Left to the Wolves Irish Victims of Sta

Between the end of the Russian Civil War in 1921 and Stalin's death in 1953, the Soviet secret police sentenced over 4 million people on political grounds. Over 800,000 were shot and millions died in the slave camps of the Gulag system. At the height of the massrepression - the Great Terror of 1937/38 - foreigners were in great jeopardy. Knowing that a major war was coming, Josef Stalin and his cohorts decided to rid Soviet society of all perceived or potential 'enemies'. Among the putative 'Fifth Columnists' were non Russian ethnic minorities, political refugees from fascism and foreign-born Communists. At least three of these countless victims were of Irish nationality.