Kirov Assassinated: Stalin's Purges Begin
Leonid Nikolaev shoots Politburo member Sergei Kirov at the Communist Party headquarters in Leningrad, triggering a wave of purges that eliminates Stalin's rivals and consolidates totalitarian control over the Soviet Union. This assassination provides the pretext for the Great Terror, which decimates the Red Army leadership and silences dissent through mass executions and gulags throughout the late 1930s.
December 1, 1934
92 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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