1934 The Murder of Sergei Kirov
Revolutions eat their own children, the saying goes. This was certainly true in the case of the Russian Revolution which produced the world’s first Communist state, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Few of those who led the revolution survived to old age, most often falling victim to their fellow Bolsheviks.
Sergei Kirov was considered a leading light of the young USSR. He had paid his dues as a revolutionary in his youth, taking part in the 1905 uprising and continuing to back Vladimir Lenin’s Bolshevik faction in the Russian Civil War as a commissar in the Caucasus. He had been named Communist Party chief in Leningrad (formerly St Petersburg) in 1926 and was very popular with party insiders. Though Kirov was a supporter of Lenin’s successor, Joseph Stalin, his growing renown made the paranoid Stalin suspicious. When Kirov looked to be favouring a relaxation of some of the dictator’s harsher economic policies, his fate was sealed; Stalin ordered him assassinated.
The choice of murderer fell on disgruntled Leonid Nikolayev who was given money and a pistol; most of Kirov’s security detail had disappeared and the entrance to his offices were left unguarded. On December 1, Nikolayev shot and killed Kirov.
Blaming fascist opponents of Communism, Stalin ordered swift retribution. Nikolayev was swiftly executed, followed by most of his family. Prisoners, already under arrest, were deemed to be part of this international plot, and were exterminated, as were any officials involved in arranging the murder. But these were just the start. Stalin used the murder to eliminate high-ranking Bolsheviks whom he deemed to be his opponents. Leaders of the 1917 revolution like Kamenev and Zinoviev were expelled from the party and later executed after show trials. Over all, the purges of the 1930s took at least a million lives, sent millions more into exile and eviscerated the highest levels of the party and military.