Talk:Sergei Kirov

The votes against Stalin

The number of votes against Stalin appears to be different in different sources. The memoirs of Anastas Mikoyan, chapter 48, available online in Russian [1] claims 287 votes. Mikoyan credits the information to Olga Shatunovskaya, who chaired a committee investigating Great Purges. Several other Russian webpages (i.e., [2]) claim 292, also crediting the number to Shatunovskaya committee. I will put 292 into the article for now, since it appears in more sources. If anyone has different information, let me know.

Another source [3] makes even more striking claim: Stalin had received a 100 yes votes and 1100 no votes. Stalin's people would then figure out everyone who voted "no" by their handwriting (they had to write in a candidate instead of the vote they were voting against) and those people would be executed during purges. I am not sure about the credibility of the claim and I am not including it because of that. Andris 01:11, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

In Simon Sebag Montefiore's "Stalin the Court of the Red Tsar" (p. 132) the author states that 166 ballots went missing and that Stalin received somewhere between 123 and 292 negative votes.130.237.175.198 07:31, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

The huge Kirov's statue in Baku

I added some informations and a link about the huge Kirov's statue that dominated the panorama of the city of Baku from 1939 to 1991. Regards!

Virgilio 22:06, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Misspelling

"Chitye Prudi" as a station should be "Chistiye Prudy" or whatever. You're missing an S

Repetitive sentences

In the first paragprah the last sentence is: "He became a Marxist and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) in 1904. He was assassinated in 1934."

Next paragraph: "Becoming a Marxist, he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) in 1904."

Could we remove one of these? Anatoly larkin 02:37, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Sergei or Sergey?

title and picture caption say sergey, within the article it is sergei. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.187.219.142 (talk) 03:18, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Alleged

We are told of the possibility of a random act of violence. The assassin, Nikolaiyev, had a valid NKVD pass

and had arrranged for the guards in the corridors to disappear. He also arranged for Borisov, Kirov's personal body guard, to vanish. All this is hardly consistent with a private motive. A good account of Kirov's death is given by Conquest and Khrushchev, for that matter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.153.230.157 (talk) 08:24, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

The article looks based on the sole point of view and theory of Stalin organizing the murder. Almost no place given to other points of view, even to the official one.Garret Beaumain (talk) 10:03, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Trivia

I have changed the trivia section into references in popular culture. I also removed the sentence "Kirov was a very popular figure during his reign in Leningrad" as it doesn't really fit anywhere and is hard to source. --TheCooperman (talk) 17:07, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Secret documents released

[4] But documents released on Tuesday by Russia's domestic intelligence agency -- including Nikolayev's diary, published with the permission of his son -- painted a picture of a disillusioned Communist Party functionary acting alone, out of bitterness and revenge.

Nikolayev had tried hard to rise to the top of the Leningrad Party hierarchy but instead was told to go and work at a factory in a lower position.

He decided to take revenge on Kirov after he was thrown out of the party for "breaching party discipline", denied treatment in a sanatorium despite having heart problems, and could no longer get food rations available to party apparatchiks.

"You can eat yourself now -- no money, no food," the father of two wrote in his diary. "For themselves, they (party leaders) hold garages with automobiles, for us they have sodden bread." LokiiT (talk) 02:49, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Bad article...

This whole kriminology here about the assasination is pretty useless... Let's just simply say that the case has never been fully solved. And whatever the real background of it all, the important point is that it was use as a pretext for the purges.

Also I'm rather amused by the positive portrait of Kirov (as an opponent of Stalin). In the german Wikipedia he is depicted as a hardliner, mass murderer and follower of Stalin...! :-) oh well...

Clearly there are issues with the articles (maybe there are just subjects for which the Wikipedia concept doesn't work...) I think there are more issues with the english version, mostly because of the style. Anyway. Maybe let's just try to be a bit more sober and neutral in depicting historical figures. Sometimes saying less is better. You know, it's not about making a script for a holliwood movie, where the hero has to be either good or bad [Or then at least I'd recommend to synchronize on which side the judgement falls between Wikipedia versions :-) !]. This here ought to be about history and real folks, not Hollywood and entertainment.

greetings, 212.171.245.69 (talk) 10:59, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

212.171.245.69 should use specific arguments, not broad statements. He should explain how Nikolayev caused the normal guards to vanish. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.71.46 (talk) 15:06, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

212.171.245.69 -- There's not necessarily any contradiction at all between Kirov being an enthusiastic hard-headed Bolshevik who was perfectly willing to break eggs to make an omelet, and thinking in 1934 that it was time to consolidate past gains rather than to create any new disruptive turbulence (especially within the Party). AnonMoos (talk) 16:11, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

To do with Stalin

1- The story where Stalin got 270 negative voices is based on documents that don't exist.
A protocol of unsealing the documents of the counting board was published in the paper "Izvestiya CC CPSU" 1989. № 7. p.114.
The findings were these: 3 voices were cast against Stalin. There were 166 missing ballot papers. However, it is unknown how many out of 1225 members were present and voted. It is entirely possible they simply weren't there. Many historians like Medvedev and Conquest chose to disregard that, but there's no reason we should do that as well.

