Alternative History
Generalissimus
Sergei Kirov
Серге́й Ки́ров
Sergey Kirov portrait
1st Chairman of the State Defense Committee of the Soviet Union
In office
June 30, 1941 – January 10, 1956
DeputyMikhail Yefremov (1941–50)
Anastas Mikoyan (1950–54)
Panteleimon Ponomarenko (1954–56)
Preceded byoffice established
Succeeded byPanteleimon Ponomarenko
5th Premier of the Soviet Union
In office
September 7, 1939 – January 10, 1956
Preceded byAlexei Rykov
Succeeded byPanteleimon Ponomarenko
Full member of the Politburo
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
In office
March 15, 1934 – January 10, 1956
Personal details
Born Sergei Mironovich Kostrikov
March 27, 1886(1886-03-27)
Urzhum, Vyatka Governorate, the Flag of Russia Russian Empire
Died January 10, 1956(1956-01-10) (aged 69)
Moscow, the Russian SFSR, the Flag of the Soviet Union (1923-1955) Soviet Union
Political party All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks)
Spouse(s) Maria Lvovna Markus (m. 1911; d. 1950)
Children Yevgenia Kostrikova
Occupation Revolutionary, politician
Religion Irreligion (Atheism)

Sergei Mironovich Kirov (Russian: Серге́й Миро́нович Ки́ров; March 15 [March 27 N.S.], 1886 – January 10, 1956), born Sergei Mironovich Kostrikov, was a Soviet communist revolutionary and politician. He was the informal leader of the Soviet Union and the Soviet Communist Party from 1934 until his death in 1956.

Kirov was an early revolutionary in the Russian Empire; he became an Old Bolshevik as he joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Relatively a minor leader the time of Russian Revolution, Kirov rose rapidly through the Communist Party ranks in the 1920s when he served as leader of Azerbaijani Communist Party. He slowly managed to consolidate power following the 15th Party Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in 1927 after being elected as the head of the Party Central Control Commission and the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate. He ascended into the top Soviet leadership after got elected to head the Leningrad party organization, replacing Grigory Zinoviev who had expelled from the Politburo on the 17th Party Congress in 1934.

With his influential power base on Leningrad, the position as the head of Party Control Commission-Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate that supervised the Soviet bureaucracy, and his charismatic personality that highly popular with the party cadres, Kirov rapidly gained prominence among other Politburo members by the 1930s. By the end of the 1930s, Kirov solidified his position as de facto leader of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union after being re-elected to the Politburo with only five negative votes at the 18th Party Congress in 1939.

Kirov was one of early members of Montagnard faction (Монтаньяры, Montan’yary) within the AUCP, named so because its initial figures, including Kirov, such as Sergo Ordzhonikidze and Anastas Mikoyan, were based or rose in power in the Caucasus regional party organizations. Kirov and other Montagnards adopted a pragmatic, populist and centrist position between ultra-left Leon Trotsky and gradualist Nikolai Bukharin. Kirov favored rapid industrialization like Trotsky, but restrained from implementing strict social controls on the Soviet population, favoring more relaxed approach. Unlike Bukharin, Kirov favored more aggressive foreign policy which, however, aiming at the territorial security of the union rather than motivated ideologically by communism like Trotsky.

Kirov was mostly remembered for his leadership on World War II where he led the country, together with the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan as allies against the Axis powers. Despite heavy human and territorial losses, Soviet forces managed to halt the German offensive after the decisive Battles of Moscow and Stalingrad. After defeating the Axis powers on the Eastern Front, the Red Army captured Berlin in May 1945, effectively ending the war in Europe for the Allies. The Soviet Union subsequently emerged as one of the world superpowers along with the United States and Japan.

Biography[]

Early life[]

Kirov child

Kirov as a child, 1893.

Born on March 27, 1886 in Urzhum, Vyatka Governorate, the Russian Empire, Sergei Mironovich Kostrikov was one of seven children born to Miron Ivanovich Kostrikov and Yekaterina Kuzminichna Kostrikova (née Kazantseva). Anna (born 1883), Sergei (1886), and Yelizaveta (1889) were the last of their four children to live. Around 1890, Miron, an alcoholic, left the family, and Yekaterina died of tuberculosis in 1893. Melania Avdeyevna Kostrikova, Sergei's paternal grandmother, raised him and his sisters for a short time, but she could not afford to care for them all on her small monthly pension of 3 rubles. Melania used her connections to get Sergei placed in an orphanage when he was seven years old, but he still visited his sisters and grandmother on a regular basis.

In 1901, a group of prominent philanthropists provided Sergei with a scholarship to attend an industrial school at Kazan. Sergei went to Tomsk, Siberia, after completing his engineering degree, and became a Marxist, joining the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1904. He lived in Tomsk and worked as a printer for revolutionary literature. He also participated in organizing of a successful railway workers' strike. Sergei was imprisoned during the Russian Revolution of 1905 and later joined the Bolsheviks after being released. In 1906, he moved to Moscow, but was caught again; this time he was imprisoned for more than three years on charges of printing illegal publications.

Russian revolution 1917

The Great October Socialist Revolution on November 7, 1917 according to New Style Calendar.

After a year in custody, Kirov moved to the Caucasus, where he stayed until the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II after the February Revolution in March 1917. During these years, he met his wife, Maria Lvovna Markus, in 1911, although they never formally registered their marriage. By this time, Kirov had shortened his last name from Kostrikov to Kirov, a practice common among Russian revolutionaries of the time. Kirov began using the pen name "Kir," first publishing under the pseudonym "Kirov" on April 26, 1912. One account states that he chose the name Kir, the Russian version of Cyrus, after a Christian martyr in third century Egypt from an Orthodox calendar of saints' days, and Russifying it by adding an -ov suffix. A second story is that Kirov based it on the name of the ancient Persian king Cyrus the Great.

