Lessons From Uncle Joe

On December 1st, 1934, Leonid Nikolaev walked into the offices of the Smolny Institute located in Leningrad, modern day Saint Petersburg. He was there to see a man named Sergei Kirov, the first secretary of the Leningrad branch of the Communist Party, who he may have suspected of having an affair with his wife. Nikolaev produced a pistol and shot Kirov, leaving him dead.

Most historians mark this event as the beginning of the Great Purge launched by Stalin, lasting into 1938. The dating of these things is always up for debate, but the assassination of Kirov is a convenient starting point. Stalin used this event to justify the first show trial in Moscow. According to Stalin, Nikolaev was not just an unbalanced man seeking revenge, but a member of a wide-ranging conspiracy.