Is it true that Stalin organized the murder of Kirov?

In historical literature, there is often a statement that Joseph Stalin personally stood behind the murder of the Leningrad party leader. We decided to figure out if this is really so.

Sergei Kirov, the head of the Leningrad Party Organization and a member of the Politburo, in the early 1930s was considered one of the most influential Soviet politicians. On December 1, 1934, he was shot dead in Smolny, where Leningrad management was located, right next to his office.

Rumors that Joseph Stalin was behind the crime began to spread almost immediately after the murder. In Soviet folklore, for example, There was seditious ditties: "Eh, cucumbers and tomatoes, / Stalin Kirov killed in the corridor." However, there are no evidence of its distribution in the 1930s-a researcher of the history of winged expressions Konstantin Dushenko Related Its appearance around 1961, that is, the time of the thaw and critics of the Stalinist personality cult.

Details a hypothesis about a conspiracy under the leadership of Stalin set out In his memoirs, the former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. In addition, some historians who wrote about the USSR of the 1930s, for example, were shared by the version of Stalin as a customer of the murder of Kirov, for example Roy Medvedev And Robert Conquest.

The murder of Kirov was committed by a former employee of the Leningrad regional committee Leonid Nikolaev. By official version, represented in court at the end of December 1934, Nikolaev was a participant in the conspiracy, which included party figures oppositionly tuned to Stalin and his politics. Nikolaev and 13 more people were shot On December 29, the moral and political responsibility for the murder of power was assigned to Zinoviev and Kamenev - former leaders of the party opposition to Stalin. Thus, the murder of Kirov was the reason for mass repressions and tightening Stalin’s control over the party apparatus.

By versions Khrushchev, which he introduced at the XX Congress of the party, and then developed in his memoirs, Stalin and was the organizer of the murder. In favor of this hypothesis, he leads the following arguments:

• Kirov was a charismatic leader, was popular in the party, which theoretically could threaten Stalin's position. Allegedly at the XVII Congress (in January-February 1934), a number of party leaders tried to organize a conspiracy so that it was Kirov to change Stalin as Secretary General. Kirov himself refused and spoke about the plans of Stalin, and he decided to eliminate the competitor;
• The circumstances of the murder look very suspicious. Nikolaev was able to freely penetrate the well -guarded Smolny, having a firearm with him. Moreover, by that time he was on a pencil at the authorities, since earlier, October 15, he was already detained with weapons near Kirov’s house, but then he was released without charges. Strangeness is also found in the actions of Kirov’s protection on the day of the murder, especially the guard of Borisov: when Kirov went to the cabinet along the corridor, Borisov was a little behind and did not manage to prevent the killer. And the next day, Borisov, by official version, died in a car accident, when he was taken for an interrogation to Stalin;
• Stalin extracted direct and greater benefits from Kirov’s death: he began a large -scale cleaning of the party rows, physically exterminating the remnants of the opposition.

The study of the circumstances of the murder of Kirov is complicated primarily by a large volume of sources. In addition to documents of the initial investigation, these are also materials of special party commissions, Disassembled the case (between 1956 and 1989 there were six of them). Moreover, not all these documents are published and introduced into scientific circulation, and their small part even remains unexplored. The most complete selection of materials is presented in the collection "Echo shot in Smolny".

Researchers are unanimous in the opinion that the initial investigation was conducted with gross violations of even the right of the right. In addition, the conclusions of the investigation about the connection of Nikolaev with the Zinoviev opposition are not based on evidence, but are personally dictated by Stalin. However, the activities of later commissions, obviously, were not quite impartial, especially since their work was directly supervised by the highest party authorities.

Against the version of Stalin's involvement in the organization of the murder of Kirov there are a number of arguments. The historian Oleg Khlevnyuk formulated most fully them - for example, in the book "Stalin. The life of one leader". He indicates that there are no, even indirect, archival evidence of a conspiracy against Stalin at the XVII Party Congress. Kirov himself, although formally he was a member of the Politburo, rarely came to meetings of the Supreme Party Body in Moscow. According to Khlevnyuk, he "was and until the last moment remained a faithful supporter of Stalin, was never considered in the party as a politician commensurate with Stalin, and did not put forward any political programs that are different from the Stalinist."