Before joined the Bolsheviks, Kirov initially sided with the Mensheviks, same with Leon Trotsky, Adolf Joffe, and Alexandra Kollontai, and even supported the Russian Provisional Government in the aftermath of the 1917 February Revolution. When the Bolsheviks revolted against the Provisional Government in October 1917, Kirov switched side and joined Lenin's Bolshevik cause. Kirov denied an accusation of him being "disloyal" to Bolshevism and accused him being an opportunist throughout his lifetime. However, during the 1990s, relaxed censorship resulted to further historical research on Kirov's biography which indeed confirmed his changing political positions prior to the October Revolution.

Kirov, Ordzhonikidze, Mikoyan and Yefremov in Baku, 1920

Sergei Kirov, Sergo Ordzhonikidze, Anastas Mikoyan, and Mikhail Yefremov in Baku, 1920.

Kirov became commander of the Bolshevik military administration in Astrakhan, and fought for the Red Army in the Russian Civil War until 1920. He was elected to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets in 1918 representing the Terek Soviet. As one of the primary representatives of Soviet power in the Caucasus, Kirov started the smuggling of fuel and oil from Baku, which was under British occupation, into the Astrakhan. In addition to serving on several diplomatic missions, alongside Anastas Mikoyan and Sergo Ordzhonikidze, Kirov helped the Soviet power strengthen its dominance in Transcaucasia, including Georgia and Azerbaijan. For example, he liberally used bloodletting to enforce Bolshevik rule in Astrakhan, resulting in the deaths of over 4,000 people.

Bolshevik career[]

In Baku (1921–1926)[]

Oil Field Baku 1926

Kirov played an important role in the recovery of petroleum industry in Baku, Azerbaijan, pictured here in 1926.

In 1921, Kirov was elected as the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan. In this capacity, he helped to organize the Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. Transcaucasia was later incorporated as a constituent state of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922. In his capacity as the First Secretary of the Azerbaijani Communist Party, Kirov was in charge of overseeing the nation's oil industry's recuperation and reconstruction. Together with the Azerbaijan premier, Gazanfar Musabekov, Kirov worked to expand the Azerbaijan's petroleum industry to become an economic backbone of the newly founded USSR.

Kirov was elected to the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party during the 12th Party Congress in 1923. During factional struggles in the immediate aftermath of Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924, Kirov was initially non-factional and mostly neutral. During this period, the party witnessed a power struggle between Leon Trotsky, the People's Commissar for Military Affairs, on one side and Lev Kamenev, the Soviet deputy premier, and Grigory Zinoviev, the Comintern chairman. As a regional leader, Kirov was wooed by both sides during the 13th Party Congress. At the end, Kirov sided with Kamenev and Zinoviev on the idea of implementing socialism on a national scale over Trotsky's world revolution idea.

However, factional struggles further erupted in the 14th Party Congress in 1925 in which economic issues took precedence over all matters discussed. Nikolai Bukharin rallied supports to counter Kamenev-Zinoviev's effort to end the semi-capitalist New Economic Policy. This time, Kamenev and Zinoviev were joined by Trotsky to defeat Bukharin's arguments on the necessity of capitalist stage of historical development in the USSR, arguing the country was more than ready to advance toward socialist industry. Trotsky commented that the NEP was detrimental to the development of a proletarian state as it fostered a class of traders ("NEPmen") whom the Communists regarded as "class enemies" of the working class, arguing for the adoption of fully planned economy. Again, Kirov sided with Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Trotsky on their arguments and was elected to the Central Committee as a part of the governing majority which adopted a resolution effectively abandoning the NEP.

Kirov's political position was further developed during the 15th Party Congress in 1926 in which he involved a debate on the question of nationality policies. Trotsky criticized the increasing centralization of powers in the USSR and called for the breaking up of Turkestan and Transcaucasia into smaller constituent republics as well as recognizing the Ukrainian national identity in Malorussia. Ordzhonikidze, in his capacity as the First Secretary of Transcaucasian Communist Party, insisted that the breaking up of two republics would result to the emergence of "nationalist deviations." Kirov and Anastas Mikoyan took a floor defending this position, arguing for the pursuit of economic development should triumph over cultural one. From this point on, the three would banded together as a political faction of its own.

Rabkrin and Central Control Commission (1926–1929)[]

Kirov on the Leningrad Party Conference 1925

Kirov on a party-related function, with Nikolai Bukharin on his left and Vyacheslav Molotov on his right, 1925.

In 1926, Kirov was promoted as the People's Commissar of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate ("Rabkrin") concurrently as the Chairman of the Central Control Commission. He initially rejected the appointment as he did not want to leave Baku, but was assured by Bukharin and Ordzhonikidze to take up the job. As the head of Rabkrin, Kirov was responsible to push for industrial and military efficiency, while as the head of the Control Commission, he can enforce the strict party discipline and had powers to expel or punish members who were deemed to violate the Party rule. Under his leadership, Kirov reduced the powers of the OGPU, the Soviet secret police, to persecute the government and party members and relegated such responsibility solely to his own agencies.

