The butchery became self-perpetuating—and for simple reason. With the Terror inducing a kind of mass panic, citizens at every level of society rushed to denounce others before they themselves were denounced, with the sheer flood of those denunciations serving as “proof” in Stalin’s mind that enemies were everywhere. And for all those with the license to pass judgment, whether one of Stalin’s favored lieutenants or the headman of a provincial village, the prudent choice was to convict rather than exonerate, to kill rather than pardon, because only the living might cause problems down the road.
