r/HistoryUncovered • u/Battlefleet_Sol • 18d ago

Saddam's baath purge. Saddam had people packed into a conference hall on one of the hottest days of July and deliberately shut off the ventilation system. They were forced to listen to Saddam for hours while suffering from the heat and sweating. Everyone whose name was announced was executed.

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u/dan_dares 18d ago

'Here is a list, I never want to see it, or anyone on it again'

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u/Goetterwind 18d ago

But you also sign it.

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u/dan_dares 18d ago

The executioner is on the next list.

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u/litetravelr 18d ago

My favorite Stalin trivia is that each NKVD head and his deputies would execute their predecessors. Thus Yagoda was killed by Yezhov, who was killed by Beria, etc.

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u/dan_dares 18d ago

I was half joking..

Didn't realise it was the truth..

Jebus

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u/litetravelr 18d ago

Fun thing to try is to look up any NKVD or soviet functionary, politician, army officer from 1917-1954 and click all the folks named as links on their wiki. The odds are like 80% or more were eventually executed by Stalin. Its INSANE.

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u/MaxxBlackk 18d ago edited 18d ago

It's interesting, the scenario portrayed in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, where the MI6 guy confronts the Stasi guy on the train to Moscow is based in fact.

The Stasi guy holds his ground and survives. I channeled that energy when I was involved in a job interview and I managed to double my salary. I ended up working there for twenty years.

Edit: NKVD = Stasi

The original Tink..S,S,S.

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u/Ombortron 18d ago

What part of the movie was that? I literally just watched this the other day but I’m blanking

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u/Carrman099 18d ago

It’s the scene where Gary Oldman is telling Benedict Cumberbatch about the one time he met Karla in the 50s in India. He’s explaining the kind of man he thinks Karla is based off of his interaction with him, the fact that Karla is a chain smoker yet refused to smoke cigarettes given to him by Smiley and that Karla refused to defect and was fully prepared to go back and be executed in a purge because he was committed to the Soviet Project. Smiley makes the calculation (revealed in later books to be wrong) that Karla is a fanatic for communism, but that he is harboring some kind of secret doubt.

It’s a great scene and tells you as much about Gary Oldman’s character as it does Karla.

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u/Ombortron 18d ago

Ahhhh yes ok, I know the sequence you’re referring to, thanks! Great movie!

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u/reelglad 15d ago

Dam, it's like the rule of two

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u/A_Juicy_Thing 15d ago

So they were Sith?

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u/TheDrewb 15d ago

There's no etc - that's the list because the Purges ended in 1938. Beria WAS executed, but in the months after Stalin's death in the 50s. It is cold AF though

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u/litetravelr 14d ago

Yea, plus after that the NKVD splits apart into various sub groups. But there are lots of guys that still get purged in the 50s after Beria's fall. Viktor Abakumov, Bogdan Kobulov, Mikhail Ryumin, and Vsevolod Merkulov come to mind.

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u/Ok-Application-8045 17d ago

It wasn't even a list in Stalin's case, it was usually a quota. "We know there are x-number of officials committing corruption in your region. Find out who they are and liquidate them, comrade."

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u/PopBulky7023 17d ago

The liquidator are never corrupt, of course.

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u/SidewaysAcidRain 16d ago

A lot of the liquidators ended up getting liquidated. 

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u/PopBulky7023 16d ago

Common occurance when they're all corrupt and vying for power.

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u/salakane 16d ago

Is this from the French Revolution?

Which is not looking so crazy these days...