About this season
The Great Purge orchastrated in the Soviet Union during 1937-38 cost almost 700 000 lives. Especially ethnic minorities were targeted. Four-part documentary tells the story of what happened to the people living the Soviet Union, and how the terror was built in the red dictatorship.
Episodes (4)
1. Utopia
Aired 16 February 2026 • 52 min
Expecting to find a socialist utopia, people immigrate abroad to the Soviet Union. Especially Finns move in hopes of getting a better life.
2. Epäluulo
Aired 16 February 2026 • 51 min
A Finnish detective, who has been detained in the Solovetskyi prison camp, faces the first steps that the Great Purge takes. The hunt for so-called gulags, property owning farmers, starts, and impacts especially Ukraine.
3. Kauna
Aired 16 February 2026 • 51 min
Finnish congressman Juho Perälä witnesses first hand how stalinistic terror intensifies in the Soviet Karelia. Ethnic violence starts with denunciations.
4. Viha
Aired 16 February 2026 • 52 min
Germans and Polish are sentenced to camps or to death, starting the purge of ethnic minority groups. When Stalin's persecutions are at their height, operations follow seemlessly each other.