Rabkrin under Kirov also involved in a three-way power struggle with the State Planning Committee (Gosplan), led by Yevgeni Preobrazhensky, and the People's Commissariat for Finance (Narkomfin), led by Nikolai Kondratiev. Preobrazhensky played major role in driving industrialization process in the country by set quotas of grains to be requisitioned from the peasants increasingly greater every year. It drew criticisms from Kirov and Kondratiev who deemed Gosplan has done excessive harms to the peasants. Narkomfin, on other hand, let the peasants to sell their grains abroad and to be taxed to fund industrialization, either as progressive tax or export tax. Kirov disliked Narkomfin’s action, believing it weakened the party’s control over economic decision-making by placing market mechanism at the helm of industrialization. Kirov constantly investigated both agencies and pushed them for greater industrial growth as well as military expansion.

After touring the country to observe the industrialization process, Kirov received numerous complaints from the peasants about heavily-burdening grain quotas set by Gosplan. He kept trying to remove Preobrazhensky from office, but was repeatedly overruled by the Politburo controlled by Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Trotsky who backed the latter. It set the first power struggle between Kirov and the ruling troika when he delivered a scathing criticism to the latter three in a session of the Control Commission in 1928. Further struggles continued in the 16th Party Congress in 1929, when the Congress made the Control Commission subjugated under the Central Committee, abolishing its equal status to each other. However, Kirov survived on his post and he had already built his own power base in the party control organ.

Power struggle (1929–1934)[]

HolodomorKharkiv 1933 Wienerberger

Starved peasants on a street in Kharkiv, 1933.

With the troika’s blessings, Preobrazhensky stepped up his actions further as he desired to destroy rich peasants which were viewed as “class enemies.” By 1929, grain requisitions were replaced by collectivization program in which the peasants were driven to join collective farms (kolkhozes). Individual peasants were forced to give up their lands to these collectives. Farms were modernized with modern equipment purchased from the West to maximize production. Despite the initial plans, collectivization, accompanied by the bad harvest of 1932–33, did not live up to expectations. Between 1929 and 1932 there was a massive fall in agricultural production resulting in famine in the countryside. Discontented peasants rebelled against the government's forced collectivization, sometimes resulting in armed resistances.

Bukharin and Kirov resented the idea of “all-out war” to the peasantry. The two believed the troika's policies have led to the excessive repressions. They were joined by Mikhail Kalinin, Alexei Rykov, Sergo Ordzhonikidze, and Anastas Mikoyan in an effort to topple the ruling troika. Bukharin and Kirov drew separate different platforms. Bukharin’s platform emphasized the necessity to end agricultural exploitations and returned to progressive taxation, while Kirov’s one emphasized on the different approach of collectivization through incentives and de-bureaucratization in order to get more peasants joining the collectives. However, they both agreed to drive Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Trotsky out of power first and synchronized their platforms into a joint oppositional platform criticizing the ruling troika of “severe mismanagement.”

Л. Д. Троцкий, Л. Б. Каменев и Г. Е. Зиновьев

The triumvirate of Leon Trotsky, Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev was removed from power by a joint opposition led by Bukharin-Kirov in 1934.

Bukharin's faction was soon named as the Testudianists (Тестудинисты Testudinisty) after Trotsky ridiculed Bukharin for trying to achieve "socialism at a turtle's pace" (социализм черепашьим шагом sotsializm cherepash'im shagom); the word testudo means "turtle" in Latin. Bukharin’s platform was supported by Kalinin, Rykov and Mikhail Tomsky. On other hand, Kirov's faction was referred as the Montagnards (Монтаньяры, Montan’yary), a French word for "mountain people”. It was named because its prominent members, Kirov, Ordzhonikidze, Mikoyan, and Mikhail Yefremov, were or started their careers from the mountainous Transcaucasian region as well as to allude the radical left-wing group during the French Revolution of 1789.

During the 18th Party Congress in 1934, Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Trotsky received a series of attacks from Bukharin, Kalinin, Kirov and Ordzhonikidze, and were blamed entirely for the socio-economic crisis across the country. The three were removed entirely as the full members of the Politburo. Zinoviev and Trotsky lost their seats at all, while Kamenev was demoted to be a non-voting member. Bukharin, Kirov, Rykov, Ordzhonikidze, and Janis Rudzutaks became the full members of the Politburo, while Tomsky, Kalinin, Mikoyan, Molotov, and Nikolai Uglanov gained non-voting status. Kamenev was replaced as the Soviet premier by Rykov, Zinoviev was removed and replaced by Bukharin as the Comintern chairman and Kirov as the Leningrad party secretary, while Trotsky was replaced by Yefremov for Defense and Yan Gamarnik for Navy. Preobrazhensky was quickly replaced by Valery Mezhlauk as the head of Gosplan.

Rise to power[]

In Leningrad (1934–1937)[]

Академик И. Павлов в гостях у С

Kirov on his office at the Smolny Institute, Leningrad, in audience with psychologist Ivan Pavlov, ca. 1931.

Like with his appointment to Rabkrin, Kirov showed a great reluctance on his appointment to Leningrad. However, he was assured by Bukharin to take the job after being guaranteed he would not be relieved from Rabkrin-PCC. Between 1934–1939, he would flew back and forth Moscow and Leningrad every two months while his deputy Vyacheslav Molotov stayed in Moscow to take care Rabkrin's jobs for him. He investigated and expelled many party and government officials which deemed responsible for the violent excess of industrialization. As the First Secretary of Leningrad Communist Party, Kirov rooted Zinoviev's supporters out the Leningrad's party and the government organizations and oversaw the implementation of industrialization process in the region.

Unlike his colleagues in Moscow, Kirov was visible to the common people, discussing openly with them and accepting critics and complaints from the workers and the peasants. He would visited factories and villages to convince the people to support industrialization. He refrained from using intimidations on the peasants to be collectivized and would coerced them to join the kolkhozes with incentives where the ones who joined would be taxed lesser than the ones who did not. By this, he closed the gap between the Party and the people, settling every Leningrad locals' concerns by himself, such as housing problems, employment, pension, or if they wanted to enter higher education. Many commoners frequently visited his office in the Smolny Institute, either to voice their concerns or to seek his counsels on certain issues. However, Kirov also utilized a great number of penal labour to be used for the Ladoga–Baltic Canal construction. He regularly contacted Genrikh Yagoda, the chief of Soviet secret police, to provide him with inmates to work for the construction.

