40,000 victims while Stalins terror from 1935-1938 killed hundreds of thousands and sent millions into exile.14 Stalin, however, not the NKVD initiated the Great Purge and approved executions of prominent figures. Citizens and leaders alike believed that the Party to which they dedicated their lives must be right. Those who were tried in the great public trials included all of the surviving members of Lenins Politburo. The purges decimated the military chiefs, army generals, and all full admirals.15 Purged were 70 percent of the Central Committee members and members who were just chosen in 1934, only 35 of 1,827 rank-and-file delegates from the previous congress were present. 16 **The Constitution of 1936**Stalinism marked a return to tsarist autocracy. Operating through a hierarchy of soviets, the political system was run actually by party leadership and the NKVD. The legal basis for this political system was the new constitution of 1936. Stalin explained to the Congress that due to the rapid industrialization and collectivization, there were neither longer landlords nor capitalists. So in effect, the old constitution was obsolete. Stalin went on to explain that currently there are two friendly classes, workers and peasants. Restrictions and inequalities in voting could be eliminated, and a democratic suffrage instituted. 17 The promises of the constitution often were just words on a page and meant nothing in practice. The constitution claimed that the U.S.S.R. was a federal state formed on the basis of a voluntary union of equal Soviet socialist republics.18 In reality, most republics had been conquered or admitted forcefully, and the predominance of the Russian republic did not see equality. Soviet federalism provided an illusion of autonomy and self-government. Under the Stalin constitution, the bicameral Supreme Soviet became the national legislature, supposedly the highest organ of state authority...