2- There is simply no evidence whatsoever that Stalin orchestrated or was even interested in Kirov's assassination. It's an old conspiracy theory. It should not be presented as a likely scenario in this article or lead the reader to believe that even though there is no evidence, it's what's happened.

3- Kirov's murder did not lead to purges from the Party. The decision to organize a massive Party card verification was taken 2 months prior to his death.
BesterRus (talk) 05:13, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

These all are good points, but perhaps you've deleted too large part of the article. It would be nice to inform the readers at least about some details of conspiracy theories on Stalin involvement. Maybe a short section on this should be left. Otherwise it is hard to understand why they made several investigations of the event decades later, and why the lead section tells about "conspiracy theories and speculations" but there is almost nothing about them in the body of the article. GreyHood ^Talk 12:32, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your critique and suggestions, I'm new to wikipedia and I definitely need that. I'm going to try and make a section about the conspiracy theory based on the material that was in the earlier version. However, I don't think I'd be able to provide the foundation for the conspiracy theories and investigations. I'm fairly certain I understand the reasons, but I simply wouldn't be able to back them up with sources. For example:

• The theories started off when there was an obvious struggle between two political powers inside the Party. People could see the casualties, but couldn't tell what exactly was going on, which in turn gave birth all sorts of rumors and theories.
  
• The second investigation wasn't launched based on a theory, but on Khrushchev's need for de-stalinization. The fact that the results of Khrushchev's investigation weren't published strongly suggests that he wasn't interested in finding just any result, and given the ideology of his rule, the result he sought after is fairly obvious.
  
• The reason the third investigation was launched was for an entirely new reason. Western world was heavily criticizing past Soviet politics, believing everything that Khrushchev said about the Stalin period. Launching another investigation was simply a way of dealing with all the political pressure coming from the West.
  

However, all this is speculative. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't just write things like that without providing a source, can I?

BesterRus (talk) 03:01, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, everything should be sourced at least by some publications. Maybe not books, but at least some articles by historians or journalists (though using journalism for contentious historical topics is highly undesirable). GreyHood ^Talk 11:41, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

• The massive unilateral removal of information sourced to numerous secondary RS [5] goes against our policies, such as WP:NPOV and WP:Consensus. So, here is the question: why materials sourced to books by Figes, Amy Knight, Aleksandr Mikhailovich Orlov, and Barmin were removed? Two first people are well-known scholars, and not "anticommunists" by any account. Orlov was not a scholar, but can be quoted with appropriate attribution. Barmin should also qualify as RS, although I did not read his books. Biophys (talk) 18:14, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
  • As you see, the removal was not that unilateral, since there is one more editor who supports if not the removal the way it was done, but at least the idea to make this article more balanced and less overblown with controversial theories. Of course, in my opinion the better sourced points should stay, but giving them so much weight and place doesn't seem appropriate. GreyHood ^Talk 18:41, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
    • No, it was a unilateral removal because it was made on 6:26 October 12 [6] without any discussion. But right now we seems to follow WP:BRD cycle, which I think is fine. So, let's do the following. If anyone suggest to make significant changes, let's post the suggested changes on this talk page, discuss them, and come to consensus, as suppose to be in BRD cycle. OK? Right now, it seems that we both disagree with removal of reliable sources. Biophys (talk) 19:18, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
      • Just let's not turn this into endless discussion with no serious outcome and no significant change to the article, which is one of the things that wards off new people coming to edit or discuss. It is clear that the article should be improved significantly. GreyHood ^Talk 20:57, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

(1) Do you agree that we should discuss and agree about making serious changes prior to making them? (2) Do you agree that at least some portions of text removed by BesterRus should be restored? Please suggest new version of replacement text here, and let's discuss. Of course no one wants endless discussions. All we want is WP:Consensus. We had "B" and "R" of the BRD cycle. Now it's time for "D". I asked a question about the removed sources and wait for an answer. Biophys (talk) 21:20, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

• To answer the first question as to why I removed facts that were cited by Figers, Knight, Orlov and Barmine...

