Vyshinsky, Andrey Yanuaryevich
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Vyshinsky, Andrey Yanuaryevich (1883-1954), also spelt Vishinsky, Vyshinski, a Soviet jurist and later diplomat. It 1935 he became Prosecutor General of the Soviet Union, the legal mastermind of Stalin's Great Purges. He put the "theoretical" legal base under the treason trials. The cornerstones of Vyshinsky's theory were:

• Criminal law is a tool of the class struggle
• "Confession is a queen over all sort of evidence".

Later positions include that of vice-premier (1938), deputy Commissar for Foreign Affairs (1940-1949), Minister for Foreign Affairs (1949-1953), permanent representative of the Soviet Union to the United Nations.

External reference

Vyshinsky speech at the 1936 trial of Zinoviev and Kamenev

The original article can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vyshinsky,_Andrey_Yanuaryevich.
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