The Moscow Show Trials had a lot to do with changing western perceptions of the Soviet Union and revealing to the world the madness by which the USSR was governed. Communism, which was reaching the height of its popularity in the West was largely unaware of the massive purges, mass killings, and outright repression happening in the USSR. The country had been largely sealed off from the world since the mid-1920's; outlawing emigration and enacting strict travel restrictions, gaining tight controls over freedom of the press, and ousting foreign powers like the US and UK from their civil war.

In contrary to the restrictive nature of what the USSR published, the Moscow show trials were put on by the Kremlin to showcase the power and committment of the Soviet people and leadership to Stalin and the revolution. The showcasing of the trials had the opposite effect around the world, displaying the communist regime as what could be described as an insane place to live.

The trials essentially were an indictment of every single old Bolshevik, excluding Stalin, people who would have been well known in Western communist circles, and accused them of conspiring with Western powers and capitalists to destroy communism and the USSR. And to the worlds shock, the accused Bolsheviks did not repudiate their accusations, but instead readily admitted to them, praised Stalin, and literally begged the state for their own executions. It was madness in the eyes of Western observers. The defendants were perceived to have been tortured, threatened, and made to make forced confessions. So in the west, where trials were intended to be open and fair, the accused were clearly given show trials for the benefit of the state and the Western communists were highly disillusioned by the totalitarian atmosphere in the USSR.