In his work in Leningrad, Kirov was aided by Filipp Medved, the head of local OGPU, Ivan Kodatsky, the head of Leningrad government, and Nikolai Voznesensky, as the Second Secretary and the head of local Control Commission; all of them would be promoted to higher party posts when Kirov ascended to the power later. Although he initially purged the Leningrad party out of Zinoviev’s supporters, he quickly reviewed their files and re-accepted several of them back to the party structure in 1935, even giving them several official appointments. Gifts and bribes were delivered to his office regularly by people who needed Kirov's favor, mostly seeking for the political appointments in the government. This style of leadership made him widely popular in Leningrad and contrasted him with other Politburo members who tended to succumb into bureaucratic affairs in Moscow and further alienated them from the population.

Kirov and Tukhachevsky, ca

Sergei Kirov and Mikhail Tukhachevsky, ca. 1934.

Like several party leaders at this period, Kirov engaged in the debaucheries throughout his life. During his time in Leningrad, Kirov was openly rumored to be a womanizer and had numerous relationships with younger women. Although close to numerous female party and government secretaries as well, he was especially fond of ballerinas from the Mariinsky Theatre, which would be renamed as the Kirov Theatre in 1935. Kirov would recommending many party leaders in Moscow with the troupe of young and beautiful women, most notably to Soviet head of state Mikhail Kalinin, Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, and Central Executive Committee secretary Avel Yenukidze, to gain other leaders' favors and political supports.

At that time, the political leadership of the USSR was concentrated on the triumvirate of Rykov (government), Bukharin (ideology), and Janis Rudzutaks (party). Rykov was widely seen as the overall leader of the USSR as he chaired the meetings of the Politburo and addressed key reports to the Central Committee between 1934–1937. However, Kirov's rise to political prominence became more evident as he quietly purged ideological rivals through Rabkrin-PCC. His friendship with Mikhail Tukhachevsky also greatly influenced his political outlook. Tukhachevsky was a proponent of mechanization of the Red Army which required further industrialization and military readiness. He believed the Soviet Union needs to be a military superpower to able defending itself in a future war against any aggressors. The marshal sought to increase the government spending in a military buildup following the Nazi takeover of power in Germany in 1934 and viewed industrial capacity of the USSR had lagged behind Germany and other Western nations, especially after the removals of the troika.

Consolidation of powers (1937–1941)[]

Hitler and Mussolini, Close Up Image

The rise of fascism in Europe in the mid-1930s led by Adolf Hitler (left) and Benito Mussolini (right) became the main issue in the 19th Congress of the Bolshevik Party.

The issue of rising fascist waves across Europe dominated the 19th Party Congress in 1937. By this time, the Falangist Party led by José Antonio Primo de Rivera assumed power in Spain in June 1935, Italy had invaded Ethiopia in October 1935, the Rhineland was remilitarized by the Nazi regime in March 1936 and a civil war between the Republicans supported by the Soviets and the Nationalists supported by Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Falangist Spain has started to aggravate Greece. In East Asia, the hundreds of the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean communists were arrested en masse and their organizations were violently repressed by the respective national governments.

In referring to this international development, Kirov told the Congress delegates that the USSR was in a grave danger. He referred the USSR as the "sole fortress of communism", which its national interests then became "inseparably entangled" with the interests of international communism as the fascist parties and movements gradually pushed for an another global war. Therefore, the USSR must prepare itself with a military-oriented industrialization through a command economy similar with Civil War-era War Communism. It was become clear during the Congress a sentiment for military readiness has prevailed among the party's file-and-rank. Neither Rykov or Bukharin tried to challenge Kirov's arguments for a greater industrialization and a return to War Communism. Kirov's speech was affirmed by the majority of the delegates and received standing ovation

Bolshevik leader sergei mironovich kirov speaking at the 17th congress of the all-union communist party of bolsheviks in february 1934

Kirov addressed the delegates of the 19th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party in 1937.

Kirov was re-elected to the Central Committee and the Politburo with only three negative votes, while his allies, Mikoyan and Tukhachevsky, were able to become full Politburo members. Rudzutaks was demoted as a candidate member and replaced by Pavel Postyshev as the First Secretary, effectively placing the party structure under Kirov's control. Rykov was spared to continue nominally lead the Soviet government, although Kirov replaced him as the head of the Russian government. Kirov also started to chair the Politburo meetings instead of Rykov and was referred as the "Chief" (вождь vozhd). He also removed powerful chief of the secret police, Genrikh Yagoda, whose presence Kirov felt uneasy with, which was replaced by his protégé Filipp Medved. With the overall control of the party, the government, the military, and the secret police through his clique, Kirov's consolidation of power was complete and his leadership was undisputed.

Economic policy[]
Soviet propaganda poster on military industrialization in the 1930s

A propaganda poster saying "Let's defend the USSR. Replace the tractor with tanks and guns", ca. 1938.

Following his ascendancy to power, Kirov launched a rapid military-oriented industrialization in 1937. Kirov's protégé, Nikolai Voznesensky, was in charge of Gosplan, although Mezhlauk remained the official head of the body. The remnants of the market mechanism was entirely abandoned and a meticulous and heavy economic planning was fully implemented to prevent wastefulness. The powers of factory managers were increased and they received privileges from the state and the party to maintain work disciplines in the all aspects of industry. Coal, steel, iron, and armored vehicles were prioritized over consumer goods which aimed to prepare any military conflict. Industrial centers, which were historically located in the western regions, were shifted eastward to the Urals, the Volga region, Siberia and Central Asia to prevent them from being captured from Europe.

