Without+any+further+prompting+they+confessed

** The Purge: Show Trials **

The Purge was known as the "Great Terror" as all the citizens of the USSR lived in terror. Anybody could turn in anybody else for turning against the government. Show Trials were public trials where important figures who had worked //with// Stalin was forced to confess crimes that obviously they had not committed. This was a form of propaganda, as Stalin blamed the economic problems of the USSR on these "traitors".  1. "The new generation of Stalinist careerists, who had adapted themselves completely to the new system, still found themselves arrested. ... They were succeeded by younger but similar characters, who again often fell quickly." (Conquest, //The Great Terror: A Reassessment//, p. 224.)

2. "Blind chance rules a man's life in this country of ours," said one NKVD officer, who found himself suddenly placed under arrest. For ordinary citizens, "Fear by night, and a feverish effort by day to pretend enthusiasm for a system of lies, was the permanent condition." (Conquest, //The Great Terror: A Reassessment//, p. 434.)

More Info: [] The same is going on in Animal Farm. Napolean knows that they have a shortage of food, so he forces even his faithful pigs to confess to treacherous acts against Napolean, and then the animals are slaughtered in front of all the other animals. After this event, "They [the remaining animals] were shaken and miserable." (93).