History 26/03/20 Why Stalin blamed the murder of Kirov
on 1 December 1934 at the Smolny shot from a revolver, was killed the first Secretary of the Leningrad regional Committee of the CPSU (b), one of the most famous Soviet leaders Sergey Mironovich Kirov. Assassin was Leonid Nikolayev, a member of the party, at that time – the unemployed.
the Investigation, carried out by the NKVD declared the murder the work of some underground “Trotskyist-Zinoviev organization.” To the court together with Nikolayev were involved in another 13 people suspected of oppositional activity within the party. All of them were shot on the night of 28 to 29 December of the same year. Over the next year, was convicted more than a thousand people who had any personal connection with the previously convicted or accused of disloyalty, including 17 people sentenced to capital punishment. The executed were many relatives of the murderer of Kirov – his brother, wife, wife’s sister, husband’s sister’s wife. Older sister of Nikolaev were shot in 1938. Repression, directly provoked by the murder of Kirov, was subjected to 12 thousand people from the former “exploiting classes”.
After the twentieth Congress of the CPSU, a wave of revelations of Stalin’s crimes. There was a version that Kirov was liquidated on Stalin’s orders. This version adhered to N. With. Khrushchev, instructed to investigate the matter in order to find in it evidence against Stalin. However, to publish the results of work created for this Commission, Khrushchev imposed a ban. Obviously, they did not confirm involvement of Stalin’s murder of Kirov. Subsequently, from the materials of the Commission is missing many important documents. In 1990 taken by the Committee of party control under the Central Committee of the CPSU, the KGB and the General Prosecutor of the USSR joint investigation led to the official conclusion, which showed that Stalin and the NKVD for the death of Kirov have no relationship.
However informatsia that Stalin organized the assassination of Kirov, and then POPs up in many books and publications. It tried to justify such reputable historians as R. Medvedev and the Anglo-American Robert conquest. On what is based their approval?
In February 1934 took place the XVII Congress of the CPSU (b), received in the propaganda literature of the unofficial name “the Congress of victors.” Congress noted the success of collectivization and industrialization, the strengthening of the power of the proletariat and the victory of socialism along the whole front. A rapid stream of praise, rained on Congress to address the “organizer” of all these achievements to Stalin, marked the beginning of the cult of his personality. Externally, therefore, the Congress looked like a personal triumph of Stalin eliminated before any open inner-party opposition to his power.
But the undercurrents were not so favourable to the leader. At the Congress, as expected, the election of the new composition of the Central Committee. According to the established tradition, the number of candidates exactly matches the number expected to be elected members. However, the vote was secret, and for each candidate separately. Kirov received only three black balls – less everyone else, then Stalin – 270, is greater than all. Of course, for Stalin had a majority of the members of the Congress, and he was in the Central Committee and then was re-elected first Secretary of the party. But the results of this secret ballot, Stalin showed that in the party there are hidden forces opposing him. Then he decided one shot to kill two birds with one stone – get rid of your popular competitor and to expand repression in the party ranks against hidden opposition. By 1939, was already shot more than half of the participants of “Congress of winners”, even though many among them were those who voted against Stalin – that is unclear.
conquest believed that the Kirov and Stalin by that time had disagreements on many political issues. For example, Kirov denied the merits of Stalin’s revolutionary activities in Transcaucasia (Kirov also participated in it), hindered collectivization in the Leningrad region and has increased there rate of dispensing products on the cards. Medvedev added that the Kirov did not support Stalin’s intransigence against Western social democracy. However, there is no serious evidence of these differences. Kirov following the directions of Stalin’s collectivization, and the provisions of the food aid often varied local party leaders. Finally, in 1935 by Stalin, the Comintern itself declared a policy of Alliance with social democracy against the threat of fascism.
The main thing that Kirov was a rival of Stalin in the struggle for power. He always firmly adhered to any bias, “the party line”, sanctioned by Stalin. A small number of votes against Kirov at the Congress is not indicative in itself of his popularity. A grey, little-known persons were members of the Central Committee for such elections is also almost unanimously – because no one was against them a grudge. In the official list of members of the Politburo at that time the name of Kirov stood in eighth place. If Stalin wanted to get rid of Kirov, it would be easier and truer to organize his withdrawal from office for any “shortcomings in the work”, of which then any party leader can be if you want to find any.
There is a version that Stalin himself did not organize the murder, but ordered not to interfere with it. 15 Oct 1934, Nikolaev was arrested with a gun near the house where Kirov lived, but for some strange reason, released. However, the power to give appropriate orders to the security of Kirov had respective ranks of the NKVD. They were much closer to the unfolding action. And why not assume that the head of the NKVD G. G. Berry arranged to have reason to expand the repression and to strengthen his position (which had been shaken). Stalin then don’t put too much faith Berry (in 1936, he removed him from his post, and soon Berry was shot), so how would he suddenly gave Berry such an important assignment, how murder of Kirov?
Given the failure to prove the charges Stalin in this case, apparently, the most reliable to date is the hypothesis about the personal motives of the murder of Kirov: revenge of Nikolaev for dismissal from the Institute of history of the party and exclusion from the CPSU (b), his mental instability and desire to go down in history (as evidenced by his personal blog).
There is a version (though nothing too serious not confirmed) on the motive of jealousy: like the wife of Nikolaev was the mistress Kirova. It is necessary to consider also that if we consider Stalin to be behind the killing, but his rivals in the struggle for power in the party is also suspected in the crime. They did not disdain any means and could go at it for the same reasons attributed to Stalin, is to remove the popular party figure and to destabilize the situation.
Yaroslav Butakov
Source:
© Russian Seven
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