Russia had their show trials under Lenin and Stalin. The purpose of the show trials was to intimidate the nation and to squelch free thought and opinion. Donald Trump is in a show trial because they fear him. This is a must for any dictatorship to survive. Most were sentenced to the Gulag and many died in the Gulag. Some were executed but most went to the Gulag.
Those that were a real danger to the regime, such as in high ranking military officers, simply disappeared. They got a bullet to the back of skull from a Tokarev or Makarov pistol and the body just disappeared. Stalin executed almost all officers in the Polish Army when he gained control of Poland. They represented a threat so he killed them.
Post cold war (which is no on again) a Russian general was asked what he feared most if Russia and Nato went to war? His answer was “being shot in the back by a Polish soldier.”
“which is no on again” should be “which is now on again” I have stupid fingers.
Right on.
Stalinism had a dual system of liquidating dissent. There were "troikas", tribunals of three prosecutors who agreed on a sentence in the space of five minutes and dispatched the convict into a mass grave or to a cattle car promptly thereafter. That was done to millions of victims.
Second, or, rather, historically first, there were grandiose show trials, with every ornament of legality and wide attendance of the press. The general public was slowly worked into a frensy, demanding death to the traitors; the "traitors" themselves admitted their fantastical guilt in tears.
We in America are entering the show trial stage.