Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union

The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union was created in 1924 by the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union as a court for the higher military and political personnel of the Red Army and Fleet. It also acted as the immediate supervisor of military tribunals and as the supreme authority for military appeals. After June 1934 it was given the duty of hearing cases under Article 58, the article on counter-revolutionary activity. During the Great Purge of 1937 and 1938 it tried relatively prominent figures, usually on lists approved personally by Joseph Stalin, and it conducted the major Soviet show trials. Vasiliy Ulrikh chaired it from 1926 to 1948, and it later tried Polish General Leopold Okulicki.