 | The Kirov Murder and Soviet History Subjects: Kirov Sergei Mironovich 1886–1934 -- Assassination; Stalin Joseph 1879–1953; Kommunisticheskaia partiia Sovetskogo Soiuza -- Purges; Political purges -- Soviet Union -- History; Political atrocities -- Soviet Union -- History; Soviet Union -- History; Drawing on hundreds of newly available, top-secret KGB and party Central Committee documents, historian Matthew E. Lenoe reexamines the 1934 assassination of Leningrad party chief Sergei Kirov. Joseph Stalin used the killing as the pretext to unleash the Great Terror that decimated the Communist elite in 1937-1938; these previously unavailable documents raise new questions about whether Stalin himself ordered the murder, a subject of speculation since 1938. The book includes translations of 125 documents from the various investigations of the Kirov murder, allowing readers to reach their own conclusions about Stalin's involvement in the assassination. Matthew Lenoe is associate professor of history at the University of Rochester. |
