A tangled Webb

Virtual Stoa marks the 58th anniversary of the death of Sidney Webb by referring us to the way he and his wife Beatrice explained Stalin's show trials:

It must have been foreseen that this whole series of trials, the numerous shootings to which they led, the publicity and popular abuse of the defendants which the Government apparently organised and encouraged, and especially the malignity with which Leon Trotsky, safe in far-off Mexico, was assailed, would produce a set-back in the international appreciation which the Soviet Union was increasingly receiving. The Soviet Government must have had strong grounds for the action, which has involved such unwelcome consequences. (There's much more.)

See also Beatrice on Stalin's way with awkward people.