Pulizia, giustizia e potere: Ruolo e significato del Terrore nell’esperienza staliniana

This articles aims to point out the close connection between public repression and hidden purges through the example of the USSR during the Stalin era. In particular, we focused on the role played by the trials have comparing and relating it with stealt operations carried on in USSR. According with Nicolas Werth’s thesis, the usual periodization referring to the Great Terror only for the two years 1937-1938 must be overcome. In fact, the Great Purge in the edification of the Soviet power is part of a wider program, extended in the whole period of Stalin’s dictatorship.