Of course, every time Kirov went to Moscow, Stalin could have found an excuse to leave him behind and prevented him from returning to Leningrad. But this was bound to cause a public quarrel, and after one. It would be much more difficult to place Kirov in some central position again. Moreover, it may not be so easy to force Kirov to remain against his will. Couldn’t he be arrested? No. At that time, in 1934, it was not possible to take similar action against a Politburo member at will. To dismiss a Politburo member, one had to go through a complicated series of procedures. To achieve this, it was necessary at the outset to enumerate Kirov’s charges, to describe him as an anti-Lenin heretic, or to accuse him of violating the general line of the Party, and thus to launch a critical campaign against him throughout the Party. But under the circumstances this approach was not advisable for Stalin. After crushing the Trotskyist and Zinovievist opposition, Stalin had already published a number of articles and oral statements saying that the heretics had been purged, that the Party had been consolidated, and that it had become “united and unified as never before”. But once the campaign against Kirov was launched, it would inevitably lead to gossip that the Party had fallen back into division and the Politburo was divided. Moreover, Stalin understood that there would be renewed doubts abroad about the solidity of his system, too. Exactly what Stalin did not want to hear in any case.
So he came to the conclusion that there was probably only one way to solve the thorny problem he was facing: get rid of Kirov, and at the same time shift the blame for the assassination to the former opposition leader. In this way, he could kill two birds with one stone. In getting rid of Kirov, he would also get rid of some of Lenin’s close comrades. Those men, no matter how much Stalin insulted them, remained in the minds of ordinary party members as symbols of the Bolshevik Party. Stalin was convinced that if he could prove it, it would be Kirov, the “loyal son of the party” and member of the Politburo, who would shed his blood. It was Zinoviev, Kamenev and other opposition leaders, then he had the right to demand: blood for blood!
The only State agency that could have helped Stalin prepare the murder was the Leningrad branch of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which was responsible for Kirov’s security. But the head of the Leningrad branch, Filippo Medvedevich, was a close friend of Kirov, so Medvedevich had to be removed and a “more reliable man” sent to receive him. Stalin had just such a person in his hands. This man, Yevdokimov, was a veteran staff member of the “Agency”. For many years, Stalin took him with him when he went on vacation, not only as his bodyguard, but also as a friend and drinking companion. Yevdokimov was rewarded from Stalin far more than any other member of the Interior Ministry staff. The man was eccentric, out of touch with his colleagues, and his face was stony as a slab of stone. A criminal in the past, he was released from prison only after the revolution, then joined the Bolsheviks and distinguished himself in the civil war. After the end of the civil war, Yevdokimov was appointed head of the Ukrainian branch of the National Political Security Headquarters. There, he personally directed several major sieges to suppress rebels against the Soviets.
Following Stalin’s orders, Yagoda gave the order to transfer Medvedki from Leningrad to Minsk and to replace him with Yevdokimov. When Kirov got this, he was so furious that he immediately called Yagoda in Medvedki’s presence and asked directly who authorized the arbitrary transfer of the responsible cadres in Leningrad without the consent of the Leningrad Regional Committee. Then Kirov called Stalin again to protest against this intolerable act of Yagoda. Thus, the order to transfer Medvedki out of Leningrad had to be postponed.
As the order to appoint Yevdokimov to Leningrad hit the rocks, Stalin had no choice but to tell Yagoda of the plot against Kirov in order to enlist the latter’s assistance. Yagoda immediately summoned Ivan Zaporozhets, a henchman whom he had promoted in the past and who was now Medvedra’s deputy, from Leningrad to Moscow. The two of them went together to meet Stalin. Stalin wanted to avoid meeting Zaporozhets, but it was impossible, because this special task, involving a member of the Politburo, would not have been acceptable to Zaporozhets if it had not been explained by Stalin himself but only by Yagoda. Thus, Zaporozhets returned to Leningrad with Stalin’s secret order.
It was at this time that the Leningrad branch of the Ministry of Internal Affairs received a secret report which revealed a young party member named Leonid Nikolayev. This Nikolaev had recently been expelled from the party and was therefore never able to find work again. His anger and despair led him to the evil idea of killing the chairman of the party’s supervisory committee. The desperate Nikolaev, believing himself to be a victim of the party bureaucracy, wanted to protest to the party by killing the chairman of the supervisory board.
It was a friend of Nikolaev’s who informed the “authorities” of this: Nikolaev, being careless, had told him of his intentions. Of course, this is not surprising, and it is not surprising that Zaporozhets became interested in Nikolaev, you know. Zaporozhets since the Moscow mission, has been worried, and now received such a secret message, he will naturally be interested, and invited Nikolaev’s “friend” to meet. After talking to him, Zaporozhets came to the conclusion that Nikolaev’s threat was not necessarily just words. And when the “friend” later stole Nikolaev’s diary and gave it to Zaporozhyeze, something more important changed.
The diary was photographed and put back in its original place. In the diary, Nikolaev describes in detail his unjustified injustice and how he was “purged” from the party for no reason, how he was mercilessly ignored by party bureaucrats when he demanded justice, how he was fired from the factory, and how his family – his wife, his wife, his wife’s wife, his wife’s wife, his wife’s wife, his wife’s wife, his wife’s wife, his wife’s wife, his wife’s wife, his wife’s wife. Mother and two children. How they were reduced to starvation and cold. The whole diary is full of bone-deep hatred for the bureaucracy in the party and state bodies.
In order to get to know Nikolaev as fully as possible, Zaporozhev decided to meet him personally. So the “friend” arranged another “coincidence” for him and Nikolaev. The “friend” gave Zaporozhev’s pseudonym. The “friend” introduced Zaporozhets to Nikolaev, saying that he was an old colleague of his. They chatted for a while and then broke up. Nikolaev made a good impression on Zaporozhets. So, the “friend” was given a new task, trying to get closer to Nikolaev. From time to time, he gave him a small sum of money, pretended to share his interests, and, of course, had to report his every move to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Zaporozhets himself hastened to Moscow to report his ideas and discuss how to make more effective use of this fortuitous opportunity. In Moscow, he was again received by Stalin.
Recent Comments