A. Ya. Vyshinsky: prosecutor? Accuser? Or?

The article is devoted to one of the key and, at the same time, the most gloomy figures of the "Great Terror" — the prosecutor of the RSFSR (and later — the USSR) — Andrei Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky. A man, perhaps the most educated among the Stalinist entourage, he rendered very significant assistance to the country's leadership in reprisals against the most famous "enemies of the people" — M. N. Tukhachevsky, G. E. Zinoviev, L. B. Kamenev, A. I. Rykov, K. B. Radek and others. In 1937—1938 A. I. Vyshinsky and N. I. Yezhov as part of the Commission of the NKVD of the USSR and the Prosecutor of the USSR weekly condemned to the execution of thousands of innocent people. We tried to answer the question — what drove "Yaguarevich" — careerist motives, a desire to serve the "owner", fear for one's life or banal human cruelty?