Modernization and collectivization of agriculture were pushed to increase outputs in grain and other food stuffs. Individual peasants, especially kulaks, were required to join large-scale collective farms, while were allowed them to keep private land plots not exceeding 2 hectare for each household. A refusal to join could risk being executed, deported, or sent to labor camps. Tractors and trucks were distributed to the collectives to implement latest scientific methods of agriculture. In 1938, Anastas Mikoyan and Nikita Khrushchev were dispatched by Kirov to the United States to study modern agricultural practices. They were personally received by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace who himself owned successful hybrid corn and egg-laying chicken companies and learned about agricultural innovations and food industry in the United States. On their return, they introduced numerous American foods, including hamburgers, ice cream, and tomato juice, to the Soviet public.

Caviar 001

Soviet caviar is one of the highly prized products sold to the West.

Soviet trade with the Western nations, especially the United States, was at its peak during this period. Kirov believed Western technologies and technical knowledge would be helpful for industrialization. Through businessman Armand Hammer, the Soviet government was able to struck deals with several American as well as international companies to provide heavy industrial machinery and manufacturing components to build factories for producing tractors, trucks and electrical appliances. In exchange, the Soviet Union exported grain, butter, petroleum, and timber as well as high-quality luxury items, such as caviar, vodka, furs, and jewelry, to the American distributors. The Soviets also sold arts appropriated from pre-revolutionary Russian nobilities to the Americans. As the government reinforced monopoly in foreign trade, private actors were banned to involve and profits gained from these business conducts were directly used to fund the industrialization.

Forced labour was began to be employed extensively. Labour discipline was strengthened countrywide and anyone who against it were called "saboteurs" and could be arrested arbitrarily. The Komsomol members and Red Army soldiers were required to do "voluntary work" in the manufacturing industries for a week every month. The so-called "social parasites", such as the members of old nobility, former Mensheviks, former Esers, anarchists, suspected ethnic nationalists, work absentees, petty criminals, and alcoholics, were rounded up to the Gulag prison camps by the OGPU secret police. They were forced to work in harsh conditions, such as in Siberia and the Far East, often to the point of death, on construction projects, in mines, and in timber production. Massive public work projects, including the Palace of the Soviets and the Volga–Don Canal, used this forced labour to complete the infrastructures.

Vorkuta a

Vorkutlag, located 160 km above the Arctic Circle, was one of the largest penal labour camps in the Soviet Union.

Industrialization also prompted extensive urban growth. As the countryside was wrecked by the campaigns of collectivization and grain requisitioning, the peasants abandoned farming and settled in the urban regions. By the end of the 1930s, the urban labour force increased by 12.5 million people, of whom 8.5 million were migrants from rural areas, resulting the unlimited supply of cheap labour. With the onset of industrialization and rapid urbanization, the consumption fund, and as a result, the standard of living of the population, has sharply decreased and slums plagued the cities and towns. By the end of 1940, the rationing system was extended to almost all food products and there were often long queues to buy them. The shortage of breads and other food stuffs resulted to the widespread dissatisfaction among the citizens toward Kirov's economic polices.

Socio-cultural policy[]
Soviet anti-alcoholism poster, 1938

Soviet poster on anti-alcohol campaign, 1938.

During Kirov's era, social conservatism was promoted to enhance social discipline; this included a focus on strong family units and motherhood, re-criminalization of homosexuality, and restrictions on abortion and divorce. Feminist activisms were strongly discouraged by the Party and referred as a "bourgeoisie endeavor". Kirov launched several social campaigns targeted against alcoholism, prostitution, and cultural backwardness. Born with an alcoholic father, Kirov prohibited the sale of vodka in public spaces, limited its sale to restaurants only, and cracked down moonshining practices. Healthy lifestyle was preached to the villagers and industrial workers, while social drinking was frowned upon and its participants, especially in the North Caucasus region, were subjected to humiliation in public rallies organized by the Russian Komsomol.

Nationalist sentiment among ethnic minorities was suppressed. Previously, the Soviet government promoted the policy of korenizatsiya aiming to blossom cultural and linguistic identities in the respective nationalities, such as the Ukrainians, the Letts, and the Byelorussians. However, by 1937, it was partially reversed with Kirov's propagation of Russianization among the non-Russian population of the Russian SFSR. Non-Russians who refused Russianization were denounced and sometimes arrested as "bourgeois nationalists". Although minority languages were keep to be taught to increase literacy, Russian became a compulsory subject in every Russian, and later Soviet, school at this period. The elements of pre-revolution Russian nationalism were incorporated into the Russian government's propaganda, while Russian historical figures were re-appropriated for glorification.

Mladorossi gathering 1930s

The activists of the Union of Mladorossi, a pro-Soviet monarchist, later nationalist, organization among the White emigre community.

The shift on cultural policy was welcomed by some elements within the White émigré. The groups, such as the Mladorossi, the Evraziitsi, and the Smenovekhovtsy, started to openly adopt pro-Soviet sympathies and voiced their supports to Kirov's policies. On November 29, 1938, the representatives of these groups were invited for a meeting with Kirov and Tukhachevsky in the Kremlin. They were including Pyotr Suvchinsky, Lev Karsavin, Dmitry Svyatopolk-Mirsky (Evraziitsi), Nikolai Ustryalov, Alexei Tolstoy (Smenovekhovtsy), and Alexander Kazembek (Mladorossi). They were coopted by Kirov to mobilize pro-Soviet supports and foment anti-German sentiments among White Russians overseas and worked in payroll as the government agents. Their range of operation covered the entirety of Europe.

