Andrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky (Андре́й Януа́рьевич Выши́нский) (December 10 [November 28, Old Style], 1883–November 22, 1954), also spelt Vishinsky, Vyshinski, was a Soviet jurist and later diplomat.
He became a Menshevik in 1903 and joined the Bolsheviks in 1920.
In 1935 he became Procurator General of the USSR, the legal mastermind of Stalin's Great Purge. He put a "theoretical" legal base under the treason trials. The cornerstones of Vyshinsky's theory were:
- Criminal law is a tool of the class struggle
- "Confession is a queen over all sorts of evidence".
His monograph that justifies these postulates, Theory of Judicial Proofs (Теория судебных доказательств), was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1947.
He presided at the major show trials of the Great Purge.
The positions he held include those of vice-premier (1939–1944), deputy Commissar for Foreign Affairs (1940–1949), Minister for Foreign Affairs (1949-1953), Academician of the Soviet Academy of Sciences from 1939, and permanent representative of the Soviet Union to the United Nations.
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