Talk:Sergei Kirov

message: The number of votes against Stalin appears to be different in different sources. The memoirs of Anastas Mikoyan, chapter 48, available online in Russian  claims 287 votes. Mikoyan credits the information to Olga Shatunovskaya, who chaired a committee investigating Great Purges. Several other Russian webpages (i.e., ) claim 292, also crediting the number to Shatunovskaya committee. I will put 292 into the article for now, since it appears in more sources. If anyone has different information, let me know. 
Another source  makes even more striking claim: Stalin had received a 100 yes votes and 1100 no votes. Stalin's people would then figure out everyone who voted "no" by their handwriting (they had to write in a candidate instead of the vote they were voting against) and those people would be executed during purges. I am not sure about the credibility of the claim and I am not including it because of that. Andris 01:11, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)
In Simon Sebag Montefiore's "Stalin the Court of the Red Tsar" (p. 132) the author states that 166 ballots went missing and that Stalin received somewhere between 123 and 292 negative votes.130.237.175.198 07:31, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The votes against Stalin

message: I added some informations and a link about the huge Kirov's statue that dominated the panorama of the city of Baku from 1939 to 1991. Regards! 
Virgilio 22:06, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The huge Kirov's statue in Baku

message: In the first paragprah the last sentence is: "He became a Marxist and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) in 1904. He was assassinated in 1934."
Next paragraph:
"Becoming a Marxist, he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) in 1904."
Could we remove one of these? Anatoly larkin 02:37, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Repetitive sentences 

message: title and picture caption say sergey, within the article it is sergei. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.187.219.142 (talk) 03:18, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sergei or Sergey? 

message: :We are told of the possibility of a random act of violence. The assassin, Nikolaiyev, had a valid NKVD pass
and had arrranged for the guards in the corridors to disappear. He also arranged for Borisov, Kirov's personal
body guard, to vanish. All this is hardly consistent with a private motive. A good account of Kirov's
death is given by Conquest and Khrushchev, for that matter.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.153.230.157 (talk) 08:24, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alleged 

message: I have changed the trivia section into references in popular culture.
I also removed the sentence "Kirov was a very popular figure during his reign in Leningrad" as it doesn't really fit anywhere and is hard to source. --TheCooperman (talk) 17:07, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trivia 

message: But documents released on Tuesday by Russia's domestic intelligence agency -- including Nikolayev's diary, published with the permission of his son -- painted a picture of a disillusioned Communist Party functionary acting alone, out of bitterness and revenge.
Nikolayev had tried hard to rise to the top of the Leningrad Party hierarchy but instead was told to go and work at a factory in a lower position.
He decided to take revenge on Kirov after he was thrown out of the party for "breaching party discipline", denied treatment in a sanatorium despite having heart problems, and could no longer get food rations available to party apparatchiks.
"You can eat yourself now -- no money, no food," the father of two wrote in his diary. "For themselves, they (party leaders) hold garages with automobiles, for us they have sodden bread." LokiiT (talk) 02:49, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Secret documents released 

message: This whole kriminology here about the assasination is pretty useless...
Let's just simply say that the case has never been fully solved.
And whatever the real background of it all, the important point is that 
it was use as a pretext for the purges.
Also I'm rather amused by the positive portrait of Kirov
(as an opponent of Stalin). In the german Wikipedia he is
depicted as a hardliner, mass murderer and follower of Stalin...! :-) oh well...
Clearly there are issues with the articles (maybe there are just 
subjects for which the Wikipedia concept doesn't work...) I think 
there are more issues with the english version, mostly because of the
style. Anyway. Maybe let's just try to be a bit more sober and neutral in
depicting historical figures. Sometimes saying less is better. 
You know, it's not about making a script 
for a holliwood movie, where the hero has to be either good or bad
[Or then at least I'd recommend to synchronize on which side the 
judgement falls
between Wikipedia versions :-) !]. This here ought to be about history 
and real folks, not Hollywood and entertainment.
greetings, 212.171.245.69 (talk) 10:59, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: 212.171.245.69 should use specific arguments, not broad statements. He should explain how Nikolayev caused the normal guards to vanish.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.71.46 (talk) 15:06, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: 212.171.245.69 -- There's not necessarily any contradiction at all between Kirov being an enthusiastic hard-headed Bolshevik who was perfectly willing to break eggs to make an omelet, and thinking in 1934 that it was time to consolidate past gains rather than to create any new disruptive turbulence (especially within the Party). AnonMoos (talk) 16:11, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bad article... 