1. Knight: I didn't see the relevance of things like "at what distance Borisov was walking from Kirov", it just seemed as irrelevant details to me. They don't even bring anything to the conspiracy theory in my opinion.
2. Some sentences that come from Figes are very ambiguous. "hard evidence [...] remains elusive" suggests that hard evidence exists, but can't be found. I don't care for the author's authority in the academia - if the evidence doesn't exist, nobody should suggest otherwise. "Many of the Old Bolsheviks were arrested, expelled, executed" - how much is many? Were they arrested, expelled and executed illegally or have they been found guilty of a crime? It seems to me that it leads the reader to make certain conclusions that shouldn't be suggested.
3. What Bermine writes doesn't make sense. "Kirov urged the adoption of further conciliatory measures by the party in favor of party dissidents, which won enthusiastic applause and approval by the delegates". I couldn't find the transcript of the November Plenum of 1934 to read Kirov's speech. However, Oleg Khlevniuk in his book "The Politburo: Mechanisms of political power during the 1930s" in chapter 3, refutes the theory that Kirov was one of the main speakers, that he said anything unusual or outside the Party's line. What Kirov briefly said was simply describing the general feel in the Party, that the severe methods have come to an end and that the Party is going to be more moderate in their measures. "Applause" was the general way of thanking the speaker. Kirov prepared a report on this Plenum and was going to present the report to the Party members in Leningrad the day he was assassinated. Nothing about dissidents was in the report, simply the main points of the Stalin's speech.
4. I don't have anything against Orlov's conspiracy theory, I could outline his ideas in a small section dedicated to conspiracy theories. How does that sound?

BesterRus (talk) 06:42, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

I quickly checked a few other sourced (not used here) to check what is "majority view" on the subject (see WP:NPOV): "KGB in Europe" by C. Andrews, Stalin's biography by Radzinsky and "Dragons of expectation" by Conquest. All of them tell approximately the same: there is almost no doubt that Stalin ordered killing of Kirov based on numerous Circumstantial evidence, but there is no direct evidence (such as a letter signed by Stalin with order to kill Kirov). Anything along these lines would probably be fine. Please post your version of text for discussion at this talk page. No, we can not have only a small section about it. This is because the murder of Kirov was used by Stalin to start the campaign of Great Terror. However, it might be reasonable to create a separate article, Murder of Sergey Kirov Biophys (talk) 12:58, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

That's what seems to be the problem. I don't know what exactly is wikipedia's policy, but if we are going to measure the validity of the arguments based on how many writers endorse this or that point of view, then I can give you, oh I don't know, a couple dozen very respectable historians that don't support Conquest's point of view at all. And if you're going to tell me that he's "one of the most prominent", I just don't think that he is, the expression being completely subjective. The fact that he worked in a anti-communist disinformation agency doesn't make him any more prominent. In fact, my authors might call him and his followers many things, but certainly not a prominent historians, because in any matter, R. Conquest will always tell you that Stalin is a cold blooded murderer and Soviets are evil, and their achievements aren't worth anything, and they raped millions, ate corpses, murdered millions in the basements of KGB buildings, etc, etc. I don't know how you fail to see the fanatical bias that Conquest never fails to present, it's like if USSR was a reign of flesh eating ghouls, no less. If you don't believe that some men can go to great lengths to lie and deceive, then you should accept that most Russian authors are telling the truth when they say that Conquest isn't telling the truth at all. I don't know... Doesn't the fact that Conquest bases his opinions on no evidence, on weak witnesses (Nazi collaborators, etc), on unscientific extrapolations, doesn't it make you suspicious at all? I'm sorry if I didn't reply to your question, I'm just having doubts as to whether we can possibly end up writing an article where the general point of view wouldn't be Conquest's point of view, but the point of view supported by the archives. I honestly don't see a possibility of solution in here at this point, it saddens me to say. BesterRus (talk) 16:53, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

• @BesterRus. You provided no sources on "your side" so far. If we want to resolve a content dispute, let's first consider if we agree on this in general. This is not only Conquest, but also Alexander Gregory Barmine, Figes, Amy Knight, Edvard Radzinsky and so on. So far all but one RS tell the same: there is almost no doubt that Stalin ordered killing of Kirov based on numerous circumstantial evidence, but there is no direct evidence (such as a letter signed by Stalin with order to kill Kirov). Would you agree with this? One source (the book by Aleksandr Mikhailovich Orlov) tells a lot more detail based on his personal knowledge as high-rank NKVD General. He describes interrogation of Nikolaev by Stalin and Zaporozhets, what they said, and so on. The book by Orlov was quoted by many historians. If you want to NPOV this article, please add more sourced materials, but not remove sourced materials you do not like. Would you agree? Biophys (talk) 17:31, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

• My sources that disagree with yours:

1. Adam Ulam, a Harvard historian, his book "Stalin: Man and his Era".
2. Matthew Lenoe, History professor at Rochester University, with his book "Kirov’s Murder and Soviet History".
3. Nicolas Werth, director of Modern History department of the French National Centre for Scientific Research, with his book "L'Ivrogne et la marchande de fleurs : Autopsie d'un meurtre de masse, 1937-1938"
4. Zhukov Yuri Nikolaevitch, PhD, leading researcher in the history department of the Institute of Russian History at the Russian Academy of Sciences, his book "Different Stalin".
5. Grover Furr, professor at Montclair State University, author of essays on Stalin.
6. The assassin of Kirov, Nikolayev. His diary was unsealed with other documents of the investigation in 2009. The diary completely contradicts the theory of Stalin's involvement. You have the man saying he did it for his own reasons. Your sources are outdated.

