Vagarshak Ter-Vaganyan

Vagharshak Harutyuni Ter-Vahanyan or Ter-Vaganyan (5 November 1893 – 25 August 1936) was an Armenian Soviet Communist Party official, journalist, and functionary who was one of the earliest victims of Joseph Stalin's Great Purge.

Ter-Vaganyan was one of sixteen Old Bolsheviks and others who stood as defendants during the Moscow Show Trials. He was accused of being part of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite centre which allegedly prepared terrorist acts against Stalin, Klim Voroshilov, Andrei Zhdanov, Lazar Kaganovich, Sergo Ordzhonikidze, Stanislav Kosior, and Pavel Postyshev. Under pressure, Ter-Vaganyan admitted his "guilt." He was shot and his personal property was confiscated by the Soviet Union. He was posthumously rehabilitated in 1988, under Mikhail Gorbachev.

Early life and career Ter-Vaganyan was born on November 5, 1893, in the village of Karchevan in Russian Armenia (today the Meghri Municipality of Armenia's Syunik Province). In 1912, he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in Baku and in 1917, he was elected secretary of its Moscow Party Committee.

Orlov describes one incident that occurred between Ter-Vaganyan and Vyshinsky:

Ter-Vaganyan became one of the main defendants in the so-called "First Moscow Trial." On August 24, 1936, he was sentenced to capital punishment - death by firing squad. On August 25, the sentence was carried out.

His wife, Klavdiya Vasilievna Generalova, was arrested in 1936 and remained in prison for 17 years. His brother Endzak was executed in 1937.

Ter-Vaganyan was posthumously rehabilitated on June 13, 1988 during Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika.