Three years after the publication of Orlov's memoirs, Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin's successor as head of the Soviet Communist Party, went public with his destalinization program. Upon arriving in the city, Stalin was greeted by thelocal secret police chief and slapped the man across the face. Sergey Kirov began his political activity in 1904 when he joined the Bolsheviks, a faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) founded by Vladimir Lenin. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Viktor Khristenko is the Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation. On December 1, Sergei M. Kirov was fatally wounded by a shot fired at him in the Smolny Institute in Leningrad, where he headed both the party organization and the Soviets. The History Faculty - University lectures for secondary schools The killer, Leonid Nikolaev, was executed several weeks later. According to Orlov, Nikolayev had allegedly told a friend he wanted to kill the head of the party control commission that had expelled him. Kirov praised Stalin for everything he had done since the death of Lenin. Retrieved June 30, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/kirov-sergei-1886-1934. Why was Nikolayev able to kill Kirov? [37] For many years, a huge granite and bronze statue of Kirov dominated the city of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, erected on a hill in 1939. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. [24], Other speakers duly rose to condemn the Opposition: "The Central Committee must be pitilessthe Party must be purged the record of every member must be scrutinized." No one at the meeting mentioned the initial theory that fascist agents had been responsible for the assassination. A month and a half before the killing, Nikolayev was arrested on the grounds of suspicious behavior, but he was released and not even searched. However, in the Soviet Union official responsibility for the murder still lies with Nikolaev, who allegedly was part of a conspiracy to overthrow Stalin. [18][20] According to some reports, only a single friend, Commissar Borisov, an unarmed bodyguard of Kirov's, remained. The guides of the museum imply that these were bribes paid by people who needed Kirov's favor. 15 March] 1886 - 1 December 1934), born Sergei Mironovich Kostrikov, was a prominent early Bolshevik leader in the Soviet Union. Seventeen years later, and not yet forty but with a face of a woman double her age, Elizabeths old life seemed no more than a distant dream. As part of his attack on Stalin's former lieutenants still in the party leadership (Vyacheslav Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich), Khrushchev raised questions about Kirov's assassination and the death of Kirov's bodyguard in mysterious circumstances soon after. Nasceu como Serguei Mironovich Kostrikov (), de uma famlia pobre de Urjum, assumindo depois o nome de ""Kirov".Tornou-se rfo logo cedo. Born in 1886 as Sergei Mironovich Kostrikov in Urzhum, in the n, What is Stalinism? In order to comply with Ukrainian decommunization laws, Kirovohrad was renamed Kropyvnytskyi by the Ukrainian parliament on 14 July 2016. [19] According to Nikita Khrushchev, the same NKVD officers were later shot in 1937. 231-FZ of the Russian Federation of December 18, 2006 (the Implementation Act for Book IV of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation).. Humour, Trust and Everyday Life under Stalin, available here. They later died mysteriously in 1936. "[7], In 1921, Kirov became First Secretary of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, the Bolshevik party organization in Azerbaijan. Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. For instance, in February the weekly newspaper Nedelya charged that Stalins secret police chief Genrik Yagoda was one of the central figures in arranging the assassination of S. M. Kirov.. Later he fought to overthrow the government of Georgia and to re-established Soviet rule in Azerbaijan. Kirov rose through the Communist Party ranks to become head of the party organization in Leningrad. Leonid Brezhnev [28], According to Alexander Orlov, an anti-Soviet defector to the United States, Stalin then ordered Yagoda to arrange the assassination of Kirov. Within weeks of the murder Stalin had used Kirovs death as a pretext for arresting other high party officials, who were made to confess to conspiracies later aired in carefully contrived show trials. [1] 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. Sergei Kirov An example of Bolshevism. Joseph Stalin, who rarely left the Kremlin, made an exception and caught the overnight train to Leningrad specifically to interview Nikolaev. 