As has long been demonstrated, one of the main characteristics of totalitarianism in the Soviet Union – especially during the Stalin era but partially still today – is its unrelenting employment of terror in various forms. The measures used to terrorise are many and diverse. They range from relatively mild pressure and intimidation to such severe actions as arrest, trial (closed or public), imprisonment, exile, or execution of the real or imaginary opponents of the regime or its current leadership.

Particularly prominent in the web of persecution which has been the lot of the Jewish population throughout the Soviet period have been trials involving various categories of Jews. The central question with regard to this particular repressive measure is to what extent it has been employed against Jews as Soviet citizens (all of whom are liable to official persecution), and to what extent, and when, the trials have been exploited for specific anti-Jewish purposes.

In searching for the answer to this question, we should divide the first fifty years of Soviet history into two periods, the first ending in the late thirties and the second beginning then, or, perhaps more convincingly, a decade later. As we are concerned here with the second period only, we shall merely outline the main features of the earlier period.