9	13.3	12.7	12.9	12.6	12.7	12.7	12.5	12.5	12.3	12.0	12.6
Footnotes (1) The population figures are not adjusted for seasonal variation.
NOTE: Seasonally adjusted data have been revised to reflect updated seasonal adjustment factors.

Category	Dec. 2018	Oct. 2019	Nov. 2019	Dec. 2019	Change from: Nov. 2019- Dec. 2019
Employment status
Civilian noninstitutional population	258,888	259,845	260,020	260,181	161
Civilian labor force	163,111	164,401	164,347	164,556	209
Participation rate	63.0	63.3	63.2	63.2	0.0
Employed	156,825	158,544	158,536	158,803	267
Employment-population ratio	60.6	61.0	61.0	61.0	0.0
Unemployed	6,286	5,857	5,811	5,753	-58
Unemployment rate	3.9	3.6	3.5	3.5	0.0
Not in labor force	95,777	95,444	95,673	95,625	-48

Unemployment rates
Total, 16 years and over	3.9	3.6	3.5	3.5	0.0
Adult men (20 years and over)	3.6	3.2	3.2	3.1	-0.1
Adult women (20 years and over)	3.5	3.2	3.2	3.2	0.0
Teenagers (16 to 19 years)	12.6	12.3	12.0	12.6	0.6
White	3.4	3.2	3.2	3.2	0.0
Black or African American	6.6	5.5	5.6	5.9	0.3
Asian	3.3	2.8	2.6	2.5	-0.1
Hispanic or Latino ethnicity	4.4	4.1	4.2	4.2	0.0

Total, 25 years and over	3.1	2.9	2.9	2.8	-0.1
Less than a high school diploma	5.8	5.5	5.3	5.2	-0.1
High school graduates, no college	3.8	3.7	3.7	3.7	0.0
Some college or associate degree	3.3	2.8	2.9	2.7	-0.2
Bachelor’s degree and higher	2.2	2.1	2.0	1.9	-0.1

Reason for unemployment
Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs	2,892	2,691	2,804	2,686	-118
Job leavers	827	846	776	829	53
Reentrants	1,968	1,698	1,663	1,655	-8
New entrants	600	622	581	551	-30

Duration of unemployment
Less than 5 weeks	2,117	1,978	2,026	2,065	39
5 to 14 weeks	2,007	1,747	1,753	1,730	-23
15 to 26 weeks	899	884	865	812	-53
27 weeks and over	1,311	1,259	1,219	1,186	-33

Employed persons at work part time
Part time for economic reasons	4,655	4,397	4,288	4,148	-140
Slack work or business conditions	2,895	2,747	2,634	2,657	23
Could only find part-time work	1,487	1,278	1,259	1,215	-44
Part time for noneconomic reasons	21,230	21,544	21,532	21,586	54

Persons not in the labor force (not seasonally adjusted)
Marginally attached to the labor force	1,556	1,229	1,246	1,246	–
Discouraged workers	375	341	325	277	–
– Over-the-month changes are not displayed for not seasonally adjusted data. NOTE: Persons whose ethnicity is identified as Hispanic or Latino may be of any race. Detail for the seasonally adjusted data shown in this table will not necessarily add to totals because of the independent seasonal adjustment of the various series. Updated population controls are introduced annually with the release of January data.

Category	Dec. 2018	Oct. 2019	Nov. 2019(P)	Dec. 2019(P)
EMPLOYMENT BY SELECTED INDUSTRY (Over-the-month change, in thousands)
Total nonfarm	227	152	256	145
Total private	224	164	243	139
Goods-producing	40	-29	52	-1
Mining and logging	4	2	-8	-9
Construction	16	14	2	20
Manufacturing	20	-45	58	-12
Durable goods(1)	14	-51	48	-7
Motor vehicles and parts	1.2	-43.6	39.3	-0.8
Nondurable goods	6	6	10	-5
Private service-providing	184	193	191	140
Wholesale trade	12.5	10.7	-2.5	8.3
Retail trade	-5.9	30.9	-14.1	41.2
Transportation and warehousing	-1.1	2.8	11.9	-10.4
Utilities	-0.2	-1.4	1.2	0.8
Information	-2	0	8	3
Financial activities	1	16	14	6
Professional and business services(1)	37	35	53	10
Temporary help services	13.5	-5.4	4.0	6.4
Education and health services(1)	67	31	72	36
Health care and social assistance	52.9	37.8	63.8	33.9
Leisure and hospitality	65	70	38	40
Other services	11	-2	10	5
Government	3	-12	13	6

(3-month average change, in thousands)
Total nonfarm	233	188	200	184
Total private	236	170	197	182

WOMEN AND PRODUCTION AND NONSUPERVISORY EMPLOYEES AS A PERCENT OF ALL EMPLOYEES(2)
Total nonfarm women employees	49.7	50.0	50.0	50.0
Total private women employees	48.3	48.6	48.6	48.7
Total private production and nonsupervisory employees	82.4	82.2	82.2	82.2

HOURS AND EARNINGS ALL EMPLOYEES
Total private
Average weekly hours	34.5	34.3	34.3	34.3
Average hourly earnings	$27.53	$28.20	$28.29	$28.32
Average weekly earnings	$949.79	$967.26	$970.35	$971.38
Index of aggregate weekly hours (2007=100)(3)	110.7	111.4	111.6	111.7
Over-the-month percent change	0.5	-0.1	0.2	0.1
Index of aggregate weekly payrolls (2007=100)(4)	145.6	150.1	150.9	151.2
Over-the-month percent change	0.8	0.1	0.5	0.2

