On 4 December 1934, with a freezing, damp dawn breaking over Moscow's October railway station, a large delegation of workers, summoned for the occasion by the party, watched in shivering silence as the Red Arrow from Leningrad pulled up and a coffin was lowered onto the platform. Inside was the bullet-scarred body of Sergei Kirov, former Leningrad party chief, Politburo member, and prized orator of the Stalin regime. As workers shouldered the coffin, a group of Kirov's former colleagues, led by Stalin, stepped off the train, doubtless weary after the all-night journey from Leningrad. Their faces, all but hidden in the thick folds of their coat collars and the heavy fur of their hats, were expressionless.
Kirov had been murdered late in the afternoon on 1 December, in the Leningrad party headquarters at the Smolnyi Institute, an imposing neoclassical building that had once been an aristocratic girls' school. That same day, immediately after learning the news of the tragedy, Stalin had ordered several leading party officials to accompany him to Leningrad.
Read Full Article »