Matvei Bronstein: Theorical physicist. Pioneer of quantum gravity. Arrested, accused of fictional “terroristic” activity and shot in 1938
Lev Shubnikov: Experimental physicist. Accused on false charges. Executed
Adrian Piotrovsky: Russian dramaturge. Accused on false charges of treason. Executed.
Nikolai Bukharin: Leader of the Communist revolution. Member of the Politburo. Falsely accused of treason. Executed.
General Alexander Egorov: Marshal of the Soviet Union. Commander of the Red Army Southern Front. Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Arrested, accused on false charges, executed.
General Mikhail Tukhachevsky Supreme Marshal of the Soviet Union. Nicknamed the Red Napoleon. Arrested, accused on fake charges. Executed.
Grigory Zinoviev: Chairman of the Communist International Movement. Member of the Soviet Politburo. Accused of treason and executed.
Even the secret police themselves were not safe:
Genrikh Yagoda : Right-hand of Joseph Stalin. Head of the NKD Secret Police. He spied on everyone in Russia and jailed thousands of innocents. Yagoda was arrested and executed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genrikh_Yagoda
Nikolai Yezhov : Appointed head of the NKD Secret Police after the death of Yagoda. Arrested on fake charges, executed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Yezhov
Everybody was absolutely terrified during this period. At least 600 000 people were killed and over 100 000 people were deported to Gulags in Siberia.
Today, Russian schools no longer teach what Joseph Stalin did. Many young russians actually believe that Stalin was a great patriot.
This is part of an effort by Vladimir Putin to rehabilitate him:
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/05/21/stalin-is-making-a-comeback-in-russia-heres-why-a89155
Interesting take. But there is some truth to the notion of ‘human nature’. Humans do act certain ways; we retract from pain, we attempt to solve problems and communicate. Whether it is ‘human nature’ that dictatorship power corrupts people can only be inferred by the examples we have seen. If you can show that a dictatorship didn’t lead to abuse of power in some significant number of cases, then it would be proven false. But there’s the problem - and it’s more of a logical one - no system can make everyone happy and so from at least some perspectives, any political system will be seen as corrupt by some. So we can never have a dictatorship that isn’t considered corrupt. Just like we can’t have a democracy / capitalist society that isn’t considered corrupt by some. All we can do is look at observed general patterns and try to extrapolate. And there aren’t enough examples to do a really convincing statistical analysis. So far it seems that humans in power always abuse that power, so it’s reasonable to conclude that that is a natural human tendency, like continuing to breath when able.
Yes but these are psychological behaviours of humans. Psychology as it is name suggest psycho-logia is a scientific branch. One must speak about that “human nature” if they have scientific data. And instantly that would not be human nature at all because scientific researches have titles like “the change of bird population in cyprus in tha last 50 years” and not “bird nature”\
It is a generalization not a fact. You cant build up your argument on a generalization and say that it is “human nature”. As if humans have evolved by a scientifically approved fact that to do that. While i agree on power corrupts i have awareness of that "if we give one person all the power the probability of it will ruin them is very high. Very bold of someone to label something as “natural”.
I am okay with going “statics show that humans are tend to do xyz” I am not okay just saying “human nature”