Leningrad affair: Difference between revisions

The '''Leningrad affair''', or '''Leningrad case''' ({{lang-ru|Ленинградское дело}}, ''Leningradskoye delo''), was a series of criminal cases fabricated in the late 1940s&ndash;early 1950s by [[Joseph Stalin]] in order to accuse a number of prominent [[Saint Petersburg|Leningrad]] based authority figures and members of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)]] of [[treason]] and intention to create an [[Anti-Sovietism|anti-Soviet]], Russian nationalist, organization based in the city.<ref name=":0" /><ref>Dmitri Volkogonov, ''Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy'', 1996, {{ISBN|0-7615-0718-3}}</ref><ref name="bbc.co.uk">{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/leningrad_betrayal_01.shtml|title=Stalin and the Betrayal of Leningrad|website=www.bbc.co.uk|access-date=28 December 2018}}</ref> This happened in the aftermath of the [[Siege of Leningrad]] during the war, the victorious end of which led to the mayor, his deputies and others who kept Nazi German forces out of the city earning fame and strong support as heroes all over the USSR. This in turn would lead to them becoming the target of [[Joseph Stalin]]'s long established suppression of emerging popular figures deemed to be potential rivals or problems in the future. {{Citation needed|date=April 2023}}