“Dear Comrade Stalin. My nerves fail me. I can not act like a Bolshevik; I especially feel the pain of my words in our personal conversation. I offered you and the Party my whole life. I am absolutely devastated. We have been taken by many people in recent years.”

— Lev Mekhlis

A fragment of a letter to Stalin by Mekhlis in 1938, after two years of constant purges of people. Quoted in Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar.

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Lev Mekhlis 6

Soviet politician 1889–1953

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