Subject: Re: ASSASSINATON OF KIROV Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 19:31:07 -0400 From: martin RyleReply-To: H-Net Russian History list To: H-RUSSIA@H-NET.MSU.EDU Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 12:06:11 -0700 From: Arch Getty -- Walt McIntosh wrote: * Mr. Kreisel is correct when he points out that * Nikolaiev was not acting directly under Stalin's * orders, however Stalin did arrange for this man, who * nursed a deep grievance for being kicked out of the * party, to be systematically incited to the murder as a * protest against bureaucratic injustice. Stalin did * replace the head of Leningrad Security from a Kirov * loyalist to one loyal to Stalin, Stalin did arrange for * Nikolayev's pistol to be returned to him after it was * confiscated in a routine security check. Orlov's * account of Stalin's role in this murder is convincing. This thread has drifted a bit, but under the original rubric of "western knowledge of purges" broadly defined, we might include our knowledge today. Along these lines, I join others who want to set historical records straight. Neither Rogovin nor Orlov are anything like reliable sources on these matters. Rogovin (and Kreisel) take Trotsky's wild and unsuported speculations as historical fact, and we now know that Orlov was wrong on almost every relevant detail. To wit, with apologies for a longish post: On Kirov, and in no particular order: 1. Over the years, there were three, and perhaps four, "blue ribbon" investigations of the Kirov killing. Each was commissioned by the Politburo's General Secretary and each, in true Soviet fashion, started with a desired conclusion in advance. Stalin wanted to pin it on Zinoviev and Trotsky; Khrushchev and Gorbachev wanted to pin it on Stalin and all of them handpicked their investigators accordingly. Having been able to acquaint myself with archival materials from these efforts, it is clear that none of the three investigations produced the desired conclusions. In particular, the Khrushchev and Gorbachev-era efforts involved massive combing of archives and interviews and failed to conclude that Stalin was behind the killing. Stalin's effort, of course, concluded that the opposition did it and was the basis for the Moscow trials. But aside from the incredible confessions of the accused, there was no evidence to support this a priori conclusion either. 2. NKVD chief Yagoda was never Stalin's puppet. Stalin never liked or trusted him, and it was necessary to replace him with Yezhov in 1936 to secure Stalin's control over the police. In 1934, following the Kirov killing, Yagoda was immediately removed from the investigation, which was carried out by two people who were critical and jealous of Yagoda: Iakov Agranov and Nikolai Yezhov. Later events would show that they were in fact eager to smear or even implicate Yagoda: there is good evidence that both in fact wanted his job. Archival documents now show that they conducted a wide-ranging investigation, including interrogations of scores of Leningrad NKVD men about any connections they may have had with assassin Nikolaev. Eventually, Yezhov transferred, demoted, or otherwise censured more than 200 Leningrad NKVD officers for incompetence. If some among them "knew too much about Stalin's involvement" they would have been silenced permanently and, more importantly, immediately. Instead, they were left free for more than two years to tell the tale, whatever it was. None ever did, because there was no tale to tell. For the scenario that Stalin procured the killing through a trusted co-conspirator Yagoda to make sense, it would have been better to leave Yagoda in charge of the post-killing "spin". Instead, his rivals had a free hand. And, would Stalin have launched such a delicate and potentially disastrous operation through someone he didn't trust? 3. Nikolaev was indeed detained by the Leningrad NKVD before he killed Kirov. But it was a routine street stopping of a suspicious loiterer and a quite common practice for NKVD bodyguards. Nikolaev was never searched; no gun was found or confiscated. Nikolaev had owned the gun he used to kill Kirov legally since 1930. It was never "provided" to him by anyone. 4. During Nikolaev's interogation, Agranov, Liushkov, Yezhov and others tried to squeeze out the names of any Leningrad NKVD men Nikolaev knew. They pushed hard, because they (and Stalin) suspected NKVD involvement in the killing because of the ease with which Nikolaev pulled it off. Nikolaev gave two names of chekists he knew only through family connections. The two were hauled in and grilled, but the lead went nowhere. Lots of "outside" (non-Leningrad) NKVD men were involved in these interrogations and investigations; this would have been far too risky if Stalin or Yezhov had anything to hide. The investigation documents indicate that they were probing hard, rather than trying to cover something up. 5. Nikolaev was not stalking Kirov. On the day of the killing, he was in party headquarters trying (unsuccessfully) to get a pass to the regional party conference. Kirov was not expected in the office that day, neither by the party staff or the NKVD, and when he appeared unexpectedly, Nikolaev acted on impulse. 6. A new NKVD staff was indeed appointed to Leningrad before the killing. But this was routine, and anyone familiar with police personnel policies knows that such rotations were routine. Provincial party secretaries frequently protested the out-transfer of NKVD officers they liked or could dominate; Kirov was no different. But this transfer was one among dozens and carries no significance. The NKVD officer, Zaporozhets, that many believe cultivated the assassin Nikolaev, had not even arrived in Leningrad yet and in the months before the shooting was not in the city at all. 7. Nikolaev did not die in a "suspicious traffic accident." (He was tried in secret and shot in December 1934). Kirov's bodyguard did, but for what it's worth the investigation of the accident and the autopsy of the bodyguard in the archives suggest no foul play. And at the time, Agranov and Yezhov were looking for NKVD foul play. In sum, the assassin was an unbalanced and frustrated nobody: a "disappointed office-seeker", as they say. He was a paranoid who carried a gun and went from office to office looking for work, but the word was out on him and he never got a good job. He was mad at the world. At his trial, he was clearly disoriented and babbled a variety of stories about his wife's family, secret chests of conspiratorial documents buried in the woods, his friends among the opposition and his own sad past. He was allowed to ramble on from topic to topic, and if he had been aimed at Kirov by someone, this could/would have come out in his ravings. If there were such a terrible secret, he would have not been allowed to prattle on. On the other hand, Nikolaev had friends among former Leningrad oppositionists (who admitted knowing him and vice-versa). Some of the Leningrad oppositionists admitted that Nikolaev had long wanted to kill somebody in authority: anybody. Nikolaev also had suspicious foreign connections: he was able to pick the Latvian consul out of a spread of photographs at his interrogation. This made him an ideal tool for Stalin who, surprised at the assassination, quickly found a way to turn it to his political advantage against his political enemies. Even so, Nikolaev failed to fulfill this program: he didn't directly incriminate Zinoviev, Kamenev, or Trotsky. If this had been Stalin's plan from the beginning (i.e., before the killing), he would have found a better tool or would have faked or forged Nikolaev's testimony. He didn't. Admittedly, much of this evidence is ambiguous and can be read in different ways. But the stories adduced by Trotsky, Rogovin, and Orlov are among the least probable, in terms of the facts we have, and require the greatest leaps in logic. Sometimes the simplest and most obvious explanations are the best. Arch Getty getty@ucla.edu