DIFFUSION INDEX (Over 1-month span)(5)
Total private (258 industries)	65.9	55.2	65.7	57.0
Manufacturing (76 industries)	65.1	38.2	65.8	44.7
Footnotes (1) Includes other industries, not shown separately. (2) Data relate to production employees in mining and logging and manufacturing, construction employees in construction, and nonsupervisory employees in the service-providing industries. (3) The indexes of aggregate weekly hours are calculated by dividing the current month’s estimates of aggregate hours by the corresponding annual average aggregate hours. (4) The indexes of aggregate weekly payrolls are calculated by dividing the current month’s estimates of aggregate weekly payrolls by the corresponding annual average aggregate weekly payrolls. (5) Figures are the percent of industries with employment increasing plus one-half of the industries with unchanged employment, where 50 percent indicates an equal balance between industries with increasing and decreasing employment. (P) Preliminary
NOTE: Data have been revised to reflect March 2018 benchmark levels and updated seasonal adjustment factors.

2020 State of the Union Address
Date	February 4, 2020
Venue	House Chamber, United States Capitol
Location	Washington, D.C.
Type	State of the Union Address
Participants	Donald Trump

Impeachment

Part 2 of 2 — Story 1: President Trump Signs Phase One Trade Agreement With Communist China — Will It Be Fully Enforceable? — Time Will Tell — Videos

Trump speaks before signing “Phase One” of China trade deal

Larry Kudlow breaks down the implications of the US-China trade deal

Trump signs phase one of US-China trade deal

Trump signs partial trade deal with China l ABC News

Mnuchin: US won’t lift China tariffs until phase two of trade deal

Jamie Dimon praises Trump economy, China trade deal in exclusive interview

US Trade Rep. Lighthizer on historic ‘phase-one’ China trade deal

Wilbur Ross: China trade deal, USMCA total $2 trillion in trade

Donald Trump signs ‘phase one’ of trade deal with China which ends escalation of his trade war—and complains about the ‘impeachment hoax’ at White House ceremony with Xi Jinping’s deputy looking on

U.S. and China tiptoe around holes in new trade agreement

Story 2: President Trump’s United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) Bill Passes Senate 89 to 10 Vote– On It Way For President Trump’s Signature — Big Win For Trump and American People — Videos —

Senate passes USMCA trade deal

U.S. Senate passes USMCA trade agreement

Donald Trump’s USMCA trade pact finally passes through both houses of Congress as he touts China truce as ‘one of the greatest trade deals ever made’ but Democrats’ impeachment overshadows everything

Senate passes USMCA bill, giving Trump a win on trade

The Senate voted 89-10 to clear the bill for Trump’s signature

Environmental concern

Story 3: REDS (Radical Extremist Democrat Socialist) Show Trial In House is Over — An American Fair Trial Begins Next Tuesday in Senate — Acquittal of President Trump Expected In 30 Days or Less As Hoax Exposed — Trump Goes On Offense — Videos

Graham blasts the Dems, ‘Impeachment is manufactured BS’

Joe Biden Brags about getting Ukranian Prosecutor Fired

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Hannity: The Biden shakedown and the real Ukraine scandal

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Rep. Jim Jordan reacts to Hunter Biden’s interview

Donald Trump Jr. speaks out on Hunter Biden-Ukraine scandal

Ukraine gas company where Hunter Biden worked hacked by Russia

WATCH: Rep. Adam Schiff’s full opening statement on whistleblower complaint | DNI hearing

Hannity: House trial managers a ‘gift’ to Donald Trump

The Five’ reacts to Dems’ impeachment stunts as Senate trial kicks off

Trump accuses Adam Schiff of ‘making up’ conversation with Ukraine

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Rep. Biggs introduces motion to censure Schiff for parody transcript

Sen. Ted Cruz: Nancy Pelosi’s impeachment circus is done

Trump slams impeachment process, denies knowing Lev Parnas

U.S. Senate: Swearing-in of Chief Justice & Senators

U.S. Senate: Reading of Articles of Impeachment

Ken Starr predicts the top witnesses for Trump impeachment trial

Stalin’s Great Purge | The Great Terror (1932-1940)

Show Trial Russia 1938 – Bukharin and 20 others

Inside a Russian Show Trial

MORE

Constitutional Law Prof. Stuns Dems on Impeachment: ‘It’s YOUR Abuse of Power’

WATCH: Jonathan Turley’s full opening statement | Trump impeachment hearings

Republican Witness Jonathan Turley: ‘This Is Not How You Impeach An American President’ | NBC News

WATCH: Republican counsel’s full questioning of legal experts | Trump impeachment hearings

Jonathan Turley On His Impeachment Testimony

Joe Biden’s 2020 Ukrainian nightmare: A closed probe is revived

Joe Biden Brags about getting Ukranian Prosecutor Fired

Solomon: These once-secret memos cast doubt on Joe Biden’s Ukraine story

Unrest in Ukraine

2014-2016

Seeds of a conspiracy theory

2017-April 2019

The anti-Biden effort becomes public

May-June 2019

Internal discord and a presidential call

July-August 2019

Questions swirl around withheld aid

Early September 2019

A whistleblower, a transcript and impeachment

Sept. 9-present

Moscow Trials

Contents

Background

Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center

Conspiracy and investigation

The Trial (aka Trial of the Sixteen)

Parallel anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center

Trial of the Generals and the Tukhachevsky Affair

Trial of the Twenty-One

Aftermath

Legacy

The trials in literature

See also

Notes

References…

Bibliography

Primary sources