36 Facts About Sergei Kirov

Sergei Kirov became an Old Bolshevik and personal friend to Joseph Stalin, rising through the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ranks to become head of the party in Leningrad and a member of the Politburo.

On 1 December 1934, Sergei Kirov was shot and killed by Leonid Nikolaev at his offices in the Smolny Institute.

Sergei Kirov's assassination was used by Stalin as a reason for starting the Moscow trials and the Great Purge.

In 1901, a group of wealthy benefactors provided a scholarship for Sergei Kirov to attend an industrial school at Kazan.

Sergei Kirov was a participant in the 1905 Russian Revolution and was arrested, joining with the Bolsheviks soon after being released from prison.

Sergei Kirov began using the pen name Kir, first publishing under the pseudonym Sergei Kirov on 26 April 1912.

Sergei Kirov became commander of the Bolshevik military administration in Astrakhan and fought for the Red Army in the Russian Civil War until 1920.

In 1921, Sergei Kirov became First Secretary of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, the Bolshevik party organization in the Azerbaijan SSR.

Sergei Kirov was a loyal supporter of Joseph Stalin, the successor of Vladimir Lenin, and in 1926 was rewarded with command of the Leningrad party organization.

Sergei Kirov was a close personal friend of Stalin, and a strong supporter of industrialisation and forced collectivisation.

In 1934, at the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party, Sergei Kirov delivered the speech called "The Speech of Comrade Stalin Is the Program of Our Party", which refers to Stalin's speech delivered at the Congress earlier.

Sergei Kirov praised Stalin for everything he had done since the death of Lenin.

Alexander Orlov, who defected to the West, listed a series of incidents in which Sergei Kirov allegedly clashed with Stalin, based on rumours he must have heard from fellow NKVD officers.

Sergei Kirov's reputed rivalry is a major theme of the historical novel Children of the Arbat, by Anatoli Rybakov, who wrote:.

Sergei Kirov lived on Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt in a large house, inhabited by all sorts of people, he walked to work, wandered on his own around the streets of the city, took his children for rides in his car and played hide-and-seek with them in the yard.

Knight's contention is supported by the fact that whereas most of the elite tried to anticipate what Stalin desired and to act accordingly, Sergei Kirov did not always do what Stalin wanted.

In 1934, Stalin wanted Sergei Kirov to come to Moscow permanently.

Whereas all the other members of the Politburo would have complied, Stalin accepted that, as Sergei Kirov had no desire to leave Leningrad, he would not come to Moscow until 1938.

When Stalin wanted Filipp Medved moved from the Leningrad NKVD to Minsk, Sergei Kirov refused to agree; in a rare move for Stalin, he had to accept defeat.

Sergei Kirov went to the place where the crime against our country was committed.

Sergei Kirov turned a corner and passed Nikolayev, who then drew his revolver and shot Sergei Kirov in the back of the neck.

On 1 December 1934, the usual guard post at the entrance to Sergei Kirov's offices was supposedly left unmanned, even though the building housed the chief offices of the Leningrad party apparatus and was the seat of the local government.

Sergei Kirov was cremated and his ashes interred in the Kremlin Wall necropolis in a state funeral, with Stalin and other prominent members of the CPSU personally carrying his coffin.

Sergei Kirov was sentenced to death by shooting on 29 December 1934, and the sentence was carried out that very night.

Several NKVD officers from the Leningrad branch were convicted of negligence for not adequately protecting Sergei Kirov and sentenced to prison terms of up to ten years.

Pospelov's committee came to the conclusion that Sergei Kirov's murder was facilitated by NKVD officers who were responsible for his security, and that NKVD chief Genrikh Yagoda was declared a hero, instead of holding him responsible.

Sergei Kirov stressed that his statement was based on the testimony of one Comrade Yan Olsky, a former NKVD officer who was demoted after Kirov's murder and transferred to the People's Supply System.

Sergei Kirov's assassination became a major event in the history of the Soviet Union because it was used by Stalin to justify Moscow trials and his campaign of terror known as the Great Purge.

The idea of Stalin's complicity in Sergei Kirov's assassination has been backed by Robert Conquest and Amy Knight but challenged by revisionist historians who argued that this theory relies primarily on circumstantial evidence and Khrushchev-era investigations.

Edvard Radzinsky argued in his biography of Stalin that written documents about Stalin ordering the assassination of Sergei Kirov were never found simply because they never existed and could not exist.

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, many of the locations and buildings named after Sergei Kirov have been renamed, especially outside of Russia.

For many years, a huge granite and bronze statue of Sergei Kirov dominated the city of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, erected on a hill in 1939.

The Sergei Kirov Prize is the oldest annual organised race in speedskating, apart from the World Speed Skating Championships and the European Speed Skating Championships.

The Soviet Navy cruiser Sergei Kirov was named after him, and by extension the Sergei Kirov-class cruiser.

Sergei Kirov was married to Maria Lvovna Markus since 1911, although they never formally registered their relationship.

Yevgenia Kostrikova, who claimed to be Sergei Kirov's daughter, was a famous tank company commander and World War II veteran.