rouble became an exception." As we now know, Stalin's second wife also publicly rebuked Stalin for the destruction theterror famine was working and she committed suicide in 1932. And on December 1, 1934,Sergei Kirov, the man who in some circles was rumored to be Stalin's heir, wasassassinated in Leningrad on Stalin's orders. Using Kirov's death as an excuse, Stalinsystematically purged the Communist Party of his opponents. Hundreds of party memberswere shot for their alleged complicity in Kirov's death. Kirov was a full member of theruling Politburo and leader of the Leningrad party apparatus as well as an influentialmember of the ruling elite. His overt concern for the welfare of the Leningrad workers andhis skill as an orator earned him considerable popularity. It is doubtful that Kirovrepresented a serious threat to Stalin, however, Kirov did disagree with Stalin on severalkey issues.But Stalin had already begun to doubt the loyalty of the Leningrad party and he looked fora pretext to begin a broad purge. The murder of Kirov was necessary. Although it wasLeonid Nikolaev who committed the assassination, it is now clear that the whole episodehad been, over a period of two years, crafted by Stalin and the NKVD. Stalin, of course,then used the crime as an excuse to introduce severe laws against all political crimes. So,following the death of Kirov at the end of 1934, there began the Soviet witch-hunt whichculminated in the Great Terror of the years 1935-1939. In 1936, Stalin brought his old comrades Zinoviev and Kamenev to a staged public trial.An international press corps was invited to lend a sense of legitimacy to the proceedings.When their trial had ended Zinoviev, Kamenev and fourteen other old Bolsheviks eitheradmitted involvement in the Kirov Affair or signed confessions that had been fabricatedfor them. These men had not been conspirators but they did satisfy Stalin's paranoia. As tobe expected, they were all executed. The confes...
