![]() ![]() Supposedly, acting on orders from Stalin’s exiled rival Leon Trotsky, they had plotted to murder Stalin, to hand Soviet territory over to Nazi Germany, and to restore capitalism in Russia. In a series of trials that were publicized around the world, some of the oldest and most trusted Bolshevik leaders-men who, with Lenin, had led the Russian Revolution-were accused of being traitors. During the next four years, it metastasized into a conspiracy-hunt that claimed to expose shocking villainy at the highest levels of Russia’s government, military, and industry. ![]() ![]() But the official investigation came to quite different conclusions. Today, most historians agree that it was Joseph Stalin himself who ordered the murder, in order to eliminate a potential rival. How did the killer get his pistol? Who had called off the bodyguards who usually surrounded Kirov at all times? ![]() The assassin, an unemployed man who had been expelled from the Party and bore a grudge against its leadership, was apprehended on the spot, but the case still raised questions. On December 1, 1934, Sergei Kirov, the head of the Communist Party in Leningrad, was shot and killed in the hallway outside his office. ![]()
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