The first year of Trump’s White House has seen more firings, resignations, and reassignments of top staffers than any other first-year administration in modern history. His Cabinet turnover exceeds that of any other administration in the last 100 years.

With the Trump administration rapidly approaching its halfway point—January 20, 2019—it’s time to size up its litany of casualties.

Among these: 

FIRED: 

• Preet Bharara – U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
• Sally Yates – Assistant United States Attorney General
• James Comey – FBI Director
• Rex Tillerson – Secretary of State
• Andrew McCabe – FBI Deputy Director 
• Jeff Sessions – United States Attorney General 

RESIGNED:

• Katie Walsh – Deputy White House Chief of Staff
• Michael T. Flynn – National Security Adviser
• Walter Shaub – Office of Government Ethics Director
• Michael Dubke – Communications Director
• Sean Spicer – Press Secretary
• Reince Priebus – Chief of Staff
• Anthony Scaramucci – Communications Director
• Steve Bannon – Chief Strategist
• Sebastian Gorka – Deputy Assistant to the President
• Tom Price – Secretary of Health and Human Services
• Omarosa Manigault-Newman – Director of Communications for White House Office of Public Liaison
• Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald – Director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention 
• Rob Porter – White House Staff Secretary
• Hope Hicks – White House Communications Director
• Gary Cohn – Director of the National Economic Council
• H.R. McMaster – National Security Adviser 
• Tom Bossert – Homeland Security Adviser
• Scott Pruitt – Director, Environmental Protection Agency
• Don McGahn – White House Counsel
• Nikki Haley – United States Ambassador to the United Nations
• David Shulkin – Secretary of the Veterans Administration 

This listing, however, does not tell the full story. 

Among those who were fired—and the real reasons why:

• Jeff Sessions – Fired as Attorney General because he refused to quash Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller’s probe into proven connections between Russian Intelligence agents and high-ranking members of Trump’s Presidential campaign. 
• On the day after the November, 2018 mid-term elections, Trump fired him. 
• James Comey – Fired as FBI Director because he refused to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump. Trump also hoped to end the FBI’s investigation of links between Russian Intelligence agents and members of his 2016 Presidential campaign.
• Trump later admitted to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak: “I just fired the head of the FBI….I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.” 
• Don McGahn – Resigned as White House Counsel after repeatedly clashing with Trump about the best strategy for dealing with Mueller’s investigation. 
• Tom Bossert – Trump’s Homeland Security Adviser, was fired by John Bolton, the new National Security Adviser.  
• Sally Yates – Fired by Trump as Acting Attorney General for her aggressive pursuit of Michael Flynn’s treasonous contacts with Russian Intelligence officials during the 2016 Presidential campaign. She had also refused to uphold Trump’s executive order on immigration and denounced it as unlawful.
• Preet Bharara – Fired by Trump as United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Although an Obama appointee, Trump had initially asked him to stay on—and then abruptly fired him. The possible reason: He was known as one of Wall Street’s fiercest watchdogs and a widely respected prosecutor. Trump believes that corporations should be immune from their crimes—and, as President, has worked to confer such immunity upon them.
• Rex Tillerson – Trump’s Secretary of State, was fired without warning while on a trip to Africa. The reason: In 2017, word leaked to the press that Tillerson had called Trump “a moron.”   
• Steve Bannon – Although he officially resigned, Trump fired his Fascistic chief strategist after Bannon heatedly clashed with other members of the White House. 
• Anthony Scaramucci – Although he officially resigned, he was in fact fired by Trump at the urging of John Kelly. The reason: An obscenity-laced interview with The New Yorker, where he attacked members of the Trump administration—most notably Bannon.

Among those who resigned—and the real reasons why:

• Scott Pruitt – Although he technically resigned as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, he was in effect fired. He was under several federal ethics investigation for lavish spending, conflicts of interests with corporate lobbyists, and enlisting his official government staffers to run personal errands.
• Rob Porter – The White House Staff Secretary resigned after after two of his ex-wives accused him of physical and emotional abuse. 
• Michael Flynn – Although he officially resigned, he was in fact fired as National Security Adviser. The reason: He had discussed, with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, ending the Obama administration’s sanctions against Russia. Then he lied about it to Vice President Mike Pence. When these facts became public, Flynn was sent packing. 

