SERGEY MIRONOVICH KIROV (1947)

Comunist leader whose assasination marked the beginning of the Great Purge in the Soviet Union (1934-38).

Having graduated from a two-year mechanic school in Kazan (1904) he obtained a job in Tomsk where he joined the Bolshevik party.

Although he was arrested four times for his revolutionary activities, he went to the Caucasus in 1910, continued to work as a party organizer and by February 1917 had become the leader of the party in Vladikavkaz (modern Ordzhonikidze).

After the October Revolution (1917) placed the Bolsheviks in power in central Russia he worked to extend their control in Transcaucasia; in 1921 he was appointed first secretary of the Azerbaijan party organization and subsequently helped organize the Transcuacasian Soviet Russia to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republica.

in 1926 Joseph Stalin, the general secretary of the party, transferred Kirov to Leningrad party organization. Kirov, who had been elected to the party´s Central Committee in 1922 was also made a candidate member of the Politburo in 1926 and after loyalty supporting Stalin against his roght-wing opponents Nikolay Bukharin, Aleksey Rykov and Mikhail Tomsky, he was elected to full membership in the Politburo (1930). Although Kirov´s official image remained that of a staunch Stalinist, in the early 1930s he demonstrated increasing independence in directing the activities of his Leningrad organization and it is probable that he also began to lead a group of moderates within the Politburo in opposition to Stalin, particularly on issues related to the extension of party purges and the punishment of Stalin´s opponents.

At the 17th party congress which met in February 1934 he was elected to the Central Committee´s Secretariat. Some scholars have suggested that this promotion coupled with the enthusiastic ovation given him by the congress was a sign that he was no longer just Stalin´s second in command but had become his most powerful rival. 

On Dec. 1, 1934, Kirov was assasinated at the Communist Party headquarters in Leningrad by a youthful party member Leonid Nikolayev. Nikolayev an 13 suspected accomplices were accused of being Zinovyevite terrorists and shot. Subsequently Stalin, who has since fallen under suspicion of being responsible for the crime claimed to have discovered Communists who were planning to assassinate the entire Soviet leadership; he therefore launched and intense purge, executing hundreds of Leningrad citizens and deporting thousands more for their alleged complicity in the plot.