BesterRus (talk) 18:37, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Conspiracy theories remain conspiracy theories, no matter how many authors write about them. A nice example of dealing with such stuff is September 11 attacks - despite various very interesting and convincing 9/11 theories being all over internet and discussed far more intense than official version, despite there is a number of quite serious films and books and a large 9/11 Truth movement, all concpiracy was eventually banished to a separate article, 9/11 conspiracy theories, and is mentioned just in the See also section.

Of course evil superbrain Stalin plotting to kill poor fellow Kirov in some unusually cunning way is by far more interesting a story than a boring killing of a lover of a woman by her husband. Many people are keen to put aside the official version, forget about certain inconvenient facts such as mentioned by BesterRus in the opening statement, and ignore additional investigations and plenty of circumstantial evidence against the version of Stalin's involvement.

My suggestion, though, is to leave a section of several paragraphs, summarizing the conspiracy version. I'll be off-wiki for a several days and have no time to work on the article right now. So far I'll just suggest to start with removing a lengthy Kruschev citation. If somebody is interested in preserving all the text instead of complete removal from wiki, I suggest to create a standalone article Kirov assassination conspiracy theories. Beside a relatively small section, the lead might include a brief mention, though it seems that for example Russian article ru:Киров, Сергей Миронович is built more along the lines of September 11 attacks. GreyHood ^Talk 18:59, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

• @BesterRus. Fine. You are very welcome to write and post here your version of the corresponding segment of article for discussion. But remember that all sources, including old ones and your sources, must be properly reflected and used per WP:NPOV. Biophys (talk) 19:06, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
  • A note on Radzinsky the folk historian by the way. If the other authors you've mentioned alongside Radzinsky fall into the same category, we really need not much more discussion. I always am wondered by your strange preference of journalists, propagandists and writers instead of more substantial professionals. GreyHood ^Talk 19:13, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
    • I haven't known of the release of Nikolayev's diary by the way. if this could be sourced, that puts a period on the question of how much attention we should give to conspiracy theory - see 9/11 example above. GreyHood ^Talk 19:18, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

• I agree that translating ru:Убийство Кирова to Murder of Kirov would be a reasonable approach. Biophys (talk) 19:36, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Not bad idea btw. GreyHood ^Talk 19:51, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
  • So I write a short summary of the conspiracy theories based on what's currently mentioned in the article, post it here and then somebody can cut out all the conspiracy theory elements out of the rest of the article. All agree? As for the diary, it's a relatively recent discovery, so no authors mention it yet. The diary in full is only available at the Museum of Kirov in Saint-Petersburg. There are numerous interesting quotes from it in Russian media, though. This is the only source in English I've found so far - http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/12/01/us-russia-murder-idUSTRE5B04KD20091201 BesterRus (talk) 19:46, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
    • You can use Russian sources as well, though if there are English sources presenting the same information as Russian ones than English sources are preferable of course. As with your last suggestion, seems there is an agreement. GreyHood ^Talk 19:51, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

@BesterRus. No. You post your new version of section here, we discuss it, and probably modify it until we come to an agreement that new version is good. If however you want to create new article Murder of Kirov, you are very welcome to do it without any preliminary discussion.Biophys (talk) 22:47, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Stalin did contract the Vasiliev brothers to kill Kirov, and when they botched it, Stalin had the prospective assassins assassinated. Can't "conspiracy theory" reliable theories and scholarship relating to Stalin's involvement and his plans to blame Kirov's assassination on the opposition. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 19:56, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Where did you read about Vasiliev? I did not know. I read that Frunze had several car accidents just before he was killed on the operation table... Ironically, even Felix Dzerzinsky was possibly poisoned (although there is no direct evidence), not mentioning Lenin, Gorky and Stalin himself. Biophys (talk) 00:09, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Stalin files, makes for interesting reading. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 02:15, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this book is definitely a good source. And it describes the story in great detail. Biophys (talk) 16:39, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I went back to read through the story again and it's far too long to post without risking copyright violation. Basically, after an initial failed attempt, (unrelated) Nikolaev had written to Stalin complaining regarding Kirov. In a nutshell, Nikolaev was given a firearm, trained in its use (Nikolaev was coached for four months), given a pass to the building, the guards contrary to normal procedure did not inspect his briefcase, Kirov's bodyguard Borisov had been detained by the NKVD (not there), and Nikolaev shot Kirov dead. He then attempted to take his own life but bungled it. (But lived long enough to accuse his NKVD provocateur as the true guilty party. Stalin was furious at the potential of being implicated. Borisov, Kirov's bodyguard, was killed, as was the NKVD agent assisting Nikolaev.) Stalin already had a decree prepared to eliminate the opposition (blamed for it), suspending pardons and expediting immediate death sentences. This source clearly documents Stalin's role in minute detail. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 01:21, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I'll try and type up a bit from the above. [Content is too extensive to reproduce here, I recommend reading the source.] In the meantime, a more succinct version of general sentiment regarding Stalin's involvement (my emphasis):