2023 . "Did Stalin Kill Kirov and Does It Matter?" After gaining his degree in engineering, Kirov moved to Tomsk, a city in Siberia, where he became a Marxist and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1904.[5]. Instead, the investigation was carried out by a senior NKVD chief, Yakov Agranov, and later by another NKVD bureau officer whose name he did not remember. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. Various accounts of his life agree that he was an expelled Party member and a failed junior functionary, with a murderous grudge and an indifference to his own survival. [21] Stalin's complicity has been rejected by historians of the "revisionist school" of Soviet studies, as well as by Soviet and some Russian historians. Rumors of Stalin's involvement in Kirov's death began circulating in Leningrad well before the onset of the Terror, in fact within days of the assassination. Kirov was arrested several times and in 1907 was sentenced to 19 months in prison. A few months later Kirov was killed. Soviet leader whose murder inaugurated the Stalinist purges of the 1930s. In Astrakhan he enforced Bolshevik power in March 1919 with liberal bloodletting; more than 4,000 were killed. 2 (June 2002): 352380. 21 January] 1890 - 29 July 1938) was a high-ranking commander in the Soviet Navy.He rose to command the Soviet Pacific Fleet in 1937. [21] The hapless Commissar Borisov died the day after Kirov's assassination, allegedly falling from a moving truck while riding with a group of NKVD agents. Kirov was an early revolutionary in the Russian Empire and member of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the brutal convicted criminal who leads the . Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. Kirov's relationship with Stalin deteriorated for 5 main reasons: Kirov was popular and charismatic so Stalin saw him as an opponent. Sergey Kirov (at birth Sergey Kostrikov) was born in the town of Urzhum, Russia, into the poor family of a woodsman. [14], Knight's contention is supported by the fact that whereas most of the elite tried to anticipate what Stalin desired and to act accordingly, Kirov did not always do what Stalin wanted. If Kirovs murder would soon allow Stalin carte blanche to initiate a program of mass repressions, for these few days ordinary Soviet people gave themselves a chance to break exuberantly free. To this Nikolayev replied that he carried out the instruction of the "Chekists" (meaning the NKVD) and pointed towards the group of "Chekists" (NKVD officers) standing in the room; Medved was not among them. Olsky also told Kirchakov that Medved had been barred from the NKVD Kirov assassination investigation. . However, it would be wrong to claim Kirov had moral superiority over his colleagues. This prompted Stalin to institute another great purge. The Great Purge. Be they pyshki (St. Petersburg) or ponchiki (Moscow), Russian doughnuts (donuts) are delicious. Based on the industrialisation, we conduct transformation of our agriculture. Within two months, Elizabeth found herself living with many others in a small shack in a peasant village in the far northeast of Russia. Encyclopedias almanacs transcripts and maps, Encyclopedia of Modern Europe: Europe Since 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of War and Reconstruction. ty1 / prt/ n. (pl. Legal disclaimer Azerbaijan International, Vol. For if all Communist regimes were Stalinistic, how could one distinguish between Joseph Stalins, Kirkwood, Gwen (Lynn Granger, Marilyn Gwendolin Kirkwood), Kirkwood Community College: Narrative Description, Kirkwood Community College: Distance Learning Programs, Kirschbaum v. Walling 316 U.S. 517 (1942), https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/kirov-sergei-1886-1934, Stalin, Joseph (Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 18781953). The hunt for conspirators had begun. Biggart, John. The devil knows to put it humanly, one wants just to live and live. Many within the party viewed Kirov as a potentially more humane and moderate party leader and several of them approached him during the congress urging him to stand against Stalin. Facts Did You Know? Kirovs murder in 1934 triggered the infamous Great Purge that led to the execution and imprisonment of more than one and a half million enemies of the Communist state. Joseph Stalin, who rarely left the . There is also information that during the Congress of the Communist Party in 1934, when delegates voted for the new Central Committee membership, there were 292 votes (25 percent) against Stalin and only three votes against Kirov. The question of Stalin's involvement in Kirov's murder remains open. One account states that he chose the name "Kir," the Russian version of Cyrus (from the Greek Kros), after a Christian martyr in third-century Egypt from an Orthodox calendar of saints' days, and Russifying it by adding an "-ov" suffix. Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed on Saturday to defend Russia against an armed rebellion by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led his troops out of Ukraine and into a key city south of Moscow. One bullet that killed a million people. He felt threatened by the younger man who was becoming increasingly popular, not just amongst the people but within the party itself. Get the latest news, events and more from the Los Angeles Times Book Club, and help us get L.A. reading and talking. [22] Lajos Magyar, a Hungarian communist and refugee from the fall of the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919, was falsely accused of complicity in Kirov's assassination. J oseph Stalin was the brutal and absolute leader of the communist Soviet Union from 1929 until his death in 1953. The Kremlin's Greatest Mystery. "[30], Nikita Khrushchev, in his controversial Secret Speech in 1956, said that the murder of Kirov was organized by NKVD agents. A seemingly untouchable leader had been shown to be mortal, and for a handful of days the grey predictability of Soviet life was turned upside down. In 1953 Alexander Orlov, a defector from the Soviet intelligence services, published memoirs in which he claimed to have heard from high-level NKVD sources that Stalin had most likely initiated the "hit" on Kirov. This extraordinary and surreal interaction reveals just how chaotic the aftermath of the assassination was. Kirov attracted only three negative votes, while Stalin had at least one hundred and, according to some sources, up to 300. He stressed that his statement was based on the testimony of one Comrade Yan Olsky, a former NKVD officer who was demoted after Kirov's murder and transferred to the People's Supply System[citation needed]. ." The fire at the Reichstag was organized by the Nazis as a pretext for the mass persecution of the Communists and Social Democrats in Germany. The shot was fired by Leonid Nikolaev, an unsuccessful party member and job-seeker. [2], Historians Alla Kirilina and Oleg Khlevniuk, based on extensive research of the Soviet archives, assert that the conventional narratives of Stalin's complicity in Kirov's assassination is almost entirely a myth. On 29 December, Leonid Nikolaev was executed, soon followed by his wife (spuriously suspected of having had an affair with Kirov, thereby providing the motive), and his 85-year-old mother. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. What is sure is that the assassination was used by Stalin as the launchpad for the Great Terror and thatStalins hold on power became that much tighter following Kirovs death, and was to remain so until his owndeath in 1953. [29] Author and Menshevik scholar Boris Nikolaevsky argued: "One thing is certain: the only man who profited by the Kirov assassination was Stalin. ", "Sergei Mironovitch Kirov Poem by Rupert John Cornford", Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War, Bibliography of Stalinism and the Soviet Union, "What Happened to Kirov's Statue in Baku?" On that day, he was detained by guards near Kirov's house on Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt, but, upon presentation of a party card and a weapon permit, he was released. ET. 15 March] 1886 - 1 December 1967) was a prominent Russian revolutionary and a Soviet politician. Everyone in the Soviet Union remembered where they were when they heard of the assassination of Kirov. Russia is used to having a czar, a grand prince, an emperor or a supreme leader, whatever he is called.. Sergei Mironovich Kirov[a] was a Soviet politician and Bolshevik revolutionary whose assassination led to the first Great Purge. Kirov refused to be drawn in and even made the fatal error of reporting the conversation to his boss. "Who Killed Kirov" by Amy Knight is a superbly researched biography and study of the 1934 murder of Leningrad's Party Leader and Stalin's "right-hand" man , Sergei Kirov. Vyacheslav Molotov was an outstanding Soviet politician and state figure, serving Minister of Foreign Affairs under Stalin. Conservative historian Johnson said it will be fascinating to see how far the Soviet Union goes in telling itself the truth about its own past. [23] However, a few days later, during a subsequent Communist