1939 Murder of Grigory Sokolnikov
80 years ago, on May 21, 1939, according to the official version, Grigory Sokolnikov, the former First People's Commissar for Finance of the USSR, was killed in the Tobolsk prison. In fact, this murder, like the murder of a prominent party publicist Karl Radek, who was also sentenced to 10 years in prison at the same trial as Sokolnikov, that took place two days earlier in the Verkhneuralsk political isolator, was sanctioned by Stalin.