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That's the Explorers Podcast. Hello everyone and welcome to history of the Second World War.

Episode 138, the Soviet Union Part 8, The Great Purges.

This week, a big thank you goes out to SOMB1, Mike, Zachary, and Gloria for choosing to support

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You can find out more over at History of the Second World War.com slash members.

I would also like to thank Matthew for the donation this week.

We are now back to what will be the final episode of this series on the internal political

developments in the Soviet Union during the 1930s, but it's an important one.

This episode will cover the political purges that would occur in the second half of the 1930s,

as Stalin would, for lack of a better phrase,

clean house. These actions are referred to as the Great Purge, or the Great Terror,

and it would see thousands of individuals imprisoned or executed, ranging from previously high-placed

communist leaders all the way down to normal people. Targets for these purges would also be found in the Soviet

military, with those individuals deserving their own episode due to the importance of the military

purges to the story of the Second World War. So we'll cover all the military purges in episode

139 next week. The general basis for all of the actions that would take place during the purges

...