the UN General Assembly passed a resolution by unanimous vote barring acts of genocide “when racial, religious, political and other groups have been destroyed, entirely or in part.”13 The reason the word “political” had been excised from the Convention two years later was that Stalin demanded it. He knew that if destroying a “political group” was genocidal, his bloody purges and mass imprisonment of political opponents would fit the bill. Stalin had enough support from other leaders who also wanted to reserve the right to wipe out their political opponents that the word was dropped.