Kirov was gaining popularity as a Communist leader, but this made him a potential political threat to Stalin. On December 1, 1934, Kirov was assassinated as he entered party offices at the Smolny Institute, the former girls' school that Lenin had used as his headquarters after the February Revolution. The gunman was a young party member, Leonid Nicolayev. Stalin claimed the assassination was the work of a vast anti-Stalinist conspiracy, but there was widespread suspicion that Stalin ordered the assassination. Adding to suspicions was the fact that there weren't any guards on duty the night that Kirov was shot. Stalin had thirteen suspects shot, and this proved to be the beginning of a vast purge of old Bolsheviks who he realized would never accept him as their ruler.

From Powell's Wilson's War: How Woodrow Wilson's Great Blunder Led to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and World War II. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 01:04, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

After looking at the book "The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life" by Roman Brackman, I think this is probably the best biography of Stalin (and related events) I have seen. I like book by Radzinsky, but this source provides much more details with a lot of references (Radzinsky works on a bigger 3-volume biography of Stalin right now). So, you are very welcome to improve this and other articles on the subject using this book. Just remember to focus on content, not contributors. Biophys (talk) 19:35, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Sharing one's love of history is in its telling, not in its disputing. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 02:30, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Conspiracy theory

The circumstances of his death and the resulting investigation which connected the murder to a plot by Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Abram Prigozhin and others (a fabricated connection, as it was later found), led to a conspiracy theory, according to which Stalin orchestrated Kirov's assassination through NKVD. Alexander Barmine, a soviet defector, was one of the first to try to assign blame for the assassination on Stalin. The theory received warm support by some of the Western historians who are now famous for their anti-communist historical publications. Even though no documentary evidence hinted at Stalin's involvement in spite of a large portion of the archives being unsealed, Robert Conquest, Amy Knight and other supporters of this theory claimed there was enough circumstantial evidence to prove that Stalin was implicated.

One of the reasons for the alleged assassination was a rumor that at 17th Congress of CPSU(b) in 1934, where delegates were re-electing members for the Central Committee, around 200 votes were cast again Stalin, while only 3 were cast against Kirov. Supposedly, this led Stalin to believe that Kirov was gaining too much popularity, which allegedly made Stalin want to eliminate his new opponent. When asked how many voted against Stalin, one of the surviving members of the counting board managed to recall 3 votes against Stalin. Another member, M. Verkhovyh claimed he could recall around 124 votes cast again Stalin.

In 1974, R. Medvedev, even though citing Verkhovyh, popularized a higher number - 270. In 1981, the number announced by Antonov-Ovseyenko, has grown to 292, even though he was still citing Verkhovyh. However, the archived documents of the counting board were unsealed in 1960 and a protocol was published. According to the archives, 4 voices were cast against Kirov and only 3 voices were cast against Stalin. Out of 1225 ballots, 166 were missing. The simplest explanation being that not all members voted or were present, which wasn't uncommon, since most members were re-elected to the same positions, while the changes usually affected only a handful of members. The archives of other years were also missing from 44 to 136 ballots.

One of the nevozvrashchentsy, Aleksandr Orlov wrote a book, in which he studies many details of the assassination. According to him, the study is supposed to show a bigger picture and prove that Stalin orchestrated the assassination. He also claims that NKVD enlisted Nikolayev after they received a report that Nikolayev expressed his desire to kill Kirov.

---

Hopefully, we can all agree that it's objective and proceed to eliminating the conspiracy theories from the article. Discuss.
BesterRus (talk) 10:08, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
Ugh forgot to close the ref tag, which made a part of the text invisible. Now it's fixed. BesterRus (talk) 10:38, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

• This is unacceptable for the following reasons:

1. You removed all factual materials from the previous version of section. For example, people thought that NKVD/Stalin ordered assassination of Kirov because the assassin (Nikolaev) was arrested by NKVD bodyguards of Kirov at the day of assassination. They found his revolver, but returned the revolver and let him go. Hence he killed Kirov on the second attempt. This has been removed, and a lot of other similar details are removed.
2. the resulting investigation which connected the murder to a plot by Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev. This phrase makes impression that Zinoviev and Kamenev have something to do with murder of Kirov. This is Stalinist version from 1930s.
3. The theory received warm support by some of the Western historians who are now famous for their anti-communist historical publications. This fails our NPOV standards.
4. Conspiracy theory. Most sources do not describe it as such.
5. Claim that Kirov was killed because he was a Stalin's rival. No, according to most sources, he was a faithful supporter of Stalin, but was killed to justify the beginning of Great terror campaign.

