Gerry Bowler: The Murder of Sergei Kirov and the Start of the Stalinist Purges

Sergei Kirov with Joseph Stalin and his daughter Svetlana in 1934. Kirov’s murder in December of that year was a precursor to Stalin’s Great Purge, in which about a million people perished. Public Domain

Commentary

The assassination of Sergei Kirov on Dec. 1, 1934—despite the fact that he was considered a leading light of the young USSR—was a bellwether for Stalin’s extensive purges that came later.