Russia / Soviet Union: Sergei Mironovich Kirov (1886 – 1934) First Secretary of the Leningrad City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party 1926-1934, 1919

Sergei Mironovich Kirov was a prominent early Bolshevik leader in the Soviet Union. Kirov rose through the Communist Party ranks to become head of the party organization in Leningrad.

On 1 December 1934, Kirov was shot and killed by a gunman at his offices in the Smolny Institute. Some historians place the blame for his assassination at the hands of Joseph Stalin and believe the NKVD organized his execution, but any evidence for this claim remains lacking.

Kirov's death served as one of the pretexts for Stalin's escalation of repression against dissident elements of the Party, culminating in the Great Purge of the late 1930s in which many of the Old Bolsheviks were arrested, expelled from the party, and executed. Complicity in Kirov's assassination was a common charge to which the accused confessed in the show trials of the period.

Copyright:

Supplier: CPA Media Co. Ltd.

Credit:

Pictures From History