"Before execution the prisoner changes into white underclothes only. He knows that he has been sentenced and is about to be executed. He is led into the death cell, where he is shot in the back of the head by the executioner, either as he stands facing the wall or just as he walks into the cell A tarpaulin is spread on the floor of the cell, and a woman is employed to clean up afterwards. The bodies are taken away and buried immediately in a common grave (Terror 5)." This quote was described by a NKVD officer, a member of Stalin's elite security force and who later defected from Russia. Joseph Stalin was an evil, barbaric man. He was obsessed with the possibility of losing his position of power and was willing to do anything to save it including "The Reign Of Terror," the purge trials and his notorious work camps. Stalin's work camps were so repulsive and deadly that Hitler modeled his own concentration camps after them.
Joseph Stalin held an iron tight grip on his country and he was obsessed with the possibility of losing that choke hold. He imagined that everyone, from the lowest farmer to his life long friends were after his power. In his mind everyone was a suspect and everyone was to be treated as such. The infamous Russian purge trials began on the first of December, 1934 (Purge 1). By this time Stalin had been in control of Russia for ten years and was just coming off the failure of his first five year plan (Purge 1). Since the failure of Stalin's five year plan that began in 1928 he was having some difficulties gaining respect in the highest circles of the communist elite (Purge 1). To gain more supreme power the highly regarded reputation of the Bolsheviks had to be removed from the Russian peoples mind (Purge 1). Stalin began by having Sergi Kirov murdered on December 1, 1934. Kirov had been instrumental in helping Stalin gain the respect of the Russian people, but like so many others, Stalin felt that he was now a threat to his power (Purge 2).