The Murder of Kirov: A Prelude to Stalin’s Great Terror

Who’s done it and why? These are the questions discussed here about the assassination of one of the top leaders of the Soviet Union in 1934. I look at the murder of Kirov in the context of real political situation in the USSR in 1934, after the devastation brought about by the so called dekulakization and collectivization of agriculture. Most histories of this crime focus on Nikolaev the man who shot Kirov and on the follow up unprecedented terror in 1935-38. Those who perished have always been portrayed as innocent victims. In reality the situation was more complex. They indeed were innocent in a normal society but in Stalin’s Russia they were guilty just because they dared to think and talk. is a Russian American historian, now retired, used to serve as an Associate Professor of History at Harvard University, the author of Russia After Lenin, Behind the Frontlines of the Civil War, Dear Comrades, The Mensheviks After October and other books.