The Great Terror in the Soviet Union began in early 1930s. It not only affected hundreds thousands of Soviet citizens, but also tens of thousands of foreign political activists as well as non-political migrants sheltering and working on Soviet soil.
By exploiting the memoirs of labour camp survivors as well as newly released materials from former Soviet archives, especially the minutes of prisoner interrogations and transcripts of their trials, this study aims to present a detailed picture of the life and times of the Iranian community in the Soviet Union during the 1930s and 1940s. Furthermore, this study examines the question of whether there was an ethnic dimension to the Stalinist purge: specifically, whether Iranians were treated differently than Russians or other non-Russian ethnic groups.