Party meeting of the Moscow District, the Party secretary announced in a speech that Nikolayev had been personally interrogated by Stalin the day after the assassination, something unheard-of for a party leader such as Stalin to have done:[24], Comrade Stalin personally directed the investigation of Kirov's assassination. These four guards accompanied Kirov each day to his offices at the Smolny Institute, and then left. General Sergei Surovikin was brought in to help turn Russia's fortune's in Ukraine around, but now he's caught up in allegations over the Wagner Group rebellion. Although Nikolayev was initially passed by the main security desk at Smolny, he was arrested after an alert guard asked to examine his briefcase, which was found to contain the revolver. If you say that was Stalins act, then in logic you really have to rehabilitate absolutely everyone after 34, dont you? Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday he let Saturday's aborted mutiny go on as long as it did to avoid bloodshed, while the Wagner mercenary group boss who led the uprising said he . Millions would die as a direct consequence of that single bullet as Stalin sought to unmask the perpetrators. (June 30, 2023). In that speech Khrushchev said, After the murder of Kirov, top functionaries of the Leningrad NKVD (the Soviet secret police) were given very light sentences (for failure to prevent Kirovs assassination), but in 1937 they were shot. Who Killed Kirov? You'll get people who say Stalin killed Kirov, and you'll get people who say Stalin got on really well with Kirov. Although Kirov is now remembered as a man of the people, with his former apartment transformed into a shrine-like museum, secret reports gathered in the aftermath of the shooting reveal a city gripped by subversive acts and defiant humor. Encyclopedia.com. Kirov was cremated and his ashes interred in the Kremlin Wall necropolis in a state funeral, with Stalin and other prominent members of the CPSU personally carrying his coffin. Stalin and the Kirov Murder. The owner of the Wagner Group, a private mercenary army, made his most direct challenge to the Kremlin yet on Friday, calling for an armed rebellion aimed at ousting Russia's defense minister. [18] According to another Soviet defector, Grigori Tokaev, a real oppositionist underground group assassinated Kirov. Kirov's assassination remains controversial and unsolved, with varying theories regarding the circumstances of his death. Twenty-two years old, exiled and widowed but grateful still to be alive, she eked out an existence of sorts, for which she had much to thank a kindly and helpful neighbour, one Vika Nikolaev, aunt to the now infamous Leonid Vasilevich Nikolaev. Let us take, for example, the unfortunate Elizabeth Lermolo. Sergey Kirov paid special attention to the industrial development of the Leningrad Region and the North-West of Russia on the whole, though the style of his organizational activity was highly controversial. Kirov was married to Maria Lvovna Markus (18851945) from 1911, although they never formally registered their relations. Bukharin, accused of involvement in Kirovs murder, was one of 20 victims of that trial who were recently rehabilitated and declared innocent of all charges. The Soviet government, led by Stalin, stated that their investigation proved that the assassin was acting on behalf of a secret Zinovievist group. At the time Josef Stalin held the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee, ergo the head of the USSR. It is commonly thought that Stalin was behind Kirov's assassination, partly because Kirov was popular enough to be a rival for party leadership. "The Astrakhan Rebellion: An Episode in the Career of Sergey Mironovich Kirov", This page was last edited on 20 May 2023, at 23:51. However, the date of retrieval is often important. This was reported to be the first public hint that a Stalin crony was involved in the slaying and was contained in an article about Nikolai Bukharin, executed by Stalin after a 1938 show trial. (1886 - 1934), Leningrad Party secretary and Politburo member. The festive spirit was in many places too strong to allow the official five-minute silence in Kirovs honor to go uninterrupted. The murder was pivotal in Soviet history: It created a martyr whose death Stalin would use to justify the waves of mass arrests that dominated the rest of the decade, signaling a turn to brutally repressive times in which critical speech was seen as tantamount to terrorism.
Nj Transit Parking Permit,
Event At City Hall Today,
Schedule C Principal Business Code List,
Articles W
what did sergei kirov do