Stalin полностью

As Kirov lay dead, shot by an assassin at party headquarters in Leningrad, Stalin was in his office at party headquarters in Moscow. Members of the inner circle—Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, Zhdanov—had entered the dictator’s suite on Old Square at 3:05 p.m. When the news from Leningrad arrived, according to Kaganovich, Stalin “was shocked at first.”⁹⁷ Yagoda appeared at 5:50 p.m. and called the Leningrad NKVD twice, likely from Stalin’s office, to inquire whether Nikolayev was wearing foreign clothing (he was not).⁹⁸ Molotov, later in life, recalled that Stalin had rebuked Medved over the phone (“Incompetents!”).⁹⁹ At 6:15, Pauker arrived with his deputy and the Kremlin commandant Rudolf Peterson; ten minutes later, they were dismissed to prepare a special train for that evening. Others began arriving: Kalinin, Mikoyan, and Orjonikidze at 6:20, Andreyev at 6:25, Chubar at 6:30, Yenukidze at 6:45. They all cleared out except for Yagoda, who stayed until 8:10, when Mekhlis (editor of Pravda), Bukharin (Izvestiya), Stetsky (culture and propaganda department), and Mikhail Suslov (a Control Commission functionary) entered, staying ten minutes. Stalin edited the text of a bulletin that would run in central newspapers under the names of all politburo members. “You were dear to us all, comrade Kirov, as a true friend, a true comrade, a dependable comrade-in-arms,” it stated, using the familiar ty (“thou”) inserted by Stalin. “You were always with us in the years of our hard struggles for the triumph of socialism in our country, you were always with us in the years of wavering and trouble inside our party, you lived through all the difficulties of the last years with us. . . . Farewell, our dear friend and comrade, Sergei!”¹⁰⁰

Stalin then held back Yagoda, alone, for twenty minutes, until 8:30 p.m.¹⁰¹ At some point the dictator had drafted a short, vaguely worded law stipulating expedited handling of terrorist cases, with immediate implementation of the death penalty and no right of appeal, which Yenukidze signed as secretary of the Soviet’s central executive committee (and which, subsequently, Kalinin signed as chairman of that body).¹⁰² Leningrad party officials, convening their own meeting in Smolny at 6:00 p.m., drafted their own announcement, formed their own funeral commission, and instructed lower-level party committees to call meetings at factories that very night.¹⁰³

Soviet radio announced Kirov’s murder at 11:30 p.m.; workers heard over factory loudspeakers. Newspaper editors around the country were called. Meanwhile, another coded telegram had arrived from Medved at 10:30 p.m., with a short record of Draule’s interrogation, which had only basic information about her, as if just her role as Nikolayev’s wife was of interest. She was quoted as stressing his sense of grievance. (“From the moment of his party expulsion, he descended into a down mood, waiting the whole time for rectification of his status and reprimand and not wanting to work anywhere.”) A third Medved telegram, forty minutes after midnight, indicating that the NKVD had started analysis of the materials seized in searches, quoted Nikolayev’s “political testament” (letter to the politburo) about his efforts to assassinate Kirov, and reported that his address book contained entries for the German consulate (Herzen Street, 43; telephone, 1-69-82) and the Latvian consulate (telephone, 5-50-63).¹⁰⁴ Yagoda was already on the train with Stalin.

Kaganovich had summoned Khrushchev to lead a Moscow delegation of some sixty party officials and workers. The grandson of a serf and the son of a coal miner, Khrushchev (b. 1894) had attended a village school for four years and become a skilled metalworker in the Donbass town of Yuzovka (the name was changed in 1924 to Stalino), where he had hankered after further study while rising in the apparatus, catching the eye of Kaganovich (then Ukraine party boss), who promoted him to the Ukrainian capital. At the 14th Party Congress, in Moscow in 1925, Khrushchev would later recall, he had encountered Stalin for the first time and was surprised to meet a general secretary with a modest demeanor, proletarian plainness, even abrasiveness—a stirring role model for working-class Communists such as the ambitious Khrushchev. “He dreamed of being a factory director,” one contemporary recalled of Khrushchev. “I’ll go to Moscow, I’ll try to get in the Industrial Academy, and if I do I’ll make a good factory manager.” Thanks to Kaganovich, he had been able to enroll, despite meager academic qualifications. In a mere year and a half, Khrushchev had leapt from the Donbass coal region to Kharkov to Kiev to Moscow. Now he was leading a train, in parallel to Stalin’s train, to Leningrad. Stalin made Kaganovich stay behind in Moscow. Khrushchev recalled tears in Kaganovich’s eyes.¹⁰⁵ Stalin also refused to allow Orjonikidze to go on the train (ostensibly over worries for his weak heart).