Donald Trump has often been compared to Adolf Hitler. But his reign bears far more resemblance to that of Joseph Stalin.

Germany’s Fuhrer, for all his brutality, maintained a relatively stable government by keeping the same men in office—from the day he took power on January 30, 1933, to the day he blew out his brains on April 30, 1945.

Adolf Hitler

Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1990-048-29A / CC-BY-SA 3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)%5D

Heinrich Himmler, a former chicken farmer, remained head of the dreaded, black-uniformed Schutzstaffel, or Protection Squads, known as the SS, from 1929 until his suicide in 1945. 

In April, 1934, Himmler was appointed assistant chief of the Gestapo (Secret State Police) in Prussia, and from that position he extended his control over the police forces of the whole Reich.

Hermann Goering, an ace fighter pilot in World War 1, served as Reich commissioner for aviation and head of the newly developed Luftwaffe, the German air force, from 1935 to 1945.

And Albert Speer, Hitler’s favorite architect, held that position from 1933 until 1942, when Hitler appointed him Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production. He held that position until the Third Reich collapsed in April, 1945.

Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, by contrast, purged his ministers constantly.  For example: From 1934 to 1953, Stalin had no fewer than three chiefs of his secret police, then named the NKVD:

• Genrikh Yagoda – (July 10, 1934 – September 26, 1936)
• Nikolai Yezhov (September 26, 1936 – November 25, 1938) and
• Lavrenty Beria (November, 1938 – March, 1953).

Stalin purged Yagoda and Yezhov, with both men executed after being arrested.

Joseph Stalin

He reportedly wanted to purge Beria, too, but the latter may have acted first. There has been speculation that Beria slipped warfarin, a blood-thinner often used to kill rats, into Stalin’s drink, causing him to die of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Nor were these the only casualties of Stalin’s reign.

For almost 30 years, through purges and starvation caused by enforced collections of farmers’ crops, Stalin slaughtered 20 to 60 million people. 

The 1930s were a frightening and dangerous time to be alive in the Soviet Union. In 1934, Stalin, seeing imaginary enemies everywhere, ordered a series of purges that lasted right up to the German invasion.

An example of Stalin’s paranoia occurred one day while the dictator walked through the Kremlin corridors with Admiral Ivan Isakov. Officers of the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) stood guard at every corner. 

“Every time I walk down the corridors,” said Stalin, “I think: Which one of them is it? If it’s this one, he will shoot me in the back. But if I turn the corner, the next one can shoot me in the face.”

In 1937-38, the Red Army fell prey to Stalin’s paranoia.

Its victims included:

• Three of five marshals (five-star generals);
• Thirteen of 15 army commanders (three- and four-star generals);
• Fifty of 57 army corps commanders; and
• One hundred fifty-four out of 186 division commanders.

And heading the list of those marked for death was Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky.

Arrested on May 22, 1937, he was interrogated and tortured. As a result, he “confessed” to being a German agent plotting to overthrow Stalin and seize power. 

On his confession, which survives in the archives, his bloodstains can clearly be seen.

On June 11, the Soviet Supreme Court convened a special military tribunal to try Tukhachevsky and eight generals for treason.

It was a sham: The accused were denied defense attorneys, and could not appeal the verdict—-which was foregone: Death.

In a Russian version of poetic justice, five of the eight generals who served as Tukhachevsky’s judges were themselves later condemned and executed as traitors.

Since taking office as the nation’s 45th President, Donald Trump has sought to rule by fear. 

Donald Trump

In fact, he candidly shared his belief in this as a motivator to journalist Bob Woodward during the 2016 Presidential race: “Real power is—I don’t even want to use the word—fear.” 

It is unknown if Trump ever read The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli’s infamous treatise on attaining political power. If so, he doubtless is familiar with its most famous passage:

“From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved than feared, or feared more than loved.  The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved…. 

“For it may be said of men in general that they are ungrateful, voluble, dissemblers, anxious to avoid danger and covetous of gain; as long as you benefit them, they are entirely yours: they offer you their blood, their goods, their life and their children, when the necessity is remote, but when it approaches, they revolt. 

“And the prince who has relied solely on their words, without making other preparations, is ruined; for the friendship which is gained by purchase and not through grandeur and nobility of spirit is bought but not secured, and at a pinch is not to be expended in your service. 

“And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligations which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.”