Editing Andrey Vyshinsky (section)

===Procurator General and Soviet law theorist===
[[File:Radek's action.jpg|thumb|[[Procurator General of the Soviet Union|Prosecutor General]] Vyshinsky (centre), reading the 1937 indictment against [[Karl Radek]] during the second [[Moscow Trials|Moscow Trial]].]]

Vyshinsky was appointed First Deputy [[Procurator General of the Soviet Union]] when the office was first created on 30 June 1933. At this time, he outranked Krylenko but was nominally junior to [[Ivan Akulov]]. In January 1935, he prosecuted [[Grigory Zinoviev]] and 18 other former supporters of the [[Left Opposition]], who were accused of 'moral responsibility' for the assassination of [[Sergei Kirov]].

In June 1935, Vyshinsky replaced Akulov, who had allegedly questioned the decision to link Zinoviev and others to the Kirov murder, and from thereon he was the legal mastermind of [[Joseph Stalin]]'s [[Great Purge]]. Although he acted as a judge, he encouraged investigators to procure confessions from the accused. In some cases, he prepared the indictments before the "investigation" was concluded.<ref>Vaksberg, ''Stalin's Prosecutor'', 78-79.</ref> In his ''Theory of Judicial Proofs in Soviet Justice'' ([[USSR State Prize|Stalin Prize]] in 1947) he laid a theoretical base for the Soviet judicial system. He also used his own speeches from the [[Moscow Trials]] as an example of how defendants' statements could be used as primary evidence.<ref>{{Cite book|title = Teoria dowodów sądowych w prawie radzieckim|last = Wyszyński|first = Andrzej|publisher = Biblioteka Zrzeszenia Prawników Demokratów|year = 1949|pages = 308–313|url = http://echelon.pl/files/echelon/Wyszy%C5%84ski%20-%20Teoria%20dowod%C3%B3w%20s%C4%85dowych%20(OCR).pdf|access-date = 23 August 2015|archive-date = 29 July 2018|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180729141510/https://echelon.pl/files/echelon/Wyszy%C5%84ski%20-%20Teoria%20dowod%C3%B3w%20s%C4%85dowych%20%28OCR%29.pdf|url-status = dead}}</ref> Vyshinsky is cited for the principle that "confession of the accused is the queen of evidence".<ref>Vaksberg, ''Stalin's Prosecutor'', 79-80.</ref>

Vyshinsky first became a nationally known public figure as a result of the Semenchuk case of 1936.<ref>John McCannon, ''Red Arctic: Polar Exploration and the Myth of the North in the Soviet Union, 1932-1939'' (Oxford University Press US, 1998: {{ISBN|0-19-511436-1}}), p. 156.</ref> Konstantin Semenchuk was the head of the [[Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route|Glavsevmorput]] station on [[Wrangel Island]]. He was accused of oppressing and starving the local [[Yupik peoples|Yupik]] and of ordering his subordinate, the sledge driver Stepan Startsev, to murder Dr. Nikolai Vulfson, who had attempted to stand up to Semenchuk, on 27 December 1934 (though there were also rumors that Startsev had fallen in love with Vulfson's wife, Dr. Gita Feldman, and killed him out of jealousy).<ref>McCannon, ''Red Arctic'', p. 157.</ref> The case came to trial before the Supreme Court of the RSFSR in May 1936; both defendants, attacked by Vyshinsky as "human waste", were found guilty and shot, and "the most publicised result of the trial was the joy of the liberated Eskimos."<ref>Yuri Slezkine, ''Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North'' (Cornell University Press, 1994: {{ISBN|0-8014-8178-3}}), p. 288.</ref>

In 1936, Vyshinsky achieved international infamy as the prosecutor at the Zinoviev-Kamenev trial (this trial had nine other defendants), the first of the [[Moscow Trials]] during the [[Great Purge]], lashing its defenseless victims with vituperative rhetoric:<ref name="Black">Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, [[Stéphane Courtois]], ''The [[Black Book of Communism]]: Crimes, Terror, Repression'', [[Harvard University Press]], 1999, {{ISBN|0-674-07608-7}}, page 750</ref>

{{blockquote|Shoot these rabid dogs. Death to this gang who hide their ferocious teeth, their eagle claws, from the people! Down with that vulture [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]], from whose mouth a bloody venom drips, putrefying the great ideals of Marxism!&nbsp;... Down with these abject animals! Let's put an end once and for all to these miserable hybrids of foxes and pigs, these stinking corpses! Let's exterminate the mad dogs of capitalism, who want to tear to pieces the flower of our new Soviet nation! Let's push the bestial hatred they bear our leaders back down their own throats!}}

