The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (Russian: Большой террор, Bol'shoy terror), also known as the Year of '37 (37-й год, Tridtsat' sed'moy god) and the Yezhovshchina (Ежовщина lit. 'period of Yezhov'), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. It sought to consolidate Joseph Stalin's power over the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and aimed at removing the remaining influence of Leon Trotsky within the Soviet Union. The term great purge was popularized by the historian Robert Conquest in his 1968 book The Great Terror, whose title was an allusion to the French Revolution's Reign of Terror (sometimes referred to as "les épurations").
