KIROV, SERGEI MIRONOVICH

(1886–1934), Leningrad Party secretary and Politburo member.

Born in 1886 as Sergei Mironovich Kostrikov in Urzhum, in the northern Russian province of Viatka, Kirov was abandoned by his father and left orphaned by his mother. He spent much of his childhood in an orphanage before training as a mechanic at a vocational school in the city of Kazan from 1901 to 1904. He became involved in radical political activity during his student years, after which he moved to Tomsk and joined the Social Democratic Party, garnering attention as a local party activist before the age of twenty. Kirov joined the Bolshevik Party and was arrested in 1906 for his activities in the revolutionary events of 1905 in Tomsk. After his release in 1909, he moved to Vladikavkaz and resumed his career as a professional revolutionary, taking a job with a local liberal newspaper and changing his last name to Kirov. He continued his party activities in the Caucasus in the years before the October Revolution, serving in various capacities as one of the leading Bolsheviks in the Caucasus during the Revolution and civil war eras. Kirov occupied the post of secretary of the Azerbaijan Central Committee from 1921 to 1926. In 1926 he became a candidate member

of the Politburo and took the position of first secretary of the Leningrad Provincial Party organization, playing a major role in the political defeat of Grigory Zinoviev by Josef Stalin. Kirov gained full Politburo membership in 1930 and retained his position as head of the Leningrad Party organization until his death in 1934.

On December 1, 1934, a lone gunman named Leonid Nikolaev murdered Kirv at the Leningrad party headquarters. Kirov's murder served as a pretext for a wave of repression that was carried out by Stalin in 1935 and 1936 against former political oppositionists, including Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev, and against large sectors of the Leningrad population. The connection between Kirov's death and the coordinated repression of 1935 and 1936 has led numerous contemporary observers, as well as later scholars, to speculate that Stalin himself arranged the murder in order to justify an attack on his political opponents. Proponents of this theory argue that Kirov represented a moderate opposition to Stalin in the years 1930 to 1933, in particular as an opponent to Stalin's demand in 1932 for the execution of the oppositionist Mikhail Riutin; they also argue that provincial-level party bosses wanted to replace Stalin with Kirov as general secretary of the Bolshevik Party at the Seventeenth Congress in 1934. Archival research carried out after the fall of the USSR has generally failed to support these claims, suggesting instead that Kirov was a dedicated Stalinist and that Kirov's murderer was a disgruntled party member working without instruction from higher authorities. Stalin's repressive response to the Kirov murder was likely a cynical use of the assassination for his own political ends as well as a genuine response of shock at the murder of a high-level Bolshevik official. Proponents of Stalin's responsibility, however, have not conceded the argument, and the debate is unlikely to be resolved without substantial additional evidence.

See also: civil war of 1917–1922; october revolution; purges, the great; social democratic workers party; stalin, josef vissarionovich

bibliography

Conquest, Robert. (1989). Stalin and the Kirov Murder. New York: Oxford University Press.

Knight, Amy. (1999). Who Killed Kirov? New York: Hill and Wang.

Lenoe, Matt. (2002). "Did Stalin Kill Kirov and Does It Matter?" The Journal of Modern History 74: 352–80.

Paul M. Hagenloh

Kirov, Sergei Mironovich (b. 27 Mar. 1886, d. 1 Dec. 1934). Russian Communist revolutionary Born in Urzhum in the Vyatka province, he moved to St Petersburg, where he became an effective Bolshevik organizer in the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917. He took part in the Russian Civil War, and was an important influence in the Bolshevik victory in the northern Caucasus. He became leader of the Communist Party in Azerbaijan. He helped to create the Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist republic in 1922, one of the first four republics to form the USSR. He became a close ally in Stalin's brutal quest for power against the Old Bolsheviks (former followers of Lenin), and in 1926 was made head of the Communist Party in Leningrad and north-west Russia. His eloquence and authority soon aroused Stalin's distrust, and he was shot by a minor party official. His murder, which was possibly ordered by Stalin himself, resulted in the execution of hundreds of Leningrad citizens and the deportation of thousands more, as well as triggering the Great Purge.

Sergei Mironovich Kirov , 1888–1934, Russian Soviet leader. He fought in the civil war of 1918–20 and rose to power as one of Stalin's most trusted aides. A member of the Communist party Politburo from 1930, he was secretary of the party at Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) when he was assassinated, probably at Stalin's order. However, Stalin used Kirov's murder to institute the party purge and the treason trials of the late 1930s. Among those tried and executed for Kirov's murder were Zinoviev , Kamenev , and Rykov .

Kirov, Sergei Mironovich (1886–1934) Russian-born revolutionary leader. A strong supporter of STALIN, he began his revolutionary activities in Caucasia but moved to Leningrad (1928) and became a member of the POLITBURO (1930). In 1934 he was assassinated by a young party member, Leonid Nikolayev, possibly at Stalin's instigation. Stalin used Kirov's murder to launch the show trials and party purges of the late 1930s.

Kirov, Sergei Mironovich (1888–1934) Soviet politician. An effective speaker, he was elected to the Communist Party Politburo in 1930. His murder, probably on Stalin's orders, served as a pretext for the Stalin purges (1934–38).