Sergei Kirov Assassinated (1934)

Sat Dec 01, 1934

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Image: A photo portrait of Sergei Kirov, unknown date and location [Spartacus-Educational]

On this day in 1934, Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet politician Sergei Kirov was assassinated by Leonid Nikolaev, an expelled ex-Party member. Kirov’s murder became the catalyst for a wave of purges and state repression led by Stalin, sometimes called the “Great Purge”.

Sergei Mironovich Kirov (1886 - 1934) began his career as an engineer, becoming after in politics after moving to the Siberian city Tomsk, where he became a Marxist and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1904.

After the RSDLP split, Kirov followed the Bolshevik faction. During the Russian Civil War, he became commander of the Bolshevik military administration in Astrakhan, and fought for the Red Army until 1920.

In 1921, Kirov became First Secretary of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, the Bolshevik party organization in Azerbaijan. Kirov was a loyal supporter of Joseph Stalin, the successor of Vladimir Lenin, and in 1926 he was rewarded with command of the Leningrad party organization.

On December 1st, 1934, Kirov was shot dead in his office by Leonid Nikolaev, a disaffected and expelled ex-Party member. Kirov was buried in the Kremlin Wall necropolis in a state funeral, with Stalin and other prominent members of the CPSU personally carrying his coffin.

Stalin called for swift punishment of the traitors and those found negligent in Kirov’s death, announcing that Nikolaev had been put up to the job by “Zinovievites” (supporters of Grigorii Zinoviev, who had been ousted as Leningrad party boss in 1926).

The assassination became the catalyst for a wave of purges and state repression led by Joseph Stalin, sometimes called the “Great Purge”. Nikolayev was swiftly found guilty and executed on December 29th, 1934. Arrests of Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and many of their associates followed, as did summary executions of alleged White conspirators.

The circumstances of Kirov’s death have been the source of great speculation and conspiracy, particularly by Soviet dissidents. One conspiracy, alleged by Nikita Khrushchev and anti-Soviet defectors Alexander Orlov and Alexander Barmine, is that Stalin himself secretly ordered the assassination, fearing Kirov as a political rival and requiring a justification to begin mass purges.

Despite these claims, at least two official investigations, one in the 1960s and another in 1989, failed to establish Stalin’s or the NKVD’s complicity in Kirov’s assassination.

Many towns, streets, and factories were named or renamed after Kirov in his honor, including the city of Kirov (formerly Vyatka).

“Whenever there is a conflict between precept and example, the latter wins because deeds speak louder than our words.”

- Sergei Kirov