message: Regarding BesterRus and (their bolding) "Nikolayev. His diary was unsealed with other documents of the investigation in 2009." Unfortunately, the diary contents have been well known in scholarship since the original Kamenev-Zinoviev trial, as amply documented in David Cole's 1942 ode to Stalin (entertaining reading, I have my own copy). What is of primary importance is that the diary was, per Cole, used as "overwhelming evidence" to pin Kirov's murder on the Trotskyites and to send Kamenev and Zinoviev off to Verkhne-Uralsk—the diary being read in open court at their trial. Eventually both were dispatched in Stalin's subsequent show trials. So, the claim that the diary is new evidence which exonerates Stalin is misinformed at best. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 16:28, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: You're wrong. If it was claimed to be used against Zinoviev, then it wasn't the real one that was used, was it. It's been proven to be a fabricated connection. Because the real one doesn't contain anything related to Zinoviev, neither does it contain anything to do with any secret plot at all. BesterRus (talk) 04:46, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Odd, when Soviet era records suit your needs, they are reliable; when not, they are obvious fabrications. Regardless, we now have a reputable source identified which relates details regarding Kirov's assassination and Stalin's involvement in minute detail. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 19:33, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

text:  Per our detailed source now available, indeed, Nikolaev's diary indeed had no evidence of conspiracy (no mention of any of Stalin's political opposition); when it did not, Stalin had the courts declare the diary a forgery. Fascinating and illuminating reading. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 20:49, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nikolayev's diary is old news 

message: I have to express my thanks for that, I chuckled when I re-read the threads above. He hasn't been on my radar screen for some time now, and from the looks of his home page, he's been quite the busy boy. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 16:54, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Grover Furr" 

message: 1) The section is no doubt not neutrally presented, and skewed heavily towards supporting the WP:FRINGE idea that Kirov was assassinated on orders of Stalin. Most scholars today do not accept this, and consider it a conspiracy theory - in particular as the previous consensus was based on politicized documents now considered fabrications.
2) There are a few relevant citation needed tags, that warrant disputing the sourcing of the entire section as deficient. 
3) A fundamental problem I see is that it conflates NPOV, factual, and non-fringe information on the assassination with non-fringe historical opinion and the fringe conspiracy theories. 
As a sidenote, the attack on "Grover Furr" - regardless on it being correct or not, is not very civil. Lets talk about the content, not the editor. --Cerejota (talk) 20:36, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd like to see the sources supporting your contentions. In my view, it's completely wrong to label as "fringe" the idea that Stalin had a direct role in Kirov's assassination. A number of prominent mainstream scholars (most notably Robert Conquest and Amy Knight, but there are others) have argued forcefully for Stalin's involvement; others have questioned it.I think the general scholarly viewpoint is that no hard-and-fast evidence proves or disproves Stalin's involvement, and thus the case turns on circumstance and the plausibility of Stalin's involvement. Certainly Stalin used Kirov's murder as the pretext to launch the Great Terror, and he benefited from the elimination of the most credible alternative to his personal dictatorship. Those sorts of cui bono considerations lead some historians to conclude that Stalin was most likely involved, while other historians won't be convinced without a signed execution order or simply parse Stalin's motivations differently. Neither view is in any way fringe to my reading. MastCell Talk 20:50, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tagging section on assasination 

message: How can we possibly have an uncited statement about what Nikolaev's diaries say? Either they say this, and it should be cited, or they don't. - Jmabel | Talk 17:09, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Removed. But everything should be seriously improved. My very best wishes (talk) 03:33, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nikolaev's diaries 

message: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-GJazqMZMpQ
87.65.235.14 (talk) 09:11, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article is a conspiracy theory mess 

message: 'In 1921, he became manager of the Azerbaijan party organization. Kirov supported Joseph Stalin loyally, and in 1926 he was rewarded with the command of the Leningrad party.
As a result, Kirov drew the unwelcome attention of Stalin...' Valetude (talk) 17:53, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Doesn't seem to be very well arranged in the article, but as you can read in chapter 5 of Let History Judge (), by 1933 Kirov, without overtly opposing Stalin, called for a certain relaxation of severity and restoration of some normality in rural areas in the aftermath of the disruptions of forced collectivization. In some circles within the Party he seemed to be more popular than Stalin was, and Stalin could have reasonably concluded that he was a potential focus of opposition. AnonMoos (talk) 17:45, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is that, as J. Arch Getty noted all the way back in his 1985 book Origins of the Great Purges, the period preceding Kirov's death was one of relative "liberalization" of Soviet society, in which Stalin played an active part alongside Kirov. Stalin had condemned forced collectivization and excessive zeal in his famous article "Dizzy with Success" in 1930. From all the available evidence since the Soviet archives opened up it appears that Kirov was as much a "hardliner" as Molotov, Kaganovich, Zhdanov and other important "Stalinists." That being said, the article should portray both the "Stalin did it" and "Stalin didn't do it" views, as well as as mentions of the Soviet version of events under Stalin and after him. --Ismail (talk) 07:28, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: The term "liberalization" is a horrible misnomer (and the "Dizzy with Success" piece is notorious for blaming those who had been following Stalin's orders for the problems that resulted from Stalin's policies).  Stalin cut back on large-scale persecutions, in part because the goal of collectivization was on the way to being achieved, but he still treated peasants extremely poorly as a matter of deliberate government policy, and continued to do so as long as he lived (the currency demonetization of 1947 was specifically designed to screw over peasants, to name one example among many), and Soviet agriculture continued to have significant structural problems (which were in part due to the forced-collectivization legacy) well into the 1980s.  There's nothing inconsistent between Kirov being a hard-headed unsqueamish Bolshevik and also wanting to unburden the agriculture sector so that it could fulfill its productive potential (see remark of 16:11, 31 August 2012 above). AnonMoos (talk) 00:43, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non Sequitur 