He often punctuated speeches with phrases like "Dogs of the Fascist bourgeoisie", "mad dogs of Trotskyism", "dregs of society", "decayed people", "terrorist thugs and degenerates", and "accursed vermin".<ref>Vaksberg, ''Stalin's Prosecutor'', 83, 107.</ref> This dehumanization aided in what historian [[Arkady Vaksberg]] calls "a hitherto unknown type of trial where there was not the slightest need for evidence: what evidence did you need when you were dealing with 'stinking carrion' and 'mad dogs'?"<ref>Vaksberg, ''Stalin's Prosecutor'', 107.</ref>

He is also attributed by some as the author of an infamous quote from the Stalin era: "Give me a man and I will find the crime."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.polityka.pl/tygodnikpolityka/kraj/1526939,1,byla-poslanka-beata-s-skazana.read|title = Była posłanka Beata S. Skazana|date = 16 May 2012}}</ref>

During the trials, Vyshinsky [[Misappropriation|misappropriated]] the house and money of [[Leonid Serebryakov]] (one of the defendants of the infamous Moscow Trials), who was later executed.<ref>[http://www.novayagazeta.ru/apps/gulag/39552.html Raider Vyshinsky] by [[Novaya Gazeta]]</ref>

In April 1937, Vyshinsky denounced [[Evgeny Pashukanis|Yevgeny Pashukanis]], the Soviet Union's foremost legal scholar and former Deputy People's Commissar for Justice as a 'wrecker'. This was the start of a purge of prosecutor's apparatus, carried out by Vyshinsky, which saw 90 per cent of provincial prosecutors removed, and many of them arrested.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Conquest |title=The Great Terror |page=276}}</ref> Pashukanis was executed  later that year.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hazard |first=John N. |date=1957 |title=Pashukanis is no Traitor |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-journal-of-international-law/article/pashukanis-is-no-traitor/2AB4F3B745B0ABF5FFB449EFCAAB3560 |journal=American Journal of International Law |language=en |volume=51 |issue=2 |pages=385–388 |doi=10.2307/2195714 |jstor=2195714 |issn=0002-9300}}</ref>

During the Great Purge, Vyshinsky was approached in his office by Mikhail Ishov, a military procurator based in West Siberia, who had been trying to stop the arrests of innocent people in that territory. Vyshinsky told him: "You have lost your sense of party and class. We don't intend to pat enemies on the head. [...] If the enemy doesn't surrender, he must be destroyed."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Medvedev |first1=Roy |title=Let History Judge, The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism |date=1971 |publisher=Spokesman |location=Nottingham |page=411}}</ref> After the meeting, he reported Ishov, who was arrested and sentenced to five years in labour camps.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bryukhovetsky |first1=R.I. |title=ИШОВ Леонид Михайлович (1902 – после 1976) |url=https://viupetra2.3dn.ru/publ/ishov_l_m/13-1-0-2105 |website=Школы военных инженеров в 1701-1960 годах |access-date=1 July 2023}}</ref>

[[Roland Freisler]], a German [[Nazi Germany|Nazi]] judge, who served as the State Secretary of the [[Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection|Reich Ministry of Justice]], studied and had attended the trials by Vyshinsky's in 1938 to use a similar approach in [[People's Court (Germany)|show trials conducted by Nazi Germany]].<ref name="Helfer">''Hitlers Helfer - Ronald Freisler der Hinrichter'' [Hitler's Henchmen - [[Roland Freisler]], the Executioner], [[ZDF]] (1998), television documentary series, by Guido Knopp.</ref><ref name="RiseFall">Shirer, William, ''[[The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich]]'' (Touchstone Edition) (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990)</ref>

In May 1939, Vyshinsky was promoted to the rank of Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Ministers (ie deputy prime minister) of the Soviet Union.<ref>{{cite web |title=Вышинский, Андрей Януарьевич 1883-1954 |url=http://hrono.ru/biograf/bio_we/vyshinski.php |website=Khronos |access-date=4 July 2023}}</ref> His sphere of responsibilities included education and culture, as these areas were incorporated more fully into the USSR, he directed efforts to convert the written alphabets of conquered peoples to the [[Cyrillic script|Cyrillic]] alphabet.,<ref name="ReferenceA"/> as well as the law.

In June 1939, he presided over the All-Union Conference of Stage Directors. The fourth speaker in the main debate, on 15 June, was [[Vsevolod Meyerhold]], the Soviet Union's most renowned living stage director. His speech was not reported in the Soviet press, except to say that it was severely criticised.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Brain |first1=Edward |title=The Theatre of Meyerhold, Revolution on the Modern Stage |date=1986 |publisher=Methuen |location=London |isbn=0-413-41120-6}}</ref> Meyerhold was arrested five days later, tortured, and shot.<ref>{{cite book |last1=McSmith |first1=Andy |title=Fear and the Muse Kept Watch, the Russian Masters - from Akhmatova and Pasternak to Shostakovich and Eisenstein - Under Stalin |date=2015 |publisher=The New Press |location=New York |isbn=978-1-59558-056-6 |pages=231–32}}</ref>