As a rule of thumb, you can create a better and NPOV version mostly by adding more sources and materials, which makes text bigger. Biophys (talk) 14:17, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

• I'm sorry, but your account of the events is wrong. Did you get it from Orlov? He had no access to the archives, thus making mistakes.

1. Nikolayev was detained on November 14 because of suspicious behavior, not the day of the murder. He wasn't in possession of a gun. He was released the same day on the orders of A. Gubin once his documents have been checked. See chapter 4 of "Different Stalin" by Zhukov.
2. I agree that the resulting investigation's link to Zinoviev and others was fabricated, as indicated by the investigating committee of 1990. I will clarify that in my segment.
3. Anti-communist doesn't necessarily have a negative connotation. This description is neutral. They are indeed anti-communist, since they fall under the definition of the word.
4. Of course authors aren't going to label themselves as writers of conspiracy theories, but since it's been proven to be nothing more than a conspiracy theory, it deserves the title.
5. Please correct the part where Stalin's motivation was to justify the beginning of the great terror. Obviously, it's a different theory, but it has its place in the section as well.
6. Feel free to suggest more material to improve the article. My concern right now is the dramatic lack of NPOV in the current article.

BesterRus (talk) 14:50, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

No, this is not Orlov. Just to save a lot of time, we can do the following. If you do not mind, I can try to include all new information you provided to the current version of article. To achieve consensus one should usually start from current version and make gradual changes. Biophys (talk) 15:16, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Am I to understand you want to keep the conspiracy theories embedded in the article, but also present my point of view, thus giving equal weight to both points of views? Because I cannot stress enough, conspiracy theories shouldn't be given weight in the main article, they should either be in a section dedicated for it, or in a completely different article altogether. However, at this point, we only have enough material for just a section, not a separate article. Agree? BesterRus (talk) 15:31, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Right now we have four big sections dealing with murder of Kirov and related questions (Pospelov commission, etc.). This is because his murder was one of highly notable events in Soviet history. Yes, we are going to keep all these sections and use neutral subtitles (such as "murder of Kirov"), as opposed to POV titles like "conspiracy theory". However, if you or someone else creates a separate article, Murder of Kirov (as on ruwiki), we might wish to remove some materials here to avoid duplication. But this is only after creation of stable article "Murder of Kirov". Biophys (talk) 16:00, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

First of all, Paspelov commission section doesn't provide a single source. Secondly, Paspelov Commission findings weren't published. Third, like Greyhood and I have previously stated, just as with the 9/11 event, conspiracy theories should not receive the same weight as facts provided by archival evidence when dealing with the same issue. 99% of Soviet archival evidence has never been doubted in the academia and the evidence I've provided certainly discredits all conspiracy theories mentioned in the article. I'm not aware of the way to proceed, but it seems clear to me that you're opposing the obvious. Is there some mediation/assistance we can ask for to resolve the issue? This discussion is clearly not leading to anything constructive.BesterRus (talk) 16:50, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Honestly, I did not see any RS that compare murder of Kirov to 9/11. This is pure WP:OR, plain and simple. Please see WP:DR. Biophys (talk) 17:02, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

It's got nothing to do with WP:OR. A theory of a secret plot that isn't confirmed by evidence, but rather disputed by it, is a conspiracy theory by virtue of its own quintessence. "Secret plot" + baseless accusations + refuted by evidence = conspiracy theory. Not all conspiracy theories are addressed by historians, not all are labeled as such by specialists, because most of them simply aren't addressed. Yet it doesn't make them any less of a conspiracy theory and they aren't included in other articles to help provide a NPOV, because they are actually detrimental to NPOV. BesterRus (talk) 17:26, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

None of the books currently quoted in your text tells literally this: "Murder of Kirov on the orders by Stalin is a conspiracy theory". That simple. To the contrary, all books I read (like "KGB in Europe") tell that his killing was probably ordered by Stalin. Yes, some sources tell that murdering of Kirov by Zinoviev and Trorsky was a "conspiracy theory" promoted by Stalin (as already noted in this article). Biophys (talk) 17:59, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

I offer another solution, we call it historical fiction. Agree? Also, if there's a theory that, for example, Rotschild family are aliens, and not a single author labels it a conspiracy theory, it doesn't make it any less of a conspiracy theory. Do you see the logic? Anyway, I'm offering an amiable solution, we can call it historical fiction. Thoughts? BesterRus (talk) 18:16, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Please ask someone at WP:HELP what they think about your ideas. Biophys (talk) 19:12, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

@BesterRus, I think we have very different ideas of what constitutes "historical fiction." If you believe something is historical fiction when reputable sources rather think not, then you have to find other reputable sources--not your personal opinion or constructs (or personal interpretations of diaries, for example)--to support your position. All indications are Stalin wanted to hang Kirov's death on the opposition, and that when at first you don't succeed, try again. (Even Kirov confided in others that he had signed his own death sentence with Stalin.) PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 02:23, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I think that the version proposed by BesterRus is a good starting ground. It would be nice to proceed with editing the proposed variant and editing it to the article. GreyHood ^Talk 20:04, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I hope you do not suggest to replace three large sections about Kirov assassination by his single paragraph? Of course, if there is any sourced information in his text that currently missing, it might be added to current version. Biophys (talk) 20:36, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Please add more of your material to the proposed section, as you suggested above. GreyHood ^Talk 21:03, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Nikolayev's diary is old news

