The Moscow trials were a series of show trials held by the Soviet Union between 1936 and 1938 at the instigation of Joseph Stalin. They were nominally directed against "Trotskyists" and members of the "Right Opposition" of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.The "Case of the Trotskyite–Zinovievite Terrorist Center" ; The "Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center" ; and The "Case of the Anti-Soviet 'Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites'".