message: "Some historians place the blame for his assassination at the hands of Stalin and believe the NKVD organised his execution, but any evidence for this claim remains elusive."
The evidence is "elusive?" It's not elusive. It's either there or it isn't. Using these ambiguous terms is in contradiction to that which Wikipedia is trying to achieve. Just reading this sentence makes a reader seriously question the bias of the rest of the article. I suggest this article be read over and rewritten from a non-bias point of view.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.130.155.203 (talk) 09:28, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: What it means is that most of the evidence is circumstantial, and certainly casts suspicion on Stalin, but -- without further direct evidence of certain intermediate links -- would not by itself be sufficient to convict Stalin under most legal systems with a strong rule of law. AnonMoos (talk) 17:31, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Objectivity of the Article 

message: I'm going to try to clean this article up and make it neutral, but why was this article title changed to Sergey? It's mostly Sergei throughout the article, and Commons category is Sergei, and Sergey is not the usual way of transliterating the name. Wikimandia (talk) 15:19, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree... AnonMoos (talk) 00:26, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sergey vs. Sergei? 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Sergey Kirov. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Dear Participants,
Edition of the section Career:
1) added two paragraphs with the short description and quote from the speeches delivered by Kirov on the Party congresses in 1930 and 1934.  Arguable these are two most important in his life. Provided the source. 
2) removed the paragraph with questionable idea taken from the book by Alexander Barmine. It started with very illustrative sentence "Supposedly, Stalin received far more negative votes than Kirov, although the historical records are not entirely clear." I could not find any academic research which supports this idea. It could be restored, if I am wrong. 
Keen to know your opinion. --Armenius vambery (talk) 18:35, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Important changes to the section Career 

message: Riddle me this... 
How come we're told that Kirov's death made Stalin take guns away from party members, guns they originally got FROM the party...
And later, we're ALSO told that the NKVD had to supply Kirov's killer with a gun, and that it was super suspicious that he had one.
Pick one. EITHER the Bolshevik party gives a gun to every new member. (Meaning that there are millions of guns in circulation and coming across a current or former comrade with a gun in his briefcase is no big deal. OR the opposite. 
As it stands now, this article contradicts itself.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.38.140.231 (talk) 19:55, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I strongly doubt that the Bolshevik party ever automatically gave a gun to all new members (as opposed to specific members for specific purposes). AnonMoos (talk) 18:25, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Logic fail 

message: I was reading through the article, and noticed that the section describing Nikolayev's background cites only two sources, one from 1945 and the other from 1953. These sources are seventy years old, long predating the opening of the the Soviet archives, which was a game-changer for historiography on the Soviet Union. One of them also appears to be a primary source by a defector who was at the time employed by the US foreign propaganda ministry. While such primary sources can of course be invaluable to historians, they should not be cited at face value on Wikipedia. A later citation in this section is from 1999, which seems much better (though I don't have any knowledge of that particular source).
There has been a massive amount of scholarship on the Great Purge since 1953, and it is really unacceptable to not consult any of it, especially on such an important and politically contentious episode. Nicknimh (talk) 18:11, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems with sources on assassination 

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thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion 

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message: The details of the assasination are nearly entirely dependent on the memoir of dissident Alexander Gregory Barmine, his "unidentified foreign consul" was identified as Georgs Bisenieks and accused of a connection in the assasination. Elements of the assasination and subsequent trials are missing. Padlocks (talk) 00:41, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: The book by Alexander Gregory Barmine is a valid source. But I would rather not use it with explicit attributions so many times because it just describes details that can be found in many other books on the same subject. My very best wishes (talk) 14:37, 22 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alexander Gregory Barmine is overrepresented in the assasination