“Purging” normally meant “expulsion from Party membership” and carried no actual punishment. For criminals who were purged, that also included jail time or even execution. The myth that everyone purged was executed comes from the Black Book of Communism,
Your words. So you agree the great purge occured… so how are you going to explain how 1 million executions were justified and how many more does it need to be to stop being mythical?
Unmanned? Nah, lets just assemble a team of oil drillers and send them up there like space cowboys.