The following is exclusive English translation Yevgeni Zhirnov, “The Most Staged Court in the World”, Kommersant VLAST, No. 14 [768], 14 April 2008, pp. 64-69. With the assistance of the VAGRIUS publishing house «Vlast» presents a series of historical materials in the rubric ARCHIVE The Most Staged Court in the World The agitational process Among the multitude of riddles left to us as an inheritance by the Soviet power, one of the most intriguing consists of in what manner the Bolsheviks managed to change the attitude of tens of millions of people towards the repressions being conducted by them. Right after the revolution, many members of the party, not to mention representatives of the former governing and propertied strata, the ancien-regime intelligentsia, the peasantry and unconscientious proletarians, were sincerely and vociferously outraged by the lawlessness going on in the chekist torture chambers. As well as by the verdicts of the tribunals, based not on laws, but on revolutionary legal consciousness.