Regarding BesterRus and (their bolding) "Nikolayev. His diary was unsealed with other documents of the investigation in 2009." Unfortunately, the diary contents have been well known in scholarship since the original Kamenev-Zinoviev trial, as amply documented in David Cole's 1942 ode to Stalin (entertaining reading, I have my own copy). What is of primary importance is that the diary was, per Cole, used as "overwhelming evidence" to pin Kirov's murder on the Trotskyites and to send Kamenev and Zinoviev off to Verkhne-Uralsk—the diary being read in open court at their trial. Eventually both were dispatched in Stalin's subsequent show trials. So, the claim that the diary is new evidence which exonerates Stalin is misinformed at best. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 16:28, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

You're wrong. If it was claimed to be used against Zinoviev, then it wasn't the real one that was used, was it. It's been proven to be a fabricated connection. Because the real one doesn't contain anything related to Zinoviev, neither does it contain anything to do with any secret plot at all. BesterRus (talk) 04:46, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Odd, when Soviet era records suit your needs, they are reliable; when not, they are obvious fabrications. Regardless, we now have a reputable source identified which relates details regarding Kirov's assassination and Stalin's involvement in minute detail. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 19:33, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Per our detailed source now available, indeed, Nikolaev's diary indeed had no evidence of conspiracy (no mention of any of Stalin's political opposition); when it did not, Stalin had the courts declare the diary a forgery. Fascinating and illuminating reading. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 20:49, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

"Grover Furr"

I have to express my thanks for that, I chuckled when I re-read the threads above. He hasn't been on my radar screen for some time now, and from the looks of his home page, he's been quite the busy boy. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 16:54, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Tagging section on assasination

1) The section is no doubt not neutrally presented, and skewed heavily towards supporting the WP:FRINGE idea that Kirov was assassinated on orders of Stalin. Most scholars today do not accept this, and consider it a conspiracy theory - in particular as the previous consensus was based on politicized documents now considered fabrications.

2) There are a few relevant citation needed tags, that warrant disputing the sourcing of the entire section as deficient.

3) A fundamental problem I see is that it conflates NPOV, factual, and non-fringe information on the assassination with non-fringe historical opinion and the fringe conspiracy theories.

As a sidenote, the attack on "Grover Furr" - regardless on it being correct or not, is not very civil. Lets talk about the content, not the editor. --Cerejota (talk) 20:36, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to see the sources supporting your contentions. In my view, it's completely wrong to label as "fringe" the idea that Stalin had a direct role in Kirov's assassination. A number of prominent mainstream scholars (most notably Robert Conquest and Amy Knight, but there are others) have argued forcefully for Stalin's involvement; others have questioned it.

I think the general scholarly viewpoint is that no hard-and-fast evidence proves or disproves Stalin's involvement, and thus the case turns on circumstance and the plausibility of Stalin's involvement. Certainly Stalin used Kirov's murder as the pretext to launch the Great Terror, and he benefited from the elimination of the most credible alternative to his personal dictatorship. Those sorts of cui bono considerations lead some historians to conclude that Stalin was most likely involved, while other historians won't be convinced without a signed execution order or simply parse Stalin's motivations differently. Neither view is in any way fringe to my reading. MastCell ^Talk 20:50, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Nikolaev's diaries

How can we possibly have an uncited statement about what Nikolaev's diaries say? Either they say this, and it should be cited, or they don't. - Jmabel | Talk 17:09, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Removed. But everything should be seriously improved. My very best wishes (talk) 03:33, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

This article is a conspiracy theory mess

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-GJazqMZMpQ 87.65.235.14 (talk) 09:11, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Non Sequitur

'In 1921, he became manager of the Azerbaijan party organization. Kirov supported Joseph Stalin loyally, and in 1926 he was rewarded with the command of the Leningrad party.

