Sergei Kirov

Sergei Mironovich Kirov Сергей Миронович Киров
Born	Sergei Mironovich Kostrikov 27 March 1886 Urzhum, Russian Empire, now Russia
Died	1 December 1934 (aged 48) Leningrad, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, USSR, now Russian Federation
Cause of death	Assassination
Nationality	Russian
Ideology	Marxism-Leninism Bolshevism Anti-revisionism
Political party	RSDLP (Bolsheviks)(1904–1918) All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)(1918–1934)

Sergei Kirov was a Russian revolutionary, old Bolshevik, friend of Stalin and potential successor to Stalin along with Kaganovich. Kirov Oblast, Kirov (City), Kirovohrad Oblast and Kirovohrad were all renamed in his honor.

Assasination

On the afternoon of Saturday, 1 December 1934, Leonid Nikolayev who had connections to the Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites, assassinated Kirov with a revolver. This lead to the uncovering of many underground terrorist cells such as the Trotsky-Zinoviev Center and the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center in the Moscow trials.

Large figures implicated in these terrorist cells include:

• Grigory Zinoviev
• Lev Kamenev
• Nikolai Bukharin
• Leon Trotsky
• Mikhail Tukhachevsky
• Mikhail Tomsky
• Alexei Rykov
• Nikolaj Krestinsky
• Christian Rakovsky
• Genrikh Yagoda
• Akmal Ikramov
• Ivan Smirnov