On August 11, 1937, after Stalin executed Zinoviev and Kamenev and other high-ranking political officials through the "Moscow Trial", the remaining old fathers of the Soviet Union were only a group of military leaders who still had the possibility of shaking Stalin's position.

On August 30, Stalin, who was anxious to further consolidate his position of power, summoned all the Soviet generals at the rank of major general and above to convene a vigorous oath-taking meeting.

The most famous candidate for the meeting was the 44-year-old Marshal of the Red Army, who blamed Stalin's fault for the defeat at Warsaw.

All the generals and marshals present at the meeting unsurprisingly swore allegiance to Stalin. At the end of the meeting, all were unanimously in favor of the adoption of the letter of allegiance to Stalin, and needless to say, everyone stood up, thunderous applause, and from thunderous applause to long-lasting cheers.

That's it, three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, still thunderous applause, still enduring.

After a while, the generals' palms were already tired and numb, and the elderly marshals were a little out of breath, and even the officers who truly admired Stalin felt that this situation could not be sustained any longer.

However, no one dared to be the first to stop. Not to mention the generals who have a dull relationship with Stalin on weekdays, even as Stalin's cronies, a few young generals who have just been promoted by Stalin himself do not dare to stop.

The reason for this situation is that everyone knows that there is a People's Commissar of the Ministry of Internal Affairs standing in a corner of the venue, applauding and supervising who will be the first to stop.

So six, seven, eight minutes...... The applause could not be stopped. Until the eleventh minute, Tukhachevsky, who still maintained a certain military toughness, really didn't want to continue filming, and finally stopped clapping, and at the same time stopped clapping, he sat down in his place.

So a miracle happened, and the applause of the audience came to an abrupt end.

Obviously, everyone in the audience was hoping that someone would be the first to stop clapping. And Tukhachevsky, who has extremely high qualifications and prestige, did what everyone wanted to do but did not dare to do, and did this work of the first bird.

As a result, late that night, a generation of Marshal of the Red Army, Tukhachevsky, known as the Red Napoleon, was arrested. There are many charges against him, but none of them say that he "does not applaud".

When Tukhachevsky was convicted, his charges were "confirmed" overnight on dozens of large and small counts: "endangering national stability", "treason", "organizing an anti-Soviet military center", "espionage", "engaging in military construction and sabotage.........

With so many charges, Tukhachevsky was convicted of being an outright conspirator and traitor.

In order to "guarantee" the authenticity of these charges, Stalin's secret police took great pains. In the end, by "chance," they obtained a copy of Japan's internal intelligence from the Germans, which proved that Tukhachevsky was indeed involved in betraying the Soviet Union's national interests with the Japanese government.

Even if this information is full of holes and holes in the eyes of a professional (after all, this is all Reinhardt's nonsense). However, Stalin, as the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Soviet Union, adhered to the principle that he would rather kill a thousand by mistake than put one wrong, and signed Tukhachevsky's execution book.

It was not until 100 years later, in a later transcript of a conversation between leaders within the Soviet Union, declassified from the German National Archives, that a deeper understanding of Stalin's psychology at that time was obtained.

Warevsky, who was a close confidant of Stalin, asked: "General Secretary, the information the Germans have received looks a little wrong. ”

"Something is wrong there?" At that time, although power had been centralized, Stalin, whose official position was only the general secretary of the Soviet Union, asked rhetorically.

"There are too many people on the list who are suspected of treason, and all of them are high-ranking generals in our military circles." Warrewski, who was obviously aware of it, said respectfully: "Could there be a name that the Germans deliberately added to this?" ”

"Yes, of course." After listening to Warevsky's doubts, Stalin laughed happily: "I can tell you with great certainty that almost all of the people on these lists were added on purpose. ”

Since Valevsky was one of Stalin's most trusted cronies, Stalin did not hide it, but said in a ostentatious tone: "Before this list was handed over to the intelligence services, the German Patriarch asked me for a list of disobedient people in the Soviet Union.......

At this point, Warevsky didn't ask any more questions, and the whole conversation ended there. However, it is actually clear who is responsible for this list.

The role of the Germans was only to promote, and it was the General Secretary of the Soviet Union who was voluntarily deceived and even took the initiative to plan this slander list.

It is ridiculous that when the list was returned to the hands of the General Secretary of the USSR, the ruthless man of the USSR was not in a hurry to do so. What really made him decide to do it was only Tukhachevsky who took the lead in the small gesture of stopping the applause.

"Never be the first to stop clapping!" Since then, it has become a classic aphorism within the Soviet Union.

.............

Germany, Berlin Führer's Residence

“.......... According to the list we have provided, the Soviet government has now suppressed more than 35,000 officers through special procedures, including 80% of senior officers and 3/5 of marshals, involving all commanders of Soviet military districts and the vast majority of army group commanders. Three of the first five people in the entire Soviet Union to be awarded the rank of marshal were executed; Of the 15 army commanders, 13 were also killed; Of the 85 commanders, 57 were executed; Of the 159 division commanders of the entire Soviet Union, 110 were executed; In addition, more than 40,000 senior and senior officers at and above the battalion level have been persecuted. "Ross, the loser of the German intelligence service, reported to Reinhardt more clearly than Stalin himself about the purge that had unfolded within the Soviet Union.

Marshal Tukhachevsky, Commander of the Kiev Military District, General Yakir, Commander of the Belarusian Military District, General Bolevich, Director of the Frunze Military Academy and Political Commissar Edman........ These elites of the Soviet military were shamelessly charged with treason for Stalin's personal ambitions and shot one by one.

In addition to the military, the purge in the political circles has been more thorough. Of the 15 members of the First Council of People's Commissars established by Lenin, 8 were executed or died in prison, 1 was assassinated abroad, 4 died before the purge began, 1 was missing, and Stalin was the only survivor.

When Reinhardt heard this result, the first thing that came to mind was not to rejoice, but to mourn for these victims. Stalin, a figure with mixed reviews in history, how ruthless was he to commit such a selfish deed that lost his conscience!

For the right? Aren't his rights enough?! How big does this official have to be to be big?!

In this way, Stalin was not satisfied, and was still further refining his dictatorship by purging the army of instability.

In fact, if Stalin hadn't killed his own commander-in-chief of the Soviet Navy, Reinhardtnaha's shameless battleship arrears would have been raised long ago. As a result, after a round of "purges" on the part of the navy, Stalin chose a man named Ni. The captain of the cruiser Kuznetsov assumed the new commander-in-chief of the Navy. As a result, the new commander, who had no experience and was mediocre in ability, was slow to raise the doubts about the arrears of the German battleships to Stalin.

If there is one characteristic of the new commander of the Soviet Navy, it is that he was the last to stop every time he applauded Stalin.