As a result, Kirov drew the unwelcome attention of Stalin...' Valetude (talk) 17:53, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to be very well arranged in the article, but as you can read in chapter 5 of Let History Judge (ISBN 0-231-06350-4), by 1933 Kirov, without overtly opposing Stalin, called for a certain relaxation of severity and restoration of some normality in rural areas in the aftermath of the disruptions of forced collectivization. In some circles within the Party he seemed to be more popular than Stalin was, and Stalin could have reasonably concluded that he was a potential focus of opposition. AnonMoos (talk) 17:45, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that, as J. Arch Getty noted all the way back in his 1985 book Origins of the Great Purges, the period preceding Kirov's death was one of relative "liberalization" of Soviet society, in which Stalin played an active part alongside Kirov. Stalin had condemned forced collectivization and excessive zeal in his famous article "Dizzy with Success" in 1930. From all the available evidence since the Soviet archives opened up it appears that Kirov was as much a "hardliner" as Molotov, Kaganovich, Zhdanov and other important "Stalinists." That being said, the article should portray both the "Stalin did it" and "Stalin didn't do it" views, as well as as mentions of the Soviet version of events under Stalin and after him. --Ismail (talk) 07:28, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

The term "liberalization" is a horrible misnomer (and the "Dizzy with Success" piece is notorious for blaming those who had been following Stalin's orders for the problems that resulted from Stalin's policies). Stalin cut back on large-scale persecutions, in part because the goal of collectivization was on the way to being achieved, but he still treated peasants extremely poorly as a matter of deliberate government policy, and continued to do so as long as he lived (the currency demonetization of 1947 was specifically designed to screw over peasants, to name one example among many), and Soviet agriculture continued to have significant structural problems (which were in part due to the forced-collectivization legacy) well into the 1980s. There's nothing inconsistent between Kirov being a hard-headed unsqueamish Bolshevik and also wanting to unburden the agriculture sector so that it could fulfill its productive potential (see remark of 16:11, 31 August 2012 above). AnonMoos (talk) 00:43, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Objectivity of the Article

"Some historians place the blame for his assassination at the hands of Stalin and believe the NKVD organised his execution, but any evidence for this claim remains elusive."

The evidence is "elusive?" It's not elusive. It's either there or it isn't. Using these ambiguous terms is in contradiction to that which Wikipedia is trying to achieve. Just reading this sentence makes a reader seriously question the bias of the rest of the article. I suggest this article be read over and rewritten from a non-bias point of view. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.130.155.203 (talk) 09:28, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

What it means is that most of the evidence is circumstantial, and certainly casts suspicion on Stalin, but -- without further direct evidence of certain intermediate links -- would not by itself be sufficient to convict Stalin under most legal systems with a strong rule of law. AnonMoos (talk) 17:31, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Sergey vs. Sergei?

I'm going to try to clean this article up and make it neutral, but why was this article title changed to Sergey? It's mostly Sergei throughout the article, and Commons category is Sergei, and Sergey is not the usual way of transliterating the name. Wikimandia (talk) 15:19, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Agree... AnonMoos (talk) 00:26, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

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Important changes to the section Career

Dear Participants,

Edition of the section Career:

1) added two paragraphs with the short description and quote from the speeches delivered by Kirov on the Party congresses in 1930 and 1934. Arguable these are two most important in his life. Provided the source.

2) removed the paragraph with questionable idea taken from the book by Alexander Barmine. It started with very illustrative sentence "Supposedly, Stalin received far more negative votes than Kirov, although the historical records are not entirely clear." I could not find any academic research which supports this idea. It could be restored, if I am wrong.

Keen to know your opinion. --Armenius vambery (talk) 18:35, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Logic fail

Riddle me this...

How come we're told that Kirov's death made Stalin take guns away from party members, guns they originally got FROM the party...

And later, we're ALSO told that the NKVD had to supply Kirov's killer with a gun, and that it was super suspicious that he had one.

Pick one. EITHER the Bolshevik party gives a gun to every new member. (Meaning that there are millions of guns in circulation and coming across a current or former comrade with a gun in his briefcase is no big deal. OR the opposite.

As it stands now, this article contradicts itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.38.140.231 (talk) 19:55, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

I strongly doubt that the Bolshevik party ever automatically gave a gun to all new members (as opposed to specific members for specific purposes). AnonMoos (talk) 18:25, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Problems with sources on assassination

I was reading through the article, and noticed that the section describing Nikolayev's background cites only two sources, one from 1945 and the other from 1953. These sources are seventy years old, long predating the opening of the the Soviet archives, which was a game-changer for historiography on the Soviet Union. One of them also appears to be a primary source by a defector who was at the time employed by the US foreign propaganda ministry. While such primary sources can of course be invaluable to historians, they should not be cited at face value on Wikipedia. A later citation in this section is from 1999, which seems much better (though I don't have any knowledge of that particular source).

There has been a massive amount of scholarship on the Great Purge since 1953, and it is really unacceptable to not consult any of it, especially on such an important and politically contentious episode. Nicknimh (talk) 18:11, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

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Alexander Gregory Barmine is overrepresented in the assasination

The details of the assasination are nearly entirely dependent on the memoir of dissident Alexander Gregory Barmine, his "unidentified foreign consul" was identified as Georgs Bisenieks and accused of a connection in the assasination. Elements of the assasination and subsequent trials are missing. Padlocks (talk) 00:41, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

The book by Alexander Gregory Barmine is a valid source. But I would rather not use it with explicit attributions so many times because it just describes details that can be found in many other books on the same subject. My very best wishes (talk) 14:37, 22 April 2024 (UTC)