Karsavin would play a significant role in mobilizing pro-Soviet resistance in Lithuania during World War II and became the deputy head of state in the post-war Lithuanian communist regime in 1944. Tolstoy would be elected as the Chairman of the USSR Writers Union until his death in 1945 and produced significant number of works with patriotic themes throughout the war. Mirsky would be recruited by the Red Army's General Staff as a civilian advisor during the Soviet occupation of western China between 1945–1949. Kazembek became Kirov's personal emissary to Italy prior to the outbreak of Operation Barbarossa in 1941 and later served as the Soviet ambassador for Italy between 1947–1950.

Foreign policy[]
Soviet-finnish-nonaggression-pact (protokol 1934)

Foreign Commissar Maxim Litvinov and Finnish Foreign Minister Aarno Yrjö-Koskinen signed a non-aggression pact in 1934, which would be reversed by Kirov in 1939.

Kirov and Bukharin turned the Comintern away from Zinoviev's thesis of Social Fascism toward a popular front policy. For them, an alliance between the communist parties across the world with the democratic non-communist workers' and national bourgeoisie parties was necessary. For this job, Bulgaria's Georgi Dimitrov and Germany's Wilhelm Pieck were tasked to purge the Comintern organization from Zinoviev's protégés and encouraged communist parties worldwide to cooperate with the social democrats and middle-class parties to contain fascism.

At this period, the Soviet foreign policy was divided into two schools of thought: collective security school, espoused by Foreign Commissar Maxim Litvinov, and territorial security school, espoused by Defense Commissar Mikhail Tukhachevsky. Litvinov wanted the Soviets to ally closer with the Western nations, such as France and the United Kingdom, and join international alliances, including the League of Nations, to contain the spread of fascism. Tukhachevsky, on other hand, wanted the Soviets to strengthen its own territorial security by returning to the old imperial borders and zone of influences. Furthermore, Litvinov's proposal for international disarmament gained him a great enmity from Tukhachevsky and other high-ranking Red Army leaders who sought to increase combat readiness instead. Litvinov's actions were backed by Bukharin, while Tukhachevsky's views were shared by Kirov. Litvinov's school initially prevailed over Tukhachevsky's prior to the escalation of conflicts in Europe in 1939.

Montreux Conference 1936

Montreux Conference of 1936 recognized Turkish control of the the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits.

The Soviets also engaged in close military cooperation with Turkey and Bulgaria during this period, mostly due to the effects of the Greek Civil War. In 1936, the Soviets had recognized Turkey's control of the the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, allowing the remilitarization in the regions. The Soviet war supplies to the Greek Republicans were then allowed to pass through the Turkish territories, mostly because of Turkey's fear of a possible victory of the Greek Nationalists which would be hostile to them. Throughout the late 1930s, the Soviets secretly aided traditionally Russophile Bulgaria to develop the latter's military powers, in violation of the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine, to counter the growing fascist influence in the Balkan region through the conflicts in Greece. Kirov maintained contacts with Mussolini's Italy despite both officially supported the opposing sides at the Greek war.

Despite Litvinov's attempts to establish collective security arrangement with the West, the Western nations were viewed to be reluctant to ally with the Soviets. Instead, France and the United Kingdom attempted to appease Germany through the Munich Agreement in 1938, in hope that will avoid war between great powers. This move was viewed with a great contempt by the Soviet leaders. Kirov and Tukhachevsky began to doubt whether an alliance with the West can work and instead turned to an "independent solution" in preparing national defense for a possible German invasion. In August 1939, in diplomatic talks with France and Britain, Kirov insisted through the Soviet diplomats that a political turn towards Germany by Finland and the Baltic states would constitute an "indirect aggression" towards the Soviet Union, justifying future Soviet invasions to the said states, which the two powers strongly opposed.

World War II[]

Outbreak of war (1939–1941)[]

Litvinov and Mussolini, 1933

Foreign Commissar Maxim Litvinov and Italian duce, Benito Mussolini, pictured here in 1933.

The Soviet Union kept trying to establish military alliance with France and Britain between May and September 1939, but bore no fruits. Kirov perceived British and French delegations not taking negotiations seriously and tried to renew Italo-Soviet Pact to weaken the Italo-German Axis. On June 1, 1939, Kazembek visited Rome, trying to convince Mussolini to adopt non-interventionist stance and proposing a new economic deal to Italy. He promised to Italy that the Soviets would recognize Italian influences in Albania, Illyria and Serbia and allow the Italian-supported Greek Nationalists to take over Greece. Mussolini agreed to the offers and a secret protocol was signed between Litvinov and Italian foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano on July 19, 1939. Greece fell to the Nationalist control on August 1, 1939.

On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland as the Soviet leaders had expected. The invasion led to the termination of a Polish-Ukrainian union, Intermarium. The Soviets tried to coerce the Ukraine to yield some parts of its territories, but the Ukraine seemed to move toward pro-German direction and ignored the Soviet demands. Brief skirmishes around the Soviet-Ukrainian borders were deemed as an act of aggression by the Soviets, resulting to the Soviet invasion of the Ukraine on September 21, 1939. The Ukraine capitulated on October 18 and the People's Assembly of Western Ukraine, a legislature elected through electoral process rigged by the Soviets in late October, requested to join the Ukrainian SSR on November 11; the USSR Central Executive Committee approved annexation of Western Ukraine on November 15, 1939.

