ABSTRACT
In August 1936, after a dramatic public trial, sixteen top party leaders, such as Lev Kamemev, Ivan Smirnov, and Grigori Zinoviev, were executed as Trotskyites. In March of 1938, more top party members; among them Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, and Genrikh Yagoda, were tried and executed. While the Great Terror focused on the party, it fell hardest on peasants, workers, intellectuals, and the religious. Although the Great Terror wound down in 1938, there were nests of plotters to be uncovered and people who had been overlooked. A terror paralleling that in the Soviet Union was imposed on the Mongolian party. One indication of the extent of the purge and the violence throughout the country is that for the period of 1935 to 1938, the female population rose by 12,500, while males fell by 3,200. Over the period 1935 to 1940, the population aged eight and over dropped by 9,300.
