Editing Purge (section)

==Historical use of the term==
===English Civil War purge, 1648–1650===
{{Main|Pride's Purge}}
The earliest use of the term dates back to the [[English Civil War]]'s [[Pride's Purge]]. In 1648–1650, the moderate members of the English [[Long Parliament]] were purged by the [[New Model Army]]. The [[Parliament of England]] would suffer subsequent purges under [[Oliver Cromwell]]'s [[Commonwealth of England]], including the purge of the entire [[House of Lords]]. Counter-revolutionaries such as royalists and more radical revolutionaries such as the [[Levellers]] were purged. After the [[Stuart Restoration]], obstinate [[Republicanism in England|republicans]] were purged while some{{which|date=December 2013}} fled to the [[New England Colonies]] in [[British America]].

===Soviet Union===
{{Main|Red Terror|Great Purge|Political repression in the Soviet Union|Purges of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Mass killings under communist regimes|Mass operations of the NKVD}}
Purges were frequent in the Soviet Union.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Matthews |first=Austin S. |date=2024 |title=Elite Threats and Punitive Violence in Autocratic Regimes: Evidence from Communist Eastern Europe |url=https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cuny/cp/pre-prints/content-jcpo23170 |journal=Comparative Politics |volume=56 |issue=4 |doi=10.5129/001041524X17078378055516 |language=en|url-access=subscription }}</ref> In the Soviet Union, military and internal security elites were more likely to be detained than civilian elites.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Saijo |first=Harunobu |date=2025 |title=How the Strategic Purges of State Security Personnel Protect Dictators |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09636412.2025.2468755 |journal=Security Studies |doi=10.1080/09636412.2025.2468755 |issn=0963-6412|doi-access=free }}</ref>

The term "purge" is often associated with [[Stalinism]]. While leading the USSR, [[Joseph Stalin]] carried out repeated purges which resulted in tens of thousands of people sentenced to [[Gulag]] labor camps and the outright executions of rival communists, military officers, [[ethnic minorities]], [[Wrecking (Soviet Union)|wreckers]], and citizens accused of plotting against [[communism]].<ref>{{cite book |last= Hunt |first=Lynn |title=The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures |volume=C: Since 1740 |publisher= Bedford/St. Martin's |isbn= 9780312465100 |year=2008 |edition=3rd |page=846 |display-authors=etal}}</ref> Stalin together with [[Nikolai Yezhov]] initiated the most notorious of the [[Purges of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|CPSU purges]], the [[Great Purge]], during the mid to late 1930s.<ref>{{cite book |last=Bukovsky |first=Vladimir |title=The Permanent Purge. The Purge as a Technique of Soviet Totalitarian Politics from the Rise of Stalin to the Fall of Malenkov |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=  |year=1956 |edition=1st |page=7 |display-authors=etal}}</ref>

===Nazi Germany===
{{Main|Night of the Long Knives}}
In 1934, Chancellor [[Adolf Hitler]] ordered the execution of [[Ernst Röhm]], other leaders of the ''[[Sturmabteilung]]'' militia, and political opponents.

===France after WWII===
{{Main|Épuration légale|Pursuit of Nazi collaborators}}
After [[Liberation of France|France's liberation]] by the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]] in 1944, the [[Provisional Government of the French Republic]] and particularly the [[French Resistance]] carried out purges of former [[Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy|collaborationists]], the so-called "[[Vichy France|vichystes]]". The process became known in legal terms as ''[[épuration légale]]'' ("legal purging"). Similar processes in other countries and on other occasions included [[denazification]] in [[Allied-occupied Germany]] and [[decommunization]] in [[Post-communism|post-communist states]].

===Japan after WWII===
The [[Red Purge]] was an [[anticommunist]] movement in [[Occupation of Japan|occupied Japan]] from the late 1940s to the early 1950s.<ref>{{harvnb|Kumano|2010|p=513}}: "The notorious "Red Purge" was instituted nationwide in the final phase of the occupation, from July 1947 to April 1951, and proved to be a critical test for the survival of academic freedom."</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Dower|Tetsuo|2007|p=3}}: "The Red Purge was a series of arbitrary layoffs by government agencies and corporations aimed at heavy-handedly eliminating from the workplace those workers who had been unilaterally branded 'Red'. [...] The purge occurred during the US occupation of Japan from 1949 to 1951."</ref><ref name="Kingston1">{{harvnb|Kingston|2011|p=13}}: "From 1947, the Japanese government, supported by MacArthur, unleashed a Red Purge that targeted those Japanese considered to have left-wing views."</ref> Carried out by the [[Japanese government]] and private corporations with the aid and encouragement of the [[Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers]] (SCAP), the Red Purge resulted in tens of thousands of alleged members, supporters, or sympathizers of left-wing groups, especially those said to be affiliated with the [[Japanese Communist Party]], removed from their jobs in government, the private sector, universities, and schools.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|p=10}} The Red Purge emerged from rising [[Cold War]] tensions and the [[Red Scare]] after World War II,<ref>{{harvnb|Kumano|2010|p=514}}: "Eells's anticommunist speeches echoed America's Cold War policy [...] during the ideological struggle of the Cold War."</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Kumano|2010|p=529}}: "Since Eells's address in July 1949, the dilemma over communist teachers had become a national obsession, verging in some quarters on hysteria."</ref> and was a significant element within a broader "[[Reverse Course]]" in Occupation policies.{{sfn|Kapur|2018|pp=9–10}} The Red Purge reached a peak following the outbreak of the [[Korean War]] in 1950,{{sfn|Kapur|2018|pp=9–10}} when communist China supported North Korea. It began to ease after General [[Douglas MacArthur]] was replaced as commander of the Occupation by General [[Matthew Ridgway]] in 1951, and came to a conclusion with the end of the Occupation in 1952.

===Communist Cuba===
{{Main|Consolidation of the Cuban Revolution}}
After the [[Cuban Revolution]] in 1959, [[Fidel Castro]] of [[Cuba]] often purged those who had previously been involved with the [[Fulgencio Batista|Batista regime]]. Purges usually involved the execution of the condemned. Castro periodically carried out purges in the [[Communist Party of Cuba]] thereafter. One prominent purge was carried out in 1989 when a high-ranking [[Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces]] general named [[Arnaldo Ochoa]] was sentenced to death and executed by [[firing squad]] on charges of [[Illegal drug trade|drug trafficking]]. Purges became less common in Cuba during the 1990s and 2000s.

=== United States: Red Scares, HUAC and McCarthyism ===
{{see also|Red Scares|House Un-American Activities Committee|McCarthyism}}
In the period 1938–1975, the [[House Un-American Activities Committee]] (HUAC),  an investigative committee of the [[United States House of Representatives]], carried out a campaign of purging alleged "communist sympathizers" from positions in public life. While non-violent, HUAC's campaign destroyed the careers of many individuals, particularly in the entertainment industry, where HUAC attempted to purge left-wing voices entirely from the industry through the [[Hollywood blacklist]].

While not part of HUAC, U.S. Senator [[Joseph McCarthy]] was a major driver of efforts to purge perceived communist sympathizers through the 1940s and 1950s, which ended in his condemnation and censure in 1954.