Molotov with Ribbentrop

Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop at the signing of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact.

After direct borders were created between Germany and the USSR, both agreed to conclude a temporary peace. To ease negotiations, Kirov assumed the post of the Premier of the Soviet Union and replaced Litvinov, who was of a Jewish descent, with Vyacheslav Molotov as foreign commissar on September 7. The USSR signed a non-aggression pact with Germany on October 27, recognizing newly-established Soviet-German boundaries. At the same time, the Soviets further demanded parts of Finland and Estonia, but Finland kept refusing any proposal offered by the former. Frustrated, the Soviets invaded Finland-Estonia on November 30. Despite its numerical inferiority, Finland kept the Red Army at bay. Unable to defeat the Finns, the Soviets reluctantly signed the Moscow Peace Treaty on March 13, 1940, in which they received territorial concessions from Finland and Estonia.

Despite the non-aggression pact and continued trade between the USSR and Nazi Germany, situations continued to be tense. Kirov was surprised and shocked by how fast German victory over France in 1940 was. In June 1940, the German forces entered Lithuania and Estonia and forced the two countries to sign mutual assistance pacts, encircling the Soviets near Lettland and Leningrad. In response, the Soviets concentrated large numbers of their forces in Lettland, Byelorussia and the Ukraine. The Soviets also supplied its ally Bulgaria, which was in the middle of conflict with Romania since May 1940, with arms and foods through the Black Sea, enraging Hitler. Romanian invasion of Bulgaria was supported by Germany and Italy, making them de facto in war with the USSR at this point.

German invasion (1941–1942)[]

Первый день войны. Объявление о начале Великой Отечественной войны

Moscovites gather by a loudspeaker to listen to Kirov's speech, June 22, 1941.

Prolonged conflicts in Bulgaria had exhausted German and Italian war supplies. Seeing the Soviets as the greatest obstacle for Axis military victory, Hitler broke the non-aggression pact and invaded the Soviet Union under Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941 albeit cautions from his generals that occupying Western Russia would create "more of a drain than a relief for Germany's economic situation". The invasion, supported by Romania, Hungary, Finland, Lithuania and Estonia, caught the Soviets unprepared. The entire Soviet leadership, although expected invasion, believed it will be occurred either after fall of Britain or the defeat of Bulgaria. Italy, which kept its secret protocol with the USSR, notably refused to participate on Operation Barbarossa on the ground of focusing its war efforts against the British in the Mediterranean

At around noon of June 22, Kirov addressed the Soviet population about the news of the invasion in a radio broadcast, famously known today as the "History Will Be on Our Side" speech (История будет на нашей стороне Istoriya budet na nashey storone).

The entire population of our nation, all working men and women, peasant men and peasant women, intellectual men and women, young and old, should be united at the perilous time our Union has faced at this very moment. Together with the valiant Red Army and Red Fleet, the Government of the Soviet Union, represents every peoples all across the country, now shall fulfill its duties to protect our beloved motherland [...] There will not be simply a patriotic war, but rather a war of liberation of all peoples in Europe and the rest of the world. Let the banner of Soviet powers flies high, guiding our movement gloriously as we advance to the battlefield. Death to the invaders. History will be on our side.
Stalin's Bunker 0020

The official office of Kirov in a bunker below the Kremlin, Moscow.

Kirov immediately formed the State Defense Committee, an ad hoc committee which he headed as Supreme Commander, and appointed Tukhachevsky as the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Military Command (Stavka). Important government offices were relocated to Kuibyshev, but Kirov decided to remain in Moscow to keep the public morale. Albeit numerous preparations, the Soviet forces were quickly overpowered by the Germans which were far superior in technology and war strategy. Early weeks of the invasion were disastrous to the Red Army with large areas of the USSR were swiftly conquered by the Wehrmacht. On June 29, 1941, the Soviet forces in Byelorussia and the Ukraine were ordered to strategically retreat to strengthen the defense near Moscow and Leningrad.

Lettland fell to the Axis forces on June 29 and enemy movements approached Leningrad. By the end of August, the Germans were only within 48 km of the city. The spirit of resistance spread as Kirov appealed to the Leningrad citizens that they "should never cease to resist and defeat the invaders as the victory surely be ours" through a radio broadcast on August 17. As the Germans tried to advance further at the start of September, casualties mounted, slowing down their movement. Hitler, now out of patience, ordered that Leningrad should not be stormed, but rather starved into submission, leading to a siege which began on September 8 and would last 872 days. Leningrad was subjected to heavy German bombardment and had its supply route cut off by the German. More than a million people would be starved to death.

RIAN archive 429 Fresh forces going to the front

Fresh reserves of the Red Army went to the front from Moscow, November 1941.

Strategic retreats from Lettland, Byelorussia, and western Ukraine spared the Red Army from a debilitating destruction. Between July and September 1941, the Red Army evolved into a defensive posture and, when the Germans halted their advances to reorganize their armies, the Soviets consolidated their positions. Newly activated reservists and divisions from Siberia were sent to the front. Against his generals' advices, Hitler directed the troops to cross the Dnieper and advance toward industrially developed Donbass. However, as the winter came, the Germans were not prepared for the Russian harsh weather, slowing down their advances. On December 9, 1941, Kirov approved a massive counteroffensive to push the Germans back from the Dnieper which led to the reconsideration of all German plans by Hitler and the Wehrmacht.

Wartime consolidation (1942–1943)[]

Kirov in Leningrad (Soviet propaganda poster)

A 1943 propaganda poster portraying Kirov has inspiring the persistance of Leningrad citizens during the German siege.

