quality:corruption, quality:correction
Stalin's role

Historians with archival access have confirmed that Stalin was intimately involved in the purge. Russian historian Oleg V. Khlevniuk states "theories about the elemental, spontaneous nature of the terror, about a loss of central control over the course of mass repression, and about the role of regional leaders in initiating the terror are simply not supported by the historical record". Besides signing Yezhov's lists, Stalin sometimes gave instructions concerning certain individuals. In one instance, he told Yezhov "Isn't it time to squeeze this gentleman and force him to report on his dirty little business? Where is he: in a prison or a hotel?" In another, while reviewing one of Yezhov's lists, he added to M. I. Baranov's name, "beat, beat!" Stalin also signed 357 lists in 1937 and 1938 authorizing executions of some 40,000 people, and about 90% of these are confirmed to have been shot, this was 7.4% of those executed legally. While reviewing one such list, Stalin reportedly muttered to no one in particular: "Who's going to remember all this riff-raff in ten or twenty years time? No one. Who remembers the names now of the boyars Ivan the Terrible got rid of? No one." Stalin had ordered for 100,000 Buddhist lamas in Mongolia to be liquidated but the political leader Peljidiin Genden resisted the order.

It is quite possible that Yezhov misled Stalin about the aspects of the purge process. Many people at the time, and also a few subsequent commentators, surmised that the Great Purge wasn't started by Stalin's initiative, so the idea got about that the process was entirely out of control once it had begun. Stalin may have failed to anticipate the catastrophic excesses of the NKVD under Yezhov. Stalin also objected to the large numbers of people that Yezhov was purging. For example, when Yezhov announced that 200,000 party members were expelled, Stalin interrupted him, said that they were "very many" and suggested instead to only expel 30,000 and 600 former Trotskyists and Zinovievists which "would be a bigger victory".

Stephen G. Wheatcroft posits that while the 'purposive deaths' caused by Hitler constitute 'murder', those caused under Stalin fall into the category of 'execution', although in terms of "causing death by criminal neglect and ruthlessness (...) Stalin probably exceeded Hitler". Wheatcroft elaborates:

Stalin undoubtedly caused many innocent people to be executed, but it seems likely that he thought many of them guilty of crimes against the state and felt that the execution of others would act as a deterrent to the guilty. He signed the papers and insisted on documentation. Hitler, by contrast, wanted to be rid of the Jews and communists simply because they were Jews and communists. He was not concerned about making any pretence at legality. He was careful not to sign anything on this matter and was equally insistent on no documentation.