In addition, how Writes Khlevnyuk, compared to previous and subsequent cleaning repressions, were not so large -scale after the murder of Kirov. “Contrary to a common point of view, an extraordinary surge of terror after the murder of Kirov was not observed. Both in 1935 and in 1936, despite the expulsion of many thousands of “suspicious” residents of Leningrad and the arrests of former oppositionists, repression did not reach the level of cruelty that was observed before the murder of Kirov, during the period of collectivization and hunger. Only gradually, two and a half years later, a terrible denouement came - a large terror of 1937-1938. Kirov’s murder was only one, not the most important and not at all an obligatory element of this escalation of state violence, ”the researcher notes.

On the other hand, quite full of published and affordable Materials About Nikolaev, especially his diaries, allow us to draw some conclusions about the personality of the killer of Kirov. These documents show him as a person who had not only noticeable physical disabilities (small growth, disproportionate physique, soreness), but also an inanimate character, mental imbalance that reached pathological forms.

In recent months, Nikolaev prone to conflicts has been left without work and livelihood, which has become even more embittered. At the same time, he remained a member of the party and legally owned a revolver, which acquired back in 1918. He retained many acquaintances in the regional committee, his wife Mild Draule continued to work there, so it is not surprising that Nikolaev was released as a member of the party after routine verification of documents October 15. He also had much more than a person from the street, to get into Smolny, where various institutions worked at that time. In addition, not all stairs in the building were carefully guarded.

As for the death of the guard Borisov, the same Klevnyuk is asked a reasonable question: how could his interrogation Stalin threaten the conspirators if they acted at the direct instructions of the latter? At the same time, other guards of Kirov (there were 15 of them in total), including those who were in the corridor at the time of the shot of Dureko, safely survived. The historian admits that the death of Borisov, indeed, could be a combination of circumstances.

A special and most mysterious line in business is the role of Draule. Historian Tatyana Sukharnikova, director of the Kirov Museum-apartment in St. Petersburg, celebratedthat her figure was almost completely (and obviously no accident) excluded from the original investigation. However, it is known that the wife of Nikolaev was interrogated 15 minutes after the murder, that is, most likely, at that time she was also in Smolny. In the article "Kirov's death: Facts and versions"Published in 2005 in the magazine" Rodina "(one of its authors was the same Sukharnikov), the conclusions of the Center for Forensic and Forensic and Forensic Expertise of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation are given. The center received Kirov clothing items, which were on it at the time of the murder, as well as documents (certificates, acts) related to events on December 1, 1934. The conclusions of the experts questioned some allegations of the initial investigation. In particular, questions arise to the version that Kirov was shot when he was walking along the corridor: at the time of the shot, he was probably not in an upright position. In addition, the conclusion says: “During the forensic study, Palson Kirov establishes that in the absence of traces of prolonged socks after the last washing on the inner surface in the front in their upper part, significant sizes of the sperm sperm were found.”

The available materials gives many rumors that went in Leningrad immediately after the murder - for example, that the motive of the murder was jealousy, since Kirov was in connection with the wife of Nikolaev. At the same time, in the published diaries of Nikolaev, the theme of jealousy for his wife is not affected.

Oleg Klevnyuk comes to the conclusion: “The version of Stalin’s participation in the murder of Kirov is a typical example of the theory of conspiracy. It proceeds from the fact that the acquired benefit is the main evidence of involvement. She denies the possibility of accidents and ordinary stupid. <...> Even if we assume that Stalin really was the organizer of Kirov’s murder, this adds a little to understanding the history of the Stalin period and Stalin himself. Such a crime could be called the most harmless of what the Soviet dictator committed. ”

Thus, the version of the conspiracy under the leadership of Stalin, as a result of which Kirov was killed, looks doubtful. It is not confirmed by accessible documents and was developed during the exposure of the personality cult of the Soviet leader. The hypothesis of the personal motives of Nikolaev (whether it be mental imbalance, resentment of party leadership or jealousy), which is evidenced by his diaries and research results, is more convincing. Nevertheless, due to the insufficient amount of documents, some of which are still classified, white spots remain in the case of the murder of Kirov.

Photo on the cover: Stalin and Zhdanov at the funeral of Kirov. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Most likely not true

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