By 1942, situation was developed into stalemate for both the Germans and the Soviets at western Russia. Both sides consolidated their positions as the German offensive was halted. During this period, the Soviets intensified the productions of military supplies and vehicles in central Russia which outnumbering the German industrial productions. Kirov personally visited factories and inspected the productions of tanks and airplanes. He travelled in a personal armored train back-and-forth from Moscow to the Urals and Siberia. Kirov was visibly tired by 1943 and had been advised by his doctors to cease travel outside Moscow to which he stubbornly rejected.

The prolonged stalemate depleted Germany's oil supply, prompting Hitler to order the Wehrmacht to capture the oil fields of Baku. Hitler ordered for the preparation of offensive plans for summer 1942 to secure the Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus. In the offensive, the Wehrmacht moved into two directions, with one tried to attack Baku and another went to Stalingrad along the Don River. However, heavy Soviet resistance prevented the Germans to achieve their objectives, culminating in their disastrous defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad in February 1943 and withdrawal from the Caucasus. It marked the reversal of fortune for the Red Army as the stalemate was eventually broken and the tide of war turned to the Soviet favor. Several German officers were captured and used for political propaganda, including Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, who joined the National Committee for a Free Germany.

Жуков и Конев

Marshals of the Soviet Union, Georgy Zhukov and Ivan Konev, during the Battle of Kursk, 1943.

By November 1942, the Soviets had begun to repulse the important German strategic southern campaign, permitting the Soviets to take the offensive for most of the rest of the war on the Eastern Front. The Germans did attempt an encirclement attack at Kursk, which was successfully repulsed by the Soviets after Hitler cancelled the offensive, in part, because of the Allied invasion of Sicily, though the Soviets suffered over 800,000 casualties. By the end of 1943, the Soviets occupied half of the territory taken by the Germans from 1941 to 1942. Despite substantial losses in 1942 far in excess of German losses, Red Army size grew even further, to 11 million.

Throughout the war, especially after the victory at Stalingrad, Kirov and the Red Army were portrayed in positive light in the Allied countries. In 1942, Time magazine named him "Man of the Year". The USSR had formally allied with the British by July 1941 and, when the United States was attacked by Germany and Spain on January 15, 1942, a tripartite alliance between the Soviets, the British, and the Americans was formed. When British prime minister Winston Churchill came to Moscow on August 12, 1942, Kirov pushed for a second front to relieve the Soviet defensive posture, although Churchill politely refused and instead talked about planned British bombings of German cities. Despite tense negotiations, both men got along well personally.

Soviet counter-attack (1943–1945)[]

INF3-327 Unity of Strength British and Russian servicemen over body of swastikaed dragon

A World War II propaganda poster depicting British and Soviet servicemen over body of swastikaed dragon.

Kirov made his first travel overseas by plane to London between March 14–18, 1943, reciprocating Churchill's 1942 visit, accompanied by Bukharin, Yefremov, and Mikoyan. Kirov tried to convince Churchill to open the western front, but the answer was still the same. Nevertheless, he met King George VI on March 15 and received an honour to address the members of the Rikesday on March 16. Also during his visit, Kirov was talked by the Anglican leaders to stop the persecutions of their Orthodox brethren. On April 23, 1943, Kirov permitted the revival of the church to garner patriotic support for the war effort. Metropolitan Sergius was elected new patriarch of Moscow, theological schools were opened, and thousands of churches began to function.

In an absence of a unified Allied strategy, mutual suspicions began to rise between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, therefore direct negotiations were badly needed by the Allied leaders. In November 1943, Kirov met with Churchill, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt and Japanese president Nagayama Yoshida in Cairo, Egypt. At Cairo, the leaders agreed to open up a Western Front to take the pressure off of the East by launching an invasion of France in 1944, which pleased Kirov. Roosevelt and Churchill also agreed to Kirov's demand that the German city of Königsberg be declared Soviet territory and Polish-Soviet borders should be revised according to Curzon Line for the eastern border, with the rest of eastern Polish territories to be annexed by the Soviets. On other hand, Kirov agreed to Nagayama's demand for the recognition of Japanese sovereignty over Southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.

Churchill, Roosevelt and Kirov at Yalta, 1945

The "Big Three", Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Sergei Kirov, in Yalta, 1945.

In January 1944, the Soviets relieved Leningrad from a deadly siege. Shortly after the Western Allies launched Operation Overlord in June 1944, the Soviets accordingly launched Operation Bagration, a massive offensive in Byelorussia against the German armed forces. The operation resulted in the Soviets retaking Byelorussia and western Ukraine, along with the successful effective destruction of the Wehrmacht in the Eastern Front; the German armies were pushed out of Lithuania, Lettland, and Estonia between August and December 1944. In August 1944, the Soviets entered Romania, relieving Bulgaria's defense, and unilaterally annexed Bessarabia. However, Soviet advances to Warsaw were halted by the Germans in summer 1944 and stalemated for nearly half a year.

In October 1944, during his visit to Moscow, Churchill agreed to Kirov's suggestion to divide Europe into spheres of influence in which Romania, Hungary and Illyria would come under the Soviet sphere of influence while Albania, Greece and Serbia would come under that of the West. In February 1945, the three leaders met in Yalta. Roosevelt and Churchill conceded to Kirov's demand that Germany pay the Soviets war reparations. Although the three agreed in Yalta that a post-war Poland should be governed jointly by both communist and conservative elements, Kirov, at the wish of the Soviet supreme command, discreetly ensured Poland would come fully under Soviet influence. Kirov and the Red Army also placed great emphasis on capturing Berlin first, believing that this would enable the Soviets to bring more of Europe under long-term Soviet control.

Victory (1945)[]

Post-war years[]

Death[]

Legacy[]

This article is part of Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum