Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Who Murdered Sergei Kirov?
Though no longer the capital, Leningrad still figured prominently in Soviet politics.
Its party machine, headquartered in the Smolny Institute, was a plum post in the Com-
munist Party. The First Secretary, head of the Leningrad organisation, was always ac-
corded a seat on the Politburo, the executive board of Soviet power. In the early years
Leningrad was a crucial battlefront in the bloody intraparty competition to succeed
Lenin.
Lenin died from a stroke at the age of 53, without designating a successor. He was
first replaced by a troika of veteran Old Bolsheviks, including Leningrad party head,
Alexander Zinoviev. But their stay at the top was brief; they were outmanoeuvred by
the most unlikely successor to Lenin's mantle, Josef Stalin, a crude disaffected bur-
eaucrat of Georgian descent.
In 1926 Zinoviev was forced to relinquish his Leningrad seat to Sergei Kirov, a sol-
id Stalin man. The transition reflected deeper changes in the Communist Party:
Zinoviev was a haughty Jewish intellectual from the first generation of salon-fre-
quenting socialist talkers, while Kirov was a humble Russian provincial from the
second generation of socialist dirty-work doers. Stalin's rise to the top was testimony
to his personal appeal to these second-generation Bolsheviks.
In high-profile Leningrad, Kirov soon became one of the most popular party
bosses. He was a zealous supporter of Stalin's plans for rapid industrialisation, which
meant heavy investment in the city. But the manic-paced economic campaign could
not be sustained, causing famine and food shortages. Kirov emerged as a proponent of
a more moderate course instead of the radical pace that Stalin still insisted on. The
growing rift in the leadership was exposed at a 1934 party congress, where a small
cabal of regional governors secretly connived to remove Stalin in a bureaucratic coup
and replace him with Kirov. It was an offer that Kirov flatly refused.
But it was hard to keep a secret from Stalin. Wary of Kirov's rising appeal, Stalin
ordered that he be transferred to party work in Moscow, where he could be watched
more closely. Kirov found reasons to delay the appointment. He remained in Lenin-
grad - but not for long. On 1 December 1934 as he left a late-afternoon meeting,
Kirov was shot from behind and killed in the corridor outside his Smolny office.
